On 22 June 1941 the Great Patriotic war began (2). At night the Rumanian and German troops came close to Soroki. The town was not bombed, but planes flew to the East over the town. A local farmer that knew and respected my father came to tell us that Germans exterminated Jews and that we should better leave the town. He took us across the Dnestr that was the territory of Ukraine and put us on a train. We decided to go to Solikamsk where my father was.
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Sally Uzvalova
My mother couldn’t speak Russian. Somebody felt sorry for her and she got a job at the hospital. She was attendant at a surgery room and I assisted her. I remember how we removed amputated arms and legs from the surgery room and stored them in a shed. The 3 of us were accommodated in a small room in the hospital. We slept on heaps of hay on the floor.
I went to school, but I worked as a cleaning girl there. I also listened to teachers and began to learn Russian. I also cleaned the office of director of the school and she gave me a bowl of sour milk. She allowed me to read other pupils’ notebooks. Once she asked me to make a stove in a pigsty. I mixed cow manure with straw and dried pieces of this mixture in the sun. I didn’t know how to make a stack and I made a stove with two openings (like the ones I saw in a German village in Povolzhiye). I got a bowl of sour milk and a loaf of bread for this work. I gave this food to my mother and brother.
We didn’t observe any traditions during the war. There were hardly any Jews in our encirclement. We were just trying hard to survive. We never thought that we were not allowed to work on Saturday or that we had to celebrate. Besides, we were so intimidated by the Soviet reality that we were afraid to even mention any Jewish holidays or traditions.
In 1944 a part of Bessarabia was liberated. At the end of 1944 we obtained a permit to go to Reshetilovka station in Ukraine. Local authorities dictated destination points at their own discretion. The tried to keep people that previously resided at the areas that joined the Soviet Union shortly before the war.We – me and my mother and brother went back on open platforms. We had no luggage. When our train stopped on a station I got off the train and entered an office at the railway station. I saw a pen in an inkpot on the desk and changed the name of Reshetilovka to Floreshty in our ticket. It worked however surprising it might be. We were going on a military train heading for Rumania. We arrived at Soroki. Or acquaintances couldn’t recognize us. When I said I was the daughter of Barzak they got scared because I looked more like a ghost. I had a coat made from a uniform overcoat, address made from a military shirt and boots made from heavy woolen boots.
In Soroki we heard what happened to my father. At the end of 1944 he committed suicide at the wood throw in Siberia. He couldn’t bear the thought that he had made a wrong choice and ruined his family when he didn’t follow my grandmother’s advice. My father wrote a farewell letter sending it to the town hall of Soroki. I don’t know whether this letter would have reached us if it hadn’t been for a woman from Soroki that used to be my room maid that had worked at the town hall since 1940. She gave us the letter. My father wrote: “I destroyed my family and there is no forgiveness for me. I have my hands and feet frost-bitten and I’ve become an invalid at 42. I don’t know whether members of my family are alive, but if they are please sent them this letter”. After sending this letter my father put his head under a circular saw at the wood cutting site. It was a typical method of suicide in the camp. My father was buried in a common grave that was a usual burial site for inmates of the camp.
In May 1945 the war was over. People told my mother that she could move to Rumania. The borders were open and many people left for Rumania. Me and my mother and brother arrived in Chernovtsy on October 1945 to move to Rumania from there. But right before our departure the border was closed. We were offered to cross the border illegally for some fee, but we didn’t have money and feared the Soviet power much. We didn’t take the risk of finding ourselves in Siberia instead of Rumania and settled down in Chernovtsy. I began fighting for our survival. We rented a small room in an old Jewish neighborhood. I got a job of assistant accountant at a canteen. I was allowed to have a bowl of soup and take two home, for my work. Later I went to work as an accountant at the textile factory and the three of us could move to the hostel of the factory. There was a big wooden trestle bed in the middle of our room with straw on it. My mother and I slept on the sides and my brother slept between us. There was terrible famine in Chernovtsy in 1945–46. When I managed to get a glass of flour we added a spoon of flour to a glass of boiling water sprinkling it with salt and that was our meal. My co-employees felt sorry for me. Once I got 3 m of cheap fabric for jerky sweaters. I sold it to villagers or exchanged for food. My brother went to the first form. He was growing up fast and was always hungry. When he was in the 3rd form he helped some pupil with mathematic receiving a bowl of soup for his efforts.
Our acquaintances told us what happened to our relatives. The husband of my mother’s sister Etia turned out to be a gambler and womanizer. Etia divorced him before the war and returned to her parents’ home. When the war began Etia and her mother stayed home. They perished in their house during an air raid in 1942.
We didn’t observe any Jewish traditions after the war. My cousins that went to Siberia and we were afraid of going to synagogue or celebrating Shabbat and Jewish holidays at home. Like weaning a baby from breastfeeding everything Jewish was cut away from us. The only thing that stayed with us was our language. During the Soviet power there were people in Chernovtsy that got together in secret to pray. Only old people that had nothing to fear went to the synagogue. This fear of the Soviet power was with us for a lifetime. My mother always went to the other side of the street when she saw a militiaman. She was always afraid of hearing someone knocking on the door. Although she was good at languages she failed to learn Russian – I guess it was because of her fear. She lived until the end of her life knowing that the Soviet power put an end to everything good that she had in life.
Struggle against cosmopolites in 1948 added to our fears (4). This was open persecution of Jews. My mother was afraid to discus this subject even in whisper. She concealed her past and I never mentioned my wealthy and well-to-do family when I was applying for a job. I worked on two enterprises, 20 years at each of them. I was afraid of changing a job, even if I was offered better conditions and better salary. I was afraid of having to fill up questionnaires answering questions about my parents or relatives abroad. I never mentioned my relatives in Siberia or Rumania. I had no past and no relatives – I was an incubatory person. The Soviet way of life remained alien to me – I didn’t know my rights and I didn’t even know that I could apply for getting an apartment.
When in Bucharest Jacob got fond of the communist ideas and even distributed flyers. It happened somehow that all communists in Rumania were Jews and Rumanians didn’t care about communist ideas. Jewish young people got inspired by communist ideas hearing that life was almost a paradise in the USSR. Jacob joined the communist Party when he came to the soviet Union. He was always a convinced communist.
On 30 April 1949 we got married. We just had a civil ceremony in the district registry office. We didn’t have a wedding party, because we were so poor. After our wedding I moved in with Jacob.
My husband was afraid of having his son circumcised. My mother thought it was all right, but my mother-in-law insisted on circumcision. Her son said to her “Mother, do you want me to go to jail?” Yes, we were living in constant fear.
I took Stalin’s death in 1953 easy. For those that were born during the Soviet power Stalin was an icon and an idol, but for me he was a criminal and an embodiment of all evil that Soviet power brought to our family. Everything about the USSR stirred an inner protest in me. I never talked about it, but it lived deep in my soul. There is still fire burning inside me and it will never die. It is pain for my loved ones, for my family that was destroyed physically and morally. After ХХ Party Congress (5), in 1960s I received a letter from KGB where they wrote that my father was completely rehabilitated and that it was all a mistake made in his regard. So simple…
I tried to raise my son a Jew. In 1954 during census my 3-year-old son asked me to write his nationality as Russian. When I asked him why he wanted to do so he said “Because Russians are good and Jews are not. That’s what children say in the yard”. I was horrified to hear this, but I began to explain to him that Jews were smart, talented and intelligent people. I read to him books by Jewish authors and told him about actors, musicians and scientists. He gradually came to knowing the history of Jewish people. He began to study Hebrew and Yiddish. It was only possible to do this in secret at that time to avoid accusations in Zionism and Jewish chauvinism. Such accusation might result in arrest and exile. My son was very good at singing. After my mother-in-law died we stopped celebrating Jewish holidays. We worked on Saturdays and Jewish holidays were also working days. My husband was against religion. However, our son was inspired by the Jewish way of life and I didn’t interfere with him.
My son was 14 when something happened that imprinted on our life. He went to the synagogue with his friends. The very fact of it might become grounds for accusations, but he also talked to foreign tourists in English. At that time any contacts with foreigners were suppressed by KGB [State Security Committee] had their informers in all organizations, even KGB. KGB called my son for interrogations for a whole year. They were trying to make him their informer, but my son didn’t agree. He signed a non-disclosure document that obliged him to keep a secret the subject of their discussions. We got to know about it later. After a year my son was left alone. He finished school and served in the army in Kamenets-Podolskiy. After his service in the army our son entered electro technical college there. Upon graduation he returned to Chernovtsy.
In 1970s Jews began to move to Israel. I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to change my life. My mother and son also were for leaving the USSR. But we faced resistance of my husband. We tried to convince him to change his mind, but it was in vain. Perhaps, men in our family are doomed to make wrong decisions that destroy them and their families.
In 1970s I went to work at the Regional Fuel Department dealing with gas and coal. I was Deputy Chief accountant. I retired from there 20 years later. I didn’t face any anti-Semitism at work. I was an only Jewish employee. I was sociable and friendly. However, I faced anti-Semitism on a state level when I came to the Human Resources Department to ask them to appoint me to the vacant position of Chief accountant whose duties I actually performed. Human resources manager told me firmly that firstly, I was not a member of the party and secondly, I was a Jew. And he added “Your husband hasn’t been appointed to the position of manager of depot, has he?” My husband, however, faced anti-Semitism expressed by his co-workers. Although he got along well with them every morning, when he came to work he saw “zhyd, it’s time for you to retire” written on his desk or something similar. They might not greet a Jew with birthday, although it was a tradition to greet every employee on his birthday. Now everything is different on the outside, but I believe there is an anti-Semite in every non-Jew. Only fools and drunken people express it while smart people try to hide it.
In 1975 my son worked as electrician at the factory. He was called to KGB again. They wanted to turn him into an informer and threatened that they would put him in jail if he refused to cooperate with them. My son came home pale and upset and refused from eating. I was worried and thought that he was suffering from unhappy love. It never occurred to me that it was something else that troubled him. Once my husband and I began to ask him about what was the matter with him and he told us the truth. My husband was very angry and said that the next time when my son was called to that office he was going with him. He believed that being a member of the Party he could talk to KGB on equal grounds. How naïve he was! He went to that office and my son and I were waiting for him at home. My husband came home and said that at first the KGB officers got angry that our son broke his obligation for non-disclosure of the information. They said that they would have to teach our son what we failed to teach him. Then they told my husband that they knew where he worked and that they also knew that once he laughed at a Party meeting. Then my husband got an idea and he said that he knew who their informer was at his work. The KGB officer that was talking with him yelled at him “Don’t you dare to touch that man!” and my husband replied “Then leave my son alone”. The KGB stopped pestering my son, but fear crawled into his heart, like it did into mine and my husband’s.
After our son died I tried to talk my husband into moving to Israel. One of her stepbrothers on his mother’s side and his five children lived in Israel. He found my husband and sent us an invitation. I begged my husband to agree telling him that our son had died and it would be good to reunite with our relatives. And again my husband refused, because he was afraid to leave familiar places.
Many things have changed in Ukraine in the recent ten years. I wish my close ones had lived to see restoration of the Jewish life. Hesed helps me with food and medications. I often attend lectures and meetings in Hesed. It gives me strength to go on. But Hesed cannot replace my family for me.
Ella Lukatskaya
In the 1990s my husband and I decided to move to Israel. But our children said “no”. It was a surprise. They didn’t want to leave Ukraine, even for the historical Motherland, our ancestors lived here, and Ukraine is our Motherland more than any other land can be. They decided to live here.
My children were not raised as Jews. But our grandson Zhenechka, Mariana’s son, born in 1998, goes to the Jewish kindergarten, knows the main prayers and all Jewish holidays. He is bringing the Jewish tradition into our house. Such turn had its grounds. Few years ago my son Alik and my daughter Marina finished the Israel University. They studied Jewish traditions, religion, culture, rites and holidays, and my husband and I attended a Jewish course at Ash-Torah in Kiev. But for us it was a kind of theoretical introduction. We do not observe traditions, we don’t know Hebrew or Yiddish, and we don’t know how to celebrate holidays or cook Jewish food. Our son introduced Jewish way of life into our house. If it were for me I would like to see us all in Israel in a few years. But the current situation in the world is not very favorable. This summer we are planing to visit my sister in Israel. We would like to take our grandson with us and show him the country. Whatever his future may be, I would like him to know and remember his Jewish identity and the history and traditions of his people. My husband and I are pensioners. We volunteer to do some work with the children. We work in the tourist club and we can’t wait when our grandson grows up to join our tourist community. We hope that the situation in Ukraine will allow us to keep our Jewish identity and our children will be able to continue their Jewish education. We have two Motherlands, and both of them are attractive. But the most important thing is a peaceful and good life here and there.
My children were not raised as Jews. But our grandson Zhenechka, Mariana’s son, born in 1998, goes to the Jewish kindergarten, knows the main prayers and all Jewish holidays. He is bringing the Jewish tradition into our house. Such turn had its grounds. Few years ago my son Alik and my daughter Marina finished the Israel University. They studied Jewish traditions, religion, culture, rites and holidays, and my husband and I attended a Jewish course at Ash-Torah in Kiev. But for us it was a kind of theoretical introduction. We do not observe traditions, we don’t know Hebrew or Yiddish, and we don’t know how to celebrate holidays or cook Jewish food. Our son introduced Jewish way of life into our house. If it were for me I would like to see us all in Israel in a few years. But the current situation in the world is not very favorable. This summer we are planing to visit my sister in Israel. We would like to take our grandson with us and show him the country. Whatever his future may be, I would like him to know and remember his Jewish identity and the history and traditions of his people. My husband and I are pensioners. We volunteer to do some work with the children. We work in the tourist club and we can’t wait when our grandson grows up to join our tourist community. We hope that the situation in Ukraine will allow us to keep our Jewish identity and our children will be able to continue their Jewish education. We have two Motherlands, and both of them are attractive. But the most important thing is a peaceful and good life here and there.
, Ukraine
In 1963 our son Alik was born. There wasn’t any space for a baby’s bed in our room. The 3 of us were sleeping on the sofa, our only furniture. In a year’s time we received a small one-room apartment. By that time I had left my job. I had to take care of my baby. I got a job of Head of Language Laboratory at the military Communications College. I sank into the wave of anti-Semitism at this college. They suggested that I changed my father’s name, but I demonstratively kept it. Even at the highest level meetings people could tell anti-Semitic anecdotes, nodding at me “Ellochka Aizikovna, it doesn’t have anything to do with you, you are a rare exception”.
In 1973 our daughter Marina was born. We lived in this one-room apartment for eight years until our son Alik left. Even in the 1970s we were thinking about emigration to Israel, but my mother was an insuperable obstacle. She couldn’t even hear about “betraying” the best country in the world, and we couldn’t leave her behind. My mother remained a convinced Communist until she died in 1982. She would have never left this country, although she sympathized with those who left for Israel. I still feel resentment towards my mother’s fanatism. I am different from her, because my children’s interests and desires always prevail.
The school teacher of our son Alik hated Jews. She hated us so much that she removed the documents from the file of the children that were awarded a trip to Czekoslovakia for successes in their studies (an exceptional thing for that time) and sent another boy into this trip. When Alik was in the 8th form she told me that he should quit school, as there was no hope for him to go to an Institute due to his Jewish nationality. But our son is a fighter. His father was teaching him to be a fighter. His father went in for wrestling and was teaching our son to fight. Alik was a strong boy. When he was in the 5th grade he started document filing about outstanding Jews and heroes of the Great patriotic War. This was probably the first archive in Kiev and in the Soviet Union. Alik finished school with a gold medal. Again the school authorities were telling us to refuse from it. This same year Alik entered the History Department at the Kiev Pegagogical Institute. It was an unprecedented fact for its time. Deputy Head of the History Department that interviewed him stood for Alik. Alik was the only Jew at the Department. He went to the army after the Institute and later started working as teacher. He was always surrounded by the children – they’ve always loved him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a family of his own. A month ago Alik was elected as a people’s deputy at the Podol district administration. He is the only Jewish deputy in Podol, a famous Jewish neighborhood. He not religious, but certainly, he feels herself Jew, but presently this already he does not disturb in life’s. Pass a time state anti-Semitism.
Our daughter Marina looks like a typical Jewish girl. Abusive expressions always followed her. She finished school with a gold medal, and studied at the Physical Culture Institute and Psychology Department at the Kiev State University. She is working on her thesis now for the title of Doctor of Psychology.
In 1973 our daughter Marina was born. We lived in this one-room apartment for eight years until our son Alik left. Even in the 1970s we were thinking about emigration to Israel, but my mother was an insuperable obstacle. She couldn’t even hear about “betraying” the best country in the world, and we couldn’t leave her behind. My mother remained a convinced Communist until she died in 1982. She would have never left this country, although she sympathized with those who left for Israel. I still feel resentment towards my mother’s fanatism. I am different from her, because my children’s interests and desires always prevail.
The school teacher of our son Alik hated Jews. She hated us so much that she removed the documents from the file of the children that were awarded a trip to Czekoslovakia for successes in their studies (an exceptional thing for that time) and sent another boy into this trip. When Alik was in the 8th form she told me that he should quit school, as there was no hope for him to go to an Institute due to his Jewish nationality. But our son is a fighter. His father was teaching him to be a fighter. His father went in for wrestling and was teaching our son to fight. Alik was a strong boy. When he was in the 5th grade he started document filing about outstanding Jews and heroes of the Great patriotic War. This was probably the first archive in Kiev and in the Soviet Union. Alik finished school with a gold medal. Again the school authorities were telling us to refuse from it. This same year Alik entered the History Department at the Kiev Pegagogical Institute. It was an unprecedented fact for its time. Deputy Head of the History Department that interviewed him stood for Alik. Alik was the only Jew at the Department. He went to the army after the Institute and later started working as teacher. He was always surrounded by the children – they’ve always loved him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a family of his own. A month ago Alik was elected as a people’s deputy at the Podol district administration. He is the only Jewish deputy in Podol, a famous Jewish neighborhood. He not religious, but certainly, he feels herself Jew, but presently this already he does not disturb in life’s. Pass a time state anti-Semitism.
Our daughter Marina looks like a typical Jewish girl. Abusive expressions always followed her. She finished school with a gold medal, and studied at the Physical Culture Institute and Psychology Department at the Kiev State University. She is working on her thesis now for the title of Doctor of Psychology.
, Ukraine
In 1952 I got married. My husband Daniil Itskovich Narovlianskiy was a student of the Kiev Institute of Communications. His family was a patriarchal Jewish family with clear anti-Soviet spirits. I heard for the first time “The Voice of America” and “The Voice of Israel” in their family. Their broadcasts were jammed by the Soviet radars, but sometimes at night it was possible to hear some news from the free world. They were telling the truth about the Soviet power, anti-Semitism, prison camps for political prisoners, suppression of human rights. They were telling us all about what we were not supposed to know. In my husband’s family I came to know the Jewish holidays and traditions. They had matsa for holidays, went to the synagogue, celebrated Hanukkah, and fasted at Yom Kippur. They didn’t follow the kashrut. It was impossible during the Soviet regime and total poverty. My mother-in-law was a housewife and cooked Jewish stew with prunes, stuffed fish and Jewish strudel with cherry jam and nuts. My husband had an older sister. They all lived in one room. After the wedding we lived with my mother. We didn’t have a wedding, just a dinner at my home. We had four neighbors in our apartment, and the four of us (my mother, my sister, my husband and I) were sharing one room. We lived so for 2 years. We rarely visited my husband’s parents. Although we had many relatives we didn’t have any family gatherings.
, Ukraine
These were abstract things for me. I was a Kosomol activist at school and secretary of the Kosomol unit and finished school with a gold medal.
I finished school in 1955. I was fond of radio engineering and wanted to enter the Polytechnic Institute. But people explained to me that its doors were closed for me as a Jew. A column "beginning" was In the Soviet passport. To deliver the documents for the arrival needed was bring a passport. If in this earl was written "Jew", such person nowhere took – this was state policy in 1960s. So I decided to enter the Institute of Light Industry. I submitted my documents and passed the interview successfully. (Students with a gold medal didn’t have to take any exams, only an interview to higher educational institutions). So, I was sure that I was admitted. But in two months’ time they made me take an exam in Mathematics. I was good at Mathematics and when I got a “2” (the lowest grade) I couldn’t understand what happened. They did not want to take I learn therefore that I - a Jew, and so have putted me an evaluation “2”, though I correctly has answered all questions. For a whole year I couldn’t find a job. Finally, I got a job at the shop of ready radio units. My responsibility was gluing things. The following year I submitted my documents to the extramural department at the Polytechnic Institute. And again I was refused. Only interfernce of Koval, Minister of Education, that was a relative of our neighbors helped me to be admitted to the extramural radio engineering department. I was the only Jew at this department. I graduated this Institute with the so-called “red” diploma (issued to the most distinguished students.
My hardships were similar to my sister’s. Upon finishing technical school she managed to enter the Financial Institute. She was sent to work in Kishynyov. But my mother wanted my sister to be in Kiev. My mother demanded her to come to Kiev. My sister returned but she never found herself either in the financial circles or in her personal life. Her Jewish identity was an obstacle everywhere. My sister was not sociable. She got married when she was about 30 but got divorced soon. In the early 1990s Maria moved to Israel, hoping that we would follow her. She lives in Hadera with no relatives or close people around. She does not work, lives on the pension, which gets from the state.
In 1962 I finished the Polytechnic Institute. At that time I was working at the tape recorder development laboratory. I was one of the authors of the “Dnepr-12” tape recorder, a famous tape recorder in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. In 1963 the radio factory became a military enterprise. This meant that all employees had to obtain the KGB (State Security Committee) permit. In KGB they told me that I could be proud of my father and that he died as a hero. During my studies and afterwards I was offered to join the Communist Party. But I became a different person then. I realized that people were joining the Communist Party for easier promotions and privileges. I was against the Communist Party and so was my sister. We didn’t want to hurt our mother and never argued with her, but we had a firm opinion, chosen by us once and forever.
I finished school in 1955. I was fond of radio engineering and wanted to enter the Polytechnic Institute. But people explained to me that its doors were closed for me as a Jew. A column "beginning" was In the Soviet passport. To deliver the documents for the arrival needed was bring a passport. If in this earl was written "Jew", such person nowhere took – this was state policy in 1960s. So I decided to enter the Institute of Light Industry. I submitted my documents and passed the interview successfully. (Students with a gold medal didn’t have to take any exams, only an interview to higher educational institutions). So, I was sure that I was admitted. But in two months’ time they made me take an exam in Mathematics. I was good at Mathematics and when I got a “2” (the lowest grade) I couldn’t understand what happened. They did not want to take I learn therefore that I - a Jew, and so have putted me an evaluation “2”, though I correctly has answered all questions. For a whole year I couldn’t find a job. Finally, I got a job at the shop of ready radio units. My responsibility was gluing things. The following year I submitted my documents to the extramural department at the Polytechnic Institute. And again I was refused. Only interfernce of Koval, Minister of Education, that was a relative of our neighbors helped me to be admitted to the extramural radio engineering department. I was the only Jew at this department. I graduated this Institute with the so-called “red” diploma (issued to the most distinguished students.
My hardships were similar to my sister’s. Upon finishing technical school she managed to enter the Financial Institute. She was sent to work in Kishynyov. But my mother wanted my sister to be in Kiev. My mother demanded her to come to Kiev. My sister returned but she never found herself either in the financial circles or in her personal life. Her Jewish identity was an obstacle everywhere. My sister was not sociable. She got married when she was about 30 but got divorced soon. In the early 1990s Maria moved to Israel, hoping that we would follow her. She lives in Hadera with no relatives or close people around. She does not work, lives on the pension, which gets from the state.
In 1962 I finished the Polytechnic Institute. At that time I was working at the tape recorder development laboratory. I was one of the authors of the “Dnepr-12” tape recorder, a famous tape recorder in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. In 1963 the radio factory became a military enterprise. This meant that all employees had to obtain the KGB (State Security Committee) permit. In KGB they told me that I could be proud of my father and that he died as a hero. During my studies and afterwards I was offered to join the Communist Party. But I became a different person then. I realized that people were joining the Communist Party for easier promotions and privileges. I was against the Communist Party and so was my sister. We didn’t want to hurt our mother and never argued with her, but we had a firm opinion, chosen by us once and forever.
, Ukraine
I have dim memories from my childhood, from 1950s, of some talks about Palestine and a new state of Israel, our historic Motherland that people were moving there and that life was going to be better in this country. But this had nothing to do with us. It never occurred to our communist mother that we might live anywhere else besides the Soviet reality. She was raising us 100% Soviet people.
Stalin’s death in 1953 was a terrible woe for our mother. She never accepted the following denunciation of him. We were also in grief, so big that I even fell ill. I had fever and fits. It seemed life was impossible without Stalin.
Some time in 1956 our relatives from Kharkov arrived after exculpation. Even this fact or whatever little they told us what had happened to them did not change our opinion. My mother felt very sorry for our relatives. Aunt Genia never found her children, but somehow these processes were going on as if in parallel and independently. My Uncle Max was of different opinion. My mother called him a “contra” (one who was against the Soviet power). He called my mother a “little Komsomol girl”. However, they loved each other tenderly. I heard about Hanukkah from Max when I was 14. He wasn’t religious, but he knew Jewish history and traditions.
Stalin’s death in 1953 was a terrible woe for our mother. She never accepted the following denunciation of him. We were also in grief, so big that I even fell ill. I had fever and fits. It seemed life was impossible without Stalin.
Some time in 1956 our relatives from Kharkov arrived after exculpation. Even this fact or whatever little they told us what had happened to them did not change our opinion. My mother felt very sorry for our relatives. Aunt Genia never found her children, but somehow these processes were going on as if in parallel and independently. My Uncle Max was of different opinion. My mother called him a “contra” (one who was against the Soviet power). He called my mother a “little Komsomol girl”. However, they loved each other tenderly. I heard about Hanukkah from Max when I was 14. He wasn’t religious, but he knew Jewish history and traditions.
, Ukraine
In 1953 my mother was Head of a shop at the factory. Our life improved a little. My sister was finishing Financial Institute at that time. She was an excellent student. We didn’t have many relatives. It was Uncle Max and his family. Fortunately, they lived in Kiev, too. My mother and Uncle Max were taking every possible effort to find out what happened to my mother’s cousins Khrakovskiye but they failed at that time. I met them in 1955 after their exculpation.
My mother and I didn’t get along well. When I was 8 I actually broke her engagement. It wasn’t because I didn’t like this man. I just loved my father dearly and couldn’t imagine anybody to take his place. A year before, in 1948, I fainted from hunger. I was sent to the recreation home to improve my condition. There was a nurse there that offered my mother to adopt me. Her own children passed away during the war. This Russian woman was ready to adopt me as her daughter, she was no difference, who I in nature. At first my mother was almost ready to give me away. Two children were too much for her and she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to provide enough food for us to survive. I moved in with this woman. Regretfully, I can’t remember her name. She was very good to me. I lived there for almost a month, but I cried all the time and begged my mother to take me back. My mother took me back. She said “we will starve, but starve together”. But I had the feeling of being hurt since that time. Later I realized that that I was unfair, because she managed to bring up the feeling of dignity in her children and raise them as fighters with circumstances. I didn’t suffer from lack of food at school as much as I did from my poor clothes. Before the end of school my only dress was a cotton uniform. The first dress my mother made me was my prom dress.
My mother and I didn’t get along well. When I was 8 I actually broke her engagement. It wasn’t because I didn’t like this man. I just loved my father dearly and couldn’t imagine anybody to take his place. A year before, in 1948, I fainted from hunger. I was sent to the recreation home to improve my condition. There was a nurse there that offered my mother to adopt me. Her own children passed away during the war. This Russian woman was ready to adopt me as her daughter, she was no difference, who I in nature. At first my mother was almost ready to give me away. Two children were too much for her and she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to provide enough food for us to survive. I moved in with this woman. Regretfully, I can’t remember her name. She was very good to me. I lived there for almost a month, but I cried all the time and begged my mother to take me back. My mother took me back. She said “we will starve, but starve together”. But I had the feeling of being hurt since that time. Later I realized that that I was unfair, because she managed to bring up the feeling of dignity in her children and raise them as fighters with circumstances. I didn’t suffer from lack of food at school as much as I did from my poor clothes. Before the end of school my only dress was a cotton uniform. The first dress my mother made me was my prom dress.
, Ukraine
Things were more complicated with my older sister Maria, Mura. She was a fighter like me. She studied well at school and at a technical school later. She was a quiet and humble girl. But her appeaance was typical Jewish and everywhere and everybody never missed a chance to call her a “zhydovka”. Se couldn’t fight back or respond. As a result she withdrew into herself and this had an impact on her whole life.
1952 was the year of public accusation of the Kremlin Jewish doctors of murder of their patients, the so-called “doctors’ case”[5]. I felt it on my skin, so to say. I got into a hospital with appendicitis. I was 13. Adults and children didn’t like me. They were hurting me both physically and psychologically. I fainted when the doctors were removing stitches after the surgery. Almost nobody talked to me. They told my mother nasty tings about me. When I returned home the situation there was one of concern. The family of my uncle Max and his friends were preparing for deportation to nobody knew where. They said we were going to be moved either to Brobidjan or to Siberia. People were expecting pogroms. I realized then that it might be very fearful to be a Jew.
My sister Maria was taking it very hard. My mother was afraid that she might have committed suicide. My sister told me then that life was impossible when one expects some trouble or a blow at any moment.
1952 was the year of public accusation of the Kremlin Jewish doctors of murder of their patients, the so-called “doctors’ case”[5]. I felt it on my skin, so to say. I got into a hospital with appendicitis. I was 13. Adults and children didn’t like me. They were hurting me both physically and psychologically. I fainted when the doctors were removing stitches after the surgery. Almost nobody talked to me. They told my mother nasty tings about me. When I returned home the situation there was one of concern. The family of my uncle Max and his friends were preparing for deportation to nobody knew where. They said we were going to be moved either to Brobidjan or to Siberia. People were expecting pogroms. I realized then that it might be very fearful to be a Jew.
My sister Maria was taking it very hard. My mother was afraid that she might have committed suicide. My sister told me then that life was impossible when one expects some trouble or a blow at any moment.
, Ukraine
The postwar outburst of anti-Semitism didn’t touch upon me. I went to the kindergarten. It was half-Jewish. Jewish kindergarten’s then in the Kiev already was not, they all long ago were locked Soviet powers. Taught us in Russian, but was much teachers of Jews and Jewish parents tried to return their own children in this kindergarten. Certainly, us nothing did not tell on Jewish traditions and religions (this was forbidden), but there to us all much well pertained. There were many Jewish children in Kiev. We learned much from our tutor Sophia Naumovna – she was Jewish, she illegal tried to tell us on our Jewish origin. I was in the 2nd form at school when I was called “zhydovka”. About 70% of my classmates were Jewish. My 1st teacher Sophia Alexandrovna Baitalskaya was also a Jew. She was a wonderful teacher. But there was a senior pupil. He had a bicycle and he said that he wouldn’t give it a “Zhydovka” for a ride. I was very hurt. I came home with tears in my eyes and asked my mother what it meant. And she told me for the first time about the Jewish people and why they were persecuted. My mother also told me that anti-Semitism was introduced by the Germans and that communists didn’t have and that even before the communists there wasn’t any anti-Semitism. She also told me about the Babiy Yar and about our neighbors that were exterminated there. She was convincing me that a real communists could never be anti-Semitic and she told me that I shouldn’t be ashamed of my Jewish nationality. I have never been ashamed or it or concealed my origin. I learned then to stand for my dignity.
, Ukraine
2 older women lived in the room that previously belonged to one of the Jewish families. They were orthodox believers and they rather liked me. They allowed me to borrow books from their book collection. My mother saw that they had some belongings of that Jewish family that went to the Babiy Yar but she was ignoring this fact due to their good attitude. They told me about the Orthodox belief and holidays and I learned about the orthodox religion long before I learned things about the Jewish way of life.
, Ukraine