At Sabbath my mother lit candles and cooked delicious dinner. My father worked on Saturday, as Saturday was a workday. They celebrated Jewish holidays. I remember Papa putting Hanukkeh geld (small change) under his children’s pillows.
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Frida Palanker
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At Pesach my parents used to buy matsa at the synagogue. My mother crushed it in the mortar and then sifted the flour to make sponge cakes. Mama cooked stuffed fish and made chicken neck with liver and fried flour and boiled chicken. We didn’t have bread in the house at Pesach. My mother had Pesach dishes that were used only on this holiday. It was set of dishes for dinner, casseroles and frying pans. My uncle Yasha and his wife and sometimes Ion and his family came to join us for the celebration Uncle Yasha, the oldest man in the family, read a prayer.
At Yom-Kipur my father and mother fasted, but my mother made food for us, children, on these days.
There was a Ukrainian school across the street from our school. I went to school when I was 8. My sisters also went to this school later. Ukrainian was a problem for me at the beginning – I didn’t know it, but I was making a good progress in it. About half of the children in my class were Jews. But there was no national issue at that time. There were Jews among teachers as well.
I became a young Octobrist and then a pioneer at school. Admittance to the pioneers was a festive ceremony held at the conference-hall at school. After they tied our neck ties the pioneer leader said “Be ready!” and we replied in chorus “Always ready!” (to struggle for the cause of the CPSU – Communist party of the Soviet Union). My responsibility as a pioneer was to help my classmate with his Russian grammar. He came to my home after classes and wrote dictations. I remember how proud I was when he received his first good mark for the dictation at school.
I liked history and literature, but I wasn’t quite fond of mathematics.
I liked history and literature, but I wasn’t quite fond of mathematics.
When I was in the 2nd form my parents sent me to study at the music school to learn to play the violin. I had classes there twice a week. A piano was a second instrument that I was learning to play.
1932 and 1933 was the period of horrific famine in Ukraine. I shall never forget this terrible time. There were swollen and half-dressed people in the streets: children, adults and old people. There were dead bodies on the pavements. They were the people coming to Kiev from the surrounding villages. This famine struck the villages basically. People also starved in towns, but to a less extent. We survived due to our father. He made clothes and was paid in food products. My father was the only one working in the family, but he provided for all of us.
When I was to go to the 6th form a 10-year music school was established at the Conservatory. My teacher of music suggested that I took exams to enter this school. After finishing this school children were admitted to the Conservatory without exams. I passed exams and was admitted to the 6th form. This school was in Kreschatik street near the Conservatory. We studied general and special music subjects: musical literature, solfeggio and harmony. My violin teacher was Professor of Conservatory Bertie. There were many Jewish children in this school. I remember one girl from the composer class for specifically gifted children. Her name was Didi Rzhavskaya. She was very talented and composed music when she was a child. Of my classmates I remember Yunia Budovsky - he became a concertmaster at the Opera Theater. I also remember Abrasha Shtern. I don’t know whether they are still alive. They were great musicians and laureates of musical contests. We admired them.
There were 10–15 children in one class. I can’t say that we were all friends, but there were no demonstrations of anti-Semitism.
There were 10–15 children in one class. I can’t say that we were all friends, but there were no demonstrations of anti-Semitism.
We celebrated all Soviet holidays. Schoolchildren and teachers went to the parades and carried flags and slogans. There were concerts at school after the parades. At home we celebrated Jewish and Soviet holidays, because such was a tradition. We also celebrated New Year and birthdays of all family members at home.
I spent my summer vacations with my grandparents in Korostyshev. We went swimming and playing with other children. We enjoyed ourselves. My grandfather and grandmother were religious and went to the synagogue, but we, children, were not involved in any of these things. My grandmother cooked deliciously and we didn’t care a bit about whether it kosher or it wasn’t. Besides, there are no holidays in summer.
We had performances to demonstrate our skills at school and often attended students’ performances at the Conservatory. I tried to attend all interesting concerts at the Philharmonic. We could only afford the cheapest tickets.
Studying at the musical school took almost all of my time. I didn’t follow any political events or occurrences of that time. Of course, I knew that Hitler came to power in Germany and about the war in Poland, but I didn’t care.
In 1939 my friends and I formed a small orchestra. There were only girls there – the brass and the string group. There was also a singer – she was a student of the vocal class. We rehearsed at school. Our school teacher Magaziner, a Jew, was director of the orchestra. In about half a year we entered into the agreement with the director of the “Chance” cinema on the corner of Kreschatik and Proreznaya about playing in this movie theater. Movie performances began at 4 and we came after classes and played at the lobby. We had costumes to wear on the stage. They were made from brown cashmere with a white inset on the chest and a bow tie. We played popular pop songs and received money for our work. I was very happy to give this money to my mother. Mira Shenderovich, the violinist in our orchestra, was my friend. She lived in Podol, not far from where my grandmother Sura lived. We met with Mira after the war also. Later she went to Kishinev, got married and emigrated to Israel with her family. Her daughter lives in Austria now. She is laureate of international contests, violinist and great musician. Mira died in Israel. We were a team of people in the orchestra. We were united by what we were doing and our enthusiasm. Even after we entered the Conservatory we continued to play in the orchestra.
In 1940 after finishing school I was auditioned for my skills in playing the violin and was admitted to Kiev State Conservatory. Almost all of my classmates entered the Conservatory, too. My teacher of the violin mastership was the same Professor Bertie that had been my teacher at school before. This was an interesting time. We had students’ performances and all students were to attend them. It was necessary to attend these performances to share the experience and to learn from the others.
I had many friends. I began to meet with Fima Barsky, my classmate’s older brother. Fima was two years older than I. He was a very nice and smart boy. He came from the Jewish family of teachers. I liked him a lot. We were thinking of getting married in a year or two, but the war broke our plans. Fima was mobilized during the first days of the war and perished soon afterward.
I remember the first day of the war, 22 June 1941. We heard about the beginning of the war from the official speech of Molotov on the radio. But even before his speech there were rumors about bombing of Sviatoshyno and Darnitsa, the outskirts of Kiev. Everything was such a mess and people were crying or panicking. We were confused and didn’t know what to do.
My father wasn’t recruited to the army. At the beginning of the war only young men and professional military were summoned to the front and my father was 46 by the beginning of the war. He was left in reserve as well as other men between 40 and 50 years old. The reservists didn’t have a right to leave Kiev. They were supposed to wait for either recruitment to the front or an order summoning them to the labor front. So my father stayed and my mother, my sisters, my brother and I evacuated on 25 July 1941. It wasn’t an organized process. There was an announcement that those that wanted to evacuate were to come to the reserve railroad spur at Pechersk. We took one suitcase with us and I had my violin with me. Our father took us to the railway station. He was afraid to go with us - he thought he might have been executed as a deserter. We said our good-bye to him and boarded the platform railcars.
The trip was very long and people were starving to death or dying from diseases. During bombings we were getting off the train to run away. During the stops we had to get some food. We arrived in Kokand, Middle Asia. From there we were sent to a collective farm. We were accommodated in a little hut made of hay mixed with sheep manure. There were ground floors in it. We made plank beds to sleep on them. We had a steel sheet on the floor where we made fire to cook and a tripod to hang the pot over the fire. We put wood and dry branches of saxaul on the metal sheet to start the fire. Acrid smoke was filling the hut. All of us, except brother Mark that was 8 at that time, worked at the collective farm. We got miserable payment for our work that was too little to get sufficient food. We sometimes bought some food or changed our clothes for food at the market, only we hardly had anything to take to the market. Once I met our neighbor from Kiev. She told me that I could work at the collective farm where she worked and that they were paying with flour and cereals for work. It was located in 30 km from the village where we lived. I went there and got a job. They gave flour, cereals and bread as payment for work. Once a week I went back home to bring them food. Mama was very weak, because she left all food that we had to her children. In spring 1942 my little brother starved to death and a month after him my mother died. My mother and my brother were buried in common graves. I didn’t have money to bury them decently.
We didn’t hear from our father. We had no information about him until 1945, and we understood that he wasn’t among the living any longer, because if he had been alive, he would have let us know. When I was in the evacuation I was continuously trying to find out any information about my father, sending requests to the military recruitment office. Their response to me was that his name was not on the lists of the deceased. That was all information I had about him.
My sisters and other orphaned children were sent to a factory school in Sverdlovsk, Ural. The sisters were provided for by the state. Of course, it wasn’t quite sufficient, but they were not starving to death, on the other hand, and had some clothes to wear. Both of them learned to work on lathe units and worked at the plant manufacturing shells for the front.
In some time I was offered a job in the orchestra of Uzbek theater in Kokand. The Uzbek music is different and I had problems at the beginning. Thus, we received food cards at the theater and it meant 400 grams of bread a day. I knew that Kiev Jewish Musical Theater was evacuated to Kokand. Before the war this theater was located in Kreschatik street. I can’t remember the details, but I met someone that worked at this theater, and they suggested that I went to work in the orchestra of this theater. I was auditioned by the conductor of the orchestra and was admitted. It is written in my employment record book that I was “employed by the theater as a musician at the orchestra. 10 August 1944 ».
I also got accommodation. I had little experience to play their complicated music. A famous Jewish composer Shteinberg composed music for their performances. I was rehearsing and studying a lot. Performances in the theater were in Yiddish. They only had one or two performances in Russian. If the performance was in Yiddish they explained in Russian what it was about before the beginning for those that didn’t understand the language. There was different public, and they always cheered in appreciation of acting. There were problems related to approval of the repertoire. Everything had to be censored: God forbid if there was any deviation from the official ideology! There was strict selection of plays – they had to comply with ideological requirements of the time. However, they managed to stage classics of the Jewish literature, like Sholem Alehem’s “Wandering stars”. All actors were from Kiev. I must tell you that I’ve never been in such friendly atmosphere, as was in the Jewish Theater. Of course, we felt togetherness because all of us had to live through the war and we faced the same difficulties and were survivors, but there was more to it than that…
I also got accommodation. I had little experience to play their complicated music. A famous Jewish composer Shteinberg composed music for their performances. I was rehearsing and studying a lot. Performances in the theater were in Yiddish. They only had one or two performances in Russian. If the performance was in Yiddish they explained in Russian what it was about before the beginning for those that didn’t understand the language. There was different public, and they always cheered in appreciation of acting. There were problems related to approval of the repertoire. Everything had to be censored: God forbid if there was any deviation from the official ideology! There was strict selection of plays – they had to comply with ideological requirements of the time. However, they managed to stage classics of the Jewish literature, like Sholem Alehem’s “Wandering stars”. All actors were from Kiev. I must tell you that I’ve never been in such friendly atmosphere, as was in the Jewish Theater. Of course, we felt togetherness because all of us had to live through the war and we faced the same difficulties and were survivors, but there was more to it than that…
In the end of 1944 our theater came on a long tour to Fergana. We were told there that the theater was to move temporarily to Chernovtsy until the building of the theater in Kiev was completed. We went to Chernovtsy by train. The train stopped for a while in Kiev. All of us were from Kiev and we went to take a look at our home. I found our house in place, although the neighboring houses were destroyed.
After I returned to Kiev in 1945 my neighbors told me what happened to my father. Some time before the war a German man moved into our house. He was a very polite and decent person. He changed when Germans entered Kiev. He walked as if he were too important to notice anybody or anything around. He gave away all Jews, including my father. My neighbors were afraid to hide my father. It was dangerous for them and their children. On 29 September a few policemen came for my father. They took him to the Babiy Yar and shot him. This German man left Kiev with the German army.
One evening I went to Kiev Theater of Musical Comedy. People came there to honor victims of the Babiy Yar. It was conducted by Mihoels that came from Moscow. I remember him making his speech holding a big crystal vase filled with ashes from the Babiy Yar. Then a girl that escaped from the Babiy Yar told her story. She was a young girl, no more than 20 years old, but her hair was as white as snow. Her classmate met her in the street and told Germans that she was a Jew. She was captured and taken to the Babiy Yar. Columns of Jews were going to the Babiy Yar along Artyoma and Melnikova streets. People were shot in groups. They had to undress and their bodies were thrown into the ravine. The next group of people waiting for their turn to be shot buried dead or wounded people. The land was stirring up and breathing… This girl was wounded. She got out of the ravine at night came home. Her neighbors were hiding her for the rest of the war. I remember her story as if she told it yesterday…
One evening I went to Kiev Theater of Musical Comedy. People came there to honor victims of the Babiy Yar. It was conducted by Mihoels that came from Moscow. I remember him making his speech holding a big crystal vase filled with ashes from the Babiy Yar. Then a girl that escaped from the Babiy Yar told her story. She was a young girl, no more than 20 years old, but her hair was as white as snow. Her classmate met her in the street and told Germans that she was a Jew. She was captured and taken to the Babiy Yar. Columns of Jews were going to the Babiy Yar along Artyoma and Melnikova streets. People were shot in groups. They had to undress and their bodies were thrown into the ravine. The next group of people waiting for their turn to be shot buried dead or wounded people. The land was stirring up and breathing… This girl was wounded. She got out of the ravine at night came home. Her neighbors were hiding her for the rest of the war. I remember her story as if she told it yesterday…
Back to my story, we arrived in Chernovtsy in 1945. There were many vacant buildings there. This town joined the USSR in 1940. It belonged to Rumania before. After the war the local population was moving to Rumania and those that returned from evacuation could move into any apartment. I wanted to live near the theater and I moved into the apartment sharing it with a neighbor. Each of us had two rooms, and we had a common kitchen, bathroom and a toilet. There was no anti-Semitism in Chernovtsy, and the attitude towards Jews was very loyal.
Our theater was called “Jewish Musical Theater named after Sholem Alehem». This was a very good theater with very good actors. One of production directors, Misha Loev lives in New York now. He wrote and published a book about Kiev Jewish Theater. Its title is “The last match”. It is a very detailed story of Kiev Jewish Theater: performances, actors and the true history.
In 1945 my sisters Eva and Genia came to Chernovtsy. Genia entered a pedagogical college and Eva went to the medical college. My sisters and I were happy to be together.
In 1946 I got married. I met my future husband at the hairdresser’s where I went to have my hair cut. He was a hairdresser.
After the war David came to Chernovtsy. It turned out that we had a common acquaintance – Dats, a violinist from the theater. Dats also lived in Bucharest and the two of them were musicians in the same orchestra. David was much older than I. We were seeing each other for a while. To be frank, I wasn’t in love with him. I couldn’t forget Fima. But then I thought to myself that nobody wanted me, a lonely and poor woman. I had only one dress that I used to wear to the theater. I didn’t even have a coat. I thought it would be easier if there were two of us. We didn’t have a wedding party. We had a civil ceremony. We were far from wealthy. My salary in the theater was low. My husband had a plan for the number of visitors per day. The number of people in this plan was higher than actual number of visitors, but it was his duty to comply with the requirements of the plan. So, he added his own money to the cash receipts of the hairdresser’s pretending that it was his clients’ payments.
My sister Eva met her future husband Mitia Goltsman in the same hairdresser’s. He was a very strong, handsome, tall and a very nice Jewish man. They fell in love with one another. I tried to keep my sister from getting married. I knew what it was like to be poor and wanted a better life for her. But Eva said that they loved each other and nothing else mattered. They had a civil ceremony.
In the early 1970s my sister Eva and her family moved to Israel. Her husband worked as a hairdresser there and Rosa worked as a teacher at school.