After finishing school my mother studied in a Pedagogical School. She became a primary school teacher.
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Dora Puchalskaya
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Although my mother was a Komsomol member, she observed Jewish traditions at home from respect of her parents.
This was a beginning of our adventures. I don’t remember in what farms or villages we stayed. Our mother took to any work she could lay her hands on: she learned to mow, thresh, weed the fields, milk cows and look after cattle when she had never done any farm work before. Whatever valuables she had taken from home – some silver tableware and a golden ring – she gave to the first farmer that gave us shelter. We pretended to be Ukrainians when we stayed with Ukrainian families and Polish staying with Polish families. My mother was called Vera and I was called Galina in Ukrainian villages and Halina in Polish villages. My brother was called Tadeuzs, Tadik. He is still called in the family by this name. We never stayed long in one village. Our mother saw grandfather Ghedali or grandmother Hana in her dream telling her it was time to leave a village. Here is what they were saying ‘Get up, take the children and move on, there is going to be a calamity here’. In the morning we got dressed and went away. Several times after we left there were raids in those villages. I remember that we were hiding in a basement during a raid once. There were many rats in the basement and mother stayed awake a whole night protecting us from disgusting rats since they even could chew on children’s faces.
In one village its senior man suspected that we were Jews. My brother did not quite understand what was going on and began to speak Yiddish quite out of place. This senior man said to mother ‘You are Ukrainian, but your children are zhydy’. He grabbed Tadik dragging him into the yard to give him to policemen. It helped that he had not been circumcised. Mother pulled down his pants crying and begging the senior man to have mercy. When he saw my brother he left us alone. I don’t know whether he quite believed what we told him since we left that village at night. Once we got into a raid against Jews. We were hiding in a house. Fascists shot a girl of about 10 years of age by the window of the house. I will never forget her crying and begging. How the girl begged for fascists to let her live and how she wished to stay alive!
Besides constant fear that our Jewish identity might be revealed we also had to maneuver between Ukrainian and Polish people. During the Great Patriotic War there was deadly confrontation between Ukrainian and Polish residents in Western regions of Ukraine. Ukrainians were taking vengeance on their enemy for the past centuries of oppression [Ukrainian-Polish confrontation][13]. Farm went against farm and village against village with axes, other weapons or just whips. Before our eyes Ukrainians slaughtered a Polish farm tenants. When they left there was nobody to bury the dead. Our mother dug a pit and dragged the dead there. I was helping mother and I believe our 5-year-old Tadik to have matured at that moment. At least he stopped being naughty using Jewish words. Neither he nor I could understand why people killed people, but we had seen death. My mother met one participant of this blood shedding massacre: he was a school director in Vladimir-Volynski. My mother was afraid that he might recognize her. Some time later he was arrested – I don’t know why, and taken out of the town. We don’t know what happened to him, but mother breathed with relief after he was gone.
Once a Polish group came to the Ukrainian village where we were staying. They took us into the yard. They told mother to step aside and my brother and I were taken to stand by the wall of a shed. They intended to shoot us. Mother began to scream in Russian, probably shock stricken as she was. She begged them in Russian to let her children go. Commander of the gang asked her who she was. She could do nothing, but tell them the truth. He ordered his men to take away their guns and they left.
In one village its senior man suspected that we were Jews. My brother did not quite understand what was going on and began to speak Yiddish quite out of place. This senior man said to mother ‘You are Ukrainian, but your children are zhydy’. He grabbed Tadik dragging him into the yard to give him to policemen. It helped that he had not been circumcised. Mother pulled down his pants crying and begging the senior man to have mercy. When he saw my brother he left us alone. I don’t know whether he quite believed what we told him since we left that village at night. Once we got into a raid against Jews. We were hiding in a house. Fascists shot a girl of about 10 years of age by the window of the house. I will never forget her crying and begging. How the girl begged for fascists to let her live and how she wished to stay alive!
Besides constant fear that our Jewish identity might be revealed we also had to maneuver between Ukrainian and Polish people. During the Great Patriotic War there was deadly confrontation between Ukrainian and Polish residents in Western regions of Ukraine. Ukrainians were taking vengeance on their enemy for the past centuries of oppression [Ukrainian-Polish confrontation][13]. Farm went against farm and village against village with axes, other weapons or just whips. Before our eyes Ukrainians slaughtered a Polish farm tenants. When they left there was nobody to bury the dead. Our mother dug a pit and dragged the dead there. I was helping mother and I believe our 5-year-old Tadik to have matured at that moment. At least he stopped being naughty using Jewish words. Neither he nor I could understand why people killed people, but we had seen death. My mother met one participant of this blood shedding massacre: he was a school director in Vladimir-Volynski. My mother was afraid that he might recognize her. Some time later he was arrested – I don’t know why, and taken out of the town. We don’t know what happened to him, but mother breathed with relief after he was gone.
Once a Polish group came to the Ukrainian village where we were staying. They took us into the yard. They told mother to step aside and my brother and I were taken to stand by the wall of a shed. They intended to shoot us. Mother began to scream in Russian, probably shock stricken as she was. She begged them in Russian to let her children go. Commander of the gang asked her who she was. She could do nothing, but tell them the truth. He ordered his men to take away their guns and they left.
We didn’t come to Vladimir-Volynskiy knowing from farmers that Germans continued to exterminate Jews there. One day in early 1944 my mother sent me to the market in town to exchange a piece of fabric for a piece of clothing for me. I went there with another woman. The ghetto was closed: all its inmates had been exterminated by then. [The ghetto in Vladimir-Volynskiy was liquidated on 13 December 1943.] However, there were frequent raids to identify Jews hiding in houses. This woman and I got entrapped in one of these raids. Fortunately, we managed to escape and to hiding in a house. When we returned to the village my mother burst into crying from sorrow and the joy of seeing me. She heard about the raid in town and she thought we had perished. She never let me leave her again.
Our wandering lasted for about three years. Every now and then our rescuer Sergei visited us. I don’t know how he found us in various villages. Probably local villagers mentioned to him when they saw us. He brought us gifts and had long discussions with our mother. I don’t know what was between them or whether there was something else besides friendship and support. In spring 1944 I understood that mother was pregnant. It’s hard for me to talk about it. It didn’t occur to me then, that it took two people to conceive a baby, and I didn’t think how my mother got a baby. My mother never revealed this secret. I didn’t ask her and she didn’t tell me anything even when she was dying. I don’t know who was the father of her child. Mother took her secret with her. I don’t know whether there were feelings between her and our rescuer or whether it was submission to crude forces hoping to rescue us on her part.
In spring 1944 Hitler armies were retreating. Villagers were ordered to march ahead of German units to make a live shield to protect retreating fascists in case Soviet units attacked them from the rear. We were also in this column. We were hungry and thirsty. It was hard for my mother to walk. There were air raids few times and we hid in ditches along the road. We came as far as the outskirts of Lublin in Poland. There was another air raid and we fell into a ditch and mother covered us with her body to protect from bombs. When we rose to our feet we saw that we had been in a sewage gutter. We were dirty with stinking faces. Mother asked our guard permission to go wash ourselves in the river. We washed our clothes and ourselves. We were there two days. Fascists moved on and we went back to the east where our home was. We only met Soviet units on the way. Mother couldn’t help crying telling them our story. Soldiers felt sorry for us giving us a piece of bread or a piece of sugar. Few times we had meals in their field kitchen facilities.
,
1944
See text in interview
We felt so happy to be going back home! Vladimir-Volynskiy was liberated on 22 July 1944. We returned home in early August.
After the War
There were other tenants in our house and we found an abandoned apartment. We stayed to live there since its owners never came back. During the war 22,000 Jews from Vladimir-Volynskiy and surrounding areas were exterminated. There were only five Jewish families living in the town after the war, including us. We survived by miracle.
After the War
There were other tenants in our house and we found an abandoned apartment. We stayed to live there since its owners never came back. During the war 22,000 Jews from Vladimir-Volynskiy and surrounding areas were exterminated. There were only five Jewish families living in the town after the war, including us. We survived by miracle.
In September 1944 our mother went to work as a primary school teacher and my brother and I went to the first form at school. He was seven and I was ten years old. I had to do many chores besides studying. In December 1944 our mother gave birth to a boy. She named him Grigori after our grandfather. She went back to work and I looked after the baby washing and feeding him. I loved him dearly.
Shortly after the victory in July 1945 our father returned home. He kissed us and went to talk with mother in the kitchen. He didn’t say anything about the baby. He and mother talked through the night. In the morning father had reddish eyes from sleepless night. He kissed us ‘good-bye’ and left. Our mother cried a lot. She told us that our father had another family. Our father told her what had happened to him through those years. He was in Zhmerinka when the war began. He went to look for us, but then there were Germans everywhere. Our father knew that Vladimir-Volynskiy was occupied and believed that were already dead. He even mentioned that he thought he saw our mother’s coat on a woman in Lutsk and this was a final proof for him that we were dead. He returned to Zhmerinka, got a truck and drove his parents and aunt Fania and her children to the railway station where they got on a train heading to the east. He also went with them. In the train he met a Jewish woman. Her name was Fira. He was suffering and he found consolation and sympathy with her. They parted on the next day. Our father took his relatives to Bugulma, in Tatarstan. I don’t know for what reason they decided to stay there. Father was recruited to the army. He served in a road construction unit installing bridges for the front line units. Our father corresponded with this unit and knew that she gave birth to a girl in 1942. The girl was named Ella. Our father asked our mother to forgive him and tried to explain that what happened to him was a result of the pain he suffered from thinking that we were dead. I don’t know whether he asked mother about Grisha. He decided that he and mother had to forget what had happened to them and live together again, but our mother was a proud woman. She never forgave our father. She said she had suffered too much during occupation and couldn’t forgive his faithlessness. She didn’t mention that she was unfaithful, though. She was probably concerned that our father could be unfair to her illegal baby. Our father went to Kiev where Fira and her daughter lived. He lived with his second family, but he didn’t lose hope to return our mother.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
Our father’s sister Bella returned from evacuation and visited us several times. Grandmother Riva also returned from evacuation and kept asking mother to come live with her in Zhmerinka.
Our grandmother begged our mother to forgive our father and let him come to live with us, but our mother never changed her mind about it. Our father came again in 1947, but our mother refused him again. We have a photo of our father wearing a Soviet military uniform and aunt Bella in Zhmerinka photographed after our mother’s final refusal in June 1947. Our father signed the photo ‘This is the most terrible day in my life’.
Our life was very hard after the war. There was famine in 1946-47. Our father didn’t support us. He was either offended by mother’s refusal or our mother probably refused from his help. Our mother’s salary was hardly enough for us to live half a month. It was especially hard in summer when mother received her 3-month salary, but this money melted away promptly. We received bread per bread coupons. We also got a glass of milk at school, but not in summer when we were on vacation. Our mother bought flour and made pies and buns. She sent me to sell them at the market. She was probably concerned that she would be recognized and arrested for her activities since private entrepreneurship was forbidden. She traveled to Moscow to see her distant relatives several times. She bought women’s underwear, stockings and fabric and I went to sell them in our town. We also grew potatoes and other vegetables in our small kitchen garden. Basically, we were trying hard to survive.
My brother and I were the only Jewish children at school. Our teachers and schoolmates treated us well. When the state anti-Semitic campaign known as struggle against cosmopolitism [14] began in 1948 our mother was very worried. She read newspapers and didn’t sleep at night. She probably understood the absurdity of what was going on, but she never discussed this subject with us. This campaign had no impact on our town where there were about two dozens of Jews left.
My brother and I finished school in 1951. A year later we entered the Agronomical Faculty of the Agricultural College in Verkhovka village, Obodov district Vinnitsa region. We were the only Jewish students in this College. We lived in a hostel. My brother didn’t finish his studies. We received a stipend, but it was not enough for him. He kept asking me to give him money. He was constantly hungry. Before finishing his studies he quit and went to our father in Kiev. Our father was doing well and Tadik lived with him and worked additionally.
I remember Stalin’s death in 1953. We, students, were crying. We didn’t know how to live without him. We stood a guard of honor by his portrait in our College with tears in our eyes.
My co-students were Ukrainian girls from surrounding villages. They had a good attitude toward me, but I never mentioned to anybody that I was in occupation. At that time there was official hostile attitude towards survivors in occupation during the war.
I began to meet with a Ukrainian guy in College. His name was Victor Puchalski. He was born in Aleksandrovka village, Vinnitsa region in 1932. He was the only child in his family and his parents spoiled him a lot. During the Great Patriotic War Victor stayed in his village. He saw fascist atrocities against Jews and he came to respecting Jewish people. I told him that I was a Jew and that we were in occupation during the war. Victor and I fell in love and actually became a husband and wife during our last year in College. His parents were also positive about our relationships. Victor’s two uncles were married to Jewish women, so there were Jews in their family already.
After finishing our College we came to my mother in Vladimir-Volynskiy. My mother didn’t care about his nationality. She saw that we were in love and this was what mattered to her. I was pregnant. We went to submit our documents to the registry office, but they refused to accept them. They explained that Victor did not have a residential permit [15] to live in the town. In the residential agency they refused to issue this permit to him since he was in no relation to me. My mother wasn’t a member of the Party, but she went to the district Party committee anyway to obtain their approval of our marriage. She managed to handle this issue for us. Victor and I got married. We didn’t have a wedding party. My mother just made a small dinner for our family and Victor’s father Andrei Puchalski who came to our wedding.
I stayed at home and my husband was an agronomist in a kolkhoz near the town. Victor was an honest man and didn’t allow anybody to steal in the kolkhoz. The management of the kolkhoz was not quite happy about this situation. Once Victor bought a sack of potatoes from the kolkhoz, but they delivered a cart full of bags of potatoes trying to bribe my husband. He told them to take it back. Since then his bosses kept picking on him and fired for some minor drawback. Victor couldn’t find another job for a year. He turned to higher authorities and regional party committee, but couldn’t find justice with them. Then he wrote a letter to Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper [one of the most popular daily newspapers in the USSR]. He resumed his work after the newspaper interference. This time Victor was sent to work in a distant kolkhoz. I followed him there and my mother looked after Anatoli. I went to work as director of a store in this kolkhoz. I had a diploma of agronomist, but there was no employment for me. We didn’t stay long there since Victor lost his job again. We returned to Vladimir-Volynski and lived on my mother’s salary for almost a year. Victor’s parents and my father also supported us.
Some time later my father became director of construction material plant in Transcarpathian region with center in Ternopol town. His wife and daughter didn’t want to follow him to this provincial area and he offered us to come with him. My mother insisted that we accepted his offer. In 1959 Victor moved to Ternopol and got a job at the plant. Then he and my father returned to pick up my son and me and we left there. We lived in a one-room apartment that my father received for few years until Victor went to work at another plant and we received a 3-room apartment where we live now.
We were poor. I obtained a license for manufacture of flowers and wedding bouquets and made and sold my goods. I worked a lot at home sewing and knitting. My husband had stomach ulcer and went to resorts on vacation, but I couldn’t afford a vacation.
My brother Moro (we called him affectionately Tadik in the family) finished a Prosthodontic School and worked in Kiev.
He was married three times. His wives were Jewish. With his latest wife Fira he moved to America in the late 1970s. They have a good life in New York. His son from his first marriage Fyodor and his daughter from the second marriage Izabella also live in the USA.
My older son Anatoli entered a military school in Kamenets-Podolsk. After finishing it, he served in Georgia and then in Czechoslovakia. By that time he was married to a Ukrainian girl Maria. Then my son served in Latvia.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I buried my son in accordance with Jewish traditions near my parents. Members of the Jewish community recited a prayer. Although Anatoli and my daughters were registered as Ukrainians, in his last years Anatoli read about Jews and Jewish life and felt closer to Jews.
My daughter Anna lives in Khmelnitsk. She has a Jewish husband whose surname is Viller. After finishing the College of Economics in Ternopol, Anna went to work as an accountant. She works as an accountant for a private company now.
They observe Jewish traditions and they’ve raised their children Jewish.
The joy of my life is my grandson Grigori, Evgenia’s son. I’ve raised him Jewish, telling him about the Jewish history, traditions and culture and took him to a Jewish Sunday school.
Few years ago, in 1997 my grandson went to Israel under a students’ exchange program and decided to remain there. He serves in Israeli army now. Grigori observes Jewish traditions. He is religious, but he isn’t an orthodox Jew. He put a mezuzah on our front door. He calls me before each holiday, greets me and reminds me of what I have to do on each holiday. The other day he reminded me about fasting at Yom Kippur and I fasted.
I’ve never been well-off in my life, but when perestroika [16] began in the late 1980s it made life unbearable. Therefore, I have negative feelings about perestroika. At the same time I am happy about a rebirth of the Jewish life. I am a member of thee Jewish community in Ternopol. There is a Hesed affiliate that provides assistance to old Jews. They deliver food packages and send a nurse to help me.