We rented apartments and there were three such apartments in my childhood and youth. When I was born we rented an apartment from Reznik, a Jewish owner. Then we moved to another apartment, which we rented from Batuzh, a Moldovan man. Before the Great Patriotic War we rented an apartment from Mishkis, a Jewish owner. I remember this apartment best. It was big: there was a fore room with a coat-stand and a round table, covered with a velvet tablecloth, there was also a small living room, our parents’ bedroom, the children’s room and another room that served as my mother’s shop.
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Izia Antipka
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I recall my childhood with a warm feeling: this was the time of overall love. My father worked as a broker. He often traveled to nearby villages and towns, buying food products and making deals with farmers. My mother was a first-class dressmaker. She owned a shop and had two employees working for her. Every evening our family got together for dinner and these were the warmest evenings in my life. We discussed events of the day, had delicious food and then Mama put me and my sister to bed and this was wonderful.
Grandfather Srul was very religious. On Friday, Saturday and holidays he went to the synagogue. The synagogues were guild-based: my grandfather Srul went to the nearby synagogue of shoemakers, though there were no shoemakers in our family. It was just the nearest synagogue from where my grandparents lived.
Orgeyev was a truly Jewish town at that time: 80 percent of its population was Jewish. Jews kept almost all stores and shops in the center of the town. Jewish doctors, lawyers and businessmen lived in the central part of the town. There was a number of synagogues, a Jewish hospital, and later the Joint [4] established and supported an affiliate of the Jewish Health Association.
Yenta was moderately religious. She prayed at home every morning, wore a kerchief, lit candles on Friday evening and prayed over them, followed some of the kashrut rules: I mean, there was never any pork in the house, but she didn’t have separate dishes for dairy and meat products. There was no synagogue in the village and on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Pesach, the main Jewish holidays, my grandmother went to the synagogue in Orgeyev.
They said this surname could have been possibly found among Polish Jews, and my paternal grandfather, Israel Antipka, was born in Poland in the 1860s, only I don’t know the exact location.
On 22nd June 1941 the Great Patriotic War began. We listened to Molotov’s [19] speech. I insisted on evacuation. My father was against it saying that war would not last long and we would manage staying in the caves near Orgeyev, having food stocks with us.
The next disappointment was when all food products disappeared from stores: the first ones to disappear were chocolates, caviar and other delicacies. There was no white bread, vegetable oil, flour, sugar, just essential commodities. The only candy was caramel in sugar. Fortunately, we had stocks in the attic that my father had kept for the restaurant. Aunt Rachil brought a bunch of boubliks [round pastries] from Kishinev and we had them instead of white bread.
When Moldova became independent, it established all conditions for the development of the Jewish nation. I wouldn’t state there is no routine anti-Semitism and I’ve faced it every now and then, but we have our community, the Hesed [27], and it provides assistance to me as its client, the association of Jewish organizations. I’ve not become religious, but I often attend various events. I join my friends to celebrate holidays at the synagogue or in the Hesed, we share our memories and recipes of the Jewish cuisine: I know many from my mother.
My wife and I visited Israel a few times. It’s a magical country created by people’s hands and hard work, but it’s full of sunshine and light. We liked everything there: the warm sea, nice people and delicious cuisine. It’s a paradox that I, a member of a Zionist organization in my youth and a supporter of the establishment of a Jewish state, have stayed here. I always wanted to move there, but at first my wife was against it, later my son didn’t want to go there and then I gave up the thought of it. What would I do there, a lonely old man, who doesn’t speak the language.
My wife Alina, a holy person, a kind soul, with whom I lived a beautiful life together, died in 2003. It’s hard for me to accept that she is not with me any longer. My sister, her husband and their daughter Inna moved to Israel in the early 1990s. My sister died in 2000.
In 1954 our son Ilia was born. We named him after his maternal grandfather. Ilia studied well. He finished the electromechanical technical school and worked at a plant. He never mentioned to me if he ever faced everyday anti-Semitism. Our family benefited well from perestroika [26]. My son managed to use his commercial talent. He started from little and now he owns a big casino. In 1998 Ilia married Inna, a Russian girl, who is much younger than him. In 2003 their son Gera, my grandson, was born. They live their own life. I have little in common with my daughter-in-law, but my son helps me a lot.
After the wedding we lived with my parents for some time. My sister married Alexandr Goldstein, a Jewish man from Kishinev. Lida was a pharmacist and Alexandr was a railroad engineer. My sister and later I received apartments from his organization. Our parents stayed in their apartment. They lived a long life. My father died in the mid-1980s, and my mother lived 95 years. At the age of 90 she got bedridden and remained in this condition till she died in 1995. We buried our parents according to Jewish traditions, wrapped in takhrikhim, at the Jewish cemetery and the prayer [kaddish] was recited over their graves.
Alina was born in the town of Rybnitsa in 1929. She didn’t remember her father, Ilia Litvak, who died long before the Great Patriotic War, when Alina was just a small child. During the Great Patriotic War Alina and her mother were in the ghetto in Rybnitsa. Her mother, whose name I don’t remember, died in the ghetto. Alina and her sister Fania, who was a few years older than her, survived. After the war Alina lived with her aunt in Kishinev. After finishing a secondary school she went to work as a lab assistant at the tobacco factory. We had a small wedding party with my parents, relatives and a few friends. Of course, it was a common wedding with no chuppah. After the war we didn’t observe Jewish traditions, though we celebrated holidays, particularly Pesach, and my father always brought matzah from the synagogue.
Once I visited a tobacco factory, when I was chief of technical supervision. I met Alina Litvak, a Jewish girl, who worked at this factory. I liked her and we began to see each other. Then we fell in love with each other and I proposed to her.
There were mainly Jewish employees in the shop and its director was Moldovan. The anti-Semitism in the early 1950s didn’t affect us, though Jewish chief engineers were fired. I kept working without any problems.
Upon demobilization from the army I returned to my parents in Kishinev. Uncle Musia helped me to get a job at the meat grinder repair shop. I became an apprentice, a foreman and later a superintendent and worked at this shop my whole life. I also entered the Dnepropetrovsk College of Railroad Transport, but I never finished it due to my illness. I had psoriasis that acquired an acute form during examinations and my doctors advised me to quit my studies due to the stress this caused.
When we arrived in Bucharest I sold the clothes I had with me in a lady’s washroom. Now we had some money. This was a great risk: if we were stopped by a Soviet patrol we would have problems. Besides, we left our luggage and guns in the left luggage and all of this to go to the red-light district [brothels]. I didn’t care, but my comrades insisted that we went there; there was nothing of the kind in the USSR and prostitution was forbidden and strictly punishable. I took them to this street where girls in underwear were sitting before front doors. Seeing handsome Soviet guys they really jumped on us. Bagdasarov got frightened and we escaped.
In 1948 my commandment ordered me to go to an airfield in Bucharest since I was the only one, who knew Romanian. I had two soldiers with me: Kharitonov, a Russian guy, and Bagdasarov, an Armenian guy. We had no money with us: we only received a food ration. I picked some underwear from the storage, knowing that it was in great demand. On the way to Bucharest we stopped in Iasi [175 km north of Bucharest] where I bumped into my second cousin. This happened to be the Purim holiday and we spent the whole evening with her celebrating the holiday. This was the first time the guys tried hamantashen.
I was conscripted to the army in 1947. I was taken to the school of junior aviation specialists. After finishing it I served as supervisor at the air field in Balashikha near Moscow.
Life was improving. My father went back to work in the Moldplodoovoschtorg [Moldovan state-owned fruit and vegetable dealer] office. Mama continued with her sewing, but she couldn’t work as much as she did before the war. I finished school, of course, I was over aged, but there many such children at that time.
In September 1944, when Bessarabia was liberated, my father went to Kishinev and sent us a letter of invitation from there. We went back home.
Our life was very hard, the bread that we received by cards [24] was too little. Mama sewed a lot and her clients paid her with food for her work. One woman was a shop assistant selling bread and she brought us a loaf of this sticky bread, which looked like soap. I had to help the family and became an apprentice of a blacksmith: he gave me food for my work. Later my father and Marcello – he and Feiga also lived in Uzbekistan – were mobilized to the labor army [mobilized to do physical work for the army], my father earned well and supported us. My father and Marcello worked near Moscow. Their Uzbek comrades didn’t want to work and starved themselves to exhaustion to be sent back home. My father and Marcello were to escort them. So he managed to visit us a few times, bringing flour, sugar, tinned meat or even sausage.
The Uzbek people gave us tea and flat bread. We went to a kolkhoz. I was surprised to see how poor the Uzbek people were. There were clay huts with just holes instead of windows and doors, with just poles covered with clay on the roof. We were accommodated in one hut. It was awfully cold there: the wind was blowing through all the openings. My father decided we should move to the district town of Chirchiq, the word means ‘lamp’ in Uzbek. Papa went to the town and bumped into Moldavskiy, a Jewish man from Odessa [23], who was in evacuation with his wife and son. My father sold his posh brown suit, Moldavskiy also added something and they bought a shabby hut of one room and a kitchen. My mother’s work table was in the middle of the room and we accommodated around it. There were four of us left: Mama, Papa, my sister and I.
Our trip lasted for about a month. We had no idea where we were going. There was a lot of mess during the trip, some people missed the train, some got on it at the stops. There was a lot of crying, diseases and deaths: people were dying and there was no time or place to bury them. We arrived at the border [area] between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the station of Yakkabag Kazakhdarya region [today Uzbekistan], almost 3000 kilometers from home.
We finally stopped after crossing the Dniepr. We were hungry. The dough got sour, but Mama made some flat bread from it on the fire nevertheless. We stayed a few weeks in Mariupol. I liked the town very much: there were big trees, wide avenues, the sea – everything was new to me. Then we went on, crossed the Don and reached Bataysk, Rostov region in Russia [about 900 km from Kishinev]. There were catering points arranged for the evacuating people.
My father and I went to work at the grain elevator: there was an outstanding crop that year and we worked delivering grain to the elevator. After two-three weeks we had to move on. Fascist landing troops landed in Pervomaysk and the Jewish kolkhoz [22] evacuated hastily.
We left Grigoriopol on our wagon. We went all across the south and eastern part of Ukraine. We got a warm welcome wherever we arrived. We were accommodated and provided with some food. We also got some food to go, though it was just some salty cheese and dull bread. We stopped in Kirovograd region at the kolkhoz [20], established in the 1930s with the support of Agro-Joint [21]. I was surprised to see how different Jewish women looked here, wearing Ukrainian skirts and embroidered blouses and kerchiefs. We were given accommodation.
Grandmother Yenta and Uncle Berl went back home. After the war we got to know that some villagers gave them shelter, but then their former Moldovan neighbor reported on them. Uncle Berl and Grandmother Yenta were shot by the Fascists at the very beginning of the occupation.
Riva Belfor
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Matzah was brought from the synagogue in a large hamper covered with a sheet. Pesach dishes were taken from the garret. Those dishes weren’t used for the entire year. Every child had his own. I was looking forward to getting my pink glass with the picture of a kitten, which was kept in the chest. My father, clad in white attire with a belt and a white festive kippah, was reclining on the sofa with the white cover, carrying out seder. [According to the Jewish tradition the eldest man in the family, the one who made Seder, was supposed to recline on something soft (usually pillows were used for that), which was the embodiment of relaxation and exemption from slavery.] My brother Motle asked him four questions about the origin of the holiday while I was looking for the afikoman. The festive Pesach dish was in the middle of the table. There were all dishes in accordance with the Haggadah. Besides, the table was abundant in Jewish dishes: gefilte fish, chicken strew, chicken broth and tsimes. The goblet with wine was placed on the table for Elijah ha-nevi. There was a certain paragraph in the Haggadah when people were supposed to open the door. We kept the door open until morning for Elijah ha-nevi to come to our house and drink wine.