At the end of 1944 Kuzma joined the front-line forces and appeared in Germany, in Leipzig. When he came back, we went to Gayvoron at the end of 1945.
- Traditions 11756
- Language spoken 3019
- Identity 7808
- Description of town 2440
- Education, school 8506
- Economics 8772
- Work 11672
- Love & romance 4929
- Leisure/Social life 4159
- Antisemitism 4822
-
Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 31
- Siege of Leningrad 86
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 83
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 65
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- The Great Depression (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler comes to power (1933) 127
- 151 Hospital 1
- Fire of Thessaloniki (1917) 9
- Greek Civil War (1946-49) 12
- Thessaloniki International Trade Fair 5
- Annexation of Bukovina to Romania (1918) 7
- Annexation of Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union (1940) 19
- The German invasion of Poland (1939) 94
- Kishinev Pogrom (1903) 7
- Romanian Annexation of Bessarabia (1918) 25
- Returning of the Hungarian rule in Transylvania (1940-1944) 43
- Soviet Occupation of Bessarabia (1940) 59
- Second Vienna Dictate 27
- Estonian war of independence 3
- Warsaw Uprising 2
- Soviet occupation of the Balitc states (1940) 147
- Austrian Civil War (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 71
- Collapse of Habsburg empire 3
- Dollfuß Regime 3
- Emigration to Vienna before WWII 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Mineriade 1
- Post War Allied occupation 7
- Waldheim affair 5
- Trianon Peace Treaty 12
- NEP 56
- Russian Revolution 351
- Ukrainian Famine 199
- The Great Terror 283
- Perestroika 233
- 22nd June 1941 468
- Molotov's radio speech 115
- Victory Day 147
- Stalin's death 365
- Khrushchev's speech at 20th Congress 148
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- German occupation of Hungary (18-19 March 1944) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
- 1956 revolution 84
- Prague Spring (1968) 73
- 1989 change of regime 174
- Gomulka campaign (1968) 81
-
Holocaust
9685
- Holocaust (in general) 2789
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1235
- Mass shooting operations 337
- Ghetto 1183
- Death / extermination camp 647
- Deportation 1063
- Forced labor 791
- Flight 1410
- Hiding 594
- Resistance 121
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 34
- Eleftherias Square 10
- Kasztner group 1
- Pogrom in Iasi and the Death Train 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann system 11
- Struma ship 17
- Life under occupation 803
- Yellow star house 72
- Protected house 15
- Arrow Cross ("nyilasok") 42
- Danube bank shots 6
- Kindertransport 26
- Schutzpass / false papers 95
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 521
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1090
- Holocaust compensation 112
- Restitution 109
- Property (loss of property) 595
- Loss of loved ones 1724
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1807
- Liberation 558
- Military 3322
- Politics 2640
-
Communism
4468
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
- Anti-communist resistance in general 63
- Nationalization under Communism 221
- Illegal communist movements 98
- Systematic demolitions under communism 45
- Communist holidays 311
- Sentiments about the communist rule 930
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 349
- Prison/Forced labor under communist/socialist rule 449
- Lack or violation of human and citizen rights 483
- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2190
- Zionism 847
- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 6241 - 6270 of 50826 results
Sarra Eidlin
![](/themes/custom/centro/flags/ru.svg)
After the war, when the Party Schools [21] were first organized, I sent him to study to Odessa in a Party School and he became a party supervisor. I started to work for a newspaper.
In 1969 I defended a thesis at Kirovogradsky Pedagogical Institute for the specialty of 'Ukrainian Language and Literature.' I worked for the newspaper before moving to Leningrad.
I retired in 1969 when my grandson, Katya's son, Volodya was born. I took care of him for a year, then exchanged my apartment and left for Leningrad. I continued to work in Leningrad. When my seniority was calculated, it came to 52 years. I didn't work at the editorial office any more, though I was a member of the Journalist's Guild. There was no job for my profession and I worked as a typist for a housing trust.
I enjoyed my life. I went to all the theaters with my daughter and watched the best performances.
I thought that my life in Leningrad was something that God had rewarded me with in exchange for all my suffering. I went on tourist trips to Volga, in Leningrad region, organized trips for the party cell and party committee. Life was wonderful.
I thought that my life in Leningrad was something that God had rewarded me with in exchange for all my suffering. I went on tourist trips to Volga, in Leningrad region, organized trips for the party cell and party committee. Life was wonderful.
So I obtained a room in an apartment located in Vasilievskii island [one of the disctricts of St. Petersburg]. It had a very small kitchen and three neighbors. My daughter wasn't able to get registration with me.
I never wanted to emigrate to Israel. I liked it here, in this country and I didn't want any changes at my age, so the constitution of that country didn't influence me in any way. My parents' graves are here. I was at the burial place, but couldn't find mum's grave. There is a memorial at the place of my father's execution. 15,000 were executed there.
When Hesed was set up in 1993, the Warm House program was the first to be arranged. My friend invited me there. We got together and listened to lectures about customs and holidays. I celebrated Pesach according to what I remembered from my childhood. In a year or a year and a half when that woman left I began to conduct the Warm House myself. Food products are delivered to us. I don't cook lunch, only starters and desserts. I get accustomed to this tradition and try to introduce others to it, telling my recollections at these meetings. I have 13 people at my Warm House. There are very interesting people, even a candidate of science, so there is a lot to talk about and to recall.
I turned back to my Jewish origin, when the situation in the country started to change. We celebrate all Jewish holidays, get acquainted with the Jewish customs, talk about our current business, about our families and celebrate birthdays. We always have refreshments on the table during such meetings and everybody is happy. People say that as soon as they leave, they begin to wait for the next Friday to come. Sometimes women fall ill and we call them and visit them in hospitals.
Hesed delivers food products permanently and there is enough strength so far for cooking and keeping in touch with people. Seminars are held for volunteers, as well as boat trips on the Neva River and trips outside of the city, which helps to regain vitality. I also attend concerts, which the Jewish community arranges in honor of Jewish holidays. I didn't really become a very religious person. I don't pray every day, but I celebrate the Sabbath with the first star every Friday and wait for every Jewish holiday with pleasure.
Almost only Jews lived in our district. My mum lived with her parents, so during my childhood I learned all the Jewish traditions: I knew that nothing should be done on Saturdays; I knew how to behave on holidays and what traditions to observe.
My maternal grandparents were born and lived in the first half of the 19th century in Kherson. Grandfather Gersh Levit, born in the 1840s was a melamed, a teacher, and that's how he earned a living. He had a big thick beard and he was almost bald. He wore a high hat, a skull-cap and dark long clothes. I remember Jewish boys coming to our house and studying in a separate room. I could hear Jewish words and prayers. Grandma Feiga Leya Levit, who was also born in the 1840s, was a housewife. She was a very hospitable and kind woman. I don't know her maiden name or her background, she never told me and I never asked.
The elder generation and my parents spoke Yiddish to each other, but lived among Russians and Ukrainians, so they knew Russian pretty well, and spoke in Russian to the children as well.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
While Grandpa Gersh was alive, Jewish traditions were preserved in our family, but later on it slackened a lot: we celebrated holidays less frequently, forgot the prayers and the language. We weren't able to demonstrate our religious predilections under the Soviet regime [during the struggle against religion] [1]. Religious people were persecuted; Russian Orthodox churches were blown up; economic warehouses were arranged in the Catholic cathedrals, and synagogues were shut down. People were intimidated.
We could gather in the family circle at home, but we couldn't openly advertise the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, for instance. I remember how, in 1923-1924 in Kherson, we placed and decorated a tent with branches in our yard and our family had lunch and dinner in it. It was Sukkot, the fall holiday.
After the war everyone had to exchange passports and the office employee offered to write Malla instead of Malka in her passport. Thus she became Malla.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
It is so called because when Jews were allowed to live in big cities after the [Russian] Revolution of 1917 [8] mostly Jews inhabited this district.
My uncle Volodya, mum's elder brother, was born in Kherson in the 1860s. He was married to a Jewish woman. Their whole family starved to death in 1921 in Kherson during the famine in Ukraine [9].
Sonya was born in 1900. She lived at our place in Kherson and studied at the medical school. Sonya stayed with our family. She had a wedding, which was called 'Schwarze Hipe' [chuppah]. There was a canopy; everybody walked around it, but there was no music, since Sonya was an orphan and an orphan was not allowed to have a merry wedding with music. At the end, though, a violinist was invited.
Everything was exactly as a Jewish wedding means it to be: everybody was dressed beautifully. However, later on Sonya and her husband didn't observe the Jewish traditions, deviated from religion and led a life of secular Soviet people. Sonya moved to Moscow from Kherson and got married there.
Everything was exactly as a Jewish wedding means it to be: everybody was dressed beautifully. However, later on Sonya and her husband didn't observe the Jewish traditions, deviated from religion and led a life of secular Soviet people. Sonya moved to Moscow from Kherson and got married there.
My mother's brother Boris got ill before the war in 1941. He had some sanity problems and he died before the war. He and Klara had a daughter and three sons: Iosif, Vladimir and Mayorka. They remained in Rostov and didn't get evacuated. To be more precise, Klara and her daughter Manya stayed.
The Germans were in Rostov twice during the war. When our forces kicked them out the first time, the citizens threw flower pots on their heads from the windows. So when the Germans conquered Rostov the second time, they were very angry with the city. Klara, Manya and two children were put into a truck, which was called the 'mobile gas chamber.' People were murdered in this truck with gas. No one ever saw them again.
The Germans were in Rostov twice during the war. When our forces kicked them out the first time, the citizens threw flower pots on their heads from the windows. So when the Germans conquered Rostov the second time, they were very angry with the city. Klara, Manya and two children were put into a truck, which was called the 'mobile gas chamber.' People were murdered in this truck with gas. No one ever saw them again.
Obviously, the famine wasn't as severe in Odessa as in Kherson, where we lived, because Aunt Fani sent us parcels with cereals.
After Kirov [11] was killed in Leningrad in 1934, Nisya's brother - I don't remember his name - was put into prison as a Trotskyist [12]. Then Feiga's son Volodya, who was a YCL [Young Communist League] member, went to the party organization and stated that his uncle had been arrested as an enemy of the people [13]. However, he himself was exiled from Leningrad to timber- felling sites in the north, as a nephew and relative of an enemy of the people.
My mother, Maryasya Gershevna Eidlin, was the youngest among her brothers and sisters. She was born in 1895 in Kherson. My mother gave birth to me when she was nineteen years old. She finished four years at a Jewish school in Kherson. She liked to read. Her sister Fani hired a teacher for her, who came home and taught her. My mother was the favorite child in the family. She assisted her mother, with the household duties. Later she was a housewife. My mother was very religious, read prayer books aloud at home, attended the synagogue on holidays, observed all ceremonies. She didn't mix dairy and meat utensils, and she kept kosher.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
My father, Yerakhmil Zalmanovich Eidlin, was born in 1880 in Lvovo Jewish colony near Kherson. However, this is not precise information. There was a time when my father worked as a handicraftsman. He was the only child in the family. My father walked on foot from his village to the synagogue in Kherson. He studied at cheder and left his village for Kherson to look for a job.
He was engaged in trade, but later on, when Uncle Gersh Kart taught him, he became a trimmer.
He was engaged in trade, but later on, when Uncle Gersh Kart taught him, he became a trimmer.
My father rented a corner in a big four-bedroom apartment of my mother's parents. This was how dad met mum. They got married in 1913. They had a wedding with a Jewish chuppah. My mother took her husband's last name.
I finished a seven-year Ukrainian school in Kherson. During the first two years of studies I had a private teacher, Olga Richardovna. She supplied us with writing-books, taught us to read and to count. My parents paid her for that. She was a secular woman. In 1923 I went to a Ukrainian national school and studied there until 1928.
I remember from my childhood how we celebrated all Jewish holidays at home: Purim, Pesach, Chanukkah and Rosh Hashanah. I lit lamps on Sabbath, I was a shabesgoy, as grandma called me and I was forgiven because I was just a small child. I remember how I lit candles with grandma. Grandma always cooked food for Sabbath in a stove, covered up the stove door with clay to prevent food from getting cold, and everything was served hot on Sabbath. We always had clear soup and peas, which were cooked separately. Stuffed fish was cold. It was before the famine [in 1930], and during the famine we ate porridge on holidays and on common days.
Besides this, I remember how grandma prepared for Pesach, how she burnt all breadcrumbs in the stove in a wooden spoon, everything was burnt together with the spoon. We also had Pesach utensils. A stone was made red-hot, we threw it into hot water to purify it, and thus utensils were prepared for Pesach. We only had a few special utensils at home. All the rest were baked [burnt].
We bought milk from a Jewish woman for Pesach. I remember how we hid matzah under grandpa's pillow. It was the custom [The interviewee is referring to the afikoman]. One of the boys was supposed to take it out, when he turned away. I remember Pesach 'fir kashes' [Yiddish], the 'four questions.' Certainly our boys, my brothers, did that. I was only present.
One had to drink four glasses of wine. Each time one took the glass, a little had to be poured out into the plate. We had six glasses on the table for five members of the family. The sixth glass was poured for Elijah the prophet [15] and the door was left open. The chicken was cut by a shochet at the synagogue.
We bought milk from a Jewish woman for Pesach. I remember how we hid matzah under grandpa's pillow. It was the custom [The interviewee is referring to the afikoman]. One of the boys was supposed to take it out, when he turned away. I remember Pesach 'fir kashes' [Yiddish], the 'four questions.' Certainly our boys, my brothers, did that. I was only present.
One had to drink four glasses of wine. Each time one took the glass, a little had to be poured out into the plate. We had six glasses on the table for five members of the family. The sixth glass was poured for Elijah the prophet [15] and the door was left open. The chicken was cut by a shochet at the synagogue.
We never had any Jewish pogroms [16] in Kherson.
The Civil War didn't affect us. I only remember how we children were led to the cellar because of some military operations nearby.