When my son went to kindergarten I got a job as an accountant at the canteen there and later I became the director of this canteen. When my son went to school I went to work at the accounting office of a printing house. I worked there until I retired. Many of my colleagues were Jewish. I never faced any anti-Semitism at work.
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Displaying 3421 - 3450 of 50826 results
agnessa margolina
My marriage failed. My husband was on military service abroad and couldn't visit me often. I couldn't go to see him either. We met twice a year maximum. After a few years he suggested that we should divorce. I was so used to my status of a loner that I agreed. We got divorced. He supported me sending money until our son grew up. He sometimes came to see our son. That's all I can tell about him. I don't know what happened to him afterwards. I don't even know if he's still alive. It's sad, but what can one do about things...
In January 1953 the time of the Doctors' Plot 24 began. This was the first time in my life when I doubted that officials were telling us the truth. I lived in a communal apartment. One of our neighbors was a military man and his family. We were the same age and they were our friends. My son and their daughters were also friends. When the Doctors' Plot began he came home one evening and had a long discussion with his wife. When she came to the kitchen she said, 'These Jewish doctors should have been smothered in their mother's wombs'. They knew that I was a Jew and we got along well with them and I was surprised to hear from her that doctors would poison Stalin. Even a bigger surprise for me was that she emphasized that they were Jewish doctors. They were friendly as usual, but my attitude changed. This phrase was like a splinter in my memory and I couldn't forget it. I couldn't believe in their sincerity any more. I didn't believe what newspapers wrote about doctors, but I couldn't even imagine that this lie was one of Stalin's doings. He had been an idol for me since I was a child.
On 5th March 1953 Stalin died. I remember those horrible days. People cried without trying to hide their tears. I also cried after him like I didn't cry after my close ones. Everybody said the same: how we were going to live when he wasn't there and what was going to happen to the country and people. It took me some time to believe what Khrushchev 25 said about Stalin at the Twentieth Party Congress 26. At first I thought it was slander that Khrushchev needed to stand out and he chose this way to do it. I lived with this conviction many years. Only during perestroika 27 when many books, films and performances about that time were published I came to understanding many things. Many years had to pass before I began to understand.
I also felt negative about perestroika. I thought it was wrong and that private entrepreneurship was not a good idea and there could be no capitalism in our country. Later a change for the better became obvious. The fall of the Iron Curtain 28, which separated the USSR from the rest of the world, was one example of such improvement.
My son and his family decided to move to Israel in 1990. Nina's parents were going with them. My son tried to convince me to go with them, but I decided to stay here. I was 70 and this wasn't the age to start a new life.
I visited them in 1995 and in 2000. I liked Israel, though I felt a little constraint without speaking Ivrit. It's a beautiful country. My heart sinks when I think that there is a war and people die. I liked the young people in Israel. They are so different from us. They are so free and self-confident. They love their country and are proud that their fathers and grandfathers built it. My granddaughters took me around. We went to other towns, museums and theaters. I enjoyed these trips, but even after I visited Israel, I didn't want to move there. I'm 80 already. It isn't the age to begin a new life.
In 1999 Hesed was established in Uzhgorod. This organization supports the revival of the Jewish way of life in Ukraine. We, old people, are very happy about it. When we retire we have to face loneliness and helplessness. We suffer much about lack of communication. Hesed has changed this situation. Volunteers visit old people and talk to them. They deliver delicious food to us. There are clubs in Hesed. They have interesting programs and we can get together there. Every Sunday we attend performances of the drama studio of Hesed. They stage Sholem Aleichem plays. I like theater and enjoy every performance to the utmost. We celebrate Jewish traditions in Hesed. I've become closer to Jewish traditions and am happy about it. I speak Yiddish with my new friends at Hesed. It's very pleasant for me. I'm very much interested in such things. I have a visiting nurse at home. She's become close to me. She brings me Jewish newspapers and magazines from Hesed. I have new friends and my life has become full, thanks to Hesed.
I liked singing and joined the school choir when I was in the 2nd grade. We learned songs praising the Party and Stalin, in which children thanked them for our happy childhood. These songs called Lenin and Stalin 'Grannies'. We sincerely believed in all this. When I was in the 4th grade I went to a dance club. We danced Russian, Ukrainian, Moldavian and Polish folk dances.
I became a pioneer in the 4th grade. I was very excited about it. I was afraid they wouldn't admit me since I wasn't among the best in our studies. However, we were all admitted. I remember the ceremony. We were lined up in the schoolyard and the senior pioneer tutor recited the oath of young Leninists that we repeated after her. Then Komsomol 13 members tied red neckties on us and gave each of us a book. I got a 'Pioneer Hero' book about a pioneer that saved kolkhoz crops from fire.
I became a pioneer in the 4th grade. I was very excited about it. I was afraid they wouldn't admit me since I wasn't among the best in our studies. However, we were all admitted. I remember the ceremony. We were lined up in the schoolyard and the senior pioneer tutor recited the oath of young Leninists that we repeated after her. Then Komsomol 13 members tied red neckties on us and gave each of us a book. I got a 'Pioneer Hero' book about a pioneer that saved kolkhoz crops from fire.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
When I became a pioneer I began to conduct anti-religious propaganda at home. At school we were told that we had to teach our retrograde parents that there was no God and that all about him was a fantasy. My father came home late from work and I waited for him on purpose to explain to him how wrong he was. My father got angry and argued with me, but since then he stopped praying at home or he did it when I didn't see. Now with regret and shame I can say that we, pioneers, were taught to be informers. Our idol was Pavlik Morozov 14. Perhaps, my father was just afraid that I would tell someone at school about his religiosity and he would have problems at work. We didn't celebrate Jewish holidays at home any more. We celebrated Soviet holidays at school. On 1st May and 7th November [October Revolution Day] 15 schoolchildren and the school administration went to a parade in the morning and then came back to school. We prepared a concert to which we invited our parents and relatives. We tried to perform as best as we could.
My brothers went to a Jewish school in Podol that had just opened then. It was far from where we lived, but we could take a tram to get there. The language of teaching was Yiddish, but that was the only difference to any other Soviet school. The school curriculum was the same for all schools. My brothers studied well. They had time to do their homework, which I didn't. They had almost all excellent marks in their school record book. At home we spoke Ukrainian.
I remember the famine in 1932-33 16. My father worked at the factory where employees often received food packages. My stepmother also got food instead of money as payment for her work. The food stores were empty. Even when they were selling something there were long lines to get food. Villagers came to Kiev looking for jobs and food. People were dying in the streets. I remember once standing in line for bread. A woman standing before me fell. I tried to support her, but saw that she had stopped breathing. Many people died, but our family managed through this time somehow.
In summer 1934 I finished the 7th grade. I didn't have an opportunity to continue my studies since I had to take care of my brothers. I went to work as an accounting clerk at a shop making sheepskin coats. It was in Darnitsa, in the left bank district in Kiev. Commuting there was difficult especially in winter. I didn't have proper clothes and got cold. I worked there for three years until the father of my friend Feldman, who was the director of the Leather and Shoe Technical School at the shoe factory, offered me work at the factory. He said I could study at the school in the evening. I was eager to study and I went to work as an apprentice to a worker preparing raw work pieces. Employees of the factory could enter school without exams and I entered the Faculty of Shoe Production.
My family didn't suffer during the period of arrests that began in 1936 and lasted until the war began [the so-called Great Terror] 17. However, I couldn't help noticing that some of our neighbors and some of my colleagues disappeared, but we didn't discuss any of these subjects at home. The moment someone mentioned that somebody was arrested my stepmother cut off the discussion. She was afraid that our neighbors might hear.
I somehow didn't give a thought to Hitler's rise to power. I was probably not smart enough to understand what it meant. Later I heard that Hitler was exterminating Jews in Germany. My friends and I often went to the cinema where they often showed films about fascism in Germany. There was a film called Professor Mamlock 18. I don't remember any details, but I remember that it was about the persecution of Jews. I had some idea of what was going on. When Hitler attacked Poland we began to have military training at work. We were taught how to use gas masks, provide first aid to the wounded and take necessary measures during a chemical attack. However, I didn't think that a war could come to our country.
My father got very ill in 1938. He couldn't go to work. He had severe heart problems. He died in 1939. My grandmother Cherna insisted that he was buried in Lukianovka Jewish cemetery 19 in Kiev in accordance with Jewish traditions. Nenia's husband recited the Kaddish for him. Nobody sat shivah for my father.
On Sunday morning, 22nd June 1941, my friend and I went to the cinema. The film had just started when all lights went out. We thought this was due to a technical problem, but over a loud speaker they announced that Kiev was being bombed by the Germans. We were asked to go home and listen to the news on the radio. I don't remember how I managed to get home. I heard the roar of explosions in the distance. There was only one radio in an apartment in our house. All tenants got together in this apartment. At noon we heard the speech by Molotov 20. He announced that fascist Germany had started to attack the Soviet Union without declaring a war. Then Stalin spoke. He said that we would win and we were convinced that it would be so.
In late July there were rumors that evacuation would begin in Kiev. Then there were announcements on posts which said that those that weren't evacuating with their enterprises were to receive evacuation papers in their residential agencies. I stood in line a whole day to receive an evacuation paper for our family: it was on a cigarette paper and we could hardly read our names.
We reached Krasnodar [a town about 1,000 km from Kiev]. We were accommodated in the evacuation office of a school building. There were mattresses on the floor where people slept side by side. We got a meal twice a day: some soup and cereal. We were glad to get at least this miserable food. All of us, except for old people and children, were taken to work in a nearby kolkhoz 21. It was harvest season and grain had to be removed so that Germans wouldn't get it. We worked very hard. 50-kilo-bags of grain were loaded at the threshing floor and we had to carry them over a distance of about 200 meters where they were loaded onto trucks. My stepmother, brothers and aunts went to work.
My family spoke Yiddish at home, I said my first words in Yiddish as well.
I remember my grandmother Cherna. She was a short woman. She didn't wear a wig or a shawl. She had thick curly hair. It was gray. She wore casual clothes in the fashion of that time. She liked dark skirts and white blouses with laces or embroidery. The only language my grandmother spoke was Yiddish and I never heard her say one word in Russian.
My father and Rasia had a Jewish wedding. Brovary was a small provincial town and there was no synagogue there. My father and Rasia had their wedding in the synagogue on Schekavitskaya Street in Podol, Kiev.
They settled down in the big two-storied brick house of Rasia's parents. There were ten rooms in the house. There was a stove for heating the house. There was no running water and the water was fetched from a well in the street. There was a small backyard with two apple trees, and a toilet made from planks. Rasia had four sisters and two brothers. The brothers were married and lived with their families elsewhere. The sisters were single. They lived in their parents' house. We had two rooms: one bigger room with a table, a wardrobe, two armchairs, a sofa where I slept and a smaller room that served as my father and Rasia's bedroom.
They settled down in the big two-storied brick house of Rasia's parents. There were ten rooms in the house. There was a stove for heating the house. There was no running water and the water was fetched from a well in the street. There was a small backyard with two apple trees, and a toilet made from planks. Rasia had four sisters and two brothers. The brothers were married and lived with their families elsewhere. The sisters were single. They lived in their parents' house. We had two rooms: one bigger room with a table, a wardrobe, two armchairs, a sofa where I slept and a smaller room that served as my father and Rasia's bedroom.
We lived from hand-to-mouth. My father was an accountant at the district consumer union, but he probably earned very little there. My stepmother had to go to work. She worked for a shop making gloves. She took work home. She had a sewing machine and she made these gloves working from morning till night. It was hard work and she rubbed her hands sore with that rough cloth. Neither my father nor stepmother had time to spend with me.
I remember Grandfather Avraam, Rasia's father, very well. He was very old and very kind. Adults didn't treat me like somebody important and always commented, 'She is just a child', while my grandfather understood that I was lonely and sad. He always had time and a kind word for me. I always tried to be where he was and he was very pleased that I could speak Yiddish. In the family of my stepmother only her parents spoke Yiddish. Rasia, her brothers and her sisters spoke Ukrainian. My grandfather began to teach me how to read and write in Yiddish and I learned a few letters. My grandfather wore a big black silk yarmulka and a black woolen hat when going out. He had a small gray beard, but no payes. He died in his sleep in 1926. He was buried in accordance with Jewish rules in the Jewish section of the town cemetery. I wasn't allowed to go to the cemetery since it was located rather far away and I was too small to walk there. I remember that my grandfather was lying covered with a sheet on some straw on the floor in a room. My grandmother and the daughters wore black gowns were sitting around him and lamenting. My grandfather was taken to the cemetery on a horse-driven cart. That's all I remember.
My father was religious. At that time Soviet authorities began to persecute religion 11. Propagandists came to houses to tell religious people that there was no God and that before the Revolution religion helped rich people to exploit the poor by promising them paradise after death. People like my father, who worked in state institutions, weren't allowed to go to synagogues or churches. They could even lose their jobs if they did. My father continued observing Jewish traditions regardless. He went to the synagogue on Jewish holidays or on the date of my mother's death. He prayed at home every day. I remember that I sometimes asked my stepmother where my father was and she said that he wasn't to be bothered since he was praying. Rasia didn't approve of his religiosity. She thought that if they lived during the Soviet regime they were to follow its rules.
I don't remember whether we celebrated Sabbath at home, but we celebrated Jewish holidays; that I remember well. Those were hard years and I remember holidays since we could eat more delicious food than ever. Rasia's mother took responsibility for the preparations for holidays. On Pesach the house was always thoroughly cleaned and washed. Window frames and doors were painted. I was to look for breadcrumbs in the house that were then burned. Before Pesach my grandmother and her daughters made matzah. There was always a lot of matzah made to last throughout Pesach. On the first day of Pesach all my grandmother's children got together in her home. Married sons brought their families with them. The oldest son conducted the seder. There were silver wine glasses for adults and little cups for children on the table. Everybody, even children, drank wine this evening. There was an extra glass with wine in the center of the table. My father explained to me that it was a glass for Elijah the Prophet 12, who came to each Jewish home that evening. I remember my cousins and I waited for Elijah to come to the house. Sometimes it even seemed that the wine stirred a little in the glass. I also remember Yom Kippur when children and adults fasted for 24 hours. My grandmother baked hamantashen on Purim. I learned the story of Purim from Rasia's father, my grandfather. The heroes of the story are Esther, a beautiful young Jewish woman living in Persia, and her cousin Mordecai, who saved the Jewish people, Ahasuerus, King of Persia, and evil Haman, the arrogant, egotistical advisor to the king.
I also liked Chanukkah for getting some money from all visitors on this day. Later I bought fruit drops and sunflower seeds for this money. I don't remember other holidays. Probably, there were no celebrations on other holidays.
My brother Boris was born in 1926. His Jewish name was Boruch. He was named after my grandfather, who was killed by bandits. My younger brother, Shaya, named after my father's younger brother, who was also killed, was born in 1928. They were circumcised on the eight day after their birth. I remember that quite a few old Jews with long beards and wearing black clothes and black hats attended this ritual. I think they were my father and stepmother's relatives from other towns. After the ritual they had a meal in a big room. A rabbi from Kiev sat at the head of the table.
I went to the first grade at the age of eight. There was no Jewish school in Brovary and I went to a Ukrainian elementary school. I don't remember whether there were Jewish children in our class. At that time the national policy of the USSR propagated that there were no nationalities in the Soviet Union. There was only one nation: Soviet people. The issue of nationality was of no significance. I don't remember any anti-Semitism. I had no problems studying in a Ukrainian school since I was used to talking Ukrainian with my stepmother.
In 1929 my father got a job as an accountant at the knitwear factory in Kiev and we moved there. My father got two rooms in a communal apartment in an old two-storied house in Kurenyovka, a workers' district in Kiev. Six other families lived in this apartment. Three of them were Jewish families. All tenants got along well and tried to support and help each other. Children played together in the yard. There was a common kitchen with primus stoves on tables, stools and windowsill. There was always the smell of kerosene in the kitchen. There was a long hallway with many doors to all rooms. There was no running water in the apartment and we fetched water from a pump in the yard. There was a toilet in the yard. The rooms were heated with wood-stoked stoves because wood was less expensive than coal. There was a tiled stove in each room. There were dim bulbs with cloth shades. We moved our furniture into this apartment from Brovary.