I was happy when the State of Israel was founded [11]. It was a great victory for the Jews worldwide. While I followed with great interest and satisfaction every step of the way towards the new Jewish state, I was saddened by the way things turned out. I deeply feel for the suffering of the Jewish people, for all the innocent lives that were lost and are still being lost in those terrorist attacks.
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Max Wolf
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My wife and I rarely went to theater performances or to concerts. We spent most of our spare time visiting friends and relatives, like my wife’s sisters, for instance. We also kept in touch with my brother, who lived in Bucharest. We led a quiet, ordinary life.
After I got married I lived at my wife’s for a while, until the two of us rented a place. After my mother died we moved in with my father; his health had deteriorated and he couldn’t look after himself any longer. Two years later, his turn to pass away came too. We stayed in his house for a while, and then we moved to another place. One last move got us to this studio, the one I currently live in, located in the Hipodrom [district].
Romania
My wife and I got along well as far as our traditions were concerned, and the fact that neither of us was very religious helped. We had agreed to keep both my holidays and hers. So we celebrated the Jewish holidays, but we also celebrated Easter and Christmas. And everything was fine.
Romania
There was no religious ceremony at my wedding, it being a mixed marriage. To me, it didn’t matter whether my wife-to-be was Jewish or not, as I never had any problems with Christians.
Braila had many ethnic groups: Romanians, Greeks, Armenians, Turks, Jews etc. They all lived together peacefully. The Jews were particularly close to the Greeks. I mean, we were on good terms with everyone, but we had a special affinity for the Greeks. We were on best terms with them.
Her father worked in the town harbor for an import-export company. He was the leader of the teams who moored the ships that docked in Braila.
Her native tongue was Romanian, but she also spoke Greek, of course.
Romania
I married a Christian woman in May 1940, so there you have it: an inter-ethnic marriage. Her name was Elena Zalumis, but I used to call her Lilica. She was born in 1914 and was a Christian-Orthodox of Greek descent.
I never chose my friends according to their religious affiliation. For me, it was never a big deal whether they were Jewish or Christian. I spent a lot of time among Christians and never found it unnatural. I sort of consider Easter or Christmas my holidays too.
Romania
At the workplace, I never had any problems because I was a Jew.
After the war, I resumed my teaching career at the ‘Schaffer’ Middle School, which became the ‘Schaffer’ High School. I taught there until 1948, when all private schools were closed. Then I worked at some public schools in Braila: the School for Nurses and the Steel Industry High School, for instance. I never was a swimming champion, but only a good swimmer. I used to teach swimming classes by the Danube River for the School for Nurses of the Red Cross. I also taught at the Workers’ Faculty for as long as it was open. I was rather sought-after, being one of the best gym teachers in town.
My father died at the age of 64, in 1956. My mother died in 1953. They are both buried in the Jewish cemetery in Braila. Their funerals observed the traditions of a religious ceremony and were officiated by a religious assistant. We had a tombstone made for each.
I served in the labor detachment until 1944, until the very end. I walked out of there on 23rd August 1944 [10]. I was in Vadeni, 10-12 kilometers away from Braila [Editor’s note: 22 kilometers north-west of Braila] when the Russians [Editor’s note: the Germans] started bombing the town of Galati. At midnight I was sitting on top of a pile of hay and saw the town being lit up by the bombing. It was so bright that you could read a newspaper! I kept turning my eyes towards Braila, to check on the town where my parents were. Fortunately, it remained covered in darkness. I felt more relaxed knowing my native town was not a target. However, some 30 kilometers northward, Galati was being bombed like crazy. [As a result of the events of 23rd August 1944 – when Romania broke the alliance with Nazi Germany and joined the Allied Powers – the German forces unleashed a fierce attack on Bucharest, on Hitler’s order. In the days that followed, heavy fighting took place in Bucharest, on Prahova’s Valley and in some other areas. By 28th August 1944, the Nazi resistance had been annihilated.]
Things changed radically for us when the commander of our detachment and his soldiers fled. We were free to leave for Braila. It took us eight hours to get there, because we had to avoid the ordinary roads. They were definitely not the place to be at that particular time, as they were crawling with the withdrawing German tanks and troops. So we got on a freight train that headed to Braila. The trip lasted for 4-5 hours, because the train kept stopping. At one point, all trains were halted in order to block the Nazi withdrawal. When we finally got to Braila, our families were happy to see us, happy the war was over, and happy the whole forced labor routine had become a thing of the past.
Things changed radically for us when the commander of our detachment and his soldiers fled. We were free to leave for Braila. It took us eight hours to get there, because we had to avoid the ordinary roads. They were definitely not the place to be at that particular time, as they were crawling with the withdrawing German tanks and troops. So we got on a freight train that headed to Braila. The trip lasted for 4-5 hours, because the train kept stopping. At one point, all trains were halted in order to block the Nazi withdrawal. When we finally got to Braila, our families were happy to see us, happy the war was over, and happy the whole forced labor routine had become a thing of the past.
They later took us to Cotu Lung and Cotu Mihalea [27 and 29 kilometers north-west of Braila]. Most of our work was concentrated on the banks of the Siret River, around the pillboxes [Editor’s note: pillbox is a military term for a type of bunker]. The ground on which they had been erected was being eroded by the stream and we had to reinforce it. Those pillboxes had been designed to protect us from the Soviets, but they were never used. When the front was broken, the Russians simply went round them. They were equipped with heavy machine guns. Our work consisted mainly of digging, and I can assure you that was hard work. In fact, working with iron and dirt was the most difficult kind of labor. I pity those who had to work in a mine. We were lucky to be used only on the surface, doing that reinforcement work.
We lived in huts dug in the dirt. We had found them there, covered with planks. Rats were abound and hygiene was precarious. Food came in a bucket and it often had maggots in it. We would pick them and eat the food anyway, because we simply had to eat something.
We lived in huts dug in the dirt. We had found them there, covered with planks. Rats were abound and hygiene was precarious. Food came in a bucket and it often had maggots in it. We would pick them and eat the food anyway, because we simply had to eat something.
I was able to keep in touch with my parents: every now and then, I would go AWOL. My detachment was located 25-45 kilometers away from Braila, close enough for me to go home for a weekend from time to time. I would have my laundry washed and get food and money from my parents.
Meyer Markhasin
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I was lucky to get evacuated in February 1942 via the frozen Ladozhskoye Lake. At first I went to see my wife in Borovichi. On the way I ate something wrong and felt really unwell. I was sitting in the station buffet with other evacuated students when an officer approached, asking: "What’s the matter with him?" They said: "Something wrong with his stomach, he’s dying." The officer quickly reached into his field bag, took out some powder and asked the bartender to get some water. Then he put the powder in the water and the guys opened my mouth and poured half a glass of water in. A bit later my stomach got better and I more or less revived. In this condition I arrived to my first wife in Borovichi. I was suffering from dysentery and could hardly stand on my legs. We were allowed free food in a canteen for the blockade survivors and were fed five times a day. But most interesting: when I approached the house of my wife and knocked on the door, she asked: "Who is it?» and I said: "Mark". It was for a long time known that people were dying in Leningrad, and she considered me dead. She opened the door pale asceiling plaster wondering how I managed to get out of that hell. For some time I lived in Borovichi with her, our four-month daughter Alenka and Zoya’s mother.
In 1944 in Moscow I defended my diploma and was assigned a job in the city of Kalinin, now renamed Tver. I worked there until 1946 at the factory "Kreps" which produced rubber for shoe soles. When they asked me where I was from, I said I was from Leningrad, so in the protocol it was written: "With subsequent transfer as a young specialist to Leningrad." In Kalinin I also worked at an enterprise of light industry called "The Russian Diesel" factory. I was transferred there from "Kreps" as a chief mechanical engineer.
I moved there in the times of the notorious "doctors’ plot" in 1952. It is interesting, that the acting chief mechanics, a Russian and a Party member, was dismissed from his position, and a non-party Jew was hired instead. I arrived there at such a time, when Jews were simply thrown out of buses and trams. I was met extremely coldly in the factory! The director began to follow me everywhere and kept an eye on me to see where I would fail. My every wrong step was reported to the Ministry and there were innumerable complains. But it was very interesting, and now I laugh when I remember it, but then I suffered a lot. The situation was like this: I often visited the Head Office where I had a lot of friends, with whom I was in the institute, and they would tell me everything, so I was always informed of all those intrigues. Before I occupied my position, there was an engineer working there from the factory "The Red Triangle," who had designed some kind of semi-automatic machine. They produced paints and round shoe polish tins with a label. With the help of his fingers and gesticulation and without any design documentation or drawings he commenced to show how exactly he was going to build his apparatus. And by the time I appeared there they had already spent an enormous sum of money on that machine. When I arrived and saw the kinematics, I understood that the device wouldn’t ever work. I came to the director, not knowing who hired the guy, and said: "What kind of fool was this who could employ the guy who has neither drawings nor any documentation and who shows everything using only his fingers? Heaps of money have been already spent, and nothing is going to come out of this automatic device!" And it turned out that the director himself appeared to be that fool. It was horrible! Finally, I quarreled with him and filed an application on dismissal. I worked in Kalinin for some time, from 1944 to 1946, and in 1946 quit my job and went back to Leningrad. After the war was over we returned to Leningrad and I worked at the factory "Russian Diesel" from 1946 to 1947 in the department of chief mechanic as an engineer.
My wife also worked as an engineer at the factory "Kreps." From 1948 to 1951 I lived in Kalinin again, where I was assigned to work as the deputy head of the mechanical factory.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
. The death of Stalin in 1953 was a good news to me, though many people cried. Though we had always been duped, I knew for sure what kind of man he was and how much trouble he had brought to the Jewish people. And had he lived another year, the Jewish people would have suffered from him even in a greater degree than from Hitler.
I returned to Leningrad in 1952 and worked as the chief mechanical engineer of the Leningrad Chemical Plant of Light Industry until 1958. From 1958 to 1974 I worked as the chief mechanical engineer at the Leningrad Fur Factory. From 1974 to 1977 I was the chief mechanical engineer of the four joint fur factories of Leningrad and Leningrad region. I have been retired since 1977.
My wife and me celebrated only the Jewish New Year and Pesach. I believed these two holidays were the most important, as well as Purim, which we also celebrated, but not as solemnly. We knew that on Purim it was necessary to bake poppyseed pies, on Passover we always purchased and ate matzot, cooked gefillte fish. I tried not to eat bread and matzot at one time. Thus, my family knows about the most important Jewish holidays.
My son Boris finished the medical institute in 1969, and became a dentist. My first daughter Alevtina graduated from the Institute of Technology named after Lensovet in 1965 and worked as an engineer in microelectronics. My second daughter Tatiana completed the economic faculty of the Institute of Technology of Paper Industry in 1972 and worked as an economist.
My children did not have any troubles because of their Jewishness, because they were not considered pure Jews.
I personally had felt a lot of anti-Semitism in Stalin times, especially in the period of struggle with cosmopolitanism and "the doctors’ affair." I remember there was an issue of "Ogonyok" magazine, where on the cover there was a portrait of a man with a long nose and the inscription said: "Cosmopolitan.
When in 1948 the state of Israel was formed, the Jews were not allowed to leave this country, and there was no question of moving there. Now my niece, the daughter of my sister Mira, lives in Israel. I painfully reacted to wars in Israel in 1967 and 1973, and now I feel upset about everything that is going on there now. I consider Palestine the native land of my people, and I consider Russia my motherland, since I was born in Russia, and all of my ancestors lived and were buried here. I have not been to Israel, but my two cousins and a niece with her family live there. Israel is our state. It should always stay Jewish.
In their souls both my daughter and son are Jews, they are proud to be Jews, all the more so that I tell them a lot about the Bible, about our Jewish prophets, about Moses, who released Jews from Egyptian slavery, and received 10 Commandments written on tables on Mount Sinai, from which the Torah and the Jewish religion began. They know all of it. And even my grandsons know. I also told them what happened to our family during the war. So they have learnt a lot from me. This knowledge has passed to them from me, and to me from my father. Already living in Leningrad, father was a member of “the twenty” in the synagogue, in the Jewish community. He told me many stories from the Bible. I later passed it all on to my kids. This is reason why my two kids have a Jewish soul although they have Russian mother. We keep our heritage.
There was never any democracy in this country, although we are now allowed to chatter about everything. We have to wait at least another one hundred years for a real democracy in Russia. I would not explain that is clear without explanations.
Grandfather worked in Kiev as an accountant for a well known Jewish businessman named Brodsky and kept all the books in Yiddish.
They always spoke in Yiddish in the family, therefore I know Yiddish well.
They always spoke in Yiddish in the family, therefore I know Yiddish well.