I graduated from the Commercial Aacademy in 1938 and got married. My co- student introduced me to my future wife, Jeannette Duvidesku, a Romanian Jew. She was called Hana in Kishinev. She was born to the family of a Jewish tradesman in Bucharest in 1911. Jeannette only spoke Yiddish and Romanian. It was okay with me - I was fluent in both languages. We had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah in Bucharest. It was no problem at that time. The synagogues were open and there were rabbis there. We couldn't imagine that it would be over so soon. There was a rabbi from the big synagogue in Bucharest. The synagogue issued the ketubbah to us.
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Displaying 5941 - 5970 of 50826 results
Zakhar Benderskiy
I finished school in 1932. I was 20 years old. I went to the army for one year. I didn't have to serve full term because I had secondary education. During my service my commanding officer sent me to the officer's course. I became a lieutenant after finishing it.
In 1925 Grandfather Shmul and his two sons, Erik and Hil, moved to Palestine. My grandfather always wanted to live in this country and fight for the independence of Israel. He sold his factory and bought some land in Palestine for this money. He leased this land and made money for a living that way. My grandfather returned to Kishinev after a couple of years, but his sons stayed in Palestine. He sold his house in Kishinev and left for Palestine again, leaving the money with his children.
,
1925
See text in interview
I didn't feel any anti-Semitism when I was at school. But there was anti-Semitism when the Romanians came to power in the 1930s. It was difficult for Jews to enter higher educational institutions, and there were separate seats for Jews at some universities. Students protested against this segregation and arranged demonstrations of protest. These special seats were almost always unoccupied - the students refused to attend classes, but nothing changed and many students went to study in other countries.
Moldova
Everybody fasted on Yom Kippur, even children over 5 years of age. On the eve of the holiday my mother brought white hens and roosters from the market for the kapores ritual. It went like this: mMy mother took a hen and gave another one to Frima, my sister. My father and all sons took the roosters. We had to turn these chickens quietly above our heads after the prayer saying, 'May this be my atonement'. Later my mother took these chickens to the synagogue for the poor. We weren't supposed to eat them. We went to the synagogue in the morning, then we came back home, read the Torah and had a nap. Then we went to the synagogue again. The services end at nightfall, with the blowing of the tekiach geedolah, a long blast on the shofar. It was required to wear white clothes on this day. The family strictly followed all rules.
Moldova
On Friday mornings my mother began her preparations for Sabbath. She baked challah and cookies, cooked stuffed fish and boiled chicken. In the evening my mother lit two?? candles and prayed over them. On Saturday my parents went to the synagogue. We joined them when we grew older. After dinner we sang religious songs in Hebrew glorifying Queen Saturday.
Moldova
My mother told me that she met my father through a - shadkhan. .My mother didn't like my father's beard. My father was so eager to marry her that he shaved it off. My mother gave her consent, and they got married in 1906. They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah. They had two wedding parties: one in Orgeyev and another one in Kishinev. After their wedding Grandfather Shmul bought them a house near his house in Kishinev.
My father's family was religious. There were several synagogues in Kishinev. The population was multinational, consisting of Moldavians, Romanians, Russians and Jews, who constituted about a quarter of the population. They spoke Yiddish, Russian and Romanian. There was a Jewish theater, Jewish grammar school and Jewish secondary schools. All these were closed after 1940 when the Soviet army entered Bessarabia [3] and 'liberated it from the Romanians'.
Moldova
My grandmother also fell victim to this pogrom. My grandfather was on business in the surrounding villages at the time. My grandmother was alone at home. She was beaten very severely by the pogrom-makers. They left her unconscious in the yard thinking that she was dead. She survived, but she had her backbone injured and spent the rest of her life in a wheel chair.
In 1903 there was the most horrible Jewish pogrom [1] in Kishinev. It lasted three days. People said it was arranged by the Russian government. Many Jews were killed and many houses destroyed. The police didn't interfere. There were no policemen in the streets. About 600 Jews were killed. There was a high number of injured people, too. Later the police arrested those that were involved in the pogrom. They were brought to court, and some well-known lawyers and writers spoke against them.
Ukraine became independent and the Jewish way of life began to be restored. We have several Jewish communities in Chernovtsy. Hesed provides big assistance to us. We get food packages and medication. There are highly qualified doctors with Hesed. We also attend lectures, concerts and interesting films about Jews. We can get Jewish newspapers and magazines for free at Hesed. If it weren't for Hesed we would live a poor and miserable life. People that had been working their whole life receive a pension that's smaller than the fee they have to pay for their apartment and everyday things. It's very important that we can go out and meet people. We celebrate Sabbath and all Jewish holidays in Hesed. There was a festive Purimshpil performance at the town theater at Purim. Volunteers from Hesed visit us at home. We also have a nurse visiting us at home. It's very helpful and makes our life different. The synagogue is open. We celebrate Sabbath and all Jewish holidays with Hesed. There was a festive Purimshpil performance at the town theater on Purim. The synagogue is open. We don't go there often, but we always attend it on holidays and on the death anniversaries of our relatives. I'm 90 years old. I'm glad to have lived to the time when I can see it all with my own eyes.
, Ukraine
mojsze sznejser
My father was called Dawid Josef Sznejser. He was a cobbler.
Granddad worked for a miller. He had a beard, like my great-grandfather, but not a long one, it was average.
Granddad was a cobbler too. They lived near the Polish elementary school, where they rented an apartment off this one Jew. It was this one room and a corridor. Granddad would sit working in the room where the beds were too, and there was a bit of a kitchen taken off that room. They weren't rich.
My Ma was very pretty; I remember that she wore a sheitl - a wig. And she taught poor girls to dance. I don't know, I didn't see it, but people told me that she taught dancing. She didn't make anything from it, she taught her poor friends. That was back when I didn't exist yet. She was still a girl. After that she couldn't teach, because she had a family. And she helped Dad with his work: he taught her to repair galoshes and do heels. He had bad turns with his heart because of the stinking glue, so she repaired the shoes herself. Apart from that she kept house. She cooked well, ooh! Very well. She did everything just as it should be. Dad got his portion first of all, he had to. Yes, she could cook and bake. Everything was kosher.
On Thursdays everyone went to the mikveh, first women, and then men. There was a very big synagogue and special prayer houses. And the women went into the synagogue by a separate entrance and stood where the young people studied during the week. It was connected to the synagogue, and there were these special little open window holes, so that the women could hear the prayers and repeat them. There were other prayer houses too, smaller ones, and the Hasidim 1 had their own prayer house. There was a yeshivah as well, and a bes medresh. I remember the rabbi, too, he lived down by the river, in an upstairs apartment; I never went there. But I remember that people didn't like him. He made himself out to be the cleverest, you see, he wanted to prove that he was somebody, to rule everybody. That's why they didn't like him.
On Saturdays nobody worked. You weren't allowed to do anything, not even heat up water. If your candles burnt out, you didn't light them again. If people had electric lights, somebody else [a shabesgoy] came to switch them on. We had a kerosene lamp, and again, once it had burnt out, nobody lit it again until later on Saturday. Everything for Sabbath on Saturday was prepared on Friday. Ma made the cholent and took it down to the bakers', because their oven was hot all Friday. They put all the pots in it and then on Saturday they opened up the oven and it was all hot. They brought the cholent home and everyone ate. And when Father died it was hard; at Easter [Pesach] Ma would go out to make matzah to earn enough to keep us. And of course she was given matzah.
. Dad wasn't very religious, but Sabbath was observed. And when Dad went to the synagogue, he took me with him. I remember we always sat on the left.
I remember the holidays, Chanukkah and Purim. Once I dressed my brother up at Purim, and he had a saber, a real saber, and we went to our uncle's, Dad's brother, who we seldom went to see. It must have been after Dad died, because before that, when we were small, I don't remember us dressing up. And at Pesach Ma did everything herself at home, baked challot, cooked noodles. There were separate plates and mugs for Pesach, and if there weren't enough, then they had to be cleaned. I still have separate plates, like we did back then at home.
At home we spoke Yiddish. But I could speak Polish as well.
I went to elementary school, but only until my dad died, then that was the end of it. I couldn't go to school any more because I had to go out to work. And after that I only attended evening classes. But I remember the teacher at the elementary school, Miss Cetnarska: she taught Polish, sums, everything. And there was another elementary school, where only Jews went, but the teachers were Polish. I went there for religious studies. Once a week they had Jewish religious studies there. I went to cheder as well, and then to talmud torah.
Lukow was a very pretty town. There were two churches, two grammar schools, the 22nd Riflemen's Regiment [a unit of the army of the Second Polish Republic]. It was a lovely life! And Lukow was bigger than Radzyn. In Radzyn you had to walk nine kilometers to the [train] station, but in Lukow there were two stations, one for Lublin and one for Warsaw. I often went to Radzyn by bus to visit my grandparents. Ma would go to the driver and tell him to throw me off in Radzyn by the church.
There were different youth organizations in Lukow: Shomers [see Hashomer Hatzair in Poland] 3, halutzim, Shomeradats [Hashomer Hadati], Zionists, but no one in my family was interested in that. They had their own work. I sometimes went to Zionist meetings, but we didn't get out much, because there wasn't time. We had to work.
There were a lot of Jews in Lukow before the war. They had bakeries, and there was a Jewish slaughterhouse. The Jewish slaughterhouse was in this big building near the river. There were two slaughterhouses in the building: the Polish one and the Jewish one. The Polish part was closer to the river. But the slaughterhouses were separate: separate entrances and exits. If they did something wrong with the meat in the Jewish part and it wasn't kosher, they would give it to the Poles. And then they settled up with money. But normally everything had to be kosher. And on the right side the Poles slaughtered pigs and other [non kosher] animals. And all the blood flowed down into the river.
In Lukow, before the war, there were different sorts of Jews, like in every nation. I remember one Jew was killed by some other Jews. Why did they kill him? Because he split on some others. He was called Jojne Bocian, he was a party bloke - a communist. And once, the Polish police caught a few communists and put them inside, and Bocian was among them [during the Second Polish Republic, in the 1930s, the activities of communist parties and organizations were illegal]. Well, one of the policemen went to a tailor to have something done, and the tailor was Bocian's brother-in-law, Sliwka, his name was. This tailor asked him why they'd arrested Bocian, and if they could let him out. The policeman said that they could let him out, but on one condition: he wanted him to denounce the others. Bocian agreed and they let him out.
Bocian went to the [communist] organization and said that they had to have a meeting. He wanted the police to catch them. But the other people weren't stupid. They were surprised that he had been let out, while the others were still inside, and they worked it all out. They arranged a meeting somewhere in a field and sent someone to watch the site. And one of them was there and saw the police come but that Bocian wasn't there and the others weren't there either. And then when Bocian asked why they hadn't had the meeting, they said that they were going to have it another time. And Bocian told the police again. When he was sitting with his parents and his brother-in-law at dinner on a Friday evening, this guy from the party came to him and told him he had to go to Siedlce to do something. Bocian went by train. In Siedlce there was this guy standing in a doorway, and he told him to come up to him for instructions. Bocian went into the entranceway, and the other guy killed him. The next day his mother screamed: 'Help! They've killed my son!'
There were rich Jews too. Gasman, for instance, who was a cobbler, had a large firm, other cobblers working for him, and who built a big house. I didn't work for him, because the firm wasn't around any more in my day, but people used to talk about it. I just saw the house, this very big house. There were other rich Jews, mostly bakers. I remember there was one who lived near the bridge; he had a very big apartment. And when the kids were walking to school, whoever they were, Polish or Jewish, and stood in front of the window looking in, the baker would call them and give them a roll. 'I haven't got any money,' the child would say, but he just said: 'Eat up, eat up, your Ma will pay.' And whether or not she paid, he would give out the rolls either way. And his brother, Josel the baker, he was a teacher, and taught us Hebrew.
Life with the Poles was harmonious enough. We lived with them like brothers. They'd come to us, so we'd go to them, you had to. When my father died, the neighbors would come round to my mother and say: 'Neighbor, why don't you come round for some potatoes?' I still remember those neighbors' names: Chajkowski, Golaszewski. And when a Polish funeral was passing the Jews paid their respects too, and took off their caps. We didn't wear kippot on the street, you see, but caps or hats. But later on, when I was working and just going to evening classes, there were times when youths were out to beat us up, throw stones at us [in the late 1930s anti-Semitic feeling in the Second Polish Republic intensified]. The teachers didn't let us out then, so that they wouldn't throw stones at us.
There were different youth organizations in Lukow: Shomers [see Hashomer Hatzair in Poland] 3, halutzim, Shomeradats [Hashomer Hadati], Zionists, but no one in my family was interested in that. They had their own work. I sometimes went to Zionist meetings, but we didn't get out much, because there wasn't time. We had to work.
There were a lot of Jews in Lukow before the war. They had bakeries, and there was a Jewish slaughterhouse. The Jewish slaughterhouse was in this big building near the river. There were two slaughterhouses in the building: the Polish one and the Jewish one. The Polish part was closer to the river. But the slaughterhouses were separate: separate entrances and exits. If they did something wrong with the meat in the Jewish part and it wasn't kosher, they would give it to the Poles. And then they settled up with money. But normally everything had to be kosher. And on the right side the Poles slaughtered pigs and other [non kosher] animals. And all the blood flowed down into the river.
In Lukow, before the war, there were different sorts of Jews, like in every nation. I remember one Jew was killed by some other Jews. Why did they kill him? Because he split on some others. He was called Jojne Bocian, he was a party bloke - a communist. And once, the Polish police caught a few communists and put them inside, and Bocian was among them [during the Second Polish Republic, in the 1930s, the activities of communist parties and organizations were illegal]. Well, one of the policemen went to a tailor to have something done, and the tailor was Bocian's brother-in-law, Sliwka, his name was. This tailor asked him why they'd arrested Bocian, and if they could let him out. The policeman said that they could let him out, but on one condition: he wanted him to denounce the others. Bocian agreed and they let him out.
Bocian went to the [communist] organization and said that they had to have a meeting. He wanted the police to catch them. But the other people weren't stupid. They were surprised that he had been let out, while the others were still inside, and they worked it all out. They arranged a meeting somewhere in a field and sent someone to watch the site. And one of them was there and saw the police come but that Bocian wasn't there and the others weren't there either. And then when Bocian asked why they hadn't had the meeting, they said that they were going to have it another time. And Bocian told the police again. When he was sitting with his parents and his brother-in-law at dinner on a Friday evening, this guy from the party came to him and told him he had to go to Siedlce to do something. Bocian went by train. In Siedlce there was this guy standing in a doorway, and he told him to come up to him for instructions. Bocian went into the entranceway, and the other guy killed him. The next day his mother screamed: 'Help! They've killed my son!'
There were rich Jews too. Gasman, for instance, who was a cobbler, had a large firm, other cobblers working for him, and who built a big house. I didn't work for him, because the firm wasn't around any more in my day, but people used to talk about it. I just saw the house, this very big house. There were other rich Jews, mostly bakers. I remember there was one who lived near the bridge; he had a very big apartment. And when the kids were walking to school, whoever they were, Polish or Jewish, and stood in front of the window looking in, the baker would call them and give them a roll. 'I haven't got any money,' the child would say, but he just said: 'Eat up, eat up, your Ma will pay.' And whether or not she paid, he would give out the rolls either way. And his brother, Josel the baker, he was a teacher, and taught us Hebrew.
Life with the Poles was harmonious enough. We lived with them like brothers. They'd come to us, so we'd go to them, you had to. When my father died, the neighbors would come round to my mother and say: 'Neighbor, why don't you come round for some potatoes?' I still remember those neighbors' names: Chajkowski, Golaszewski. And when a Polish funeral was passing the Jews paid their respects too, and took off their caps. We didn't wear kippot on the street, you see, but caps or hats. But later on, when I was working and just going to evening classes, there were times when youths were out to beat us up, throw stones at us [in the late 1930s anti-Semitic feeling in the Second Polish Republic intensified]. The teachers didn't let us out then, so that they wouldn't throw stones at us.
I remember one other thing that happened, that was on Pilsudskiego Street too, the cinema was there and the club was there. This Jew, a dancer, was walking by the club, it was a Saturday, and he was going to the club, not to the synagogue. And another Jew, with a beard, was going to the synagogue, and two Polish army officers grabbed him. One grabbed the Jew by his beard and pulled it. And the dancer, oh he could fight, I saw what he did - when he head butted the one of them, the other officer ran away.
I remember that where we played there weren't any Polish children. We played ball [football] mostly. We played in a field, and the farmer would come and chase us away. Because he had sowed it and we were getting in the way and wrecking the field. There were a lot of children in Lukow. There was this one Jewish kid in Lukow, who went to the grammar school, an only child, the son of a rich painter. Well, he had those wheels on shoes [roller-skates]. The only one in Lukow! And I remember I used to go to the cinema, because my brother helped out at the cinema. One guy would let us in, and we'd sit there quiet as mice. Good films and all sorts there were. They'd screen banned ones, but I went anyway.
After my father died I had to work. First I worked for this one master [cobbler]. I wanted him to give me another zloty, he wouldn't, so I moved on. To Mojsze Onikman. I worked there and my brother did too.
When I lived in Warsaw I didn't have any contact with the Jewish community, I didn't go to the synagogue, just straight home from work. We didn't work on Saturdays, so I would go to these unofficial beaches to swim [on the bank of the Vistula], and the police would chase us. That was in Praga [a district of Warsaw]: young people, students used to meet up there, on Zamenhofa Street. I worked first of all on Panska Street - my uncle got me the job - then at 49 Mila Street, and then at 12 Zamenhofa Street, by the passage - there was this passage there to the other side [of the street]. And the youths used to meet at 26 Zamenhofa, all our youths [Jews]. There was this spot there, where people would meet, talk about this and that, just young people. That was a to-do, it was great.
I went back home right before the war. In 1939, in September or October, I and my brother Abram escaped into the woods. It wasn't easy, you had to hunt for food, and keep your wits about you, and you had to be careful with other people in the woods too.
After that we slipped over to Brest [see Annexation of Eastern Poland] 4. In Brest it was a bit different. In Brest they did a round-up and shipped me off to Belarus, to Gomel, and there I worked in a factory, Selmasz. It had belonged to a Jew, that factory.
By then the Germans were rounding people up [in June 1941 Germany attacked the USSR], and I escaped by train to Kurgan, out there it was Russian. There I worked as a cobbler. I wasn't in uniform back then. Later on the Russkis [Russians] were scouting for the army and they sent me to Chelyabinsk, to an aluminum factory. That was when I got separated from my brother, who got sent elsewhere. In Chelyabinsk I worked on a building site.
But I didn't understand Russki [the Russian language], didn't understand that you had to get a permit to leave, so I got on a train to Kurgan and off I went. I don't remember where they caught me, it might have been Alma Ata or somewhere else, but they hauled me off the train and they were telling me I had escaped from the army. And after that they ferried me around, I can't remember where the court was, somewhere in Russia. I didn't understand anything, they were all speaking Russian. I got the death penalty, that's all I understood. But just afterwards they kept me in prison - I don't remember where or how long. Later they changed my sentence to ten years' labor - I'd learnt a bit of Russian, so I understood that.