During the first years of our common life David worked at the small plywood factory as the head specialist in energy, and they built the youth camp called ‘Sputnik’ in the South of the USSR, in Vishnevka, near Tuapse [famous Russian spa resort on the Black Sea]. We rented an apartment in the neighborhood, and we ate in the camp, and also we took part in various activities, provided mainly for foreigners. This was a fine time! The sea, splendid conditions, plenty of excursions, and we could wear shorts! When we went to town, everyone pointed at us with their finger, while inside the camp it was considered absolutely normal. While David was studying, we went to this ‘Sputnik’ all the time, climbed the mountains, talked to foreigners, and David participated in ‘Ogonyoks’ [evenings of amateur activities, jokes and performances], danced rock-n-roll. There were quite many foreigners, from everywhere, even from Cuba, nobody forbid us to talk to them, to communicate with people we wanted to communicate with. Of course, there were plenty of informants, but we didn’t suffer from them.
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Displaying 17491 - 17520 of 50826 results
Galina Shmuilovna Levina
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My husband changed many jobs after he left this plywood factory; he worked in his field everywhere, continuing to be a specialist in energy. His last job was at the tram park.
As for me, I went abroad a few times. However, I’ve not been a Communist Party member, that’s why they examined and made fun of me in raikom. This was such a horror! And every time they said ‘no.’ I didn’t react: ‘no, then no, I don’t really need it.’ Then they called me up to our factory party committee and said, ‘You are going.’ How could they not let me go? I was working in the rolling shop, all the staff knew I was a good employee, I was enough of an erudite and intellectual person. After all, I wasn’t head of department; I didn’t have a car or something like that. So if they wouldn’t let me, I wouldn’t be silent, I would tell about it, and the conversations would start, so people around would think: why didn’t they let her go? Finally they would decide that the authorities didn’t let me because I was Jewish.
Every year my husband and I separated and spent our vacations on our own. It was so: I’d come back, and then David left me the dog and went to the seaside and so on. Somebody always had to stay with the dog. I went on my tourist trips, I liked it very much. I’ve been to plenty of places: to Central Asia, to the Caucasus, to the Baltic Republics, to Solovki [Islands in the North of the USSR, where authorities banished people in Stalin times], to the Golden Ring [picturesque old towns in Russia]. At our factory you could get the vouchers quite simply, that’s why my friend Silva and I, we traveled a lot. Of course, the conditions were not very good, they were even bad, but still we traveled a lot, because it was very interesting. David went mainly to the Black Sea or to the Baltic. In winter we both, David and I, went skiing, we even rented a winter house on the outskirts of Leningrad.
It’s weird but I never wished to emigrate, I don’t even know why exactly. David’s pals came to visit and said he was living with a crazy woman: ‘Definitely, she is crazy. People are doing everything to become Jewish, while you are real Jews, pure Jews, perhaps, from Moses. What else do you need? Why do you stay with this crazy woman and her beloved dogs?’ Besides, then I had only one dog and I could take it with me easily, without any troubles. I worked in a very hard industry, in metallurgy, in dirt, I woke up at five o’clock, I never had any ‘greenhouse’ conditions, but I didn’t want to leave. David said he wanted to go and I told him, ‘Well, if you want to. No one has the right to insist, a person is a person, so if you want to, you should go… I’ll pack all your stuff. You can go alone. Maybe later I will come to join you. But now I’m not going to.
Max Wolf
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My parents were too old to be drafted in the labor detachments. In addition, my father was a veteran and a war invalid. My brother was in Bucharest. There were periods when it was possible for some people to get exemptions from forced labor, and my brother seized such opportunities.
At a certain point, many friends of mine set out for Bessarabia [9] and their track was lost. Many died on the way, from starvation, cold or typhus. You couldn’t imagine what wretched times those were.
Such were the times that on 22nd June 1940 I was drafted into the labor detachments. The anti-Jewish laws enforced under Antonescu’s administration prevented the Jews from being drafted into the regular army. I wouldn’t have minded serving in the army because I was in good shape; in fact, I was looking forward to joining the troops. Instead, it was forced labor. I did my time partly in town, partly outside the town, and encountered all the expected hardships: the wartime, the digging. Conditions were very rough. I was lucky enough to be sent to places within Braila county. Some of the Jews were sent to other counties and some even ended up in Transnistria [8]. I had the hardest time then.
Like I said, going to college was out of the question for a Jew [because of the anti-Jewish laws that were passed] [6]. We weren’t even allowed to travel anymore. There were times when we were forbidden to leave town altogether – not to mention the daily curfew. In addition, our radios were confiscated, which cut us off from the free world; we used to tune in to the Voice of America [7] or to the BBC in London, before that.
Romania
In 1940 we really became aware of Hitler. We heard stories from Jewish refugees from Austria and began to realize that something was going on. The persecutions against the Jews gradually became less of a story and more of a fact; when the Legionaries came to power, we were affected directly. I, for one, was arrested by the Legionaries on the grounds that I had been a member of the Maccabi association. The legionary doctrine was ‘Jews are Communists’; they considered us the worst wrongdoers, so they had us seized. I was beaten, had my teeth broken and my hair torn out. I suffered a lot. This kind of abuse happened over a short period, for one month, at the time of the legionary rebellion [4]; those were particularly hard times for the Jews. The Legionaries wanted to seize power, but Antonescu [5] stepped in.
I wasn’t able to get a college degree because the times made it impossible for a Jew to go to college.
Romania
From 1940 I worked as a gym teacher. I didn’t have an actual degree in physical education, but I had enough experience from my days at the Maccabi association.
Romania
Right before the war, in 1938 or so, the Maccabi was forced to close because of the political situation, with the Legionaries [3] and all.
While I was a kid, I came to no harm from anti-Semitism. I was completely unfamiliar with the issues of race and faith. Many of my friends were Christian. Many of my classmates, first at the public school and, later, at the ‘Schaffer’ Middle School, were Christian. We didn’t discriminate and had no sense of being discriminated against. We didn’t perceive ourselves as being different from the rest. It all lasted until the late 1930s, when discrimination showed its fangs [When the anti-Jewish laws were enforced by the Goga-Cuza cabinet] [2]. Then the war came and we were forced to realize just how ‘different’ we were.
On certain holidays there were military parades in our town. They taught us patriotic songs in school too. We, the Jews, used to be and still are highly adapted to the customs of the country and of the place of our birth. There wasn’t any discrimination. We all lived in peace and understanding with one another.
When I was 12 or 13, they signed me up for the Maccabi, a Jewish sports association. I trained there as a kid and, later, I worked for them as a coach. Gymnastics was a beautiful sport. It wasn’t compulsory, but the environment there was nice and the coaches were very well trained.
When I grew up, I played ‘real’ soccer and I exercised.
Being a rather frail kid, my parents wanted me to exercise a lot in order to strengthen my body. As for me, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy exercising.
Being a rather frail kid, my parents wanted me to exercise a lot in order to strengthen my body. As for me, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy exercising.
When I was little I used to play with other kids. I used to play a lot! I was an ordinary kid. I ran around all day long, climbing trees, jumping fences, and causing my mother to worry a lot. Hardly had I finished my homework, when I was already outside playing. We played with marbles, we played ‘turca’ [A game in which a small rectangular piece of wood with sharp ends, called turca, is thrown using a two-foot-long stick called batac], we played soccer using a ball made of rags.
To prepare for my bar-mitzvah I took Hebrew classes with a Jewish man. I was able to read Hebrew very well and I could recite the prayers too. When the day came, there was a special service where numerous people were invited. There was a brief speech, and then we put on tefillin, the small leather boxes with sacred texts from the Torah. One is attached to the left arm, one is placed over the heart, and one is put on the forehead. [Actually, there are only two cases: one is attached to the left arm and the other is placed on the forehead. Mr. Wolf probably means that the front side of the former must face the direction of the heart.] This was a classic Jewish ritual signifying the religious coming of age. It was the last tradition I observed.
This synagogue was located opposite the Maccabi [1], on Coroanei Street. There were actually two synagogues there, which have both been demolished and replaced with other buildings. My parents regularly attended one of those two synagogues on holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
There weren’t Talmud Torah classes in my time. Still, at the age of 13, I celebrated my bar mitzvah like I was supposed to, in the synagogue my parents went to.
Then I went to the ‘Schaffer’ Middle School, which was in the same building as the ‘Hirsch Baroness’ School [for girls], located on Cuza Avenue, next to the public bathhouse. The School for Nurses is located there today.
My favorite subject was physical education. I also liked geography, history, and Romanian. I didn’t like math and wasn’t good at it. One of my favorite teachers was Mr. Balanescu, who taught chemistry. In fact, he’s the only one I can remember. I also had a number of tutors who helped me with my homework from time to time. They were hired by my parents.
I didn’t study Hebrew in school. The middle school was a Christian establishment where the Jewish children studied alongside the Romanian ones. For the religion classes, we would separate: the Christian kids studied with a local priest, while we studied with the Chief Rabbi. At that time, the Chief Rabbi was Dr. Thenen.
My favorite subject was physical education. I also liked geography, history, and Romanian. I didn’t like math and wasn’t good at it. One of my favorite teachers was Mr. Balanescu, who taught chemistry. In fact, he’s the only one I can remember. I also had a number of tutors who helped me with my homework from time to time. They were hired by my parents.
I didn’t study Hebrew in school. The middle school was a Christian establishment where the Jewish children studied alongside the Romanian ones. For the religion classes, we would separate: the Christian kids studied with a local priest, while we studied with the Chief Rabbi. At that time, the Chief Rabbi was Dr. Thenen.
There was a Jewish elementary school in Braila, but I didn’t go there. Instead, I attended the School no.1 for the first four years. Studying in a regular public school, alongside the Romanians, we, the Jewish kids, became familiar with their traditions. So we celebrated Easter, Christmas or the New Year as if they were our own.
I didn’t have a nanny either. We only had a cook.
In the summer, my mother would go to health resorts like Calimanesti or Sovata, as she had liver and stomach problems that she sought to cure using mineral waters. We, the children, would accompany her.
Most of my parents’ friends were Jewish. They ate out regularly, usually on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They often took us, the children, along. They led a quiet life, with little partying.
My father was not affiliated with any political party or cultural organization.
In the early 1930s my parents moved to Bucharest, where my father started a new business of making clothes and selling fabrics.
My parents used to take me to the synagogue quite often. They weren’t very religious, but they regularly observed the holidays. They were members of the Jewish Community and they would go to the synagogue, especially on High Holidays.
Many Jews lived in our town when I was a child. There were as many as eight synagogues, plus the Choral Temple, which was located opposite the headquarters of the Jewish Community, on Petru Maior Street.