I cannot say anything about the Doctors’ Plot 8 since it somehow went past me. I’ve never been interested in politics.
- 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
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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
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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
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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 47011 - 47040 of 50826 results
Lidia Lieberman
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I got adjusted to my new job and colleagues. There were few Jews in the laboratory: doctor Sophia Vladimirovna Derbarindiner – we all adored her –, and a lab assistant. I never faced any anti-Semitism. My colleagues treated me with respect. We made a great team together. At Easter our Russian colleagues brought Easter bread and other treats and I brought matzah at Pesach and hamantashen at Purim. My Jewish colleague, the lab assistant, kept her nationality a secret and our colleagues showed less respect toward her.
A day before Stalin’s death in 1953 I had a tooth pulled out. Something went wrong and I had hemorrhage at night. My mother took me to a dental clinic in the morning. I was having my gum sewed up when we heard that Stalin died. I went to work. Oh, Lord, everybody was crying. They couldn’t imagine life without their leader. I was also sorry.
One of my friends introduced me to a young man who had just finished his service in the army and returned to Odessa. His name was Grisha Gaber. He was one year older than I. We met for about 9 months before we got married in 1953.
My mother-in-law rented a dacha in summer and we lived there. Grisha was not quite fond of traveling, but we did travel every now and then. We took a cruise on the Black Sea. The ship stopped in the ports of the Crimea Caucasus. Grisha and I took a tour to Leningrad once and another time I went there with my colleagues. Once Grisha’s friends took us to Riga on a driving tour in their car. We went via Kiev, Minsk and Vilnius. It was a great tour. We stayed with Grisha’s relatives in Riga. Grisha and I lived together for 20 years. We didn’t have any children. We didn’t observe Jewish holidays and didn’t go to the synagogue.
I divorced him in 1975. I got tired of his love affairs. We got a divorce in court, but we divided our property ourselves.
In 1982 I resumed relations with my acquaintance, Naum Balan. He lived in Soroki town in Moldavia. Rita wrote him about my situation. Naum wrote me a letter and then came on a visit to Odessa. Naum cared about me: he visited me on all Soviet holidays – 1 May and October Revolution Day, New Year and on my birthday. I also visited him in Soroki. He was an engineer in the operations department in a construction company and went on numerous business trips. I joined him when I had few days off at work. Sometimes we went to Tiraspol where his younger brother Michael lived with his family. I met his favorite nieces: Luda, the oldest, lived with me when she studied in Odessa Construction College. The younger one Tatiana studied in Tiraspol, in Pedagogical College. Naum has always been fond of theater and cinema. We’ve been to all theaters in the town. We often went to museums and art exhibitions.
Gmilus Hesed provides great assistance to us. They provide food packages, pay for medications, visits to a doctor. Volunteers help us about the house.
Marcel Simon
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And after that he enrolled to I.S.E. [Institute of Economical Studies] in Iasi, but he didn’t graduate, he completed 3 years and in the 4th year he emigrated to Israel, because of his friendship with his actual wife, and she had left earlier with her family –, and they got married.
In the meantime, my brother graduated high school in 1960. He also graduated from ‘Stefan cel Mare’ High School, but of 11 grades, and went to Botosani, where he finished a commercial technical school.
And from 1958 I worked for 40 years as an accountant at the Burdujeni Abattoir – Burdujeni is a district of Suceava.
I took the entrance exam to university two times, I failed, and then my father’s illness came and I had to get a job, to earn money and support the family. Later I took the difference exams and I attended the Commercial High School and graduated in 1973.
My brother and I went to school, to high school, just like the other kids. In 1956 I graduated from ‘Stefan cel Mare’ High School, here in Suceava. I graduated the 10 grade high school, it was so at that time.
I had bar mitzvah here in Suceava, but I really don’t remember that.
We observed the Pesach. We were poor at that time, we didn’t have possibility to get all new pots, as it was customary. During the Pesach one had to cook everything in new pots. Mother boiled them [the ones which were used every day] with lye wash, she made the lye wash out of sand and stone, she boiled them well, cleaned them and washed them. We tidied up the house, we lived in a house, gave the wall a coat of whitewash so that it would look clean, and she bought us each new clothes, as the possibilities allowed it. We had matzah. At that time azyme was made here too, now it comes from Israel. Now all these are tales, because very few observe the Pesach in a traditional way.
I don’t remember a Seder from my childhood. We observed it with my father at home, but I don’t remember, I was too small. One ate bitter herbs and matzah, made eggs. During the Pesach more eggs and potatoes are eaten, because it isn’t allowed to eat leaven. They made a kind of ‘ciorba de perisoare’ sour meatball soup made of matzah flour. And out of the matzah flour keyzel can be made too– a kind of ‘tocinei’ [similar to the Kartoffelnpuffer or latkes], but sweet. We bought wine from the community. We observed the Seder at home until I was in high school, until 1950 or so. But Seder is observed in fact in a larger community, at the Jewish community. But I have never attended.
I don’t remember a Seder from my childhood. We observed it with my father at home, but I don’t remember, I was too small. One ate bitter herbs and matzah, made eggs. During the Pesach more eggs and potatoes are eaten, because it isn’t allowed to eat leaven. They made a kind of ‘ciorba de perisoare’ sour meatball soup made of matzah flour. And out of the matzah flour keyzel can be made too– a kind of ‘tocinei’ [similar to the Kartoffelnpuffer or latkes], but sweet. We bought wine from the community. We observed the Seder at home until I was in high school, until 1950 or so. But Seder is observed in fact in a larger community, at the Jewish community. But I have never attended.
And at Rosh Hashanah we all went to the synagogue, and I remember that they blew the shofar. We have a man now, Mr. Zighi Blaustein – who blows the shofar on holidays, he used to be a drummer, he was never married and is 85 years old.
I remember Yom Kippur. It is very difficult on Yom Kippur, it [the service at the synagogue] starts in the morning, it lasts until 1 or 2 PM, and after that, with a break of 2-3 hours there is the closing. On the evening before that the Kol Nidre is recited. On Yom Kippur we, the children also fasted with our parents. When we were small we only fasted for half a day, but after the bar mitzvah we fasted properly.
Father went to the synagogue, but only rarely, at the high holidays. He also took us to the synagogue on the high holidays. I remember Yom Kippur. It is very difficult on Yom Kippur, it [the service at the synagogue] starts in the morning, it lasts until 1 or 2 PM, and after that, with a break of 2-3 hours there is the closing. On the evening before that the Kol Nidre is recited.
We observed Sabbath as we could. I remember that mother bathed us both, dressed us nicely and made a coilici [Editor’s note: Coilici is a variant for challah, similar to the word “kajlics“ used by some Hungarian speaking Jews in Romania. Both words have the origin of the Hungarian word “kalacs“.] – a challah, which is made for Sabbath –, lit two candles, said a prayer, father did the blessing, and then, since it was a holiday, we had a better meal, once a week. I remember that on Friday evening she made us some meatballs and after that she made a pudding for desert out of vermicelli with nuts and sugar, then my brother and I fought each other to clean out the bottom of the pan, because it was very delicious.
In my childhood traditions were observed, though my father wasn’t an extremely religious man and there were difficult times, there were times after the war. My mother wasn’t especially kosher, but she observed what she could.
He was a Colonel of Justice and retired, but he still works.
I had a colleague and very good friend- Avi Haber. He is of my age, we spent our childhood together and we went to school together. He emigrated to Israel in 1964, he lives in Qiryat Tiv’on, close to Haifa. I saw him 4 years ago when I was in Israel for the third time.
As I child I went to a Jewish school, to cheder. Normally one went to cheder before school, but I went from 1946, after we returned from Transnistria. In the cheder we spoke Yiddish and read in Hebrew. I knew Hebrew really well. I don’t know it anymore, I forgot. I learned 3 or 4 years with a religion teacher, as it was customary at that time that people learned parts of the Torah. I remember that my teacher was an old gentleman, and we played, we fooled about, and he ran after us, he slapped us sometimes – in a friendly way. We started with the alef, bet – with the alphabet, and then the parts. We had to sing… It was a nice period! Even though times were tough and we were poor children. I don’t know anything of it, because I didn’t practice. You know how it is, a language can be learned by communication with people, not by memorizing and reading word by word. More than 60 years have passed since than, and I don’t remember many things from the cheder. But anyhow, there were many children, we were in groups. In a group there were 25-30 kids, just like a quite big class. Only boys, there weren’t any girls. Now, in the more modern period, even the girls went to the Talmud Torah. Mr. Pietraru, the former president of the Jewish community in Suceava told me, that even girls went, there are some pictures of it at the Jewish community.
Before World War II there were 5000 Jews in Suceava, after the war 2000 remained. So I did catch some [Jewish life]. In Suceava most of the Jews spoke Yiddish. But many spoke German as well. For example, if a Jewish family met a German family they spoke fluent German with each other. We spoke Yiddish at home. I learned German through the contact with the rest of the world. But I knew Romanian too, because this is the base language. Mrs. Salinger, who works at the Jewish community, being from Cernauti, says that most of the people there spoke German.
Romania
Most of the population in Suceava is [Christian] Orthodox, but there are Catholics, too – there are over 1000 Catholics. Among the Catholics there are the Polish, the Hungarians, there are Calvinists among them, too, and there are some Armenians and Ukrainians. But the relationship between the different nations has always been good. In the communist era, what can I say, we all suffered the same way. We all stood in queue, we lived though hard times when they gave bread on ticket.
My parents didn’t want to go to Israel. I don’t know why my father didn’t agree to leave, he hardly supported heat, and when he heard what [temperature] was there, he used to say ‘I can’t live long there.’ And really, many people didn’t adapt there.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I remember that where we spent our childhood there was a hill, there was a slope until the foot of the Citadel and we sledded.
After the war we were badly off, because the communist era started, and you weren’t allowed to… [trade]. These were other times. And since my father didn’t have much schooling, he had various jobs. He worked in the commerce, was a night-watchman – odd jobs, so that he could raise us. My mother was a housewife.
In my childhood I lived in a house, in a small house on 10 Mirautilor Street. After that I moved from there, because I inherited a house from aunt Sophie right across from the market. After I invested money in that, it was demolished, and they gave us a very small amount of money at that time. 5 years ago with this restitution law I also made an application, because they told me that they would give me the value difference from that time. But I haven’t gotten anything so far. Now my wife and I live in a flat and we live off our pension, we don’t have any other income.
But I visited there three times: in 1975, in 1983 and in 2002. I liked it, it’s a nice country. Jews came from all around the world, who, in my opinion, teamed up and have transformed the country. The southern part is a bit more like a desert, but there is a nice town there, Beersheba, I have visited it. I have been in Qiryat Tiv’on at my colleague’s, Avi Haber, I have been to Qiryat Motzkin, at my colleague’s, Sica Manas, I have been in Rehovot, at my cousin’s Miriam Kruger. I have been in Tel Aviv, I saw two towers made by rich people, Jews from Argentina or Brazil, similar to those which were hit on the 11st September. One of them has 64 floors, the other one 48 floors. There are very nice shops, supermarkets and restaurants on the ground floor.
,
After WW2
See text in interview