My family got along well with the neighbors, most of whom were Christians. The Jews lived a bit further from where our house was. I don't think they were close friends with their neighbors, but they had good relations, and my father gave them merchandise on credit.
- 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 10141 - 10170 of 50826 results
manin rudich
And we never built a sukkah on Sukkot; we weren't religious to that extent.
On Pesach we, the children, received gifts like new sandals or new boots. But my parents gave us small gifts all the time, like sweets, candy, or some chocolate. My father said the kiddush, the prayer, and we ate. On seder I asked the mah nishtanah and I also looked for the afikoman. But we kept it simple, compared to what I have seen others do nowadays: I saw Jews from Israel who were visiting Brasov with beards, payes and tallit coming to the prayer and then dancing and singing in the street...
On Chanukkah my parents always gave us Chanukkah gelt, and we lit the chanukkiyah at home. I did it when I got older, and my father said the blessing.
On Purim my mother used to send us to friends and family members with shelakhmones. We tried to disguise ourselves by dressing like a peasant, or in an even funnier way. I remember me and my sister went to an aunt in disguise, and the dog recognized us and jumped onto us; we were so annoyed that the dog gave us away. My aunt said that she hadn't recognized us, but of course she had, she just said so to cheer us up.
On the high holidays we went to the synagogue with our parents, we listened to the prayer, came home, ate, rested, and in the evening we went back to the synagogue. As a kid, I loved all holidays because I didn't have to go to school. We could play in the synagogue's courtyard; we were too small and my parents didn't force us to listen to all the prayers, they let us out to play and came to check on us from time to time.
On Sabbath we didn't cook, and during the winter a woman came and lit the fire. My mother cooked challah on the day before, on Friday evening. The shop was closed, nobody in the family worked, but otherwise it was a regular day. We, kids, had to go to school on Saturday, we couldn't skip classes.
They never advised my sister or me what to read, but they took us to cheder. Back then, both boys and girls went to cheder; it was normal. There was an old Jew, who was our neighbor and gave cheder classes in his house.
I remember one of those times, when my parents took me and my sister to Cernauti to eat out in a restaurant because it was kosher. The restaurant was somewhere in the basement of a building, and we ate there. But we never ate out unless the food was kosher.
I don't think my parents often went to the market, since we had what we needed in the garden, but they went to different warehouses to buy merchandise for the shop. They had a shopping list with them all the time.
They used to go to Cernauti with the cart, and I accompanied them two or three times.
They used to go to Cernauti with the cart, and I accompanied them two or three times.
A Christian woman came with her husband to take care of the garden: they delved, sowed and hoed.
Rachil Meitina
Before the Germans occupied the town during World War II Dvoira and her family evacuated.After the Great Patriotic War they didn’t return to Vitebsk, but stayed in Sverdlovsk [present-day Ekaterinburg] where they had been in evacuation.
My mother finished lower secondary school and the medical/obstetrical school in Vitebsk. She entered a medical college in Petrograd, but quit after finishing her 2ndyear when I was born. My mother was also interested in politics when she was young. She was a member of the party of Mensheviks [12]. She told me little about it, but I know that she even went to Geneva to a meeting with the Menshevik Party leaders: Plekhanov [13] and Martynov [14]. She also went to meet Lenin in Paris, but I don’t know any details, of course.
My mother and father met in Vitebsk, probably during some [revolutionary] activities,that they were both involved in. They got married in Vitebsk in 1912. I don’t know whether they had a wedding at the synagogue or just a civil ceremony at the registry office. I know that they were both atheists. My parents’ mother tongue was Yiddish, but they always spoke Russian. They switched to Yiddish when they didn’t want their children to understand the subject of their discussion.
My parents rented an apartment and my father went to work as a typesetter in a printing house called Printing Yard. My mother was a medical nurse in a town hospital.Around this time my parents changed their Jewish names to Russian ones: my father became Alexandr and my mother became Fania Meitina.
In 1917 my father was mobilized to the army. I know very little about this period of his life. I have a photograph from the time when he was in the army before the Revolution of 1917. He served in the tsarist army that didn’t exist any longer after the Revolution. My father returned home because of the Revolution.
My parents received a very nice apartment in a very beautiful pre-revolutionary building in the center of Petrograd. There were six rooms in the apartment. We used only three of them and our housemaid lived in another room. Two rooms were locked. There was a toilet near the kitchen and another one next to the bedroom. There was a wood stoked stove and also a Primus stove used for cooking. There were beautiful stoves for heating the rooms. Our janitor Alyosha brought wood for stoking the stoves. There was running water in the apartment.
My parents had housemaids. When I was small I had a nanny.
Her name was Kamilla and she was a Chukhon woman [18].
Another Chukhon woman brought us milk. She lived in the suburbs of Leningrad.
She perished during the blockade of Leningrad [19] during World War II.
Her name was Kamilla and she was a Chukhon woman [18].
Another Chukhon woman brought us milk. She lived in the suburbs of Leningrad.
She perished during the blockade of Leningrad [19] during World War II.
Our parents had many friends that often came for a cup of tea. They had a discussion and the children played in another room. I remember Christmas trees that we decorated in Petrograd. We celebrated Christmas and Easter. I remember a wooden bowl with the letters ‘CR’ [Christ is Risen] engraved on it. We didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays, but I remember that gefilte fish was made whenever our friends and relatives visited us on Soviet holidays, birthdays of family members and even at Christmas. Most of my parents’ friends were Jewish. My friend from that time had a Jewish father and a Russian mother.
My mother and father spent their vacation with the children at the dacha[cottage]. When we lived in Petrograd we rented a dacha on the bank of a lake somewhere in the suburb of Petrograd. We had a boat and went rowing on the lake. We often went to visit our parents’ relatives in Vitebsk. In summer 1934 we stayed in Shpili near Vitebsk. I think now it’s a suburb of Vitebsk. There were many apple orchards there. It was a lovely spot. I remember the sound of apples hitting the terrace of the house where we lived: sweet small Belarus apples. That summer the family of my future husband Isaac Verkhoski lived there, too. He is my second cousin. His mother Sophia Verkhovskaya and grandmother Esfir Okuneva were there, too. That was when I met him and we made friends, but many years passed before we got married.
Our family was rather well off. Although my parents took an active part in the revolutionary life of the country when they were young they became rather neutral later. They didn’t discuss any political subjects with me and didn’t share with me their attitudes about what was going on. However, they were interested in the events. My father used to say, ‘When I die please come there and tell me what is happening in the world’. Fortunately, Stalin’s terror didn’t impact my parents.
I spent my early childhood in Petrograd. I recall this town as a fairy tale. I found it very beautiful. There was a nice yard with a garden in it. We lived on a quiet street. There were stores and schools on the nearby lanes. My sister studied in one of them. Matveyevskaya church was on our street. It was demolished in 1930. We had already left for Moscow by then. There were synagogues in the city that I never went to since it wasn’t a custom in the family. They were destroyed in the 1930s when the authorities struggled against religion [20]. It was a clean town with numerous private shops. I remember the period of the NEP [21] when stores were full. I remember delicious chocolate. My mother gave me some change and I bought a chocolate teddy bear.
At the age of five I went to a state budget kindergarten near our house. The director of this house was a scientist in the field of pedagogy whose name I don’t remember. We learned music and dancing and had other classes. It was a very good kindergarten. I went to a Russian school in Petrograd and also attended a nearby music school where I learned to play the piano. I studied for three or four years in the music school.
In 1924 the printing house was closed and my father lost his job. He went to Moscow looking for work and we stayed in Leningrad. My father met an acquaintance of his in Moscow. He offered him a job as a corrector in the committee for standardization and development of state standards that had just been established. Later my father became a technical editor. My father rented a room in a house in the very center of Moscow. We moved to Moscow in 1930 and got accommodated on Kropotkinskaya Street. We exchanged our huge apartment in Leningrad for a small two-bedroom apartment, about 27 square meters, in Moscow. There was central heating and gas in this building, which was very rare in Moscow in the 1930s. There was also a bathroom, a toilet and a small kitchen in the apartment. In my class I was the only one living in an apartment with gas and heating. My mother went to work as a medical nurse at the medical facility of the University of Working People of the East and my sister entered Chemical Technological College. I was getting acquainted with Moscow. I used to take a tram to tour the city. I got used to Moscow, but I always liked Petrograd better. I still have warmer feelings for Leningrad than for Moscow.
I studied in school [22], a former grammar school, in Moscow.
I had many friends. There were more boys than girls in our school. We kept in touch after we finished school and we are still in touch. There were Russian and Jewish children, but we didn’t care about each other’s nationality then. It was of no importance. We didn’t face any anti-Semitism, but I think there was some when looking back. I had a friend, Dima Zotov, a Russian boy. Our friendship stopped all of a sudden when we were in the 9thor 10thgrade. Now I understand that it must have been his strict mother that forbade him to have a Jewish friend.
I became a pioneer at school. It was a routinely matter for me. I wasn’t an active pioneer. I remember we went to parades on Soviet holidays. The Iskra newspaper printing house was a patron organization supporting our school. Employees of the printing house went to parades with us. We got together near the printing house and marched to the Red Square. It was fun. There was a brass orchestra playing and we danced and sang.
After finishing school I decided to continue studying sciences related to chemistry and biology. I could take a tram that turned left to university or another one that turned right to the College of Fine Chemical Technology. Both institutions weren’t far from where I lived. The first tram that came to the stop was the one turning left, so I entered the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University in 1936. I enjoyed studying there. There was no anti-Semitism. The dean and deputy dean at the university were Jews. Jewish scientists were lectures at the university, but later the situation changed.
My friends were Mila Ginzburg, Ruth Berkman, Nina Gelmanand Shura Tseitlin, all Jewish girls. The only Russian girl was Natasha Melitsyna, the daughter of a well-known professor of medicine. We were always the first to take any initiative and we were called ‘presidium’. I joined the Komsomol [24] in university. I spent all my time studying and being involved in students’ scientific activities. I didn’t take part in any public activities.
1937 had its impact on the university. Some outstanding professors and students disappeared. I remember a meeting where a student was expelled from university because his father had been arrested. I felt awkward at this meeting. I knew that he wasn’t to blame for his father’s ‘sins’ and that he was suffering already – so why add to his suffering? My father told me about the legal persecution of leaders of the Party. He understood that not all of them could possibly be ‘enemies of the people’ [25], but he never discussed this with me.