When I grew a little older, my father bought me a couple of pigeons. Tumbler pigeons were popular with boys then. He bought these to me for my promise to eat better, but my fondness of pigeons didn’t last long, and my father gave them away. Perhaps, my dislike of eating is to blame for my poor memory of the everyday food we had. The only food I liked was chicken, and I shouted to Mother: ‘Just give me the white meat!’ She was concerned that our neighbors might hear me shouting and think that we, God forbid, might be eating pork, and she asked me to be quieter.
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Displaying 21601 - 21630 of 50826 results
Yankl Dovid Dudakas
There was a big Russian stove [7], which served for heating purposes. Mama also cooked on it since we had no kitchen quarters. Our family led a rather modest life on the verge of poverty. However, we always had sufficient food. We were never hungry. Besides, I was a poor eater in my childhood, and hungry children aren’t picky with food. I didn’t like eating at home, and Mama was chasing after me with a plate and a spoon in her hands. I used to run to Grandfather Meir and Grandmother Etah’s place where I liked eating sour cream. I liked watching my grandmother Etah pouring sour cream into a saucer and how it rippled in circles. Well, as if sour cream we had at home was different!
I remember our apartment very well. It was in a small building in Jonava. Most of the population in Jonava lived in such buildings. The apartment owner was Dvoira, an older Jewish woman. She also lived in this house and had a small store. The front door to the owner’s quarters was on the side of the street, and we entered our apartment from the backyard. There was one big room and something like a pigeonhole of the bedroom in it. There was a curtain separating this pigeonhole from the rest of the room. We had plain and simple furniture, though it was very robust. My mother’s brothers made it a long time before. My parents slept on a huge wooden bed, and Mende and I slept on a special sofa. In Yiddish the word for this sofa meant ‘a sleeping bench.’ There was a mattress on this bench where my brother and I were sleeping. When Simon grew older, I started sleeping on a little mattress, and my younger brother took my place.
After their wedding my parents rented a small apartment. I, Yankl Dovid, was born in this apartment on 30th March 1930. In 1933 my brother, who was given the name of not so long ago deceased great-grandfather Mende, was born. In 1935 our younger brother Simon was born. I still have memories of my early childhood. At home I was called Dodik and I got used to this name. I still respond, when they address me as Dovid, though I have the name Yankl in my passport.
My mother had some education. I don’t know where she studied. I think she studied for a few years in a Jewish school. She knew Russian, could read in Russian and Hebrew and later she also learned Lithuanian. My mother and father grew up in traditional Jewish families, respecting Jewish traditions and religion. My parents were seeing each other for about ten years. They got married in 1929, when my father had firm ground under his feet and could provide for the family. They had a religious wedding and it couldn’t have been otherwise. My parents were married under the chuppah in the synagogue in Jonava.
Esther-Rochl, the youngest one in the family, was born in 1914. Her fiancé was a young handsome guy. His name was Efraim Schmidt. Esther-Rochl and Efraim dated for a few years delaying their wedding for an indefinite time. They were modern young people and had many friends. When the Great Patriotic War began, Efraim evacuated with us having the status of Esther-Rochl’s fiancé. On the way Esther-Rochl lost Efraim. When they were reunited again, they volunteered to the army. Esther-Rochl and her fiancé joined the front line during the first months of the war. Esther-Rochl was killed in early 1942, and Efraim served in the Lithuanian division. He was killed in 1943.
My mother’s youngest brother Efraim, born in 1913, wasn’t married before the war. After the war he married Yida, a Jewish woman. They had two girls: Esther El and Anna. They both live in Israel with their families. Efraim was often ill before the war. He died from heart disease in 1961. His grandson, Anna’s son has his grandfather’s name. His name is Efraim. This is all I know about this family.
Their son Meir got married and had two daughters. Zelda married a Jewish man from Vilnius, but her husband died young and she was left with two children. In the 1970s Yosif Meishe, Esther and their family moved to Israel. Yosif Meishe died at the age of 76, and Esther followed him shortly afterward. Meir, his family and Zelda live in Israel.
After the war Yosif Meishe did his duty: he decided to raise his brother’s son and married Esther. It was a Jewish tradition: when one brother died, the remaining brother was to marry his widow. However, Yosif Meishe fell in love with Esther. They had a son and a daughter in their marriage. Their son’s name was Meir, and their daughter’s name was Zelda. Yosif Meishe was raising Fayvel no different from his own children, but Fayvel had mental problems. He couldn’t get over his father’s death. A few years after the Great Patriotic War, he fell off a balcony and died. It never became known whether this was his intention or a mere accident. Yosif Meishe and Esther were grieving about his death for many years.
Following her four daughters, Beyle Leya started having sons. In 1911 Yosif Meishe was born, and then Zalman came next. Yosif Meishe was a rather sickly youngster before the war. He studied cabinet making and worked for a businessman. Yosif didn’t marry before the war. As for Zalman, who also became a cabinet maker, he married Esther, a Jewish woman, before the war. Their son Fayvel was born in the late 1930s. During the Great Patriotic War Esther, Yosif Meishe and Fayvel were in evacuation with us. Zalman was drafted into the army. He was killed in 1942.
, Lithuania
Joha, who came next after Malka, was born in 1910. She married Meishe Steingoff. Meishe was a cabman. He courted Joha for quite some time. She told him she only wanted to marry a cabinet maker. So, he had to learn this profession, and Joha gave her consent to stand under the chuppah with him. During evacuation they got lost, but shortly after we arrived at our destination my father found Joha, and she moved in with us. Joha was a skilled dressmaker. She worked in the evacuation. Her husband served in the Lithuanian division [6], came back from the front and found Joha. After the war they settled down in Vilnius. They had no children. She didn’t live a long life and died in the 1970s.
, Lithuania
My mother’s next sister Malka was born in 1908. She married Shulem Brezin, a timber rafter. He was a young and healthy man, and Malka was happy with him for several years. She had two daughters: Hanna, born in 1933, and Luba, born in 1934. This was all the luck she had in life. In 1937 Shulem caught a cold during timber rafting on the Neris River and died. Malka was to take care of herself alone. Girsh helped her to start a small business: she opened a small food store where Pesia was helping her. Malka and her daughters were in evacuation with us. After the war they moved to Kaunas. Her older daughter Hanna got married, and the younger one never married. In the 1970s Hanna and her family, Malka and Luba moved to Israel. Luba died in the early 1980s. Hanna and her family live in Israel. Malka is 97 years old now, as far as I know.
, Lithuania
My mother Gitah, born in 1905, was the oldest. After her there came another child almost each year. Pesia, my mother’s sister, who was next after my mother, married an unreliable man. He had the nickname of ‘Avremele the rascal.’ His name was Avrum Begak. His nickname quite explained the kind of man he was. Shortly after his daughter Mina was born in 1932 he left his family. Pesia was left to raise her daughter alone, and my father and mother provided as much support as they could to her. On the day when the war began and our family was about to evacuate, Avrum Begak appeared as if out of nowhere. He evacuated with us, but he disappeared again during the wartime. I have no idea where his life ended. Pesia and Mina returned to Lithuania after the war and lived in Kaunas. Mina got married. In 1972 she, her husband and her mother moved to Israel. Pesia died in the 1980s.
, Lithuania
Beyle Leya’s parents bought her a house where my grandmother and grandfather lived their life and raised their children. It was a two-story building, but it wasn’t large. There were many children in the family, and there was sufficient room in the house for all of them. All children attended cheder and went to elementary school. This was all the education they got. They were helping their parents. The girls were helping their mother about the house, and the boys were helping their father with his horses. The girls grew up and became housewives, and the boys became common laborers.
My maternal grandfather, Girsh Kloz, was born in the 1870s. He was also a cabman and dealt with horses since his young age. My grandfather often recalled how he met and fell in love with my grandmother. Her name was Beyle Leya, and her maiden name was Cooper. She lived in a common Jewish family in Panevezys. My grandfather went to Panevezys on business and stayed overnight at the Cooper’s. Her parents did not quite like Girsh. They were likely to want their daughter to marry a wealthy and successful Jewish man, and didn’t believe a plain cabman to be her match. Girsh decided to kidnap his fiancée. It was a severe winter. He harnessed his horse, put a sheepskin coat onto the wagon, went to Panevezys and kidnapped Beyle Leya. She wasn’t opposed to this deal. Girsh and the girl rode back to Jonava, and her parents had nothing else to do, but recognize the fiancé and arrange a truly Jewish wedding.
My maternal great-grandfather, Mende Kloz, was about 15 years younger than Yankl Dovid. Mende was also a cabman, but in the 1920s he quit his business due to his old age. I remember my great-grandfather very well. I have early memories of my childhood. My great-grandfather and my mother’s parents lived nearby, and my cousins and second cousin brothers and I came to their house to tease our great-grandfather. This was children’s unconscious cruelty. We were jumping around the old man, laughing at his long gray beard and his stick. Mende used to threaten us with his stick and yell at us. However, when Mende died in 1933, I felt real grief and repentance for the first time in my life. I was standing by his head. His body was on the floor. There were candles around his body. My feelings of compassion and fear were overwhelming. I didn’t understand what death was about, but I already knew that fear and still, my great-grandfather would never chase after me again yelling at me for my monkey tricks. I felt very sorry for him, and this compassion was no childish feeling. It helped me to mature.
My mother was my father’s second cousin. When my father was 15, and my mother was 12 to 13 they had already developed a warm and far from cousinly feeling toward one another. Their parents didn’t discourage them since marriages between relatives were a common thing in the Jewish environment.
My father had a horse. It wasn’t big, but it was strong and sturdy. When trucks and buses appeared in Jonava, my father sold his horse and became a co-owner of this company. However, the company owners were smart and educated people. Some time later they paid my father his share and expelled him from the list of co-owners in order not to have to share the profits with him. My father bought a horse and took to his own business. In the late 1930s he obtained a driver’s license and went to work as a driver in that same company. My father drove all across Lithuania. He was familiar with all roads, farms and villages, as well as he was with his own home.
My father, Itzhak Dudak, was born in 1902. I don’t know whether Grandfather Meir managed to give his older children higher education. My father actually had no education. He attended cheder, as a child, where he learned an everyday prayer, but he didn’t know the Saturday prayer. My father couldn’t read or write. Since his early age he was helping his father. He was used to handling horses, and became a cabman, when he grew old enough.
After the war Doba and Genah lived in Kaunas. In the late 1950s they moved to Israel. They had no more children, and for the rest of their life they were blaming themselves for having lost their boy. Genah died in the 1970s, and Doba lived till she became very old, and had to spend several years in a wheelchair. She was eager to see me, but she passed away in 1989 before I visited the country [Israel].
Doba and Genah survived the occupation and all the horrors of the ghetto, but their son Shmerl was killed during on of the actions against children in 1942. Actually he was killed almost by accident. Genah made a shelter for their child in the yard. It was a pit with a camouflaged lid. When the action began, their neighbor came with her baby begging to hide her in the pit. She threatened Genah that she would disclose the existence of the shelter to the Fascists, if he refused to let her hide in the pit. The bunker was only fit to hide a young boy, and the woman’s child was beginning to be short of breath. The woman shifted the lid just a little to let some air in. This happened at the very instant, when the Fascists and Polizei [5] were standing just by the pit. Doba’s son and the woman with her child were executed in a gas chamber on that same day.
When the Great Patriotic War [3] began, Genah, his wife and their son left Kaunas on the first day of the war. Fascists caught up with them on the way. They put Genah behind bars and let Doba and her son go. Genah managed to whisper to his wife, which road back home she should take. At night Genah pulled the bars apart and managed to escape. He caught up with his family, and they got back home. When the ghetto [4] was established in Kaunas, they didn’t have to move anywhere since their house happened to be located within the boundaries of the ghetto.
During World War I, when the Tsarist government took to relocating Jews from border regions to the rear areas in Russia, Meir, Etah and their younger children happened to move to Nizhniy Novgorod where they stayed for a few years before moving back to Jonava. My father’s younger sister Doba was born in 1904. Doba got married late, when she was to turn 30 years old. Her husband, Genah Barel, a huge guy, was known for being very strong. He was a cabman. After their wedding, Doba and her husband moved to Kaunas where they settled in a small house. In 1935 their son Shmerl was born. He took after his father and looked old for his age.
Martha continued corresponding with us during the Soviet period. My mother was very concerned about this. In those years corresponding with people from capitalist countries could have caused trouble [2]. Once Martha sent us one dollar in her letter. My mother was horrified. She never touched the foreign banknote and she never responded to Martha’s letter. So this correspondence died out. We don’t know, when Osher died, but I believe this might have happened in the 1960s. My father’s sister Esther, who was about 15 or 16 by the time she left the country, married well and had seven daughters. After World War II Esther, her husband and children moved to Israel where she passed away in the 1970s.
, Lithuania
In the US, Osher married a young girl from Jonava. I don’t remember her name. Osher didn’t correspond with us, but his wife’s sister Martha and my mother were friends since they were young, and she wrote us letters telling my parents about our relatives. From her letters we knew that a few years after he came to America Efraim fell ill with tuberculosis and died. He never married. Osher had several children. One of them was Milia.
When I was a child, Meir and Etah were left empty-nested. Their children had scattered around the world. Their older children moved to the US at the beginning of the 20th century. They either were looking for a better life, or, according to the family legend, they had ‘got involved in politics.’ Young Jewish people sympathized either with Communists or Zionists, and they happened to be involved. To avoid exile or prison my father’s older brothers Osher and Efraim, who were about 20 years old when my father was born, and their sister Esther left their motherland.
Though Grandfather Meir came from a rather poor family and his only education was cheder, he had a commercial streak, which was quite common in my people. My grandfather became a cabman and then took to the horse trading business. Meir purchased horses in villages to sell them. He sold stronger horses to cabmen, and old horses were sold to slaughter houses: from their skin leather was made, and their meat was used for sausage production. This was a more profitable business allowing Meir to support a rather large family. They were not so well-off, but they always had sufficient food. Meir and Etah had a house of their own. It was a small wooden house like many other in Jonava. This house was in the neighboring street and as a child I often went to see my grandfather. Grandmother Etah died in 1938, and Grandfather Meir’s course of life ended in Nizhniy Novgorod during evacuation in 1942.
Older people were saying that all Jews in Jonava were distantly related to one another due to marriages between relatives. At least, my family can serve as proof of this. My great-grandfathers, my paternal grandmother’s father and my maternal grandfather’s father were brothers. Their name was Kloz. My paternal great-grandfather Yankl Dovid was a cabman. He had passed away before I was born and I was named after him. His daughter, my grandmother Etah, born in the 1860s, married Meir Dudak, my grandfather, who was a few years older. Meir’s brother’s name was Simon. He had passed away before I was born. I only knew his children: Shmuel and Feiga. Shmuel was married to my mother’s friend Rasa. Meir was engaged in cobbler’s craft, which didn’t bring expected profits.
The furniture manufactured in Jonava was to be delivered to clients in the town, its suburbs and sometimes, all over Lithuania. Therefore, this service required a number of horse-drawn cabs and wagons. Later better-off cabmen managed to acquire trucks to serve this purpose of furniture delivery. Their services were highly competitive, and their trucks delivered furniture to Kaunas, Siauliai and Klaipeda. This company competed with similar carriers from Kaunas where the business was owned by Lithuanians. Jonava carriers reduced their delivery prices and won their clients. Gradually other carrier companies went bankrupt and Jonava truck owners gained a monopoly in their industry. Following capitalist practices they raised the price of their services. My ancestors and close relatives, both on the maternal and paternal side, were directly involved in this business. They were mainly cabmen, and those, who were doing better, managed to learn the furniture making skills.
Jonava was surrounded by a number of villages where Russian Old Believers [1] resided. There were considerably fewer Lithuanians in our surrounding. There was a Catholic cathedral where they came to pray. I can’t remember whether there was an Orthodox church in the town, while there were a few synagogues. Actually, there were two or three smaller synagogues in each street. There was also a large two-story wooden synagogue with the women’s quarters on the second floor. This synagogue looked huge and extremely beautiful to me. Nowadays, when I visit Jonava, all I see is a small wooden building. The second floor of the synagogue was removed after the war.