DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Iosif Fridman. Full, unedited interview, 2012 ID NY086.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4h41jp4x ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN TABLE OF CONTENTS ITEM TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION 2 CITATION & RIGHTS 10 2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 1/10 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Iosif Fridman. Full, unedited interview, 2012 ID NY086.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4h41jp4x ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION —Today is February 13, 2012. We are in the Jewish Center of Bensonhurst, in Brooklyn, meeting with a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Please introduce yourself. Tell us how you lived before the war, in what family you grew up, what happened to you during the war. My name is Iosif Lvovich Fridman. I was born on October 10, 1925, in the village of Lipovets [Lypovets'] in Vinnytsya Oblast. But my parents were not from Lipovets. My father was from Bugaivka and my mother was from Pohrebyshche. My father's name was Lev Yakovlevich. My mother's name was Klara Isaakovna; her maiden name was Kaplun. I wasn't born alone. I was born with my sister. There was also an older brother, three years older than me. Our life in Lipovtsy wasn't bad. My father was a cooper. He was a very capable person. He taught himself how to read and write. When he was a prisoner in Hungary, he even learned Hungarian during those two years. At first they lived in Zozovo, in Lipovets District. Then they moved to Lipovets where we started working at the machine-tractor station [MTS]. Because he was a literate man, he was put in charge of the warehouse. It was hard for him there. He had to know every detail of every machine that existed at the time: tractors, combines, automobiles. We had nowhere to live and my father bought an old house. Some lawyer lived in that house. The house was falling apart, especially the first floor. The MTS helped him buy that house. His grandfather and his brother lived in the village of Lipovets. They helped him fix the house. They added stone on the first floor for stability. There was a piece of land. He liked gardening and planted trees there. The house ended up being big. On the first floor we kept a cow, geese, turkeys—it was a whole small farm. There was space for them to roam. Our life wasn't bad. I went to the Lipovets Secondary School. —Was the school Russian or Ukrainian? It was a Jewish school. I went there until 1939, then it was liquidated. A Jewish school in Ukraine! That won't do. I was transferred to a Ukrainian school. It was on the outskirts of Lipovets. I studied there until the ninth grade. My sister didn't want to go there because it was too far. She found a job. These are my childhood years. What did I do? I liked swimming in the river, fish, and especially catch crawfish. I supplied everyone I knew with crawfish. I used to take two buckets and go to the river, which wasn't too far. I walked along the river, dove, and pulled crawfish out of their holes. They bit my fingers but I didn't care. I would have two buckets full of crawfish and treat everyone I knew. This was a great pleasure for me. I had many relatives in Lipovtsy. My father was the oldest, but my grandfather had lots of children. He had fourteen children, but only seven were alive. [My father had] three sisters and three brothers. When the war began . —Excuse me. Those children in the Jewish school and in that Ukrainian school . Did they get along? Did ethnicity matter? 2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 2/10 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Iosif Fridman. Full, unedited interview, 2012 ID NY086.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4h41jp4x ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN Not at all. We played soccer together, went to the river, swam, dove, and simply were friends. It didn't matter. —Were you acquainted with the concept of anti-Semitism? No, I had no idea. They didn't teach us about it in the Jewish school. It was a very good school. We had Jewish and Russian doctors. There was a doctor who treated both adults and children. He built medicinal baths there. There was a Russian doctor, Pristupov, he was an obstetrician. My brother finished a Ukrainian school and then entered the medical institute in Kiev. He managed to complete two years before the war. When the war began . It was June 22, and at night of 21st after my classes . My father said, "Alright, go to Kiev [Kyiv] to visit my brother. They will host you, you'll spend time with my brother and see the city." They bought me a ticket. The train station wasn't nearby. There were carriage drivers. The railway station was 12 kilometers away. I went to Kiev and at night I heard explosions and the hum of airplanes above. When I arrived at Boyarka, a station before Kiev, it was announced that Germans were bombing Kiev. They were bombing Kerosinka Street that is now Vozdukhoflotskaya Street. There was smoke because of the bombing. My uncle met me in Kiev. He said, "Why did you come? The war has begun." My uncle had a son ten years younger than me. I was already fifteen, and he was five. Now he lives in Israel. I said, "I am already here. Where am I supposed to go?" He took me with him to his place, of course. He said that everyone was evacuating because of the war. The telephone connection was damaged. We had to call my parents and tell them to get my grandfather and my sisters, and that they should leave. They didn't want to go anywhere. My grandfather said, "I'm not going anywhere. I know Germans. They were here during the Civil War. They are very nice people. They were helping us and didn't hurt anybody. This is all propaganda." My grandfather didn't believe it. He refused to leave and convinced my sisters to stay as well. And my uncle persuaded me to go back and convince everyone to leave. While I was on my way back, my train was bombed, the rail tracks were destroyed, and the trains couldn't run. So went through Vinnytsya. What was happening there at the time was terrible. They were looking for spies everywhere. They took me for a spy but I showed them my papers and told them that I was just a schoolboy, that I went to school, that I only finished nine grades, and there was no way I could be a spy. They let me go and I made it home. My parents weren't there. They left with my sister. My father worked at MTS and he was told to leave. He was convoying some machines. He took my mom and sister with him. But my grandfather didn't want to go and stayed behind. My father built a big house. We lived on the top floor and the ground floor was for the animals and firewood. Our life wasn't bad. My father was well-respected. He knew every detail of every car and how to change them. He had good technical skills. During the Civil War he had served in the army and was a corporal there. He spent two years as a prisoner of war and then returned. But before that he used to live in Bugaivka. He was married 2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 3/10 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Iosif Fridman. Full, unedited interview, 2012 ID NY086.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4h41jp4x ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN and had two children. But when he came back, there was no wife and no house, there was nothing. The mob drove the Jews with their children to the synagogue and burned them alive. They set the synagogue on fire and didn't let anyone out. —When did this happen? This happened in 1917, when the revolution was happening and chaos spread in Ukraine. That's when he left for Lipovets. My grandfather and his three daughters lived there. So my father went to live with my grandfather, found a job in Zozovo, and married my mother. My mother used to have a fiancé but he died and she married my father. In 1922 my brother was born. So my father started building the house. When the war began, I came back to Lipovets through Vinnytsia. When I arrived there, everyone had already left. My father's sisters and my grandfather moved to our house. There were three bedrooms, a big kitchen, and a cellar. So they moved there. The older sister had three little children. Her name was Surka. When I got there, they were in shock. In Lipovtsy the military committee started drafting young men, because soldiers would be needed. Alright. We left. I was given a ration. Two people were escorting us. They received lots of money from the bank on our behalf, brought us somewhere far away in the forest, left us there, and ran off. With the money. We were left alone. I went back to Lipovets, so did other guys. The Germans were already there. There was such a massacre. In the beginning of August, they gathered all the young men . They didn't take me because I'm on the short side.