When my sister was alive, I found out about acting Jewish community. I came here with her. Here we were helped in many things, especially with medicine, when Anna was sick. Now, when I am living by myself and my grandchildren do not need close attention, I work as a volunteer in medical center of the community. I work for couple of hours every day. It gives me the feeling of being needed to people. I enjoy communicating with the Jews, who come over here. My friends are working in the community as well. We see Sabbath and mark Jewish holidays together. Recently we got together on Shavuot and cooked traditional dishes from milk and curds.
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Major events (political and historical)
4256
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Holocaust
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Displaying 44251 - 44280 of 50826 results
Eta Gurvichuyte
Now I am living by myself. My son recently got married. His wife, a Lithuanian lady Lima, is a very good woman. She came of a family of former underground. She has a very good attitude towards the Jews. My son has two children. The eldest Thomas is 21. Having finished school he went to Dublin. There Thomas found a job. He is trying to succeed on is own. Younger Julia was born in 1987. Julia has arts talent of her grandfather Augustinas. She is finishing school this year and going to enter Arts Academy. I helped my son raise grandchildren. They love me very much. Though Lithuanian nationality is written in their records, all of them, especially Julia is interested in the past and often asks me about prewar history of our family.
My brother Jacob had lived happily with his wife Golda. He graduated from Economy Department of Kaunas University. He was assigned to rather important positions. Jacob and Golda have a daughter, whom they named Ella after their perished daughter. In 1972 the whole family left for Israel. There brother found a job immediately as he finished Hebrew lyceum and was fluent in Ivrit. I went to seem my brother in the 1990s, after breakup of USSR [1991] when it became possible to go openly to any country. I had stayed in Israel for three months and I loved it. Brother fully covered my expenses. My second trip to Israel was with my son. He liked it, but he was unfalteringly against to leave Lithuania. Brother was a widower. He survived his wife for just couple of years. Jacob died in 2000. I took my elder sister in Vilnius. She was single, so I had been looking after her for five years. I also looked after my cousin Anna Klinitskaya, who got severely ill when being a widow, Both of them died in my presence. It happened in 1995.
My son made me happy with his good marks. There were a lot of mixed marriages at Russian school, where he went to, so children felt not anti-Semitism. He chose my nationality when he turned sixteen and came to get a passport. His choice was to be a Jew, though he knew his father and saw him rather often. Eldargas entered Vilnius affiliate of Kaunas Polytechnic institute, Television and Radio Department. Upon graduation he was drafted in the army and served in radiolocation as an officer. It incurred some negative consequences for our family. When I was anxious to leave for Israel, we understood that he would not get a permit as he had an access to secretive military information, which life term would last for thirty years. He had never wanted to emigrate from Lithuania.
People still treated me good at work making it look like they had no idea about my detainment. I was always good to people and they were reciprocal. Almost every year I got a trip vouchers to the spa Druskeninkai or Palanga, which was paid by the trade union, son always went on vacation to the pioneer camps at the cost of trade-union. I had worked there until retirement.
I was fond of reading. It was hard to get books. Usually people gave people to one another and they became dog-eared. We were subscribed to magazines, got some novices. Later on independent publishes appeared, where we could read the books censored by Soviet regime and information about Israel. I started retyping the books illegitimately brought from abroad. I made one copy for me and for my friends. I was mostly interested in the objective information about Israel as it was the period of six-day war [23], and Soviet mass media stigmatized Israel. Besides, I collected quotations of great people about Jews. It was the period when I had to take my final exams in the University and write my diploma paper. I took a vacation for students and got ready for the exams with my Lithuanian friend. Suddenly, somebody ran on the door and I saw two men on the threshold who showed me their KGB IDs [24]. They rather politely invited me to come with them. My friend was shocked. I had been interrogated for couple of hours. It turned out that there was a stooge from one the arrested readers. Since adolescence I had known the word ‘no’. I persistently denied that I was not involved in dissemination of anti-Soviet literature. I confirmed that I collected the quotations of famous people about Jews as I being a true Jew was interested in everything connected with my nature. I was lucky that there was no search at home. I stored a lot of banned literature. If it was found, neither I nor my son would be spared. I was taken home in the morning. Then I had no wish to study and take final exams. Thus, five years of studies were futile – I had not defended my thesis.
There was a great computer center in our company I was employed by. I was a computer operator. The computer machine I was working on in the early 1960s covered half of my office. I understood that it was necessary to have a higher education and I entered extramural Economic Department of Vilnius University. Of course, it was hard for me to study. In the daytime I was at work. Besides, I had to find time to buy some products, cook food, do the cleaning, look after my son. I did pretty well at the university and passed my exams.
I worked in a wonderful team and made many good friends there. We marked Jewish holidays. A lot of people got together on Chanukkah, Purim and Pesach. We open spoke Yiddish at work, which was common in Lithuania. I was not affected by anti-Semitism campaigns of the beginning of the 1950s, [Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] [20], even doctors’ plot [21]. Of course, we were very worried thinking that Jews were dissolved, even arrested, but it went past my friends and I. I was crying along with many other people, when Stalin died in 1953. I wore a mourning band and was on the sentry by his portrait. With time I leant more and more about Stalin, so the resolutions of ХХ Communist Party Congress [22] were not unexpected for me, on the contrary it seemed to me that the justice prevailed.
I came back to Vilnius in 1949. I was offered a job in the economy department of one of suppliers. Soon we were given a room and our life was getting better. There were difficulties, but I did not complain of anything to anybody. My sister helped me out. Jacob also lived in Vilnius. He got married for the second time. His wife’s name was Golda. He also was there for my son and me. My son was a wonderful, clever and obedient boy. He went to the kindergarten. He was loved by everybody. My cousin Anna and her husband Klinitskiy loved my sonny very much. They did not have kids, so they helped me as well. My son’s father often came and asked to forgive him. But his addiction to alcohol was the strongest. I was afraid that my son would be like him and often did not let father see him. When Haim proposed to me when he came back to Vilnius. But I refused him as well as other men having decided that it would be better for me to raise son by myself than with step father.
Augustinas and I started living like husband and wife without having our marriage registered. We lived in a poky room without paying attention to postwar hardships. We often went to bed hungry, but our love was the only thing that mattered. In 1946 I got pregnant, and our relationship was not affected by it. Augustinas took to bottle. He often came home drunk and reproached Jews. He was not an anti-Semitist, he just found Jews to be wretched and leading to trouble. He was convinced in that because of his mother’s and brother’s fate. We often had arguments and it make our lives bitter. At the beginning of 1947 I gave birth to a son, whom I named Edvardas like Augustinas asked in honor of some of his relative. Augustinas, who promised to come and get me and a child, was procrastinating. He did not come to get us. My last name was written in my son’s birth certificate. I am very proud by nature. I wrote Augustinas that I would raise son by myself. Sister Anna, who remained single, loved my boy and helped me with everything. I had lived with her for two years.
I met a Lithuanian lad Augustinas Savitskas. He was an artist. His fate is worth attention. His father, a Lithuanian, was an artist and a diplomat. He fell in love with a Jewish girl Ida from Shauilai. When he proposed to her, her parents flatly objected to their marriage. They did not want their daughter to marry a Lithuanian. Young people got married in spite of the parents’ will, who practically cut them off a shilling. The weds lived in full harmony and love. They had two children– the elder Algerdas, born in 1918 and Augustinas, who was my age. Augustinas’s father worked on a diplomatic mission in France. When the Soviets came in Lithuania, he decided not to come back to his motherland fearing that he might be arrested. I do not know what happened to him. Ida hung herself in Vilnius ghetto as she could not get over the adversities and ordeal. Elder brother Algerdas went through giyur in order to marry a Jew. He turned out to be in ghetto with his wife. He was free , but he decided to share the fate of his beloved. Both of them perished.
I came in postwar Vilnius and decided to stay here. Nobody was waiting for me in Kaunas. Our house was nationalized, our apartment did not belong to us any more, and I understood that other people had been living there for a long time. It was easier to find a job and a lodging in Vilnius. Sister Anna lived in Riga. She stayed there after demobilization. Brother was still serving in the army. There were no free apartments in town, and I was not good at going from one institution to another to push things. I had to rent a poky room. I found a job in the ministry of culture. There was a wonderful team there. A lot of Jews worked there, and I made friends with some of them. The most important thing was that I found love, the true and overwhelming love.
I had lived in Chkalovsk until May 1945. Our organization was on the point of departure to Lithuania. On our way back I went to Moscow. My distant relatives lived there, so I stopped by in their place. I stayed there for a week. Haim and I met every day, wandered along the streets of that wonderful city. On the 9th of May 1945 we came to Red Square with him. It was the holiday of the all-in-all exultation and joy. People were crying and laughing at a time. Those people who were not acquainted, were hugging each other. There were fireworks in the even. I was deeply impressed by that. I had never seen anything of the kind. The next day Haim insisted that our marriage should be registered state marriage register. Our marriage could not be registered as I did not have a Soviet passport. Probably it was my fate. I had warm relationship with Haim, but I had no love in my heart. I understood that we were way too different. I was happy to any even of life, I did not repine of the bygones. I was not focused on temporary hardships. I was more attracted by higher goals. Haim was always gloomy, remembered material losses. It poisoned our communication. I said good-bye to my fiancé, promising to wait for him in Vilnius, and left home.
Our living was hard. Both Anna and I received food cards [18], but the food we got on them was scarce- we were constantly being hungry. Sonya was sick for the whole winter. Then she started working as well. When brother found out about baby’s death, he had a tiff with his wife, they did not get along very well from the very beginning. He wrote Sonya that she could feel free to get a divorce from him, if he came back from the front. In a while Sonya met a man. She was close with him, so she left us. Anna, who treated me like a small child before war, became a very close person to me. Together we got over starvation and cold. We were there for each other. With bated heart we followed the rounds-up of Soviet information bureau. Each victory of the Soviet army made our return home Lithuania closer. At the beginning of 1943, when it was declared that women were drafted in Lithuanian division, Anna was drafted. She became a radio operator. She had served with the Lithuanian division until the end of war. The biggest joy for me was liberation of Lithuania in summer 1944. We celebrated that day with my friends, whom I met in evacuation.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
Shortly after my arrival I started working for my organization– state archive of Lithuania. Soon I found my sister Anna. My friend met her by chance in Ufa. Anna even had no hope to see me alive. Some of her pals told her that I perished in the train that had been destroyed by bombing. Anna came to me in Chkalovsk. She also was employed by state archive. My brother Jacob, his wife Sonya, their daughter, born in August 1941 stayed in Ufa. Life was very hard on them. They were starving. When 16th Lithuanian was founded, Jacob went to the military enlistment office and went to Balakhna, where it was being reformed. Sonya and her baby came to us. The girl, was born very feeble, so she got unwell on their way. Straight upon arrival Sonya took the girl to the hospital and the she died there. Sonya as if ran amuck. She did not understand a thing. Sister and I took a small coffin, made from boards, to the cemetery. Local sots dug the grave in a frozen earth (it was February) for a bottle vodka and we buried a baby.
,
1941
See text in interview
We came in Russian town Kirov [800 km from Moscow]. We had spent two or three nights at the train station. I went to the evacuation point and found out that the archive office I worked for had been evacuated to town Chkalovsk, Nizhniy Novgorod oblast, Russia [550 km from Moscow]. Haim and I went to Chkalovsk It was a long way to go. First we took a ship along Volga to Kuibyshev, wherefrom we again took a train. I was lucky. On the first day of my arrival I met my friend from Kaunas. She and her husband, a theatre artist lived in a small room. Soon friend and her husband went to another town and left us their poky room. Haim also did not stay in Chkalov for a long time. Haim was mobilized in the labor front [17], but he had not served there for a long time. His talent was noticed and Haim entered producer department of theatre school. He wrote me warm letters hoping that he would see me again after war and thinking that we would be together .
Sister Anna had worked in Vilnius for couple of months. It became part of Lithuania [Annexation of Vilnius to Lithuania] [16], so I did not know anything about her. Brother and his pregnant wife Sonya, going on the seventh month, left with evacuated textile factory literally without anything. They both were in evacuation. They even had no time to take money, documents or some of their things. Haim and I together with the Kaunas group left the town. I did not have a new Soviet passport, so I took only an ID , some money and things. We could not carry a lot. Besides, we believed Soviet propaganda and thought that the fascists would be banished in couple of days. For couple of days we had been walking along a highway towards Latvia. There were a lot of people on the road- walking, going in a cart or by car. We went several tens of kilometers in a truck and then again we had to walk. On the third day of our trip fascist planes appeared and started bombing the columns of people- peaceful people. Finally we reached Latvia. There we managed to get on the train. We went for couple of kilometers and stopped. We saw bombed cars and cadavers of people in front of us. We heard the moans of the wounded. The train, the saw, was destroyed by bombing. We helped remove the shambles. It was scary. We had been on the road for about three weeks. They gave boiled water at the stations. Sometimes they gave bread and warm food- porridge and cabbage soup.
,
1941
See text in interview
At 4 a.m. on the 22nd of June 1941 I woke up hearing unknown motor noise. There was a military plane in Kaunas sky. It had some unfamiliar signs on it. First I thought that it was training as for the past month there had been a lot of those. Soon I heard the noises of blasted bombs. Thus, we found out that Great Patriotic War was unleashed.
We had to work. My brother was in charge of a workshop at a textile factory. I was in the courses for a while, then I found a job. My sister Anna had worked in the state archive by that time. I also was employed there. In early 1940s I met one young man. We went to the cinema for couple of times, had coffee in a café and then we could not live without each other. My friend Haim Leikovich was couple of years older than me. He fell in love with me. Haim was a very heedful and careful man so I loved him back. We had one common interest- theatre. Haim and I went to ballet performances. At that time famous ballet-dancers often came to Kaunas from Moscow. Haim took part in amateur performances in the theater. His dream was to become a producer.
At that time my friend Eva Mirskaya came back from Kaunas. In 1936 her father, underground communist, made arrangements for his family to leave Russia. As soon as Eva’s father arrived, he was arrested and there was no trace of him. Her mother died. Eva was employed by some sort of a factory. She lived in a hostel in some small town in Russia. She made sure that nobody knew that her father was ‘peoples’ enemy’ [15]. I was struck by her tales what was going on in the USSR and mostly I was surprised to see her avarice to delicious food and attire. Eva explained that she was deprived of all that in Russia. The arrival of my friend shattered my admiration for Soviet regime.
The prewar period, i.e. the year 1940 was the happiest in my life. My dream came true. The Soviet regime [13] was established in Lithuania. People met Soviet army with flowers. My friend and I also went to welcome the soldiers. It seemed to me that life would turn into a continual holiday of liberty and equality. The printing premises and our house were nationalized, though they left us our apartment. I thought that act of the Soviet regime to be absolutely just. Fortunately, nobody from our family was arrested. Some of my acquaintances were exiled in Siberia [14]. The family of my friend Leya Girshon was exiled. It was strange, to put it mildly, but I still believed in Soviet regime. Another odd thing was that almost all products vanished from the stores. Out of numerous sorts of bread, only two remained- bran and rye. All tasty sausages and other delicacies merely vanished.
I was at home when father was alive. Then I had to think of getting a job. I always wanted to be a doctor. So, I entered the courses for nurses. The latter were Jewish courses by the Jewish Health Care Society. The lectures were held in the evening, and in the afternoon we had practice in all departments of the Jewish hospital. It was unpleasant to take care of people afflicted with typhus fever in the infectious department, but I got over that understanding that doctors had to deal with all kinds of patients.
At the age of 18 I became a full orphan. Anna went to work. Jacob was studying at engineering department of Kaunas University. After father’s death he took over his printing business. They lived pretty comfortably. Jacob got married in a year after father’s death. His fiancée Sonya was from a very religious rich family. Her parents lived in a small Lithuanian town. Mother of Jacob’s bosom friend Gefel took care of the organization of the wedding party. All members of Sonya’s family were Zionists and their mother was the most active out of them. She was a wonderful woman, very vivacious. The wedding party took place in her posh house. She was like a mother to my brother. Brother and his bride were wed under chuppah and after than they had a mirthful wedding party.
Several years had past. In January 1939 father took a bath and caught cold. Like mother he died of pneumonia. I remember father’s funeral very well. In spite of his being unreligious, he was buried in accordance with the formal Jewish rite- he laid on the floor. He was buried without a coffin. We observed the mourning period – shivah.
That year my father and I had become really bonded. I felt how much he loved me when I got seriously sick. I had a dithery, and as a complication my ears began hurting. I was sick all winter long and father had been looking after for me. At that time I did not think of father’s solitude. Probably he had some women, but he was not committed to any of them. Once, father wanted to marry a sweet, cultured teacher of elementary Jewish school and my elder sister Anna was strongly against it. It is hard to say what it was- her selfishness or jealousy. She behaved herself indecently practically forbidding father to get married. My dad, so handsome and clever, was a bachelor. Father’s hobby was chess. He was a very gifted chess player, the member of Kaunas chess club. Once famous Lasker [Lasker Emanuil (1868 - 1941) is a German chess player, theoretician and literati, the second world champion (1894 - 1921), the author of many books, including “Common sense in Chess " (1895), "Manual on Game of Chess " (1926). In 1902 he defended PHD thesis in mathematics in Geidelberg University.] had a session of simultaneous game in our city. That session lead to father’s success. The game between father and Lasker ended in a tie.
The only serious consequence of my unaccomplished political career was my expulsion from the lyceum. I had studied at home for the last year and passed exams pre-term. Now, I was not involved in komsomol activity. It was not safe to meet in my place. They also did not want to give any assignments to me either, as they thought that I was spied on. I was gradually digressing from my komsomol unit.
The adversities were at the threshold. One of the tasks of our organization was anti-military propaganda as all of us knew about Hitler from papers, about crystal night [11] and we assumed what kinds of plans fascists might have regarding our counties and enslavement of peoples. My friend Zelda Ushpitz and I spread fliers. They contained propaganda against war and Hitler. There was nothing bad there. Nonetheless, somebody informed on us. Zelda and I were arrested. It happened in 1935. We had been kept in custody for the whole night and then sent to the prison in the morning. There was a special cell for political convicts in Kaunas prison. There were over 30 women and all of them were arrested for participation in underground communist organizations. Many of them had been incarcerated for a number of times, but all of them were ardent sticklers. Huduskayte, a Lithuanian lady, was the one who stood out from the rest. It seemed interesting for me and I was not scared at all. I think I had no fear because I was young. It was interesting because we were constantly chatting and learning much. The older comrades did not leave anybody in peace even in prison and kept on their propaganda. They held classes, lectures, told about Lenin [12] and other political activists. The linen was changed daily in the cells. We were substantially fed. Besides, father found some of the acquaintance doctor in prison and managed to send me something through him. I shared everything I got with my cellmates. Sometimes I was called by an investigator. He was friendly with me. He mildly tried to edify me how could I, the daughter of a well-off man, was fond of the ideas of the rabble. Neither I nor Zelda confessed that we were the members of underground organization. I had stayed in the prison for two months. Father had been trying to find a way to free me. The amount of bail was very large- about 100 thousand litas. Father hypothecated our house, borrowed money from all his pals and kin and also hocked the house of one of our relatives. The bail was paid off and I was released from prison. Father had never reproached me. He was happy to see me at home. Soon the trial took place, where Zelda and I were sentenced to eight years. Luckily it was a suspended sentence as both of use did not come of age. After that the bail was returned .
We were not children any more and many of us had our own political views. My sister Anna was absolutely apolitical; my brother Jacob however joined a Zionist [8] organization Beitar [9] and dreamt of Israel. I was interested in communistic ideas. In that period of my life I made friends with Evsey Yatsovskiy. He was an underground komsomol member [10]. His mother, wife of prominent moviemaker, was a communist. These were the years of adolescent romanticism, when the communistic ideas of all-in-all equality and brotherhood seemed the most appealing. I also started attending meetings of underground komsomol. There we studied the works written by classics of Marxism and Leninism, read newspapers and magazines from Soviet Union, dreamt of bright communistic future. We had no idea of repressions, arrests, and all that horror of Stalin’s regime. We sincerely admired Stalin. Sometimes our meetings took place in our house. Father often showed up at home in wee hours of the morning. He barely paid attentions to my surroundings. Teresa was the one who cared the most. She understood nothing from what we were talking about. She was worried that the authorities would find out about our secretive meetings. At times during komsomol meetings where the ideas of the triumph of communistic ideas were expressed, Teresa knelt and started praying. I do not know what for she was asking God. One of her requests was to protect me from adversities and calamities.
Jewish holidays were marked in lyceum. The most hilarious was Purim, when the pageant was organized and everybody treated each other to shelakmones. Teresa made a pageant costume for me. She was the one who cooked shelakmones as well. There was a democratic air in lyceum. We were taught Tanach like one of the religious subjects, but it was rather formal. Nobody demanded profound knowledge of religion from children. Modern sciences were taught at a very serious level. We had wonderful teachers, real devotees, carried away by their work. Most of all we liked the teacher of Lithuanian language Zimanis. He was the youngest teacher, only 10 years older than we. Apart from teaching Lithuanian, Zimanis also taught biology, arranged hiking trips in the closest vicinity, told us amazing stories. We also loved geography teacher Itsikson and many others. Liberal arts appealed to me more. I liked literature, music and dancing. We also had extra-curriculum classes- we were taught how to play the piano. Father bought me the piano. I was fond of dancing, so I attended choreography studio. I dreamt to become a ballet-dancer. I had a lot of friends among boys and girls. We sauntered along Kaunas broad way, had tea and coffee, bought tidbits- in many cafes and confectionaries. I took an interest in theatre. There were two Jewish theatres in Kaunas. I liked to attend musical and drama performances.
Both my sister and brother graduated from Jewish lyceum. When I turned six, I went to that lyceum. Mother was still alive. I think it was mother’s wish for her children to study in Hebrew lyceum. I finished two or three junior grades. Then father transferred me to a newly opened Yiddish lyceum. First that lyceum was named after Sholom-Aleichem [8]. It was an amazing school. My studies at lyceum were probably the brightest years in my life. The studies were not free of charge. Usually children of well-off parents studied here, but there were children of poor Jews as well. Their tuition was paid by a special fund, where donations were made by wealthy people. All subjects were taught in Yiddish.