I take part in the work of two Jewish organizations. One of them is called ‘Relations with Israel’ by the committee of the veterans of war. There are regular interesting lectures, thematic meetings, and concerts in the Israeli cultural center. I am a member of the society [Moscow Council] of Jewish War Veterans [50] headed by the Hero of the Soviet Union [51] Moses Marianovskiy. Recently a Jewish Community Center was opened. I go there very often. There are interesting classes in the center and everybody can find the classes of his interest. I am very keen on the history of the Jewish people. I take books on Jewish history out from the library and I enjoy reading them. But it refers to the history only; I am still unreligious maybe for the reason of my atheist upbringing in school and at home. I am happy to see children and teenagers, who are willing to know their ancestry and come to the Jewish center.
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Displaying 3871 - 3900 of 50826 results
marina sineokaya
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My father’s family lived in Moscow. In spite of the Jewish Pale of Settlement [1] in tsarist Russia, and the ban for Jews to live in big cities, my grandfather, Moses Yanov, was granted that right. He was a soldier, a cantonist [2]. I don’t know where he was born, or the family he came from. All I know is that he had served in the tsarist army for 25 years. When the term of the service of cantonists was over, they were permitted to settle in any place they chose.
My grandfather was granted a rather large amount of money by the government and a plot of land. He started his own business of leasing carriages. He built a house for the family and a premise for the carriages. His business was very profitable.
After my grandfather’s death, my grandmother lived with the family of her eldest son Ion. She died in 1935. She was buried next to my grandfather in accordance with the Jewish rites. This was the first time I attended a traditional Jewish funeral. She was buried in a shroud, not in a coffin. There were many people at the cemetery. An elderly Jew, clad in a frock coat and a hat, was reading a long prayer. Everyone was listening to him very attentively and repeating certain words of the prayer after him. The women were crying. After the funeral we didn’t observe mourning in our house. The graves of my grandparents are still there.
Before the revolution [see Russian Revolution of 1917] [3] my father took the Russian name Vladimir [common name] [4], which was later written in his documents.
I hardly know anything about my father’s life before I was born. I don’t know whether my father or his brothers got Jewish education. I assume they did, as my grandparents were very religious people. My father told me that my grandfather always used to wear a kippah.
When World War I was unleashed, my father was drafted into the army. He was a signalman. He came back in 1918 and found a job as a bookkeeper. Soon after, he married my mother.
My grandfather was a common worker at the mill.
Mendel Kreimer
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My father, Kelman Kreimer, was born in Kishinev in 1886. My father was six years older than my mother. He finished elementary school in Kishinev. Before World War I my father served in the tsarist army. He had beautiful handwriting and served as a writing clerk. His military service was in Poland which belonged to the tsarist Russia then. Their military unit was located near the hunting ground which belonged to a tsarist family. When the family came to hunt, the soldiers were taught to hunt wild boars. They also had to learn safety rules to be on the safe side. This is what my father told me about his service.
My father owned a leather goods store at the time. He purchased leather goods from manufactures in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Germany paying cash for them. He also arranged railroad shipments. My father got broke during the inflation in Germany. He kept all his cash in German Marks. When I was small I saw a whole heap of Mark notes in the wardrobe. My father lost such a whole lot of money: he was so shocked that he even wanted to commit suicide, but my mother managed to calm him down. She was a strong and intelligent woman. My father had no employment for a year or two.
My sister Dina completed elementary school and four years of secondary school. Since my father couldn't afford to pay for her further education, Dina was sent to ORT [12]. It was a Jewish organization where children from poor families studied different professions. Dina studied sewing.
Later, my father managed to get a job as a financial controller in a joint-stock company. This transportation company arranged passenger transportations by the following routes: Kishinev-Orgeyev, Kishinev-Gonchesti, Kishinev- Kreuleni, and Kishinev-Leovo. My father was smart and honest. He managed to increase the company profit significantly within two months and his salary doubled. He told me that their drivers were mainly children of wealthy parents who had escaped from the revolution in Russia in 1917. Many of them owned their own vehicles. My father had to work a lot: almost twelve hours per day and had no days off. In winter he often had to walk to the town since vehicles would get stuck in deep snow. My father only had a day off on Yom Kippur and Pesach, when he went to the synagogue and took me with him.
My mother made sure that we observed all Jewish traditions. We spoke Yiddish at home. All Jews observed all rules during capitalism in Bessarabia. [The interviewee means before Bessarabia/Moldova became a part of the Soviet Union in 1940.] Religion saved our people from disappearing since mixed marriages were forbidden. Judaism is actually the only mono- national religion, the one nation's religion.
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Before WW2
See text in interview
Pesach was the main and most favored holiday. We went to Grandfather Shlomo's house for the first and second seder. [Pesach, like all Jewish holidays lasts two days outside the Holy Land.] Grandfather always conducted seder. There was only family there. Each relative had a seat assigned to him. The youngest kids were to steal the afikoman - a piece of matzah, that grandfather hid away. Everybody had wine and there was a full glass for Prophet Elijah. The door was kept open for him. We observed these rituals accurately. We also sang Pesach songs. I remember a special feeling of joy that I had never felt before.
We fasted on Yom Kippur. I fasted after the age of 13. Frankly speaking, I only managed half the day. When I went into the yard with grapes, my mother would scream, 'God help us!', fearing that the neighbors would see this disgrace.
It's impossible to forget Chanukkah! All children went around to their relatives collecting Chanukkah gelt. Chanukkah gelt meant getting sweets and other joys of life. Chanukkah was a joyful feast. We, boys, also played with the dreidel. There were special games and special rules.
On Purim, my mother made hamantashen and fluden. For fluden she bought special patterned waffles and boiled nuts in honey for filling. There was also baklava. I have vague memories about them, but there were performances: purimspiels presenting Mordechai, Esther and Ahasuerus. I don't remember whether I went to the synagogue to listen to the Scroll of Esther [Megillat Ester]. If Grandfather Shlomo had lived with us I would have remembered more about rituals. After he died in 1932, I stopped going to the synagogue.
My father sent me to the elementary school in Kishinev: 'Magen David Jewish gymnasium for boys.' There was Hebrew taught there and a few Judaism- related subjects in Hebrew. When I finished four grades, my father realized that he couldn't afford to educate me any further. He decided a man had to learn a profession and sent me to a commercial school. This was the way it happened during capitalism: how the human mind worked. I had to pass the exams in the Romanian elementary school in order to enter this commercial school.
I need to say that my generation of young people in Kishinev was lucky to have great teachers. They were the best lecturers of Russia who had escaped from the revolution of 1917, and King Ferdinand I [13] of Romania gave them shelter. After Bessarabia was annexed to Romania in 1918 they taught Russian in gymnasiums for five or six years before they learned sufficient Romanian to teach in it. They were well-educated and good people.
Kishinev was a small town, the majority of its population, which was 50,000 or 60,000, if my memory doesn't fail me, was Jewish [According to the all- Russian census of 1897, in Kishinev there were 108,483 residents, 50,237 Jews among them.] Jews resided in various districts of the town wherever they could afford, but tried to have Jewish neighbors around to feel safer. The locals respected Jews who believed in God and respected other religions. There were Russians and Bulgarians in Kishinev. Romanians believed all Bessarabians to be too Russified and had little trust in us. Bessarabia was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for 300 years and then there were 108 years of the Russian tsarist rule. Of course, we were more attached to the Russian culture, though the Romanian culture also had its positive sides, but still they are so different, these two cultures.
When Cuzists [14] came to power, my German teacher Schreiber, who had pro- fascist ideas, became mayor of the town. Two months later the Iron Guard [15] fighters, who were worse than Hitler's forces, killed Armand Calinescu, Minister of Home Affairs of Romania. [Armand Calinescu, Premier of Romania was murdered in September 1939.] This happened approximately in 1938. Karl II, the King of Romania [see King Carol II] [16], ordered to kill one or two activists of the Iron Guard in bigger towns. Here, in Kishinev, on the corner of Pushkinskaya Street and Alexandrovskiy Avenue, where there is a newspaper kiosk now, a gendarme guarded the bodies of two sentenced Iron Guard fighters. There was a note in Romanian: 'This will happen to every traitor of the state.' Later, my gymnasium fellow student told me that the Germans had killed Schreiber during the war. They said that he simultaneously served the German and English intelligence.
My older sister Dina became a dressmaker after finishing a sewing school. She did very well and very soon she had her own circle of customers. She earned well. She also helped my mother a lot with running the house. My mother had a severe gynecological surgery and couldn't lift any weights. I also tried to make her life easier and did my own laundry. We cared a lot about each other in the family. My parents supported each other. Theirs was a hard life. My father was well-read and knew many interesting things and I enjoyed talking to him, when he was free. In 1939 Dina got married. She had a big wedding party with a chuppah and a rabbi. Unfortunately, I can't remember her husband's first name. His last name was Villerman.
At this time the Soviet troops came to Bessarabia [also see Annexation of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union] [17] and I went to work as an accountant in the Border Forces Construction Agency on the bank of the Prut River, the new borderline between Romania and the USSR. This was construction site 12 of the Kiev military department of the NKVD [18] USSR. This organization was responsible for the construction of barracks and fortifications. They paid well and offered good working conditions. There was an earthquake in 1940 in Kishinev. It destroyed the roof of the neighboring two-storied house and ruined the ceiling in our house. I requested my boss Zyrianskiy, also a Jew, to help me repair our house. Stalin issued an order about providing assistance to civilians after the earthquake and my boss promised to help. Two weeks later our roof was repaired. He kept his word: only the best, very decent and honest people served in the frontier troops at that time.
In spring 1941, I had a free two week vacation in the central trade union recreation home in Odessa. I was accompanied by an NKVD employee since Bessarabians weren't allowed entry into the USSR, so that they didn't know what was actually happening there. I saw the reality for the first time: lines for sugar and calico. They artificially created a paradise in Bessarabia with plenty of goods and low prices. The Soviet power was good at making this sham, and my father used to say that the Soviet power was a purimspiel.
When the war began on 22nd June 1941, the military office mobilized me and my friend Ilia Barenstein for grain harvesting on the bank of the Dnestr. We were taught to mow and harvest and to leave no crops for the enemy. Later, we were taken to dig tank ditches near Odessa. The soil there was like stone! However, I was used to hard labor since childhood, and it was no problem for me. There was a Soviet slogan: 'who works not for us, works for the enemy!', and it was mandatory to fulfill the standard scopes. Stronger guys helped those who failed to complete their scopes. Then Stalin issued an order that he had no trust in Bessarabians, and we were sent away! German troops were approaching Nikolaev and Odessa region. Ilia and I walked to the east.
I arrived at Fergana [today Uzbekistan] and went to the evacuation office. It sent me to the nearest kolkhoz [19] to work as an assistant accountant. They gave me a warm welcome, accommodated me in the kolkhoz office and provided food: Uzbek people are very hospitable. They grew cotton. I collected data about cotton quantities from accounting clerks of crews and sent it to the district executive committee.
I kept thinking about my parents and sister. I decided to look for them in the Caucasus. I arrived at Krasnovodsk [today Turkmenistan], and wanted to cross the Caspian Sea to get to Makhachkala [today Russia], but I couldn't get a ticket without a pass. Fortunately, I met Polish Jews who had evacuated from former Polish territories [see Annexation of Eastern Poland] [20]. We talked in Yiddish. By the way, I think Yiddish needs to be preserved as a language since it gave the opportunity to American and European Jews to understand each other. These Poles worked as loaders in the dock. They offered me to help me get on a boat illegally, but I didn't want any problems and refused. I told them my story and they offered me to work with them as a loader. Krasnovodsk was a seaport, there was a desert around it, and tankers shipped fresh water from Makhachkala. Dockers and railroad people constituted its main population. They helped me to get a job as a loader and accommodated me in their hostel. I'm still grateful to them for their assistance. I was so happy to have a clean bed. I washed myself and felt human again.
Once I saw an announcement in a newspaper about an accounting course in Ashgabat [today Turkmenistan] for those who knew Moldovan, to work as chief accountants in Moldova after the war. I sent my documents there and received an invitation. Soviet laws encouraged studying and nobody would have stopped a person going to study. I was accommodated in a good hostel. There were experienced trainers evacuated with the Kharkov Financial Economic College. I finished this course with honors in 1943 and was sent to work as assistant chief accountant in the Raypotrebsoyuz which was a district consumption office, in Molotov region, Charjou district [today Turkmenistan]. I tried to do my work well.
Half a year later, I did an audit in a village and met my future wife Ludmila Zaitseva, who was Russian. She came from Belgorod [today Russia]. She was two years younger than me. Ludmila finished a midwife course in Kharkov and was sent to work in Central Asia [see mandatory job assignment in the USSR] [21]. I walked to her covering eight kilometers to the village. I stayed overnight with her and went to work in the morning. I covered 16 kilometers every day, but it wasn't a problem for me: I was young. Our feelings were what mattered. Then my chief accountant invited me to his office and said that his niece had fallen in love with me. He tried to slander Ludmila: 'She is this and that...' Her sin was that she dared to wash in the aryk wearing her swimming suit. This was something outstanding to do in Uzbekistan. I stopped him: 'I don't care about her past. I love her'. And we got married.
The chief accountant couldn't help taking revenge: he demoted me and reduced my salary. I was assigned as an accountant in a grain stocks office. I complained to the HR department in the Oblpotrebsoyuz, which was the regional consumption office. They assigned me as chief accountant in the Raypotrebsoyuz on the border with Afghanistan. My wife and I received a small room with a stove and a bed: this was the wartime and any luxuries were out of the question. We were very happy. In this area they grew silkworms. All district leaders wore silk shirts, but the workers couldn't afford them. I established the procedure to deliver silk to stores past the district officials. The officials didn't like this, of course. They wanted to send me to the army, but I was rather short-sighted. Besides, the first secretary of the district committee supported me. He was a decent Turkmen. I was a diligent employee, and the chief accountant of the Oblpotrebsoyuz, a woman, made me her assistant in Charjou. My wife and I moved to Charjou. I received a furnished apartment.