I'm from a poor family, no servants or nannies, we never had anything like that.
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agi sofferova
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We also had a lot of Jewish schools there, those cheders, a lot of kids attended them. In any case, there were several schools in Mukachevo, Russian schools, Ukrainian ones; I attended the Hebrew high school. It was quite far from our place, but of course there was nothing like bus service in those days. They walked me to school. Up to the age of ten I certainly didn't walk there alone. It really was quite far. The school itself didn't particularly stick in my memory. I think that we used to go places on trips.
All traditions were strictly observed in Mukachevo. The kashrut, everything. My favorite holiday was Passover. That was beautiful. Father would lead the seder, and the family would meet. The New Year [Rosh Hashanah] was also important. Those were probably the most important holidays. But my favorite was Passover, because by then it was already spring. I took the restrictions related to traditions simply as a matter of course. As I've said, Mukachevo was half Jewish, so there it was normal.
What were relations between Jews and Christians like? Well, life went on. Of course, when someone was rich, he was envied. But I grew up among Christians, and we always got along well with our neighbors. My friends tended to be Jewish, but where we lived there were also Christian families, and so we played with those children as well. I never met up with anti-Semitism.
Up to the transport, I lived in Mukachevo. It was a large, beautiful modern city. Pavement, electricity, we had all that stuff. Mukachevo was built by the Czechs. [Editor's note: during the years 1918 - 1938, Mukachevo was part of the territory of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Most of the city's older buildings were built during this time period.] When they arrived, it was this no man's land. It had changed hands a lot, there were Romanians there, Hungarians and Ruthenians, and then in 1945 it was ceded to the Russians, so it became part of the Soviet Union, and we [the interviewee means Czechoslovakia] lost it. It used to be beautiful, fertile land, similar to here in Znojmo, grapes, apples, apricots. Then the Russians began mining salt there, and dug it up and ruined it all.
My mother tongue is Hungarian. At home we spoke Hungarian, a little Yiddish, too, but mainly Hungarian. And I had Hebrew schooling. But over the years I've of course forgotten my Hebrew. There was no one to talk to, so I forgot. Here I adopted Czech. I also know German, and now also English. Once upon a time I also spoke Yiddish, I used that as a base for German, Yiddish is quite similar to German. So now I don't speak Yiddish, but German. Even though maybe I'd still be able to get along in Yiddish. I had four years of high school, but then I had to stop attending school, because in 1938 or 1939 the Hungarians arrived [7].
Alexandra Ribush
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I began to reflect on genuine values and the subject of eternity when I grew older. I began to understand that I was born a Jew and that there is a certain sense to it. I'm not really attracted by the religion but by the Jewish traditions and ceremonies, as well as everything else connected with the life of the Jews. This is ours, this is real, and all we were taught is just a husk. I'm trying to celebrate Jewish holidays. I'm trying to cook meals which are described in Jewish cooking books. I don't always succeed, but at least I try. It's important for me because my conscience tells me that I have to think about my soul and about the memories I will leave behind after I die.
Certainly at some times life was very difficult when it came to our financial situation. My pension is very small and we live poorly. It's good that the Jewish community provides help. As a member of the prisoner's society I receive parcels on a regular basis: every month. There is also other help: I wear glasses which I can buy at a very low price; I go to the theater and I went on a trip to Kronstadt. This is all thanks to the community. We also have meetings with the prisoners' society. We get together and stay in contact. We listen to lectures about Jewish traditions and read about the history and holiday customs in books, which are part of the holiday parcels. I would like to take a more active part in the life and work of this society, but haven't succeeded so far because I'm not used to active social and religious life. There always appears something more important for me in this life. Usually I spend my evenings with my husband.
,
After WW2
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My daughter took part in many conferences: in Lithuania and in the Crimea. Last year she visited Israel and came back very delighted. She liked everything very much. Besides, she has a friend, who lives in Israel. They worked together. She came to visit him after the conference and he showed her many towns. You know, she is more Jewish than I am. She attends the synagogue and celebrates all Jewish holidays. She has a lot of friends, both Russian and Jewish. I'm very glad about her success.
I put all my hopes in my daughter Irina. We moved in with my husband in Leningrad in 1958. She grew up here, finished school and graduated from the Institute of Culture. She worked at the Academy of Arts and at the Institute of Culture. Now she works as head of library for the Scientific and Research Institute of the History of Art, located on Isaaciyevsky Square. She has a very interesting job, though her salary is very low. She was offered a job with a payroll of 300 USD, but she preferred to stay with her 700 rubles [20 USD]. She could afford to do so since she doesn't have a family of her own and lives with her mum and dad. Irina isn't married since she hasn't met a decent man. In 1995 she studied for five months in America, at the University of Champain [in Illinois]. She won the Soros [19] Fund grant for studying the newest librarian methods. Unfortunately, only a few of these novelties can be applied in our conditions. Everything new requires a lot of money and the institute doesn't even have funds to buy new books.
My husband and I were no friends with my younger brother Volodya. He was five years younger than me. We grew up separately. Volodya was three years old when my mum was arrested. He stayed with us in Kazakhstan. He finished ten years of school in Kansk and entered the Irkutsk Polytechnical Institute, subfaculty of geology. That was in 1951. I graduated from the institute at the time he entered it. However, after the 2nd year of his studies when our parents returned to Leningrad he moved in with them and continued to study at the Leningrad State University, at the faculty of geology, from 1952 to 1956. He was accepted to the previous year of study. After his graduation he stayed in Leningrad and started to work but he felt bored with it. In a year he got an assignment and left for Ulan-Ude and worked there until he retired. He defended a Ph.D. thesis there and became a candidate of geological science. After he retired he moved to Irkutsk.
,
After WW2
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My world view changed bit by bit. By the time perestroika started I was almost completely disappointed in everything we had been taught, in every single dogma that had been imposed on us. When the democratic changes began in this country with Gorbachev [18], I was ready to accept the changes and stopped believing in communism being our bright future. After the country fell apart we at first trusted Gaidar's government reforms and believed that he would be able to do something. Later all those political games began to bore us. I ceased paying attention to them. I simply live today, the moment. I see my friends and relatives though our relations develop in different ways.
,
After WW2
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Last year my daughter visited Israel. She came back delighted, told me about the Wailing Wall, about the sanctuaries of our nation. She told me a lot and I began to understand what kind of country Israel, our historical motherland, was.
,
After WW2
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The Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973 didn't really have any influence on me [see Six-Day War [16] and Yom Kippur War [17]]. I simply didn't understand the core of the conflicts and the strife. I didn't know what kind of people these Arabs were. I didn't really care about it either. Later on I figured out a lot for myself.
,
After WW2
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After the war my mother worked as an oculist at a clinic. She retired in 1963.
Later, in 1955, with the help of the district party committee they obtained an apartment. It was at a time when those who returned from imprisonment acquired apartments. My father was very sick and wasn't able to work properly, to his full capacity that is, so he worked as a consultant-neuropathologist at the Psychiatric Hospital #2. In 1958 me, my husband and our little daughter moved to Leningrad and lived with my parents in their two-bedroom apartment, so there were five of us: my dad, my mum, me, my husband and our daughter. My brother Volodya left for Ulan- Ude to work at that time.
My mother was free and my father had to go to the militia station to register in order to prove that he hadn't left or escaped. Volodya left to study at Irkutsk Polytechnic Institute in 1951.
After Stalin had died in 1953, my parents returned to Leningrad.
After Stalin had died in 1953, my parents returned to Leningrad.
,
After WW2
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In 1948 my father was imprisoned and we lost touch with him; there was no information about him. In 1949 a group of physicians was sent from Tomsk to have a close look at prisons in Novosibirsk. One of the doctors recognized my dad, as she had met him before. He was in the prison hospital. She wasn't able to tell my mother since they weren't acquainted; she only knew my dad. She sent this information to me through her son, with whom I had gone in for sports in Tomsk. She said that my mother immediately had to go to a certain hospital in Novosibirsk, where my dad was staying at the time. My mum went there and had to visit all the managers until she finally obtained permission for my father to get smooth prison treatment. He was allowed to leave with my mum and was exiled to the town of Kansk.
Later my mother took my brother Volodya away from Tomsk.
Later my mother took my brother Volodya away from Tomsk.
When Stalin died in 1953 we were very young. I wasn't married at that time yet, lived in the dormitory and worked at the plant in Irkutsk. The country was in deep mourning, people were crying. I didn't cry. I hoped that since he had died, my parents would have an easier life. However, being an active YCL member, I stood guard of honor at the Stalin monument on the territory of the plant yard. Life was really so double-sided! We were one thing outwardly, but deep inside something different already started to ripen.
First doubts came to my mind when I was a student at the institute. We studied Clause IV of the 'Short Historical Course of the All-Union Communist Party (b)'. The clause was related to the Marxism-Leninism philosophy. Our teacher very passionately told us that no one had been able to write such a Clause, so comrade Stalin had written it himself. He appeared to be the only decent man of all, concealed his authorship, never told anyone about it because he was very modest. Immediately a question arose for me. What kind of modest person could he be if he called himself the father of genius, etc. So these were the doubts I had. I at once recalled my school teachers' disputes, which we had overheard in our childhood. However, those doubts were quite vague, since I was absolutely Soviet. I believed that dad had been slandered and it had nothing to do with Stalin. The policy of the Party was quite definite but I knew that dad hadn't been able to act against the Party and I thought that he had been slandered. That was what I thought at that time, though later on I reached other conclusions.
I never had any spare time, as I was always a very active public person, a member of the YCL [Young Communist League] and a sportswoman. Actually I went to extremes. I went in for track and field athletics and free calisthenics simultaneously. A lot of young people were fond of sports in those years. Being young I was a true YCL member. I believed everything we were told about communism, the Soviet power, etc. I believed that God didn't exist and thought that only illiterate old people believed in Him.
,
After WW2
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I didn't celebrate Jewish holidays, I even forgot about them.
,
After WW2
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In general I was always a very sociable person and I had a lot of Russian friends. We celebrated Soviet holidays together. My favorite holiday was New Year's, but not the Jewish New Year, I mean the one common to all mankind.
Though sometimes there were anti-Semitic hints. For instance, our household manager, when I asked for some materials for the laboratory, once told me, 'You are pestering me with requests like a Jewish woman'. And I replied, 'Why like? I am one.' She was close to dropping on her knees and began to beg for forgiveness.
,
After WW2
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I didn't feel any anti-Semitism until I returned to Leningrad in 1958. When I arrived I started to work at the Arsenal plant. It's a secret artillery plant. Later the plant started to produce satellites. The attitude there was decent enough. However, when I decided to take a job at the Scientific and Research Institute, I was rejected as a Jew. I don't look like a Jew by appearance, but Jewish is stated as my nationality in my passport. Everything went well at the beginning, we even agreed upon the payroll. When I brought my passport to the manager, he looked at it and said: 'You know, this position is already taken'. I stayed at the plant and worked there until I retired in 1976. I retired very early. I had the right to retire at the age of 45, but did so when I was 50 something I think, I was 52 at that time. [Editor's note: Starting from the 1960s retirement age in the USSR was established 60 years for men and 55 years for women. Military men, also those who worked at hazardous production enterprises and people who worked in the utmost North retired at the age of 45.]
Later I returned a few times to the plant, when it had difficult, 'hot' times. As I said before, I don't really look like a typical Jew, so I never faced any hostility in everyday life. I was mostly surrounded by decent people. Though sometimes there were anti-Semitic hints. For instance, our household manager, when I asked for some materials for the laboratory, once told me, 'You are pestering me with requests like a Jewish woman'. And I replied, 'Why like? I am one.' She was close to dropping on her knees and began to beg for forgiveness.
Later I returned a few times to the plant, when it had difficult, 'hot' times. As I said before, I don't really look like a typical Jew, so I never faced any hostility in everyday life. I was mostly surrounded by decent people. Though sometimes there were anti-Semitic hints. For instance, our household manager, when I asked for some materials for the laboratory, once told me, 'You are pestering me with requests like a Jewish woman'. And I replied, 'Why like? I am one.' She was close to dropping on her knees and began to beg for forgiveness.
My husband studied at a heavy engineering school before he started to work at the industrial school. Besides working at the plant he also studied at the mechanical department of the Agricultural Institute. He became a mechanical engineer after graduating from the institute in 1958.
,
1958
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Vasiliy studied in an industrial school in Irkutsk and stayed there to work as a metal turner. He started to study there in 1942 after his father died. In 1955 he got transferred to the V.V. Kuibyshev heavy engineering plant, where I worked. We both went in for sports: I was fond of track and field athletics, and my husband liked rowing. There were competitions held in the city under the title 'Circle around the city', in which representatives of various kinds of sports took part. We got acquainted during one of those sports events and later we figured out that we worked at one and the same plant. We were in one sports team. There was this woman, Valentina Victorovna, who arranged all these competitions. She was called 'sports business organizer'. She was managing the sports department at the plant and we all hung out there often and got acquainted there. It also turned out that Valentina Victorovna was born on 9th December, just like me, as well as my husband, though he was born a year earlier than me. So we decided to celebrate our birthdays jointly with our sports team. We were placed at one table as the 'main characters' of the date. Since that time we've never parted.
Four fifth of my friends were Russians. I still have friends from my student's years. Volodya Bordukhov came from the family of servicemen. He was born at Bolotnaya station in Siberia. Only military units were located there. He came to Tomsk to study and we met there. 30 years have passed since the moment he told me, 'You know, I always knew that it's bad to be a Jew, though I never knew any Jews. And here I am at the institute where I find a lot of great guys and girls, and they are Jews.' It was like a bomb exploding for him. Graduates from our university meet every five years. Our first gathering was arranged here, in Leningrad in 1966. It was the 15th anniversary of our graduation. After that we met regularly in Moscow and in Novosibirsk. Starting from the 25th anniversary we met every five years in Tomsk. I went there this year, too, and a lot of my university mates came. It's very expensive to go there. I am a blockade survivor and have the right to travel free of charge, so it would have been a sin not to go. It's very nice in Siberia in winter. I feel much better there than in Leningrad.
,
After WW2
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I didn't feel humiliated for being a Jew.
,
After WW2
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I felt oppression because my father was declared an enemy of the people. I wasn't allowed to choose the profession I was interested in. I was accepted to the faculty where they didn't have enough students. I didn't get what I chose, but something I was allowed or assigned to. For instance: all my co-students at university went to do practical work at the Kuznetsk metallurgical combine. I wasn't allowed to go since the enterprise belonged to the 1st category of secrecy [see access to state secret] [15]. So I had to do my practical work at a small mechanical plant in Tomsk.
When I graduated from university in 1951 I was deprived of the right to continue my post-graduate studies, as I was the daughter of an enemy of the people. The fact that I was a Jewess, my nationality, didn't mean anything: children of enemies of the people, who were Russian by nationality weren't accepted either, and literally weren't allowed to live a normal life. The 'enemy of the people' was not simply a national problem, but a social and a political one. I was assigned to work in a laboratory of the V.V. Kuibyshev heavy engineering plant in Irkutsk. There was no possibility to choose either. In general there was a wide choice, but I was only allowed to go to either Krasnoyarsk or Irkutsk. So I worked there up until 1958. It was a laboratory plant. I worked there as a senior engineer in the laboratory of the physical metallurgy. My responsibility was to determine solidity and durability. If something got broken because of some hidden flaw, I was supposed to detect the flaw.
When I graduated from university in 1951 I was deprived of the right to continue my post-graduate studies, as I was the daughter of an enemy of the people. The fact that I was a Jewess, my nationality, didn't mean anything: children of enemies of the people, who were Russian by nationality weren't accepted either, and literally weren't allowed to live a normal life. The 'enemy of the people' was not simply a national problem, but a social and a political one. I was assigned to work in a laboratory of the V.V. Kuibyshev heavy engineering plant in Irkutsk. There was no possibility to choose either. In general there was a wide choice, but I was only allowed to go to either Krasnoyarsk or Irkutsk. So I worked there up until 1958. It was a laboratory plant. I worked there as a senior engineer in the laboratory of the physical metallurgy. My responsibility was to determine solidity and durability. If something got broken because of some hidden flaw, I was supposed to detect the flaw.