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Moisey Frid, full unedited interview

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ENGLISH TRANSLATION 2 CITATION & RIGHTS 13

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TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION —Today is September 19, 2008. We are in St. Petersburg, meeting with a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Please, first of all, introduce yourself, tell us about your childhood, your family, what your parents did, about your brothers, sisters. What school did you attend? How did you end up in in the army and how you spent the war years? Please proceed.

My name is Moisey Abramovich Frid. I was born on August 17, 1923. I turned eighty-five recently. I am a veteran of the Second World War, with 2nd degree disability. I was born in Belarus, in Minsk. As for my family, Father finished a Realschule [a type of secondary school] and later specialized in engineering; he worked as an engineer in Minsk. Mother graduated from Mariinsky Gymnasium in Minsk. I still have her diploma. I also have a sister, Emilia, who is two years older than me. Until 1927 we lived in Belarus, but then, due to family circumstances—the end of the New Economic Policy—there were [difficulties] with employment for my father and grandfather who owned some forest land there, so we moved to Leningrad [St. Petersburg]. I was then four years old. Naturally, I don’t remember much of that time, but at the age of seven I went to school, a former grammar school on Fontanka Street. We lived on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Fontanka Street, in a famous building with a pharmacy—house no. 66. We had a small room which Father bought having sold all our property in Belarus.

And of course, this move to St. Petersburg, or Leningrad, has had a great influence on my and my sister’s upbringing. We stayed there until the start of the Great Patriotic War. I went to this former grammar school, which still retained wonderful teachers, the remnants of the classical education in literature, mathematics, and history. This happened in 1930. I finished tenth grade on Tchaikovsky Street, a very good school, situated in a former manor house. Having graduated with flying colors in 1940, I enrolled in the Shipbuilding Institute. Even at school, I had been keen on maritime affairs and shipbuilding, so together with my buddies . . . Thus, on the eve of the war, I managed to finish the first year of the Shipbuilding Institute.

I was preparing for the last exam in physics, which was scheduled for June 24. At the time, we were staying in our country house in Sestroretsk district. I remember, when we approached the Gulf, we came across a fence, and an anti-aircraft guns were being installed, so we were not allowed farther. This was on the eve of the war. And on June 22, my friend and I went for a walk in the woods in the morning. As we made our way back, we felt tension in the air, people with downcast faces passed us by. We wondered what had happened. We were told that Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, Molotov, had announced that the war had begun, that the Germans had attacked us. Of course, it was surreal . . . Naturally, we appreciated that the war would be a hard one. By then, the German Army had conquered nearly all of Europe. But I was still shy of eighteen. I was seventeen, going on eighteen.

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Then, I went to the institute to take my exam with one other student. Our examiner was an excellent pedagogue, Associate Professor Isaac Metter. He said, “Boys, this is war. God willing you survive it. I am not going to ask any physics questions. Hand over your report cards, I am giving you high marks and hope you survive this terrible war. Trying times are in store for our people”. He understood, but we were young and didn’t grasp the magnitude of what was happening.

A week later, when we went to the institute, an announcement had already been made that the people’s militia was being organized. We signed up and were told to expect a call-up. I came home and Mother reported that the house manager had been to see her, saying that all young people, especially boys, were mobilized to dig fortifications. Fortunately, we were not taken outside the city, because many were bombed there; instead, we were given shovels and sent to dig trenches and foxholes in Letnii Sad [Summer Garden], Marsovo Pole [Champ de Mars], and other places, where anti-aircraft guns were being placed. This is where I got my first toiler's blisters. We worked for about two weeks. Upon my return—this was already in the beginning of July—I found Mother in tears. Turns out, my call-up papers had arrived, I was being summoned to the military recruitment office. But I was still underage, not yet eighteen, and the year 1923 was not yet on the mobilization list announced in newspapers and on the radio.

So we went, and were at once sent for a medical on Konyushennaya Square, from where, skipping home, we marched straight to the anti-aircraft artillery school on Mir Street. The mothers who had managed to learn that we were being sent to an officer course to be trained as commanders, accompanied us. A few days later, our heads were shaved, we received new uniform, and drove to Krasnoye Selo and Dudergof, where the school’s camps were situated. We had been studying for about a month there, when suddenly, we were told not to undress, given rifles, and driven half-asleep to the Peterhof Highway, to form a cordon. This was in the area between Peterhof and Krasnoye Selo, where we also dug trenches. We were told that the Germans could break through. But we only saw how the remnants of our routed army marched from Kingisepp. The Germans had already broken through and occupied Narva, cutting off Leningrad from the Baltic states . . . Our commander told us to open fire if we see any Germans. We were issued live ammunition, though we had only once been at the shooting range. In fact, I had an exemption from the army, because of poor eye sight; since school, I had been wearing glasses +5½ diopters. During training, I lost my glasses, broke them; nevertheless, I was not a bad shot. Well, we thought we would perish there, because we saw the state of the retreating army: wagons full of the wounded, and those who could walk, went on foot, their heads and hands bandaged up. We realized that this was real war. Next day, out of the blue, our commanders told us to return to the school immediately. We boarded trucks and went. The General Staff and the Stavka made, I think, one of the few sound decisions amid this catastrophe, when the army was unprepared and completely defeated, to evacuate from Leningrad all those who had at least some education—seven to ten years of high school, as well as university students—and all the military schools and academies. For in early July, Pskov was taken and the Germans were halted at Vyritsa for about a month. There was an encirclement, but they broke through . . . the blockade was established in September.

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It took us a week to load all our equipment. This was heavy physical work, for we had to load our anti- aircraft guns and other inventory, searchlights, and the fire control system. Well, sometime at the end of August our trains moved off, but the Moscow line had already been cut off near Lyuban, and we slipped through the station Mga along the Northern Railway, which had not yet been seized by the Germans. This journey lasted for about two weeks, because we had to allow the trains, carrying tanks and artillery to the front, pass. And so, at the end of August beginning of September, we found ourselves in Omsk, where we resumed our studies at an accelerated pace. We studied field guns, searchlights, and the fire control system. Since this was more of an engineering school, we studied for more than a year, until September 1942.

Then they began to form batteries, assign ranks and send cadets to the front. At the time, we had been sent to harvest potatoes and were thus delayed. But it so happened—God Almighty has seen us through—that instead of the front, we were sent to Ufa, where Sevastopol Anti-aircraft Artillery School had been evacuated. An anti-aircraft unit began to form on the basis of this school. American weapons started to arrive in 1942, and our factories began manufacturing 37mm and 85mm anti-aircraft machine guns. It took us half a year to form: first battalions, then regiments, and then an entire division. We trained till the beginning of 1943, that is, we formed units. I was appointed platoon commander, and in 1943 our anti- aircraft division was sent to Kursk area.

Well, we, youths, had no idea that the famous Battle of Kursk was about to take place. We were deployed around Kursk, forming several rings of anti-aircraft defense, because at the time the German air force was bombing the hell out of us. There was definitely a feeling that this Kursk bulge would become an arena . . . This is where I received the first baptism of fire. When German planes came, everyone—the infantry, field artillerymen—took cover in foxholes and trenches, while it was up to us to repel the attacks of the German Junkers and Henkels, and Messerschmitts. Of course, it was intense, there were losses, but we withstood this baptism of fire.

I remember also that an order came to withdraw, not towards Kursk but farther, towards famous Prokhorovka, where the Battle of Prokhorovka took place. There were several rivers with bridges, so we were there to protect the bridges, to fight to the death, to prevent a single bridge from being damaged, because Rotmistrov’s 5th Tank Army was advancing. For the Germans had already nearly encircled Kursk and were making a break through towards the field of Prokhorovka. And there we witnessed how, billowing black smoke and dust, our tank armada was met by German “Tigers”, “Panthers”, and “Ferdinands”. The famous and very costly Battle of Prokhorovka was fought there: according to historical data, we lost about five hundred tanks, the Germans only about 250. And when the Supreme Commander, Stalin, subsequently heard of this, he was reportedly shocked and said that General Rotmistrov should be court-martialed, but then Zhukov and Vasilevsky explained that these were medium tanks, while the Germans . . . they had to shoot at point-blank . . . They had a 500-meter range. We had to go head-on. And

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN so, we witnessed it. Of course, the planes were almost . . . there was such a mess there. Well, we were later recalled to Kursk. This was the beginning of the Germans’ defeat, a radical change in the war.

After Kursk, we liberated Smolensk, then entered Belarus, and later Poland.

Well, what I remember from Poland . . . It was the famous Operation “Bagration”, as a result of which the German Army Group “Center” was routed and, as we later learnt from the newspapers, about 100,000 Germans were captured and led through the streets of Moscow. This was a famous episode later shown in photos and film chronicles.

The regimental political officer came to inform us that near Lublin there stood a death camp, called Majdanek. He chose a group of soldiers, and I was among them, to go and see the camp. But he warned us that it was terrible there, mountains of corpses, and skeletons, still living, the survivors. And, naturally, this had made a huge impression on us. Once again, we realized that the enemy must be destroyed. Afterwards, we captured several prisoners of war. After interrogation they were to be delivered to the headquarters, but my guys despatched them instead, though this was against the rules. But you have to understand how we felt—such hatred filled our hearts.

This was one episode.

Another episode: it happened when we approached Warsaw in August. Heavy fighting took place for the eastern suburbs of Warsaw, Praga, which was famous since the times of the Polish uprising, the Polish War of the 18th century when Suvorov captured it. Here I lost my friend, Lenya Evdokimov. I later wrote about this in my memoirs. In order to push us back from Warsaw, the Germans threw in their tank corps, which broke through our battle formations. Two kilometers away stood the battery of my school friend, Lenya Evdokimov. He tried to repel the enemy from 37mm guns, but the guns were crushed, and his entire platoon died there. Subsequently, I learned from my Polish comrades that he was buried at a well-known military cemetery in Warsaw. This episode was difficult: we were bombed, then the German tank corps broke through. We were deployed about half a kilometer from the front line and wound up under direct mortar fire. This also stayed in my memory. Well, of course, under this bombardment we were only fed at night, with food arriving in thermoses. Once, the soldier who carried the food got killed, and we were left without hot meals. There was another incident when a mortar bomb exploded next to our cook, killing him; the food got mixed with blood. Well, such were our tribulations.

There was also the famous Polish Uprising, organised by the Armia Krajowa and the émigré Polish government. Without coordinating it with our high command—this is a well-known fact—they rose up in revolt . . . And we, too, moving across Poland felt hostility towards Jews . . . In a town, called Minsk Mazowiecki, I met an elderly square-shouldered Pole, who, it turned out, had served in World War I in St.

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Petersburg, in the Imperial Guards regiment. He asked me where I was from. I said that I was from Leningrad, he corrected me—Petersburg. He said, “I thought you were from the Caucasus, with your dark eyes and curly hair. You are probably an Armenian”. I replied, “No, I am a Jew”. He told me that a terrible fate had befell Polish Jews. I learned from him about the Warsaw [Ghetto] Uprising, for we knew nothing about it . . . That the ghetto inmates fought heroically, but all the survivors were later sent to Auschwitz. And now, another uprising in Warsaw; hundreds of thousands of residents, against whom the Germans threw several divisions, having removed them from the front. The Poles fought for about a month, losing several hundred thousand people, and the survivors were also deported to Auschwitz. Thus, the Jews’ fate reflected on the Poles’ fate. Here is another episode.

Another episode: I hadn’t yet come across any anti-Semitism, because . . . While still in Belarus, I was told that there used to be Jewish partisan detachments there, who saved the survivors. There I met one, a girl who had ran away from the ghetto with her mother and found salvation with a partisan detachment, a Jewish partisan detachment. And here, in Poland, there were camps, like Majdanek. Later, we learned that Germans turned Poland into a country of death camps, which were filled mostly with Jews, since there were about three million Jews in Poland and of these 90 per cent were destroyed.

Once, we were tasked with defending an airfield in Poland. It used to be a German military airfield, and in their barracks, where German pilots quartered, we found a lot of books in German. I was learning German, knew it more or less decently—I even interrogated prisoners. And I remember: as I was going through German magazines, I came across an issue of very colorful “Adler”, meaning “Eagle”, the Luftwaffe. It had color pictures: 1942 and the heading “Timoshenko's Offensive in Kharkov”. This is when, Stalin said, “Let Timoshenko take Kharkov”. This is where five of our armies were surrounded. It had happened near Kiev, and it was repeated near Kharkov [Kharkiv]. For Kharkov also changed hands several times. Here you go. And this photo featured long columns of our prisoners. It gave us a pause: we had been told that our retreat was orderly just before we began pushing the Germans westwards, and here we saw hundreds of thousands of our POWs. Later, it became known that five million Soviet soldiers had been captured and only less than a million survived. Such was the cost of this disaster. Curiously, I also found books in Russian. Namely, Dostoevsky, who used to be banned in the Soviet Union before the war: he was not in the school curricular. This was probably a German edition in Russian—his memoirs and a whole book about Jews. And I thought to myself, Dostoevsky was a wonderful writer, people read his “Crime and Punishment”, if they could get their hands on it, “Brothers Karamazov”, but his work was so full of anti-Semitic statements . . . I had a buddy, assistant to divisional chief of staff, we were both shocked . . . So much for Dostoevsky. Here, another episode for you.

And then began the winter offensive of 1945. Suddenly, we were told that our command was changing. Before then, Rokossovsky was our commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, his photos were everywhere. Also, a pilot once told us that he had seen him personally, when he arrived at the airfield. And suddenly,

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN he was ordered to take command of the 2nd Belorussian Front, to advance into Prussia and cut off Konigsberg [Kaliningrad] from the western part; Zhukov was to replace him. These same pilots also told us later that they had briefly seen Zhukov’s plane landing. As for Rokossovsky, he selected several divisions, including our anti-aircraft division, and made us part of his, Rokossovsky’s, 2nd Belorussian Front. Why did I remember this? Because, having spent several months in Belarus, I was suddenly summoned to the divisional headquarters and told that I had been awarded ahead of time a rank of senior lieutenant, and the Star for battles in Belarus and near Warsaw, where my platoon shot down three planes. They handed me the Star solemnly. Afterwards, we were transferred to East Prussia, where battles were as fierce. But the German air force was no longer the same as in 1942 and 1943. They had thrown their entire “Luftwaffe” into the battle of Kursk.

We broke through towards Elbing [Elblag] and Allenstein [Olsztyn], and reached the sea already in the western part, cutting off East Prussia from . . . Konigsberg was taken on April 11, 1945, and this was still February-March. There, we came under artillery shelling, bombing, and walked into mine fields, where several of my soldiers died, stepping on mines, and a projectile hit our dugout, trapping us inside. Several of my soldiers were hit directly, while I was dragged out, concussed and with a broken leg. I was sent to the hospital. This was in March or April.

Later, I was summoned to the headquarters and given the second Order of the Patriotic War. I was also told that since I was a student, educated, distinguished myself and wounded in battle, I was being sent to Ryazan—it was in April—to an anti-aircraft artillery school as an instructor, to teach my skill, for though the war in Europe was coming to an end, there would still be another one in the Far East. We already knew that troop trains were being sent to the Far East from East Prussia, particularly from the the 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Fronts, commanded by Vasilevsky and Baghramyan. So, officers-anti-aircraft gunners were in demand. I worked at the school until October 1945, the war was already over . . .

I was anxious to reunite with my family, to return to Leningrad. Father had been mobilised and worked in the military industry in Rybinsk and Yaroslavl. They had been evacuated even before I enrolled in the school. But the ring around Leningrad snapped shut, with Mother, Aunt and my cousin caught inside. My sister got married a week before the war. He was a good guy, just finished university specialising in geology. We called him Rudya. His surname was Handshu, a glove. So, they got married; our new relative was mobilized into engineering forces and even managed to take my sister out. They were settled near Stalingrad [Volgograd] and other settlements nearby. Mother stayed by herself, though moving into one room to avoid bombing, and survived the blockade. Barely alive, she evacuated together with Aunt and cousin in February. Other relatives stayed behind and starved to death. They were fortunate—they got out. There was an order to take Leningraders to the North Caucasus. Conditions were excellent there, and the food was good. They settled in Pyatigorsk. The three of them arrived in Mineralnye Vody and then Pyatigorsk. We had an aunt in Samarkand, aunt and uncle. They were old-timers; he was a dental

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN technician. In the beginning of the war, they corresponded, inviting them to come to stay at their place in Central Asia. And so, my cousin, he was then sixteen years old, would go to the train station to register, but they were not allowed to leave, because Mineralnye Vody was a restricted area. And then the Germans occupied Rostov—the famous Order 227 was issued at the time—and broke through to Stalingrad. Kleist’s tanks rode towards Stavropol. My relatives were able to grab literally the last train to Baku, endured bombing near Grozny and then took a boat to Krasnovodsk [Turkmenbashi]. But they made it out. Thank God, they were saved. And those who didn’t manage to evacuate were murdered by Einzatsgruppen. In all fairness though, there was a trial in Krasnodar already during the war, after which some Germans and their collaborators were hanged. Well, at the time, they only referred to peaceful civilian population being murdered, not the fact that they were Jews. Here is another episode.

I certainly wanted to get to St. Petersburg soon. I was again summoned to the Main Directorate, to the Red Army, to be given a new post, but I was lucky that the school was disbanded, the war was over, so I asked for military discharge. And, at the very end, I was given the rank of captain. I was a company commander, a battery commander. They didn’t want me to leave the army. I received a note that the Shipbuilding Institute had re-evacuated from Gorky [Nizhny Novgorod]; in other words, returned from evacuation. I wrote to them, they sent me the note from Leningrad that I was a 2nd year student. They didn’t want to let me go, but I was aware that as Moisei Abramovich Frid I wouldn’t make much of a career in the army, for I already began to feel certain state anti-Semitism, especially when Mehlis was removed and replaced by Shcherbakov. Also, Ehrenburg's articles were no longer published . . . As I wondered the corridors of the Main Directorate of Artillery, I met a fellow-instructor, a lieutenant colonel, who recognized me. He approached me and helped me get my discharge papers from the beginning of 1946 . . . He told me that I was an officer, would move quickly in the ranks, will be paid good money, and will make colonel in no time. But I told him that it wasn’t for me. “So, you will just be a poor student”, he said.

Thank God, my father was later demobilized—having received his discharge orders from the military plant because he was already fifty—Mother survived, and we had a large room; two rooms actually, but one was very small. I came home and enrolled in the second year of the Shipbuilding Institute. Here is my life story.

Afterwards, I graduated from the Shipbuilding Institute and was sent to the Zhdanov Shipbuilding Plant, where I worked for five years. In my forth year, I met my future wife, who also went to the Shipbuilding Institute. Then we got married. Her father was a medic, he finished the Military Medical Academy, and after the war, in the rank of lieutenant colonel, he was discharged from the army and sent to the Crimea as the chief physician at a sanatorium in Yalta. We went to Yalta on our honeymoon. And then, after Stalin’s death during the Thaw, the Levadia Government hotels were handed over to trade unions, though not for long—a few years later, they were taken away . . . So, in Levadia I visited the places where the Yalta Conference took place, where Roosevelt and Churchill stayed and such. That's history now.

Well, I worked at the factory, but I had a penchant for scientific work, so tried twice to enrol to higher

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN education institutes. I had graduated with merit, had sixty highest marks, and a certificate to prove it. So I attempted to go to graduate school, but the first time I failed on the basis of the “fifth paragraph”—they looked for anything to prevent me from entering, for I was seen as competition. Later, I was offered a graduate correspondence course. My cousin Rosa, who was a victim of repression, a daughter of twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Commander of the Air Forces Yakov Vladimirovich Smushkevich, killed by Stalin and Beria, helped me. I came to Moscow, she helped me leave the factory through the Ministry, because they wouldn’t let people go, and I joined a Design Bureau, where I worked for forty-three years. I made it all the way from 2nd category design engineer, then 1st category design engineer with great production experience, to sector chief, to department head, to Deputy Chief Engineer. In 1998, when I was almost seventy-five, our bureau underwent reorganization, merging with “Almaz” Bureau, and I was solemnly retired. So, I’ve been a pensioner for ten years now.

I had an inclination: when I was still at the Bureau . . . I had been accepted into the Party back in 1942 while still at the military school. It was necessary then, we couldn’t graduate otherwise. I was a good student, and our commissar, a decent guy, told me I had to be a Party member, my relatives were starving in Leningrad and I had to take revenge on the fascist beast for everything. So I . . . subsequently, I was done with the Party, thank God. But I took an interest in a school overseen by the Bureau and engaged in patriotic education on behalf of the Bureau’s Party organisation. I found it rewarding to give the pupils lessons of courage, tell them about the front line. When I retired, I joined our union of Jewish disabled veterans at 22 Gatchina Street. When I told our Chairman about my previous activities—perhaps I shouldn’t have—he offered me to join our youth section to work with Jewish youngsters. Initially, I was a deputy chairman, graduating to chairman of the section. We supervise five Jewish schools and a gymnasium. It was very interesting work to come to schools and talk to students.

There is a school at 7 Novo-Litovskaya Street. It was destroyed in a fire, just stood there with burnt, empty windows. The head of the administration, Kolesnikov, called on all the headmasters to repair it, because he didn’t want to demolish it, but there was no funding. So, our Jewish community, especially the religious one from the Synagogue, agreed to establish a Jewish culture and education center there. With the help of American sponsors, they allocated two and a half million dollars and set up the centre. I come there at the beginning of each new academic year, we celebrate our Jewish holidays, and all the holidays related to military affairs. This is our moral outlet, so to speak.

They are wonderful kids, very involved. Recently, for Victory Day, one school, formerly Alekseevskaya Gymnasium on Torgovy Pereulok near Lomonosov Square, invited us to come to speak with their pupils. We met four boys, tenth-graders. They asked us all sorts of questions, wanted to know what guns we had, and even recorded our recollections. I asked them if they wanted to stay in touch and invited them to come to our annual Victory Day meetings of veterans and blockade survivors. There was a concert at the Lensovet Theater on Vladimirsky Prospect. I invited them, and they did come. I was amazed. Three of them

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN showed up. I introduced them to our leadership. During the concert, war heroes were called up, followed by a wonderful performance by Jewish artists and amateur performers. The boys approached to thank me afterwards: “Moisei Abramovich, thank you very much. We would like to stay in touch. Please visit our school”.

—Is it a Jewish school?

Yes, a Jewish school. It is a former gymnasium. They have set up an exhibition, dedicated to Jews in the war. They had a common display and one about the Jews. The principal, Boris Abramovich Notkin, always welcomes us, we stay in touch, though less and less lately. Our veteran ranks are dwindling. Unfortunately, over the past two years, seven people have died in my section. Well, as they say, we must do this, just as during the war, we stood to the end, and so we do now. Here is the story of my life.

—Do you get to visit non-Jewish schools?

During my time at the Design Bureau, I was responsible for our party organisation’s patronage work. School no.495 was just across the road, and we carried out our work there. We, the sponsors, teachers, and schoolchildren . . . I organised a series of lectures on shipbuilding. By the way, Konstantin Ivanovich Tsarev worked in my department, called the Department of Technical and Information Support. He was a Hero of the Soviet Union, a very modest man. He was in for a high position, became a leading specialist . . . I kept on coaxing him and and finally brought him to this school on May 9.

He told us how his unit was breaking out of the encirclement near Brest. At the time, he was the commander of a 76mm gun, facing several tanks and an entire infantry battalion. The battery’s three guns were destroyed, but he fired back, knocking out a tank, an armored vehicle, and dispersing this battalion. He was seriously wounded but survived all the same, finished a correspondence course at the Shipbuilding Institute and lived to tell the story. We buried him two years ago.

And nowadays, since we have these five Jewish school, gymnasiums, we work with them, with our kids, so to speak . . . I live at 40 Torez Avenue, in a condominium building, where my wife and I bought a two- bedroom flat; I live there alone now. I have a son who visits me. . . There is a school in the courtyard; we also have a contract with them. Our neighbourhood has its Council of Veterans, and we are regularly invited by the kids to come over. Well, there is no need to do anything there, we are more like figureheads—we don’t make any presentations, for they do it themselves, their representative for educational work and deputy principal, while we just sit there; occasionally, one of us makes a speech. We find a sort of moral satisfaction in it.

—You have given many speeches, participated in various events related to your military life. What, in your opinion, should be mentioned when we talk about the war, what should we tell children? About heroic

Moisey Frid, full unedited interview

ID STP012.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4rb6w422

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN deeds, how someone knocked out a tank, or that war is senseless, it is murder, blood, and death. What should we say? What do we want to convey, if we want to talk about personal experience and personal impressions, rather than textbook material.

Well, let me say this: initially, when we were attached to general education schools—there were still no Jewish schools, which were created only after perestroika, in the 1990s, with the revival of Jewish life and the reappearance of the Community and the heder—the so-called lessons of courage were led by instructors from the district committee. We had to speak about heroic exploits, of victory, of how we fought. And nowadays, when we meet and talk to children, we mostly answer questions. The kind of questions you have just asked. And we say that war is a terrible thing, a dirty business, but it is also a heroic event. People sacrificed themselves, and the command, either good or bad. Because of wrong decisions . . . You can find a lot of literature these days. We tell them straight and there is no shame in it, that a lot of people died, a colossal number of people . . . And according to the latest estimates . . . Initially we were told that seven million perished, then twenty, then twenty-seven, and now, according to the latest estimates, thirty-two million. We tell them at what price victory was bought—I did not fight on this front, the Leningrad one—how a division after division were thrown onto this ill-fated Nevsky Pyatachok: more than 100 thousand—in layers. And at what cost? Not skill, but blood. This is what we tell them. In those schools, kids are interested in military hardware: which tanks there were, what kind of aircraft we brought down. I still have the photo albums I used to bring with me, with Junkers, Messerschmitts, and anti-aircraft guns, which ones were effective. Well, modern warfare is different—it’s war of the rockets and jets. So, we make comparisons. We tell them, “Guys, you must love your motherland. You live here. You should defend her, for there is no one else”. These are lessons in patriotism. Lately, we don’t even have to give any talks, they tell us instead, especially about the Holocaust, the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Our Jewish schools prepare all the material. Unfortunately, the Holocaust is discussed only in passing in general secondary schools. It’s all very well, they say, that six million Jews died, but what about twenty million Russians. What they don’t mention is that those Jews were killed only because they were Jews.

—Thank you very much.

This is my life . . .

—Not an easy one.

Yes, and thank you.

In my old age—I am eighty-six, after all—I began to think about God. We used to be atheists, knew nothing. Now I flip through the Bible, the Torah, attend Hebrew lectures. We are an ancient people who preserved themselves, despite all these colossal losses. I believe God saved me. My mother always prayed and said,

Moisey Frid, full unedited interview

ID STP012.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4rb6w422

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

“Be happy, I believe God keeps you safe”. She died at the age of sixty-five—she was affected by the blockade. But I keep my wits about me, still in my right mind, I can still function, despite all sorts of ailments.

I do not know whether I should tell you about my relative, Smushkevich. He is from Lithuania, a place called Rokiskis. A monument to him was erected there during the Soviet era. My sister went there and other surviving relatives, his brothers. I even have a photo with astronaut Beregov. He was arrested with other leaders . . . Before the war, the Winter War, still in 1939, he himself flew a plane at the Aviation Plant in Kharkov . . . Actually, he shouldn’t have done it, it was a test pilot’s job, while he was already a corps commander, had four diamond badges . . . He took off, but the engine stalled and he went down, broke both his legs. He was treated for his injuries, of course. Stalin called him “My Yasha, my falcon”. He received the first Star for leading operations in Spain, and the second at Khalkhin-Gol, when Zhukov or Shtern cabled Stalin that they couldn’t raise their heads, with the Japanese air force dominating the skies, and asked to send in the heroes of Spain. Airplanes, an entire squadron, and 40 Heroes of the Soviet Union were sent there. That's what he got the second Star out of three. When he was arrested, his family escaped prosecution: Aunt Basya, my cousin Rosa. They began to panic in Moscow, because they didn’t know anything, having been told that an investigation was ongoing. She went to Beria, it’s all in her memoires . . . The aircraft factory was being evacuated to Tashkent, and they were offered to go, too, but they hesitated to leave. They decided to go in the end. For half a year they were left alone, but then a directive came after he was shot together with the rest . . . When the Germans approached Moscow, they were evacuated . . . Therefore, the fifteen-year-old girl received a five-year sentence, her mother got seven years. Until 1953 they were in a camp in Karaganda, followed by full rehabilitation.

—He is related to you through his sister?

No. He was my aunt’s husband, my mother’s sister. My mother is Evgenia Solomonovna, and she is Basya Solomonovna. When he was still a commissar during the Civil War, they met in a small settlement, fell in love, and got married.

—He died. He was shot.

Shot.

—And the family was sent . . .

Sent to a camp. My heart is filled with hatred towards Stalin.

Moisey Frid, full unedited interview

ID STP012.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4rb6w422

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

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