Different Lives, A Common Story

BOOK 5 1 CONTENT

This book was published as part of the Experiential Learning Practicum offered by the

Russian Studies Program at Brandeis University in partnership with the Brandeis- Introduction...... 4 Genesis Institute for Russian Jewry. The publication is supported by the Adam and Matan Student reflections...... 5 Adelson Multigenerational Program at Hebrew Rehabilitation Center in Roslindale, MA,

and a grant from the Genesis Philanthropy Group. Iosif Naumovich Boguslavsky...... 8

Mira Borisovna Krupkina...... 20

Naum Grigorievich Hayut...... 28

Raisa Samoylovna Chigrinskaya...... 34

Zoya Grigorievna Ofengeym ...... 46

2 n the fall semester 2015, a group of Eydus, and Alena Gomulina. The oral students from Brandeis University histories recorded by these students Iparticipated in a project called include tales of a pre-war childhood, of “Individual Lives, A Common Story”: “Individual Lives, A Common Story” at the Great Patriotic War and evacuation, of Hebrew Rehabilitation Center (HRC) in life in the occupied territories, of hunger participating students share their reflections Roslindale, MA. This is the 5th year of during and after the war, of return to the the project; since 2013 it is run as part demolished cities after the Victory, of of a special course led by professor Irina life’s joys and challenges, of the births Dubinina, the director of the Russian of children and grandchildren, of anti- In the fall semester 2015 we had a unique Yan Shneyderman language program at Brandeis University. Semitism and friendship between people of and valuable opportunity to learn first- The practicum is based on principles of different ethnicities, of love and dedication experiential learning, which emphasize to one’s profession, and of emigration. A hand about the lives of the generation of connecting the knowledge received in the major theme that is visible in all stories is Russian speakers who survived World War classroom with real-life issues that exist in the Great Patriotic War (the part of WWII our society, and inviting students to reflect fought largely on the Soviet territory), and II, experienced hardships in the USSR, on the knowledge gained from real-life many of the interviewees divide their lives and eventually emigrated to the United experiences. During the semester, the into two unequal parts - before and after States. We had weekly meetings with students who grew up in Russian-speaking the war. For the students, oral histories families in the U.S. were engaged in told by the elders serve as illustrations our elderly friends when we talked and an intensive language practice while to the dry historical facts they learned at shared experiences. We hope that the life interviewing the elderly residents of HRC school, but often these stories teach them about their lives. The interviews were then something new, something they were stories we present in this collection will “Throughout my visits to HRC and discussed with the instructor who helped not even aware of before the start of the conversations with Raisa, I have learned help bridge the intergenerational gap and students understand the historical and project. how essential respect is. Respect for others cultural contexts of some of the events We are grateful to all participants of foster a better understanding of the older is a foundation of human decency, but self- mentioned by the elders, analyzed and the project and hope that this collection of generation by college-age readers. respect is equally important. Raisa taught transcribed. This collection features life stories will serve as a proof of Yevgeny me that one should live the way he would five oral histories collected by Brandeis Yevtushenko’s words that “there are no be fond of recollecting later in life and that students in the fall of 2015. uninteresting people in the world; the one should never lose self-respect in the The following students participated life of each individual is like a history of a face of obstacles.” in the project: Shahzoda Nasimi, Yan planet.” Shneyderman, Idelle Vaynberg, David

4 5 Idelle Vaynberg David Eydus Shahzoda Nasimi Alena Gomulina

“The Oral History project at Hebrew “The project was important for me in “The experience of learning about a very “Oral history has sustained cultures and Rehabilitation Center was a very enriching several ways. I had a chance to learn about difficult life of a person who overcame traditions across the globe. Through the and interesting learning experience. a family with a story similar to my own, unbearable difficulties cannot be taken centuries we have lost many stories, forgot tracing events back to pre-revolutionary lightly. I had the honor to record a story of many details and rewrote things we could Listening to and understanding the stories Russian Empire. I now better understand a woman who survived horrible tragedies. not recall. To capture the story of a life of the older generation was eye-opening my parents’ decision to leave Russia and Our conversations brought me closer lived, a love lost or an adventure had is a for me, and allowed me to have a sense only wish my great-grandparents did it to her and to her family. Listening to privilege and an honor. My experience is of ‘living history.’ I have learned so much before the cruel events of the 20th century. Mira, I was imagining my own ancestors a profoundly humbling one, turning the about my own history. This project added I also better understand the complex whom I never knew. Participating in mirror on my own privilege to never have greatly to what I already know about my personal relations at the turbulent time of the Oral Histories project had a great to find my home town erased from the grandparents’ stories.” emigration. I feel the joy and pain of those impact on me and ignited my desire to map. Reading about Jewish struggles is recently settled in the new land. And of work on preserving memories of the older not the same as putting a face to them. course, my Russian moved up to a new generation.” Thank you, Naum, for sharing your level.” memories with me.”

6 7 which passed from hands to hands during beautiful girl and left America for her. the Civil War: first the Whites, then the From there all traces of him are lost. Reds. When the White Army captured Naum, Iosif’s father, decided to study Iosif Naumovich the town, they took my grandfather engineering instead of being a hat maker, as a hostage. They shot him, and my Boguslavsky grandmother, who loved him immensely, committed suicide because of this. I only Recorded by Idelle Vaynberg saw my grandmother in photographs. A stout lady, with necklaces...” Iosif’s parents were originally from Ukraine; his mother was born in Vinnitsa, Childhood and his father – in the city of Lubny (now the Poltava region of Ukraine). In his father’s family there were 8 sons and one daughter; all the men were hat osif was born in 1930 in Leningrad makers, and in Iosif’s words, they were into the family of a military engineer ‘typical shtetl Jews.’ Iosif knows that one and a music teacher. He was an only I of his father’s brothers went to America child: “at that time it was fashionable to Iosif, 1938 in 1912 and lived for some time in New have one child.” Iosif was named after his York. At some point Iosif even had a list of mother’s father, Iosif’s grandfather. passengers from the ship that arrived in Iosif did not know his grandparents, New York that year, and saw his uncle’s except for his grandfather on his father’s name there. However, after a year, Honan and attended the Leningrad Polytechnic side. Parents on the mother’s side died appeared again on the passenger list of Institute. By that time, he had already met tragically: “They lived in a provincial town, a different ship. Iosif says that his uncle his future wife – Dina, and they moved to and my grandfather was a very famous Iosif, 1948 moved to London because he met a Leningrad together. man, a merchant. The town where they lived was called Vinnitsa, a small town,

8 9 From his childhood, Iosif remembers on the radio that the war began. I was 11 can talk to you today. I could have died predict many important events. By some most of all how his mother made him learn years old and I already understood what under those bombs. We were hiding in random chance, he came to a forsaken to play the violin. He went to a music war is.” Iosif’s father did not fight at the bomb shelters until we were evacuated to Yurga to give a demonstration of his skills. school with a music folder on strings and front. He was an engineer, and during the Siberia. It was 1941. I remember this time This is what it was like: he would take felt very embarrassed before his friends. entire war he worked at a military factory very well.” a ‘recipient’ by the arm, hold his pulse 1 He only played the violin for 4 years. His ‘The Bolshevik’ which produced heavy It looks like Iosif spent about a year in and learn his thoughts! A colleague of childhood memories also include various artillery. Stalingrad, but according to him, they did my father wanted to test Messing and Iosif and his mother were evacuated not live there long. This time the entire wrote some questions on a piece of paper, political events from that time period: “It from Leningrad at the beginning of the family was evacuated further east: his and Messing guessed what was written was a difficult time, but I remember in war to Stalingrad, as they thought at the father was evacuated with the factory and on the paper. I confirm that he guessed 1936 when I was six, I was taken to the time, to the rear. His father remained in caught up to his wife and son on the way correctly!” most important holiday in our country, the Leningrad with the factory. Iosif says that to Siberia. Iosif remembers: “We were in When the war ended, Iosif was 15 years Election Day, and I remember the building they were evacuated by the Mariinsky the town of Yurga, east of Novosibirsk. old. He says that he did not understand where it was taking place. My mother and water system2, which connects the Volga It is a small village lost in the snow. But the gravity of what was happening after father took me to the polls where they had basin to the Baltic Sea: “We were loaded there was a military factory there. We lived the war because he was too young. He to elect deputies. And I remember when on a special barge and sent to Stalingrad.” there a year. My father worked, I went returned to Leningrad as soon as the Kirov was killed...” In July 1941, the factory transferred part to a Siberian school - my mother tried blockade was lifted and and started the of its equipment and a group of workers to ensure that I didn’t fall behind. Then eighth grade of school in the eighth grade: and engineers, including Iosif’s father, to came the Soviet Army’s victories, and my “Then there were separate schools for The Great Stalingrad. “Then it became clear that father was transferred to Moscow, and we boys and girls. Before the start of classes Stalingrad was not actually in the rear. I followed him there. We lived in Moscow for each day the whole school would line up Patriotic ended up in a very dire military situation in a year; he worked in a factory, and I was in on the quay. My school was located on the War Stalingrad. There were terrible bombings, the seventh grade.” Fontanka embankment. And we marched Nazi air raids. I was once saved by a Iosif remembers one interesting to an orchestra. This was called ‘military When the war began, Iosif was 11 years colleague of my father, who saw me on the encounter during the war: “…there was a training.’ Classes began only after such old. He recalls that he learned about the street. The bombing started, he took me very important emigrant from Poland, Volf exercises.” beginning of the war from the radio: “I was by the collar and threw me into a trench Messing3. He escaped from the Nazis to in Leningrad, and Molotov announced to shield from the bombs. That’s why I Russia. He had a fantastic mind. He could

1 It was called The Obukhovsky factory before the October 2 The water system, which spans 1,125 km, was built during the 3 Volf Messing was a famous seer and psychic who allegedly Revolution. The factory was renamed again in 1992, with the reign of Paul I and his son Alexander I. In 1959-1964 the water taught KGB officers his method of reading people’s minds. original name restored. system was remodeled and was named the Lenin Volga-Baltic 10 Water Way. 11 chose such a profession for himself, Iosif and warmly. My wife respected my parents says: “Because of my romantic views of her entire life. Her parents were Orthodox the profession. I had been reading about Jews, and for them it was important, that Sherlock Holmes. I had excellent grades, Love and Education and I had a diploma with honors. But in their daughter marry not a Russian, but a the course of my studies I realized that for Marriage Jew. My father-in-law was so glad of the me, a Jewish guy, there is no bright future fact that I was a Jewish boy, because it in the legal profession. I had to think of Although Iosif considers himself a Iosif got married after his graduation could have been not so…” Iosif’s father- something more serious. I had not yet “humanities-oriented person,” he decided from the university (legal studies in-law took him to the only synagogue in completed my legal education, when I to enroll in a legal studies department department) in 1952, at age 22. Here started thinking about a technical degree.” Leningrad and presented his future son- after finishing school. “I was accepted As soon as Iosif graduated from the is how he describes meeting his wife: “I in-law to his ‘colleagues.’ That was the although there were quotas for Jews then. university with a degree in legal studies, was on the tram going to the university Jewish boys had to have above a certain end of Iosif’s introduction to the religious he enrolled in absentia in the Leningrad grade, and Jewish girls had to have an along the Nevsky Prospect. And in the Jewish community. branch of the Moscow Polygraphic even higher score to be accepted. I passed first car of this tram I saw a young woman. Iosif and Maria celebrated their wedding Institute. For some time he worked part the entrance exams with high marks, and This was my future wife. It turned out we time as a legal specialist and ‘pecked’ at at home and very modestly, as it was technical subjects, then went to work in a were in the same year. We continued our 1952: “It was impossible to organize publishing house and became a technical friendship until marriage.” By the time of it magnificently, we had nothing. We worker. From the publishing house, the wedding, Iosif and Maria had known celebrated Iosif went to the Polygraphic Planning each other for 5 years: “It was a logical in our Institute, where he worked first as an continuation of our friendship-love.” engineer, then as a senior engineer, and apartment, then became the unit leader. Maria, Iosif’s wife, was born in Poltava our neighbors Iosif tells us that at the university he in 1929 and was “a whole year” older helped. At Iosif, his wife and their class mates, 1953 had many friends, some of whom are still than him. She moved to Leningrad with the wedding living, although many have passed away. my future wife managed to do well as well her parents when she was a child. Iosif there was only Those who are still alive have not forgotten and was also accepted. And that’s how we each other: “My school friend, with whom recalls that she was very beautiful and very my family met.” I sat at the same desk, called me yesterday talented: “I brought her home to meet my and closest Answering the question of why he Iosif with his mother, 1950 from Leningrad!” parents. My parents treated her kindly friends. Everything was modest – celebration,

12 13 dancing... Today it sounds funny. My schools, she had to attend a different final decision. a long waiting period for permission to parents gave us the rings. We were university. She worked in emergency The reason enter the United States. Iosif remembers students and could not afford them medical services. Tanya has a son, Evgeny, for emigrating that they had little money in Italy. They ourselves. The wedding was in the who now also lives in Boston. He is 32. He has to do with brought some things for sale or trade, but winter, and she was cold. There were graduated from Tufts University and works the heavy it was not enough. anti-Semitic “At that time the Belgian Consulate no resplendent dresses... Most of all as an engineer, designing buildings. He atmosphere represented Israel’s interests in Moscow. I remember a friend of mine from the is married and has a child. Iosif’s great- in the country We had to go to Moscow, notarize our university who tried to court my cousin at granddaughter Maya is two and a half at the time. documents and wait. We waited 4 or 5 the wedding, although nothing came of years old. “I hope that in a year or two we Iosif in Israel This is how months. Then they told us to give up our it...” Iosif tells us that at that time Jews will sing American songs together,” says Iosif describes apartment and pay for everything. I left could not organize a religious wedding Iosif. his emigration: “I did not see anything with a sense of liberation. I felt calmness ceremony. promising for me. For my grandson I saw and satisfaction. A few relatives stayed in In 1952 Iosif and Maria had a daughter the Soviet Army in his future. And that is Russia, but they are not the closest. I took Tanya. She became a successful doctor. a nightmare. That was enough to get me a few books with me into emigration. We Iosif says that his daughter always did Emigration onto the path to emigration. We left in were allowed only a minimum amount everything well; from kindergarten, she 1990: my daughter, son-in-law, grandson, of belongings. I managed to send a large was a good student. Since Jews were my wife and I. We had to clean up our part of my library by mail. When I came apartment and renovate it. First, we were to America, my books met me here, at the practically not accepted to medical required to go to Italy. And it was a very home of my children’s friends. They had a Iosif considers his move to the United difficult period for us there. We had to stay house and a attic where they could store States to be the happiest moment of his there for several months. There we were the books. In Boston we had a trustee who life: “Can you understand the state of hungry and cold. From the very beginning vouched for us. These were our friends liberation we felt on the plane from Vienna of the process, we decided that it would be and their children. That is why we came to to Rome, and then to the USA?! It was a America, we insisted on America... Having Boston.” happy time!” arrived in Vienna, we said that we would Asked if there was anything he was sad He began thinking about emigration go to America, which made the Israeli to leave behind in the Soviet Union, Iosif Iosif with his wife and daughter, 1962 early, but it took him a while to make the embassy displeased.” In Italy, there was replies: “Nothing was difficult to leave

14 15 answers: “The stores! Against the a collection of stories about the most I could not read what I wanted. I had to backdrop of the dull empty Soviet stores, successful people in science and culture get special permissions. If I needed a American stores amazed us. Other things titled ‘The American Success.’ western magazine for work, I would have too were amazing… Not everything here Iosif says: “I was always drawn to pen to get a written permission at work to is wonderful. There are things which are and paper although I was an engineer. borrow it from the library and read it. Can tough, and complex...” Almost everything After emigration it was too late for me to you imagine living in such a country and Iosif saw in the U.S. matched his idea of start a working career here, and I found not run, not save your grandson from the

Iosif with his daughter and son-in-law, USA, 1999 America before his departure from the myself on this writing path. I was able to army? I’m happy with everything in the USSR. He believes that if he had not change, I found an ability to express my U.S. I do not dwell on details. And I do not behind. It’s the future that seems difficult, moved to the U.S., his life would have thoughts in a sensible and interesting miss anything in Russia.” the old stuff is not important. I am not ended 15-20 years ago: “I would not have way... I gave speeches to Russian-speaking “The most difficult time was in the touched by the birch trees or the Soviet survived the health issues, difficulties with audiences. I began writing in America Soviet Union, before we left. It was difficult songs...” the amputation there...” 3 years after emigrating. Back in the for various reasons. Although I worked, I Iosif says that he knew a lot about Iosif speaks English passively, i.e. USSR, I was interested in Vysotsky4 and was not appointed to leadership positions America before emigration: “I was well- he can read with a dictionary. Although even then wrote a little about him. I had for a long time. I experienced discomfort... read. While my mother was alive, and she at school he learned German, thanks tapes of his songs, and I performed before The last few years were difficult. We made died shortly before our emigration, she to his mother, he had a private tutor audiences analyzing his songs.” it through these years because we already would buy the “America” magazine every who gave him basic knowledge of the hoped to emigrate, we had already applied month. We had to pay the girl at the kiosk English language. It is interesting that for permission to leave and were waiting. It to set aside the magazine, and we paid for despite limited spoken English, Iosif was a time of waiting.” it at a double rate. But this way we had Iosif on Russia, translated texts, mostly biographies of The most important historical event an idea of what kind of country the USA famous people, for Russian immigrants Socialism and in Iosif’s opinion is the beginning of the was. We also received letters. We knew and published them in the most popular perestroika: “Then there was some contact that it was a prosperous country where you Capitalism Russian emigre newspaper ‘The New with Europe and America. It somehow have to work hard to get results. We were Russian Word.’ He published many calmed down the situation. I personally do prepared for this.” articles, in which he explained American “In Russia, everything that has to do not think positively of Gorbachev. I believe When asked what the biggest surprise life and told about famous Americans. with culture has always been under the that he did everything under duress. He let was upon arriving in America, Iosif These articles were later published as control of the Party and the government. us go under strong pressure from Reagan.

4 Vladimir Vysotsky is a famous actor, songwriter and performer who was often at odds with Soviet authorities for his “anti- Soviet” lyrics. Vysotsky died in 1980. 16 17 Reagan helped us leave, not Gorbachev!” former country now? “I think that today is great. There is nothing wrong with this Iosif modestly says that he is not Russia is one of the most horrible places economic system, with capitalism or with particularly proud of anything, except on Earth, because the secret service came the USA. Mistakes happen everywhere, for when he was younger, he “… did to power. Right now in Russia everything but the most important principle is that an something for Jewish emigration in the is going according to the worst-case individual is free. Free to do whatever he U.S.” He worked in a synagogue in the scenario. Russia wants to prove to the wants – that’s the best thing! That’s the town of Malden, which received Jews from world that it is a great country just like basis of everything.” Russia, and helped them settle in a new the USA. But where is the proof? I do Whom does Iosif see as a hero? “In place. not see it. They say: ‘When you have my youth, heroes were prescribed for us. When asked about what he considers strength, you don’t need intelligence.’ But my friends or I did not consider them to be the most important thing in his life, Now they say: ‘We have Putin, we don’t heroes. There was this Soviet writer, Iosif says: “The main thing in my life is need intelligence.’ Mr. Putin is the worst Nikolai Ostrovsky. He was extremely that I found the perfect wife. She does example of a secret service man. But the ill, bed-ridden… And he wrote very poor Iosif and Idelle, 2015 not leave me; she shared all my creative Russian people vote ‘yes’ 95% of the time. prose. We were made to read him and to impulses and my life’s aspirations. I have History teaches them nothing. It is clear consider him a hero, but I don’t see him films about the war.” Iosif also greatly a very good daughter and my grandson that he came out of the KGB circles, and as such. I consider Hemmingway a hero. respects Andrei Tarkovsky’s works. Evgeny is very good. From the height of he surrounds himself with people who There wasn’t a single intelligentsia house Russian culture holds a very important my age, 89 years old, my family is the most are his colleagues from the KGB. And the in Russia where there would not be his place in Iosif’s life. He appreciates Russian important to me, and their well-being. I public likes this strong personality: Russia portrait. He is a fascinating personality.” literature, theater, and cinematography. have a great-granddaughter Maya. She is rising up from its knees… Well, let it rise, Iosif loves Russian literature. One if To know Russian culture for him is to is 2,5 years old. I do worry - how will she but without us.” his favorite authors currently is Vladimir watch films by great Russian directors, grow up? Unfortunately, her parents don’t And what does Iosif think about Nabokov because he is “unusually such as Alexei German or Grigoriy speak Russian with her, but maybe she will socialism and capitalism? “I believe that talented: he wrote both prose and verse.” Chukhrai. Iosif is saddened by the understand something when she grows socialism is a failed theory. It did not The second place belongs to Alexander fact that his grandson speaks Russian up.” survive anywhere. Capitalism is the most Kuprin. Iosif’s second passion is ballet. with a heavy accent and that his great- Iosif still keeps up with news from stable economic system, although it has its He also appreciates cinema and loves old granddaughter will not have any Russian Russia. He has an iPod and listens to own fallacies. When a positive thing wins school directors such as Grigoriy Chukhrai language because Evgeny and his wife Radio Liberty. What does Iosif think of his and when problems are solved, everything and his contemporaries who “made honest speak only English in their family.

18 19 they raised us well and gave us the best Black Sea. In the summers, my mother education at the time. We grew up in a would send us to vacation in Kherson1 with cultured family. Our parents were fluent my aunt’s family. Life before the war was Mira Borisovna in several foreign languages: English, wonderful and carefree.” French, and German, but they spoke only Mira does not remember her Krupkina Russian to us, although they sometimes grandparents, but knows that her father’s spoke German to each other.” Mira brother was a writer and that he was killed Recorded by Shahzoda Nasimi explains that she is half “Russian” and half by the Petlurists2 during the Russian Civil War. Tears filled Mira’s eyes when she was Jewish: “My father was Jewish, and my talking about herself. She has endured mother was Ukrainian.” Mira started school when she was six. much pain and overcame many obstacles Mira’s mother was named Gitya. She loved to study, was always a straight-A and losses in her life. Born in Galicia, she graduated from the student, and always knew that she would gymnasium there and then proceeded become a doctor. Six years later her plans to study medicine (it is unknown where were interrupted by the start of the Great she studied). Before the Second World Patriotic War. War, her mother was a stay-at-home Childhood mom. Mira’s father’s full name was Boris Rudmanov. Born and raised in Zhytomir, Ukraine, he studied law (it is unknown The Great where exactly) and later worked as a his is how Mira describes her director of a factory. Mira’s parents moved Patriotic family: “I was born in August to Odessa after the October Revolution T of 1928 in the wonderful city because their relatives lived there. Mira War of Odessa. My family consisted of four discusses her city with deep admiration: people: my mother, father, younger “Odessa is an incredible city. It is so green The Great Patriotic War began when brother, and, of course, myself. My brother and right on the sea. Being kids in a happy, Mira was twelve years old: “A war that took away millions of lives… Unfortunately, Mira, Czech Republic, 1945 was born on January 15, 1932. Our loving family, my little brother Sasha and the war also affected our family. My parents graduated from the gymnasium I jumped, swam, and ran around by the and were educated people, which is why 2 ‘Petlurists’ is a term used to refer to members of the Ukrainian Directorate who was also the head of the Army. Petlurists have been accused of terrible anti-Semitic crimes during this war. 1 Kherson is an important port on the Black Sea and the Dnieper Army at the time of the Bolshevik-Ukrainian War of 1918-1919, named so after Symon Petlura, the leader of the Ukrainian 20 River, located in southern Ukraine. 21 parents and my brother were killed. A Mira calls herself “the daughter of the my life. I am telling you about this for the three years of German occupation. The German bomb hit our home and turned it war.” She does not like to talk about her first time. I was completely alone, I had only thing that is clear is that she lived to ash.” childhood, because remembering it is too no one. My father died on the battlefront. with never-ending hunger and constant This is how Mira described the difficult to bear. At 12 years of age she was And our home burned to the ground fear for her life, and witnessed the death of beginning of the war: “I was playing completely orphaned and had to become from a German bomb, so I was left with her loved ones, as well as strangers. When outside with my friends, when suddenly independent. Telling her stories, she often nothing.” Odessa was liberated and the Red Army the radio came on. The radio hung strays away from the topic, gets confused “Generally, strong people are able to entered the city, Mira decided to go fight on a tall pole on the street, and when in the chronological sequence of events, survive. I was lucky, as I was a brave girl. on the frontlines. At the time she was 14,5 people heard that some news was being and this makes her story even more I never looked like a stereotypical Jewish years old. Here is how she talks about broadcasted on the radio, everyone would terrifying. Mira claims that she is telling girl. I was always nicely dressed: a nice this experience: “When the Russians gather around and listen quietly. But this story for the first time. We recorded coat, a pretty hat. For this reason I was came, I decided that since I have no one this time the news was horrible. The first her story as it was told. not detained. I walked four blocks and to live for, then I will go to the front. I thing that was uttered was: ‘Attention, “There are frightening things that are found my aunt, my father’s sister. I had to survived, but I had no parents, no home, attention, this is Moscow speaking!...’ hard to endure even at an older age. The eat frozen potatoes and rye bread. There nothing. I was completely alone in the These words unleashed fear on the people. Germans took everyone, did not spare were times when even that did not exist. whole world. The second reason was my Everyone anyone, neither the young nor the old… Then the police came and took my aunt love for the Motherland. I stopped some fell silent, My mother, brother, and I were taken with and me. The policemen were Ukrainian. truck on the road and asked the captain to everyone everyone else. Mama managed to make a My aunt was a good housewife. She was take me with him. I was a smart girl. I did became deal with a German soldier, or most likely assigned to the kitchen through some everything as I was told: I kept a logbook, terrified. a Romanian, since she spoke German. connections she had and she told me to helped out at the pharmacy, fed the And thus He agreed to let us go, but Mama said serve the food.” wounded, gave them water. Not a nurse, began the that only one of us would go because the “I had relatives in Slobodka, a region just an assistant. I was at a field hospital. war. At three of us would never survive together. of Odessa. I accidently found their house The frontline. I was on the front till the that time, She decided that I should be the one and stayed with them for a few days. I left end of the war.” Besides that, since Mira I was old to leave. You see I was next to that fire because I was afraid. I was still young, but knew German very well and could speak enough to and was saved by a mircale. I never saw I knew that if I stayed with them, I would Romanian, she helped with translations. understand my mother or brother again. They were be killed one day. When I heard that the Mira shares with us some memories what was burned together with many others in that Germans are were checking the houses for from her life on the frontlines: for example, happening. ammunition depot. My brother was nine. Jews, I stuffed a piece of lard and bread in she began working at the field hospital I was He played the violin. He was a good boy. my pocket and decided to run away.” near the city of Komrat in Moldova; there afraid.” I never wanted to recall this episode of It is unclear how Mira lived through the were downpours in Hungary when they Mira with her comrades-in-arms, Czech Republic, 1945 22 23 fought there, and 1944 was a difficult how I would be telling them all about what next to that was a beautiful, green village. year. Most of all, she remembers the I had endured and how I participated in Working there was interesting.” heavy fighting of the Red Army, especially the war. After a week we joined with the It was there, in Lyubashovka, that in Hungary, near the Tisza River, where Red Army forces in Krakow and Katowice many people were killed. in Poland. In 2013, my family and I Mira met her future husband. Here is It is interesting that Mira accurately travelled to Poland, and I remembered her account of this episode: “This is an remembers the number of her unit: those times of war.” interesting story. In Lyubashovka I had she fought in the Second Ukrainian Mira celebrated Victory Day in my own dental office, where I treated Front under the command of Marshal Czechoslovakia, in the city Nova Ves: At the graduation from the dentist vocational school patients. One day a Gypsy woman came Malinovsky in the 22nd Infantry Division “The war ended for everyone on May 9, father was still alive. Upon her arrival in of the 51st Corps. She was officially but for us it ended on May 8. Rumors that into my office – I pulled out a bad tooth Odessa, she found out that her father was enrolled in the active duty and had a the war will end soon travelled around in for her. She was very grateful and wanted killed on the frontlines, but fortunately military ID. the Ukrainian Front, and so ‘Hitler kaput!’ to tell me my fortune. I did not want to, According to Mira’s recounts, her was announced on the radio. Hitler turned she was able to find her aunt and live with but she still told me that the first person division spent four weeks in Hungary, his people into animals. They did not her for some time, as Mira did not have who walks into my office would become and then moved on to Transylvania, to care whom to kill: children, women, the a home of her own. Because of the war, the city of Zlin. Mira remembers seeing elderly… And now the end has come for my husband. I answered her that she Mira did not have a secondary education many wounded in that city. Then, the them. I saw how Russian soldiers gave made a mistake, that I am already seeing division crossed the Carpathians, the most diploma although she was of age. She bread to German children and the elderly. someone, and that he is currently far dangerous mountainous zone of Europe, I never wanted to kill.” returned to the seventh grade determined away, in Odessa. And so at that moment on horseback. This is Mira’s commentary to become a doctor. She finished on this experience: “How could I, a girl, a patient entered. He was on his way school by testing out of the graduation not be afraid of anything?! I even rode on Life somewhere by train and his cheek got requirements. At the age of 17, she got horseback. I remember a situation when swollen. So he stopped by my clinic, and we were riding on horseback along the after the accepted to a dentist vocational school in I treated him. When I left the office, he earthquake-prone Carpathian Mountains, Odessa. After successfully finishing four descending from the top, and down below was waiting for me outside and invited me War years of studies at the school, Mira began was heavy fire from the Germans. I was to a restaurant. He was smart and very to work as a dentist in a small settlement laying on the ground thinking that time persistent. He came every evening from would pass, years would pass, and I would After the victory, Mira decided to return called Lyubashovka of the Odessa region: Odessa to see me. We got married very have a family and friends, and I imagined to Odessa. She hoped that maybe her “This was a large railroad station and

24 25 quickly, after three weeks of dating, and could get accepted into an institute U.S. At this point, Mira’s daughter was help Jews...” lived together for 30 years. After that you without entrance exams if one had a already married and had a son, Zhenia. On Life: “Life is hard… I endured cannot even be sure whether you should vocational school diploma. So in 1960 Mira describes her son-in-law to be “a difficulties throughout my entire life, I did believe Gypsies or not…” Mira was accepted into Kiev Medical sensible person with good hands,” and not have any moral support, because I did her grandson Zhenia as “a handsome not have the most dear thing that a person Mira’s husband was born in Nikolaev Institute, where she studied for four years. man, blond with blue eyes.” Mira says can have – parents…” near Odessa and studied in Kharkov, Mira believes that she was treated well with pride that her grandson defended his On Education: “One must learn! where he finished law school. He was 11 in the USSR: “I was given an apartment, dissertation on the topic of tuberculosis Always!” years older than Mira. During the war, he people always gave me gifts, since I was a in prisons. Now Mira has two great- worked as a prosecutor in the Navy, and war veteran…”, and she is hurt that veterans grandchildren – twins, Nick and Maddie. after the war he came to Odessa, where receive so little attention in the U.S. he also worked as a prosecutor. Everyone knew him in Odessa, according to Mira. Mira on A year later a daughter was born in Jewishness, Life, the family who was named Galina. Mira Emigration and Education tells that she really wanted to have a child because she was lonely, but she could have never allowed herself to have On Jewishness: Mira believes that another child, because she “did not have In 1978, Mira’s family emigrated from Jews have always had a hard life. She did anyone who could have supported me.” the USSR – first to Israel and later to the not want her grandson to feel Jewish: Her daughter got married differently. Mira “Here we have a common nationality, and arranged a big wedding for her so it would this means a lot to me. Whatever happens, be unlike the wedding that Mira herself the Jews are always blamed. My daughter had. is curious [about Judaism], but I do not want to have anything with it. I do not wish Mira recounts that there were training to speak about Jewry; I don’t want to say benefits for veterans after the war: one Among the Israeli soldiers that I am so miserable… Although I always Mira and Shahzoda, 2015

26 27 also several textile factories and tailoring of the Portniazhnaya synagogue (Tailors’ shops. People from neighboring Moldovan Synagogue), but Naum did not say whether villages came to Ryshkany to buy materials this was a rich, middle-class, or lower-class Naum Grigorievich from the factory shops and then placed synagogue. orders with the local tailors. According to Naum’s father was named Gershen Naum, there was a tailor in almost every (Gregory). Born in 1887, he was a tailor Hayut family. The city was divided into districts with his own shop. Naum’s mother was by synagogue types: some for the rich, born in 1892 and was named Leikhi Recorded by Alena Gomulna some for the middle class, and some for the (Leah). All of Gershen and Leikhi’s sons lower class. Naum’s father was a member became tailors. First, they worked with their father in his shop, and later Childhood in they opened their a Romanian own shops. The shtetl oldest brother’s name was Nusen (born in 1912), aum Grigorievich Hayut was the second born in Moldova in a Jewish brother was shtetl called Ryshkany, which named Mendel N 1 is located near the city of Bel’tsy , on (born in 1913), January 1, 1922. This territory was called Avrom was born in Bessarabia at the time and was part of 1915, then Berl’ Romania from 1918 to 1939. Naum recalls (Boris) - in 1920, that Ryshkany was inhabited only by Naum - in 1922, Jewish families, and all of them had many Rivn (Roven) - in children. Naum’s family had seven children, 1923, and finally and his wife’s parents had ten. The city in 1925, a girl was home to nine synagogues and a free was born into the Jewish school Talmud-Torah, where classes family who was Naum and his wife were conducted in Yiddish. There were The photograph shows a family of twenty-five people: Naum’s parents and their children – one 1 The second largest city in Moldova after Kishinev. At the According to the Romanian census of 1930, out of 35,000 daughter and six sons, and eleven grandchildren (four girls and five boys). Naum is thirty-five beginning of the 20th century, Jews constituted the largest part people there were about 20,000 Jews, 10,000 Romanians in this picture. Now all of his brothers and sisters have passed away, and the grandchildren live in 28 of the city’s population. (Moldovans), and 5,000 Ukrainians and Russians. different regions of Israel since 1990. 29 named Bella. shop. A tragedy occurred with the brother older than Naum. They got married in the Naum’s family celebrated all Jewish Mendel before the war. He tried to cross city hall on February 17, 1943, and have holidays, including Rosh Hashanah, the border into the USSR in 1938 (when he The Great lived a life together. Their marriage lasted Pesach, Shavuot, and others. Naum had was 25 years old), but the Soviets thought 65 years - from 1943 to 2008 until Yana’s a Bar Mitzvah. He studied at a cheder, he was a spy and executed him. Patriotic death at the age of 90. where a blind Rabbi Itzakh taught him Naum recalls that many Jews from In the same year (1943), Yana and Yiddish (children always poked fun at him). Ryshkany left their homes to permanently War Naum had a daughter, Alexandra. Since As a child, Naum loved to run track. After settle in Palestine before the Second World The Soviet government in Moldova then only girls were born in the family: graduating from the cheder, Naum studied War. Especially young people ages 18-20 existed for only a year before the Nazis Alexandra has a daughter Liudmila, who at a Romanian school. He finished the were eager to emigrate. An organization invaded. Naum tells the story of how his also has two girls, 13 and 10 years of seven-year program there with straight A’s. called “Gordonia”2 was particularly active family was evacuated to the Urals on July 7, age. Naum’s daughter is a professional His favorite subject was Romanian. In total, in Ryshkany in preparing people for 1940; however, he does not explain why the musician who played the violin for 22 Naum knows five languages: Moldavian/ resettling in Israel: they offered special evacuation (or resettlement) occurred. He years. After the emigration, she worked Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Yiddish, Hebrew courses, trained people for work and his family were settled in a village called as an administrative manager in the U.S. and Hebrew. in kibbutzim, educated them about Israel, Vvedenskoye, 12 km from the city of Kurgan, Embassy of Israel. In the U.S., Alexandra After graduating from school, Naum and raised halutzim. Naum belonged to the location of state armament factory No. quit music for good and became a manager 3 worked at his father’s shop. In reality, the this organization, i.e. he was a Gordonist. 603 . Naum worked in this military facility in a hotel where she worked for 20 years. shop was not a separate building, but rather He learned Hebrew there and wanted to for five years, first as a mechanic and then in the front room of their house which was emigrate to Israel when he was 19, but as a foreman. He had an occupational equipped with two huge sewing machines his plans were cut short by the outbreak of deferment for the duration of the war and, Life and a large table. The living room was in WWII. therefore, was not drafted (out of the entire the middle of the house, followed by the family, only Roven fought at the front). The after the bedroom and the kitchen. The house had a factory produced capsular sleeves for No. 8 little backyard, where the outhouse stood. shells. Seventy women worked in Naum’s Naum says that before WW II, his sister department, and he was the only man in the War Bella, his brothers Roven and Boris, and group. Naum learned Russian while working in the Ural region. After the war, in 1947, Naum’s family Naum himself were still living with their When Naum was 21, his father returned to Moldova (former Bessarabia), parents. The rest of the brothers were introduced him to a girl named Yana, (or but did not find their house: “there was already married and lived elsewhere. They Jochevit, or Yachet). She was five years only flattened out soil there.” They were all tailors, and everyone had his own Factory #603, 1960 decided to move to Chernovtsy, Ukraine (a 2 This was a Zionist youth movement that emerged at the end nation, the revival of Jewish culture in the Hebrew language, 3 Plant No. 603 8th Main Directorate of the USSR People’s produced grenades RGD-33 and RGD-42. 1008 people were of 1923 in Galicia and spread over most of the Jewish world. and humanistic education of its followers. The movement sought Commissariat of ammunition produced capsule sleeve KV-4, awarded the “Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941- The objectives of the movement consisted of the reconstruction to bring into its ranks young people from all strata of Jewish the primer for the 30-mm to 100-mm caliber guns, and an anti- 1945” medal. 30 of Jewish homeland in Eretz-Israel, the creation of a working society. aircraft cannon during the Great Patriotic War; in 1942-1943 it 31 historical center in Brighton (Washington Street, 30). By living alone was becoming harder and of Bukovina) and now, Naum has lived 42 years outside of harder, and finally Naum was brought to lived there for 25 the USSR and the HRC. years until they tries to forget Beltsy after heaving emigrated. At Emigration fighting in 1941 “Russia.” He is the time, many not interested in Jews from small news from Russia Life and shtetls in Moldova resettled in Chernovtsy, In 1972, Naum, his wife, daughter, and and instead likes because the city was not completely granddaughter moved to Israel. The reason listening to news Music destroyed during the war whereas those for emigration was that fact that they were from Israel. He shtetls were erased from the face of the Jews, as Naum puts it. Permission to does not like earth. Naum recounts that the city had leave was difficult to obtain, and people it when Soviet Not having a musical education, Naum, six synagogues and chapels, as well as waited a long time to receive it. Naum songs are played, nevertheless, always loved to sing. He a Jewish theater named after Shalom- says that they had to leave everything because even “in performed at community festivals in Israel, Aleikhem. However, in 1949 the theater behind in Ukraine, but in Israel they were my youth I did not like the USSR, because where he sang solo pieces, and in the and some of the synagogues were closed accepted with “open arms” and were given they abused people.” Russian-speaking community choir in on the orders of the Soviet authorities. an apartment in the Kiryat-Nordau district Naum does not know too much about Boston, where he was the soloist for 12 The remaining synagogues and chapels in Netanya. The city had a sewing and the American way of life, because he “did years and he received honorable mention remained open: “Jews were holding their knitting factory, and Naum went to work as not experience it.” It is probably because every year. With his choir Naum even sang ground!” a cutter there. Yana did not work in Israel. of this lack of immersion that he never for the mayor of Boston. Naum considers Naum, along with his wife and daughter, During his 17 years of living in Israel, learned to speak English, contrary to his time with the choir to be the happiest, lived on Pervomayskaya Street (May 1st Naum learned to speak Hebrew very well. Street). He went back to tailoring, then his previous experiences when he would brightest moments of his life. “I loved His daughter and her husband (an for 25 years worked as a teacher of his quickly learn the language of the place he people and respected people, loved the electrical engineer) moved to America and craft at the city’s vocational school. He lived in. Jewish society, and we had a group in the after 8 years were able to bring Naum and was awarded the title “Honored Worker of When Yana became ill, life got very house that celebrated all Jewish holidays: Bella to the U.S. They arrived in Boston in Vocational Training” for his merits. Naum difficult. She was ill for only two months Passover, New Year’s... 100 people would 1989. At first, they rented an apartment. learned Ukrainian in Chernovtsy, because until she passed away in 2008. After his come to the concerts!” Later, they received subsidized housing “this was Western Ukraine, and everyone wife’s death, three home attendants would According to Naum, the most important spoke Ukrainian there.” come to Naum’s apartment to help, but thing in life is life itself.

32 33 kidney. My father adored me, and when the kidney stones had to be removed, he said, “I will not hand my daughter over to Raisa Samoylovna the butchers!” But I had to get my entire kidney removed in 1936. Everyone played together in our yard, Chigrinskaya kids of shoemakers and engineers, and we stayed friends for the rest of our This life story was recorded by Yan lives. Everyone walked around in ripped Shneyderman is it was told by Raisa clothing, everyone was poor, but we were rich in spirit. Everyone loved one another, helped one another, sympathized with one another... Our school never experienced any ethnic conflicts of any kind. My Childhood best friends were a German, a Polish, a Ukrainian, and a Jew. My friend of 66 years has just passed away... We were a poor Jewish family; our Raisa in the 1940s parents were middle-aged. There were five remember that once as a little girl, I went was born on June 30, 1921, in children in the family: I have four sisters to the synagogue with my mother for Rosh southern Russia in a city called and one brother. I was the oldest in the Hashanah. Everyone cried there, praying IRostov-on-Don. This was an industrial family. My parents did not speak perfect to God, and Mama cried as well. I got city: there was a very good shoe factory, Russian. They immigrated to Russia after 1 scared and asked her, “Mommy, why are the famous factory Rostselmash , a the First World War, perhaps from Poland. you crying, who hurt you?” pedagogical institute, other universities… My parents spoke Yiddish and broken I learned about many things from my We had a fenced yard, where all the Russian. Once, Mama asked a neighbor father. He told me a lot about what is children played. The Civil War had just for a “thief,” although what she needed written in the Bible: the history of Joseph, ended then, and we played the game of was a rope (a mistake of pronunciation). what Hanukah is... This was the reason “the Reds and the Whites.” One little In those days, Rostov had a synagogue, I knew much more [about Judaism and Raisa in the 1940s boy hit me in the kidney with a stick, where we took matzah for Passover. My religion] than others. which later caused stones to form in that mother usually fasted for Yom Kippur. I 1 Rostselmash, a syllabic abbreviation of the Russian phrase ‘the products for state farms. In 1931, the first Stalinets-1 harvesting Rostov factory for agricultural machines’. Founded in 1929 as a machines were produced, which received the highest award government contractor, the factory produces a variety of (Grand Prix diploma) during the World Industrial Exhibition in 34 Paris in 1937. 35 Mama and Papa spoke Yiddish only told us that he was travelling to Sochi so get on it. People were hanging off the papers and stood to the side while he when they did not want the children to Mama and I would not worry. “If you need sides of the boat; it was impossible to approached the ticket window. After some understand what is going on, but I had something, just send a request to the main see the deck. When one looks at such time the window closed, he came up to us a talent for learning languages and I post office in Sochi” – that is all he said. horrors as an outsider, one sympathizes and said, “Done.” I thought that we were remembered everything. When I was We believed it. In October 1941, my family with people, feels sorry for them, but we done, that we did not receive our tickets, and I thought that I would go insane. And already in America, I went to a lecture evacuated from Rostov, which happened can never imagine that the same thing while all these thoughts raced in my head, dedicated to Solomon Mikhoels2, whose exactly when the Germans were supposed could happen to us. During the war, he said, “Here are your documents!” We works were read in Yiddish, and I was to take Moscow. I was accompanied by my documents were more precious than life. agreed to meet on the riverbank at 6:00 amazed that I could understand what was elderly parents and my younger sister. We were given papers, which stated that p.m. being discussed. I cannot speak Yiddish, The last steamboat with evacuees was we were the family of a serviceman (we At 6:00 I arrived at the appointed but I do understand a little bit; I know leaving the city, but it was impossible to already knew by that time that my brother meeting place, but did not see him. There popular expressions and shtetl songs, such volunteered to fight). With these papers we was some lad standing there, but it turned as Oyfn pripetchek.” were supposed to get passes to board the out to be him – he was a completely steamboat. When we arrived at the wharf, I different person! It was there, on the banks saw men and women who slept on the floor of the Volga river, under the moonlight that The Great awaiting their turn to petition the Port’s a romantic rendezvous of two people who fell in love during the wartime took place… Director to get tickets to Kazan. I walked Patriotic Getting onto the steamboat was the entire night among people lying on the War virtually impossible, but he somehow floor, but could not find the Director. Then, brought us to our cabin. The guard did I decided to send a telegram to Sochi just not want to open the cabin prior to the “In 1939, I was accepted into the in case [my brother could help] and, after departure, but my new friend said, “You department of Russian language and not receiving any response, got in line with will open the cabin so that I can see it’s literature at the Rostov Pedagogical everybody else. done.” To thank him for all his help, Institute. I finished two years, and in June As I was standing in line, some soldier my mother gave him our most prized the war began. In 1941, I was 19 years was passing by. When he saw us, he came possession: a jar of jam. He asked me for old. I was just an immature girl, knew up to me and struck up a conversation. my photograph, but I did not have one on Raisa’s brother Leonid nothing of life because Mama always He then offered, “Let’s step away?”, so me where I’d be photographed by myself. 2 Michoels was a Soviet Jewish actor and the artistic director of the I went with him. He said that he could He wanted to say farewell, but I was so protected me, afraid to damage my second Moscow State Jewish Theater. He served as the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during WWII. As Stalin pursued help get us evacuation tickets when he exhausted that I fell on the bed and could kidney. We had a brother who went to an increasingly anti-Semitic line after the War, Mikhoels’ position as a leader of the Jewish community led to increasing persecution is applying for his pass. I gave him my not get up to walk him out. My sister was war (volunteered to go fight), but he from the Soviet state. In 1948, Mikhoels was murdered. 36 37 ready to kill me, pain, which no medications could alleviate. the Rector of the Rostov State University. but I could not get My husband was a strong and courageous The very professor who gave my husband up. It was horrible; person until the end of his life.” a failing grade for his entrance exam to I remember this graduate school came to Zhdanov and feeling like it was Husband told him that he cannot live with his guilt yesterday. We Manifestations of because he gave my husband, a man of said goodbye and encyclopedic knowledge, a failing grade. he gave me his “My husband was born in the city of Anti-Semitism in The professor made a request to Zhdanov address. I wanted Kremenchuk in Ukraine, but was still a the USSR to transfer my husband to the university, Raisa in the 1940s to find him to child when he moved to Rostov. At the very and Zhdanov agreed to his request. I thank him, but beginning of the war, he was a student, Both Raisa and her husband advised my husband not to transfer, but was afraid that I would do him harm, and but volunteered to fight at the frontlines, that is how this story ended. He saved our experienced manifestations of Zhdanov knew that we were in desperate leaving behind his single mother. He was family! governmental and domestic anti-Semitism need to improve our living situation, so he an artilleryman. In one particularly deadly We stayed in Kazan3 for about half a year. several times throughout their lives. offered us an apartment. At the time, we battle, he drew the enemy’s fire upon My sister went to work as a secretary in the Anti-Semitism in Raisa’s husband’s lived together with my husband’s mother himself, thus saving his fellow soldiers. Academy of Sciences, and I worked there life: “After the war my husband would not in a small apartment, in which one room as a night watchman. Then in the summer He was awarded the Medal of Glory for be accepted into graduate school for the served as both my husband’s office and of 1941, we moved to the city of Stalinabad his bravery. In this battle, my husband lost very reason that he was a Jew. During the his mother’s bedroom. Zhdanov promised in Tadzhikistan, and in 1949 we returned three fingers on his right hand and one entrance exams, he was asked very difficult to give us an apartment in the center of to Rostov. When we came back to our city, on his left. When he was being operated questions; the goal was to make him fail. Rostov across from the university, so that we saw our yard destroyed and learned that on, the doctors wanted to remove all He answered everything perfectly, but there would be space for my husband’s during the war, a Jewish family living in our the fingers, explaining that otherwise still received a poor grade. My husband mother and for us. My husband knew house was executed by the Germans. gangrene would spread, but my husband, My brother and future husband fought could not find work in his profession, Zhdanov fairly well and described him as a struggling not to faint, demanded that they on the frontlines. After the war, my brother so he worked as a librarian’s assistant remarkably educated person.” leave the remaining fingers. “Because,” worked for the Georgian newspaper “Dawn at an engineering institute. Eventually, Anti-Semitism in Raisa’s life: he said, “I will still be a scientist and I will of the East.” He told us how wonderful the he became a lecturer in this institute. “When I was sent to work in Morozovsk need to write.” He stayed in the hospital Georgian people were, and how friendly they Meanwhile, Yuri Zhdanov4 was transferred after the university (following the Soviet were toward other nationalities, including for several months and had excruciating from Moscow to Rostov and was appointed job allotment system), I could not find any Jews.” 4 Yuri Andreevich Zhdanov was a member of the Soviet Academy Rostov. He was married to Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva 3 Present-day Dushanbe, the capital of Tadzhikistan of Sciences, a prominent chemist and rector of the University of from 1949-1952 and had one daughter with her. His father was 38 a prominent Soviet politician who was close to Joseph Stalin. 39 place to live. I moved from one place to check my passport because she was so members, but I personally was never me and my diploma with honors, this another on a weekly basis. When I inquired excited. When I came with my husband to treated poorly. I remember people saying: woman said, “She will not get the honors. about a room for rent, everyone would say, the college the next morning, the director “I do not like Jews, but you are a good She will have one B.” And I got a B in “Oh, what a good person you are!” But told me, “We do not have any vacancies person.” political economics. Back then that was when I needed to get their permission right now. Who told you that we have considered to be awful, but now I think this to put their address as my permanent vacancies?” I knew that they realized that I gives me credit. I have outstanding marks residence, they would notice the fifth am Jewish. I laughed and responded, “You Education for 62 courses and only one B in this one column5 in my passport, and it would are the only organization in the Soviet subject. all of a sudden turn out that the room Union that hires people at night. I came and I loved being a teacher! I was born was needed for their visiting relatives or yesterday at the close of business and you Professional with the gift for teaching. I started my something like this. had one vacancy. Today I came back before Life professional life in Tadzhikistan: I taught My nationality was the reason I was not you opened, and the position is already hired on several occasions. Once in the taken!” Russian to graduate students. I spoke “I finished the first two years of study 1950s, I heard that a teacher’s position Once, I met a woman on a steamboat Russian to them regardless of the topic, at the Russian literature department in became available in one of Rostov’s on my way to a resort near Rostov. We because if you just teach theory, a person colleges, so I came to their offices late in quickly became friends and she offered to Rostov, and the third and fourth years in will not learn to speak or understand. the evening to apply. The head of the HR share a cabin with her. We were talking Stalinabad. In 1944, I went for another When my father passed away in 1949, office was already closing her door with her and she started telling me about her degree at the same Institute in Stalinabad. and we decided to return to Rostov, the back to me. I told her that I heard that the boss: “I have a boss named Abram (she This time I applied for the department graduate students wanted me to stay so college was looking for an English teacher. did not pronounce the letter ‘r’ correctly of foreign languages. I finished the third much that the administration offered to She got really excited and invited me into on purpose in order to mimic a Jewish and fourth years of the foreign languages increase my salary two-fold and to give me her office. She asked me “Do you know of accent). Actually, he treats me very well, study in Rostov. I was a good student and an apartment in Stalinabad to keep me anyone who could teach Russian?” And but he is an Abram!” And so I told her that was expected to graduate with honors. there. I said that I have a degree in teaching in that case if I were walking on one side However, in the 1940s the anti-Semitic Upon our return to Rostov, I was sent to Russian. She exclaimed, “Well, God of the street, she would have to cross over sentiments were such that to receive teach in a Cossack village of Morozovsk, himself sent you to us!” She invited me to the other side. “Can you imagine, how honors would be highly problematic in the Rostov region. After Morozovsk, on to come to the college early next morning awful it is - you fell in love with a Jew!” for a Jew. The head of the student the advice of one acquaintance I moved to before classes to meet with the director. The situation was terrible during the affairs department at the Institute was Shakhty, a mining town. There, I rented I realized that this woman forgot to “Doctors’ Plot.” Many people believed friends with my mother’s friend. In one an apartment from an elderly woman who that Jews actually poisoned Party 5 In Soviet passports, a person’s nationality (or ethnic conversation, when they were discussing lived with her granddaughter, grandson, background) was mandatorily marked on the fifth line of the biographical information page. 40 41 this family rejoiced, but my mother and I For this reason, when they called me up wept. to read, I was not nervous. I read the way I After Shakhty, I taught at an evening was supposed to read, and they chose me! school for the working youth in Rostov. Amateur Rehearsals started. In “The Scene Once, my teaching was observed by Next to the Fountain,” after Marina says an education specialist from the school Theater that she will not listen to False Dmitry’s6 district. One of the students was late, but declarations of love until he takes he apologized and explained his reason “When I studied in Rostov, I frequently for being late in English so well, that the participated in performances organized Godunov’s throne, she is supposed to education specialist exclaimed: “No one by the Soviet public education campaign leave. Every rehearsal the stage director speaks English so well in any day school!” (called Propaganda brigades) in the asked me to show how I would exit, but English in my school was an elective, but Rostov region. I performed and read poems every time I would say that I would do it my classes were always full. Once, the my entire life. At 12 years of age, I recited power went out in school and everyone Marshak’s poem “Mister Twister” and was released early. I, along with the earned a prize: a trip to Moscow. I began other teachers, was waiting in the faculty lounge with my colleagues for the power to perform before I started to work. When to come back on. Suddenly, we heard a I was still in school, in 1937, it was 100 knock on the door: “Raisa Samoylovna, we years since the death of Pushkin, the great Raisa and her sister Fira have been waiting for you for 45 minutes Russian poet. All cities in the Soviet already!” They were sitting in the class and great-granddaughter. The father of Union were staging Pushkin’s plays. I in the dark waiting for me! No one left! the children was an agronomist. He was really wanted to get the role of Marina These were very motivated young people. Mnishek in his “Boris Godunov.” There forced to work for the Germans during It’s a stereotype that some disinterested were four other girls auditioning for this the war. Because of this, he was accused working class savages were attending of collaborating with the Nazis and was evening schools. It was very interesting for part. I was very nervous; I shook like an sentenced to hard labor by the Soviets. me to work with them. I do not even know aspen leaf. I was the last one to audition, His wife could not find job anywhere who learned from whom: they from me or I and when I looked at the girl sitting next to because of her husband’s sentence, and from them.” me, I froze: a stately, beautiful, legitimate finally she had to take a job to get to which Marina Mnishek! And I decided that I Raisa in the 1940s she had to cross a ravine, and there were would not get the role and calmed down. wolves in the ravine! When Stalin died, 6 The generic name False Dmitry (also Pseudo-Demetrius) Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich of Russia, the youngest son of Ivan refers to various pretenders to the Russian throne during the the Terrible, after the real Dmitry’s death at the age of eight in 42 Time of Troubles (1598-1613) who passed themselves off as 1591. 43 when the time comes, and did not even Do not punish me with this who were psychologically abnormal.” And I once rehearse my exit from the stage. punishment! like America very much as well. During the performance, instead of leaving That’s Yevtushenko. I deeply respect with my head held high, I left like a sulky him.” Raisa on Life and goose, and the audience started to laugh. I thought that I had ruined everything, but Important Human the director came up to me backstage and Qualities said, “Dear Raisa, I congratulate you with Emigration your first success! You will be a wonderful actress!” I believed neither my eyes nor my “Once in Shakhty, I woke up and saw a ears. These were not just words. The next stranger sitting next to me on the couch, day, he came to our house and told us that “I could not even presume that someday and next to him was Kolya, the grandson of Raisa, 2015 a new young actors’ studio was opening I would go to America. At the end of the my landlady. Kolya says, “This is my father.” at the Rostov Theatre, and that they were 1980s, one of my sisters and my friend I sprang up to let this man sit comfortably. It seems to me that people who are offering me and another boy admission. believed that those who go to America are And he said the following to me, “You do ungrateful are not trust-worthy. For me, the But my mother did not let me go there, psychologically abnormal people. When I not need to pay me any attention. As if I am most important value is integrity. A trust- because she thought that theater is not was leaving for America in 1993, the same not here!” And that’s when I realized how a worthy person will not betray and will not do a profession. I am very grateful to her for friend confessed to me, “We were the ones person can be killed in a person, and what harm to others. For one of my friends here this. I am glad that I ultimately became a can be done to a person when he becomes the most important quality in a person is teacher. dependent. For me the biggest sin is to kindness, but I believe that a trust-worthy I love poems very much. When I go for abuse the trust of another human being. person cannot even be unkind.” walks, I read poems to myself and enjoy it. If I had children, I would first teach them Have you ever heard these verses? self-respect. Before, we were taught to be Oh God! — I scream with all the modest, and I did not understand what it depth of pain. — meant to love myself at all. It is necessary What is immortality to me but a to explain to children that they need to suspicious paradise! appreciate their own good qualities… Let me die, but not later than my Raisa and Fira beloved —

44 45 father was arrested and exiled to Siberia one Jewish family. There was no Jewish somewhere past Irkutsk. He worked in the community. My mother’s family upheld mines1 up until the Revolution. When the the Jewish traditions, but my mother only Zoya Grigorievna Revolution began, he was released. My spoke Russian. Her parents could not father’s parents, Isaac and Frieda, stayed send their children to school - it was too Ofengeym in Lithuania and moved to St. Petersburg expensive, far from the village, and they all later, after the Revolution, I can’t say had to work. There were seven children in Recorded by David Eydus in the first exactly which year. His family: father, the family: five sisters and two brothers. person as the story was told by Zoya mother, sister, and brother - all moved They all started working very early in life. from Lithuania to Leningrad. My father’s They were still children when they had to parents, my grandfather and grandmother, go into the fields, plant potatoes, and tend spoke to each other in Yiddish and in to the cattle. Parents accented Russian. I think my grandfather My mother’s father, Zelik, was a also spoke Lithuanian, but I am not butcher. He purchased livestock (cows, certain. My father’s parents observed bulls, deer) and scored them for meat. The Jewish traditions. village where they lived stood on a route y father’s name was Grigoriy My mother’s name was Rakhil which under Isaakovich Levin. He was Zelikovna (Zakharovna) Mikhalevich. She the tsarist M born in Lithuania in 1884. was born in 1894 in the village of Oёk, in rule was used At that time there was a so-called “five- the Irkutsk oblast on the shores of Lake for marching percent rule,” which meant that colleges Baikal. Her parents and grandfather were convicts to and high schools could have only 5% from Poland. There were unrests there too, their place of of Jews among the students, and these and they either escaped or were exiled, I imprisonment. Jewish boys had to be excellent students. am not certain. I think they were exiled, They went My father entered the St. Petersburg served their time and just stayed there. on foot, I do Institute of Technology in 1904, but a That was during the reign of Alexander not know Zoya, 1947 year later, in 1905, he was expelled. At the Second in the 19th century. In the how many that time, students protested the tsarist village where they settled, there was only thousands of regime and organized demonstrations. My 1 The usual state punishment was a sentence to do hard labor. Zelik Mikhalevich The hardest labor was in the mines. and his brother 46 47 kilometers. People were chained in pairs. After the Revolution, the Civil War decided to return to his favorite city. By my mother (she was detained for a short They had to cover a certain distance before began. By that time, my mother was that time, his parents had already moved time, maybe a month), but my father was they were allowed to take a break, and living in Irkutsk. She had already finished to Leningrad from Lithuania. Zoya’s father in prison a long time. Later he was also my grandparents’ village was one of the some professional training courses and went there in the beginning of 1926, released. We hid the fact that he had been stops. My grandmother, my mother’s worked as a typist. She completed only and then her mother came to join him arrested. mother, baked bread and sold the bread to four classes in the village school taught by with little Zoya in 1927. In 1929 another I don’t know what my parents were convicts. The family had a boarding house. a Russian priest, but she wrote very well. daughter was born into the family. She was arrested for. They did not want to talk named Rita. Mother’s parents and all her In their house, convicts slept on the floor When my sons were school students, they about it. When I was 11 years old, and my brothers and sisters remained in Siberia. and were fed the bread and meat that my would ask me to check their essays, and I sister was 8, my father was arrested the Zoya’s father went to work as a factory grandparents prepared. would tell them: “Ask Grandma, she will second time. We never saw him again. We foreman, while her mother worked in a In the village of Oёk there were some check everything better than me.” She was were told that he died in 1938 of a heart grocery store as a cashier: “My family was Russians, but for the most part, it was very capable and very well-read. During simple and hardworking…” attack, a year after he was arrested. settled by the indigenous peoples of that the Civil War, my mother worked in the My mother had to raise two young region. My mother had a lot of Evenki and Red Army headquarters as a typist. My children by herself. She had no profession, Yakut friends. The climate was very tough; father also moved to Irkutsk after being so she worked simple jobs to feed us: it was very cold. It could get to minus 50 released. He became a watchmaker. Some a cashier in a store, a secretary/typist, 2 Stalinist degrees C in this place. Sometimes the of their friends introduced my father and sometimes as a maid. To make life easier, blizzards were such that it was impossible mother to each other. They were married Repressions we did not tell anyone anything about to go outside. A rope would be strung from in 1924, and I was born in 1926.” our father’s arrest, and no one knew. one house to the next; and we had to hold My mother was very clever, and she on to this rope in order to go from house “The first time my parents were somehow managed to hide everything, to house. When they say “storm” here, I Relocation arrested, we were very young: I was about and we just told people that our father had do not pay attention to it. There the wind to 5 years old, and my sister was 3 years old. died of angina. Only the people closest would knock you over, it was impossible to Leningrad It was 1930, maybe 1932. We had a nanny to us knew that he had been arrested. breathe. It’s a cruel climate. I lived there named Olga. They wanted to send us to an Therefore, his arrest had no effect on my during the war, when we were evacuated friendships with other children. I loved Zoya’s father was exiled from St. orphanage, but our nanny didn’t let them. there. When you are outside, saliva Petersburg, and after the Revolution he She stayed with us. First they released other children; my friends and teachers instantly turns to ice. did not know anything. Maybe this was a 2 At minus 40 the two scales – Fahrenheit and Celsius- meet.

48 49 bit unusual compared to others, but this is they would wake her or there was no room to daughter of a very prominent professor, how our story turned out. I lived normally lie down. Her legs swelled after standing for while another girl had no parents, was in this sense. My childhood was difficult a week or two. But somehow she survived. Childhood very poor and was a street squatter before. not because I was hiding facts about my And she was certain, practically till her We were all friends, regardless of financial father, but simply for material reasons. death, that neither Stalin nor Lenin was to and situation. Back then we did not distinguish My mother earned very little, she had two blame. It was all the fault of some criminals, Education by who your parents were; we did not have daughters; it was very difficult for her. some enemies of the people. What happened Zoya spent her entire life in this. When we lost my father, my mother there to my father, I do not know. Leningrad - from the age of 1 to 65, As a child I had many friends. Primarily could no longer afford a housekeeper. We had a friend named Maria when she emigrated to America. they were my classmates. We were good Mother had to work, and we were home Andreevna; she had two young children. “I studied well and was an excellent friends, both boys and girls. We had a large 3 alone. I was a little girl, but I had to do all They took her and her husband; there was student. I remember my school with great class , about 30 students. When the war the housework: the laundry, and cleaning, nobody else to take care of the children, affection. In Russia at the time when I was ended, it turned out that unfortunately, and cooking, and buying groceries. We and they were sent to an orphanage. in school, education was open to everyone. the blockade wiped out almost everyone. grew up very fast and fully took care of The husband was shot, and Maria was It was not like it is here: good school, bad Maybe, 5 or 6 people remained alive from ourselves. Our nanny went to work for sent to a camp. She was exiled for a school, expensive school, private school, our class. I was told that this one died, another family, but we kept in touch with long time, from 1937 to 1953. She was free school... School was for everyone. that one died, and that one went missing. nd her. I met her after the war and would help finally rehabilitated after Stalin’s death. In one class, I had a friend who was the The war started June 22 , when we her by giving her money sometimes. She visited us after her release and told were already on our summer break, and People who survived the Stalinist us the following story. When she was some of the children went on vacation camps, exiles, and arrests, do not like to arrested, one of her daughters was about to other cities. I knew one boy, he was talk about it. As if this was some kind of 3 or 4 years old, and the other was 2. half-Jewish, who did not return from that secret; God forbid you speak about it! They She found her children after her release. vacation; he was shot by the Germans. were afraid they would be fired... So we They categorically denounced her, did not Another boy, Matveev, was in Belarus know very little about this. My mother said acknowledge her as their mother, and did that summer and was also taken by the that in prison the conditions were horrible. not want to have anything to do with her. Germans, but somehow he was saved, The cells were so packed that it was They told her: “You are an enemy of the hidden perhaps. He was at a small Jewish impossible to sleep; people slept standing people.” This is how they were raised in village in Belarus. I had been there too up. She came with such swollen feet the orphanage. She would visit us and cry. before the war, because we were friends, because she was deprived of sleep, either So she ended up living alone.” and sometimes our parents would send us Zoya with her mother Rakhil and her sister Rita 3 In the Soviet Union, a class means a group of students with a more or less permanent composition taking all courses together throughout all 10 years 50 of schooling. 51 there together. He had an aunt and other after the war, our room was occupied, and communal apartments. I had a friend relatives in that village. The Germans we were given another one that was only whose father was a professor of medicine. captured the village, and I was told later 6 meters by 6 meters, and the three of He was working on his dissertation. Their The Great by witnesses - Russian peasants - that all us - my mother, my sister and I - lived in entire family lived in one room, and his of the villagers were executed. This boy that small room. Later our relatives came desk was in the corner of a large room. Patriotic to join us, and there was no room to sleep, He would get angry and ask us to whisper managed to run away. I met him after the so we slept on the floor. The room had no because we were interfering with his War war. He became mentally ill from all this heating. The housing situation was very studying. “When the war started, I was 15 years horror. So I have few friends left from my difficult in Leningrad, especially after the We cared for each other, helped each old and had completed only seven classes. childhood… Mostly boys perished, the girls war. other the best we could. Financially, I My sister was 12. There was a general survived better. I must say that at that time, there could not help. I did not worry that I had feeling that there would be a war soon. The In school, my favorite subjects were were no rich people in general. Nobody no pretty dresses. My assistance was in children in the 6th and 7th grades studied literature and history. Mathematics also had a lot of money or a lot of goods. The that I helped children who were lagging military science. We learned how to put on was easy for me, and I also loved biology. I apartments were communal. This means behind at school. I tutored them after a gas mask, how to load a rifle, but most of completed the 7th grade, and then the war that five or six families lived together in school, mostly in math. But we had all, we marched. We were taught to form began. After that I did not really have any one apartment, and every family had one something else that you don’t have here. ranks, to stand “at attention”; we played. more school.” room. The bathroom was communal. We Everyone who fell behind in class copied lived in an apartment with 30 other people; work from others. When I came to school Nobody thought that the war would begin we had one toilet for everyone, and there with completed homework, students so quickly. was no bathtub. Every morning there was who were not good in math were already It was a summer day. My friends, my a line for the toilet. waiting for me, and they would copy down classmates and I went out of town. We Soviet Very often there were two or more my answers into their notebooks. When swam in the lake, sunbathed, and enjoyed Society families living in one room, like sardines tests came, we considered it our obligation ourselves. We were a group of 6 or 7 boys in a barrel. We had two rooms for two to write down the answers and quietly pass and girls. The lake was far away in the families, and to get into the back room, them along to those who needed them. woods. When we came out of the woods, “Before the war, we had one room in a you had to go through the neighbors’ We tried to make sure that all the students we were surprised to see large crowds communal apartment. Four people - my room. This was called a “connecting received good grades, especially on final of people, talking about something, mother, father, my sister and I - lived in room.” My friends and I do not recall exams. Cheat sheets were everywhere. listening to the loudspeaker… That’s when one room. It was a large room, a good anyone who had a separate apartment, Here, students do not let anyone copy we learned that the war had begun. We room. When we came back to Leningrad like you do here. Everyone lived in large their work.” immediately went back home.

52 53 The city changed in the first days of great difficulty, under bombings; they had childhood. the war. We had to hide in a bomb shelter to walk part of the way. Eventually they The train was bombed and shelled. We all the time. On the second or third day, found the place where the children were hid in ravines near the rail tracks. We ran blimps went up for air defense. Soldiers staying, and my mother brought my sister out of food very quickly, but some people appeared on the streets. We did not know back. shared their food with us, and we also what to do. People felt that they had to In August, the Germans reached traded rings and earrings for bread. We stock up on food; they began buying up Leningrad. The authorities began mass arrived very hungry and cold. We had lice. groceries. Shelling began practically evacuation of families with children. It One time, I missed the train: I ran for within the first few days. I saw the shells was difficult to get onto the official list for boiling water at one of the stops, and the Lake Baikal falling. We got used to this and would the evacuation, but my mother was very train left. Some strangers helped me and run to the bomb shelter. The radio would resourceful. She had a very good friend drove me in their car to catch up with the sister to school and told me: “Do not even announce: “Attention, citizens! Air raid! in the “government circles,” and she train. dream of going to school! We need to Come down to the shelter.” Shelters were managed to get a pass for us on the last We settled in Irkutsk at my mother’s survive.” She went to work as a laborer in arranged, and we hid there. When the raid train through him. We were only allowed to relatives. They lived in a small room, and some warehouse. I wanted to go to school was over, we would come out. take 16 kilograms4 of belongings and food initially we lived with them. Then we were very much, but instead I went to work with Then the authorities issued a strong for the 3 of us. given a room in the barracks in Irkutsk, my mother. We lugged rolls of paper. Then advisory to evacuate all young children, So the process of evacuation began. where we stoked the coals from morning my mother got a job in a cafeteria due to but without parents. My sister was 12 It was a very difficult and complicated till night to keep it warm. We had a difficult a big favor from someone. Together with years old at the time. My mother and I journey. We were traveling to the city life in Irkutsk. It is a very cold city, where my mother, I washed pots and cleaned consulted, and we decided to follow the where I was born - to Irkutsk. The journey the temperature reaches 50 degrees below the floors. For this my mother received advisory. Rita was taken along with the took almost 2 months. We traveled in zero in Centigrade. We had very little a salary, and we also received rations of other children in the direction of Pskov. boxcars. The Germans had already cut off warm clothing, so it was very difficult for so-called soup: boiled water mixed with They said that she would be safe there. the road between Moscow and Leningrad. us. But people in Siberia are very kind. course rye flour. There was a very long Then we heard that the bombings had We left August 20th, and the next day In Irkutsk there was no anti-Semitism; line for this soup. Since my mother and started there too, and my mother was the road to Leningrad was cut off by the we did not feel any oppression. On the I worked there, we got the soup without horrified: “What have I done? Why did I Germans; the city was in a blockade. On contrary, people helped us; they gave us waiting in line. Sometimes they gave us an send my child there?” She and her friend, the way, I saw many exhausted soldiers clothing. My mother could not send me to extra bowl in exchange for money. who had also sent her daughter there, and refugees who fled from the occupied school because we did not have clothing, Once mother saw a poster near our went after the children. They traveled with territories. Such are my memories of or belongings, or food. She sent my little house for admission to the tax department 4 35,2 lb

54 55 at a vocational school for finance and I had to fulfill the quota - weed 5 acres. agricultural work. We started weeding I turned 17, I forged my age a bit in my economics. I thought I would not be And if the quota was not reached, people large sections of vegetable patches. Each documents, and went to the draft board. able to attend because the school year did not receive their ration of bread. It was worker (student) had to weed 5 acres in They took me. For four months I was was already coming to an end, and the difficult for me; I was not used to such one day; this is a large section. First we studying at a military students had been studying all winter. But work. So other girls helped me. That’s how weeded, then cut down hay and raked it medical program. my mother said: “We are evacuees; they I fulfilled the quota. After some time at into stacks. Then we harvested potatoes. We were taught to should take you.” We went there together. the farm, I came home for a few days on a All this by hand, we did not even have apply bandages, treat The director was also from Leningrad and brief vacation and saw that my sister was gloves. And so we dug, and carried heavy fractures, but mostly was sympathetic to my case. I told her that practically dying of hunger. I took her with sacks, it was difficult work. The bags we were trained in the me and together we easily reached the weighed up to 16 kilograms. And then military profession: I would study day and night to catch up, Zoya, 1944 and I was admitted! As a college student, I quota. That’s how we survived. the school year started, and there was no how to crawl on our received a small living stipend. I finished vocational school at age 17, teacher in this village. The head of the farm bellies, shoot rifles and machine guns, Courses seemed easy to me. The within 2 years. After that I could attend came to us and asked: “Who wants to be a disassemble weapons, put on gas masks, teachers were not very capable, and a university. I did not want to enroll in a teacher? I will release you from field work.” and use the Morse code. Despite taking neither were the students. There were finance program; I wanted to be a teacher I was the first to agree - instead of freezing these courses, I did not abandon my only female students, as the boys had all of Russian language and literature, and in the field and gathering potatoes, I could higher education. I spent the night at been drafted into the army. I caught up to also history, but I was told: “Since you teach! In this village school, there were the hospital, and in the morning I would everyone very quickly and was receiving graduated from a finance vocational few students. First period was for the first run to the Institute. I learned as if I was A’s within a month. At the same time I school, you cannot be admitted anywhere year and third year students who studied a student in absentia: I read the material kept working, helping my mother wash else.” So I went to the Irkutsk Institute of together in one room. Second period was on my own and took tests. Later, when the floors. I also delivered mail and helped Finance. By night I worked at a hospital for the second and fourth year students, I completed the medical training, I was someone care for their baby. Even my (as a volunteer for the first year), and also in one room. So I taught two different sent to work at a hospital in Irkutsk. The sister tried to help by working. by day I either attended classes at the levels simultaneously. wounded were brought from the west. I When the spring came, everyone from university or worked at home. Then I began thinking about joining spent a year working at that hospital and the city was sent to do agricultural work It also happened that during the war, the Red Army as a volunteer. All of us, was awarded promoted to the rank of Staff in the fields. My mother and I were sent I worked as a teacher for six months both boys and girls, - we all wanted to go Sergeant of Medical Service. For me this to a collective farm. My sister, at age 12, at a village school; I was about 17-18 fight the Germans. The boys who were 18 was difficult work: I had to make dressings was left home alone; my mother left her years old. In the fall, all students from years old were drafted immediately. Girls and give injections. It’s a very difficult job flour and potatoes. I was 15 years old, but the Institute were sent to the farm to do were admitted to nursing courses. When and I could not do this, so I asked those in

56 57 charge if I could simply be a cleaning lady settled. Zoya believes that the judge was just as long as I could teach... That’s or a nurse assistant. So I transferred to do bribed by the janitor who had occupied how much I fell in love with the teaching the washing and cleaning up. their room. In compensation, Zoya’s profession.” I flew in a plane to the front lines twice. After the family was given a much smaller room of 6 While still attending the Institute, Zoya Our team was responsible for bringing square meters. took courses for a sub-specialization in the seriously wounded who needed War the Department of Education. After a few complicated operations to Irkutsk. Most months of working at the bank, a teaching position opened up at the Institute, and were brought in by trains, but those who When the war ended, Zoya demobilized Beloved Zoya came to work at the Leningrad had especially bad wounds were brought in and moved back to Leningrad in 1945. Institute of Finance and Economics, where on small American airplanes. There were There she studied at a Finance Institute Profession and lived in a student dormitory, in a she had studied economics. Later she also not even any benches on the planes. We room with 4 other girls. Her mother and taught at the Leningrad Textile Institute had to seat on the floor with the wounded. sister returned to the city only a year later, In 1947, Zoya graduated from the in the department of advanced training for Then came 1945, the end of the war. because not everybody was allowed to Institute of Finance and went to work at a industry workers: “I loved my work. I was In the hospital where I worked there were return to Leningrad immediately after the bank as a loan officer. Her responsibility happy all my life that I worked as a teacher, the wounded, the sick, those on crutches, war. was to give out million ruble loans to although teachers at the Institute received those without legs, the blind… You When they returned, the family was different organizations and factories. At a pittance. I liked explaining things to cannot imagine how patriotic everyone unable to secure their old room in the first, she was very worried, but then she people and helping them.” was. When we heard about the Victory, communal apartment. During the war got used to this huge responsibility. The they threw their crutches in the air with it had been occupied, and the new salary was good, but she did not like the joy! Everyone kissed everyone, everyone inhabitants did not want to give it up. The work. She had dreamed of being a teacher embraced everyone. Vodka appeared from matter reached the courts, but was not since childhood: “I had a very good teacher somewhere. It was such a great holiday for in the first grade. My first teacher was Family us! My mother had never drunk alcohol in Aleksandra Nikolaevna Ikonnikova. I still her life. During the war she’d say: “If the remember her. I liked very much how she war ever ends, I will get drunk.” And in worked with the school children. This fostered love for the teaching profession Zoya knew her husband since fact, when I ran home that day, she had a in me, and practically from the first grade childhood. Ruvim Lvovich Ofengeym was “small” bottle of vodka, and we drank to I dreamed of becoming a teacher. I didn’t 4 years older than Zoya. Before the war, the Victory! It was a great, great holiday! care what to teach – any subject; or at they lived in the same apartment building That’s my military history.” Zoya at her Institute what level - high school or elementary;

58 59 and attended the same school, and their Unfortunately, the eldest son died of for a recruiting company, while his son is a attend a second-tier institute, so he mothers were friends. In 1940 after cancer 8 years ago in Russia. He was the researcher in the field of neurosurgery. would be accepted for sure and not be finishing 10th grade, Ruvim was drafted chief engineer for an organization in Saint drafted into the Army. This was in 1965. into the Army. He chose the air force and Petersburg which built bridges and roads. He was admitted to the Institute of Water was sent to a flight school in Crimea. A His daughter, Zoya’s granddaughter, Anti-Semitism Transport on the first try and graduated year later, the war broke out, and he went is 38. She married and settled down in and the with excellent grades. to the front lines, having completed his Germany. Zoya does not approve of this The younger son, Leonid, felt his training at an accelerated pace. He fought marriage: “Despite the fact that now is a Refuseniks the entire war as a pilot, took part in many different time, I think it is unpleasant to inequality in school already from the age of battles, and witnessed the deaths of many have Germans in our family.” 10 or 12. At 12 he began to study Jewish of his comrades. Zoya says that of his large The younger son lives in Boston and Zoya remembers how in the 1950s there history on his own and attend services at graduating class, only two boys returned works as a programmer. He graduated was a massive surge of anti-Semitism a synagogue. He was called a Zionist. He from the front. Ruvim was lucky to be alive. in all fields of science and culture: “Jews joined one of the “circles” for studying He was demobilized in 1947 and returned were being fired from their jobs. Young Hebrew with his friend Vova Pritzker. to Leningrad. Jews were not accepted to universities, When he turned 16, they both filed a Zoya and Ruvim were married a month sometimes their documents were not even petition for emigration to Israel and were after his return, on August 22, on his accepted for admission. I saw how my given the state’s authorization to leave. birthday. Ruvim wanted to continue flying, best teachers, professors, talented people Vova’s parents allowed him to leave right but Zoya did not like it, as she was afraid were dismissed from work under various that he could crash. He was unable to go away, and he left for Israel alone in 1975. to school for another profession, because pretexts. Anti-Semitism was raging, and Vova’s parents were Refuseniks; they had he had to work to support his family and Zoya and Ruvim, 1945 there was nothing we could do.” Zoya’s been fired from their jobs, they had nothing elderly mother. So Ruvim found a position oldest son was an all-around excellent to live on and had nowhere to go. So their of a mechanic at a state construction from the prestigious Leningrad Institute student and wanted to study mathematics son went alone at age 16. Leonid was management organization which built of Technology, but in America he was at the university. But everyone told him expelled from the university twice for his paper textiles and timber processing unable to find work in his profession, so that the examination committee would participation in Zionist circles. As a result, plants. he retrained as an engineer. His daughter make sure he fails and advised him to he had to change to a part-time status. Zoya and Ruvim Lvovich had two sons. graduated from college this year and works

60 61 circles. But I helped however I could: I got Israel and instead went to Vienna to wait had my eldest son there. But he was well them medicine, helped them go to different for immigration documents to America. established and did not want to emigrate. agencies to collect all the documents One of Leonid’s friends who was already There was nothing in the shops: no food, needed for emigration, etc. living in the U.S. advised them to bypass no consumer products. I had money, but Emigration For example, I can tell you about Israel and come to America instead. He the shops were empty. What kind of life this episode. There was a guy who had sent them an invitation. is this? So then I decided - I would go! graduated from a university and who Zoya was so happy teaching, she did The biggest reason was this feeling that After Vova Pritzker’s departure, Leonid was allowed to leave, but only under the not want to leave. In addition, she did not with my money I cannot buy anything. asked Zoya for a permission to leave as condition that he reimburses the state for speak Hebrew, she had to take care of her And I had a few experiences with anti- well, but she did not let him go: “He threw the cost of his higher education. This was sick mother, and she did not want to leave Semitism. At the Institute, at work, among himself at my feet, begging me to let him a colossal amount of money. He lived with Russia. She emigrated only in 1990. She the students there were no incidents, leave. I refused. Then for some time the his mother and did not have this kind of had several reasons: “To be honest, I did everything was fine, but at the community authorities clamped down on emigration money. We all raised money by asking all not really want to leave and would not level I sometimes ran into outright hatred. and only resumed giving out permits little our friends to contribute. We gathered the by little in 1988.” Zoya says she did not necessary sum (I don’t remember exactly want to emigrate to Israel, but helped the how much), and he was allowed to leave. Refuseniks: “When I visited the Refuseniks He became a politician in Israel.” around Leningrad, I would be introduced When emigration out of the USSR was like this: “This is Zoya Grigorievna, who allowed again in 1988, Leonid and his does not want to go to Israel.” No word wife Galya (his fellow Zionist) and their was spoken about America among these small son Dmitry left for Israel: “They Zionist patriots; everyone wanted to go to were longing for Israel. They already Zoya at work Israel. My first husband passed away; at had connections there, they had been that time I had another husband (we were preparing. They were among the first to have gone anywhere. But my youngest For example, I was standing in line for not officially married). He left for Israel in leave. By this time even I was ready for son wrote that he had no one to leave the potatoes once, and some woman pushed 1974. He also begged me, but I did not them to go. I was afraid that they would be child with, and it was difficult for them. me out of the line and said: “Just leave go. I was afraid. I had a young son and a put in jail for their Zionist activity.” After They asked me to come and help. By that for your Israel! There’s no need for you to sick mother who did not want to go. That Leonid and his wife left the USSR and time, my mother passed away. In essence, stand in line here.” Another instance: a is why I was introduced this way in these landed in Europe, they decided not to go to I was left alone in Russia, though I still Fascist symbol was painted on my doors.

62 63 My former students called to warn me: Institute and ask whether they will take and speak Hebrew. But I don’t criticize were great economists, did not struggle “Zoya Grigorievna, it’s dangerous for you me back to work if I return.” He wrote to them. In my long life I have not seen God for their personal benefit. They wanted to to stay alone at home today. Come spend me that the director answered: “If Zoya help anyone; so why pray? establish socialism in one independent the night with us!” Or I would get a call Grigorievna returns today, tomorrow we I went to the synagogue at HRC one country. Now I believe that this was from the dean’s office: “We are taking will put her on the schedule to teach.” So time. In general, I do not go. In all my life a mistake. They fought for worldwide you off the schedule for this day. Do not in Russia I went to a synagogue twice: socialism. They wanted to overthrow come because we heard rumors there may when I was emigrating, I had to get some the capitalist regime in all countries, but be hooliganism and protests!” But how documents and certificates from there. it turns out there is nothing better than could I not go to work?! I lived there all When I came to the U.S., I wanted to capitalism for the economy. Now I agree my life, why would I be afraid to go to my see the temples of various religions: a with the fact that socialism, and even lectures?! Of course I went, and nothing Zoya at work synagogue, a Russian church, a Catholic communism, is a utopia. Mankind is so happened. But these are the moments cathedral, a Protestant church, Chinese imperfect, there is so little honesty, that for that are unpleasant and difficult for me to I considered going back instead of being temples, Buddhist temples... I went to all now it is impossible. Maybe in 100 years... remember. I honestly told the Institute stuck in the ‘village’. Aside from work, I of them to see how various services are I had to live in the country a little and that I was leaving to join my son. Until was drawn to Russia because of my family. conducted. gain some experience to understand what then I had not spoken on the subject of My sister (she is a dentist) and my eldest Because my specialty is economics, I did not like about America. I do not really emigration. I was not a Refusenik.” son and granddaughter lived there. My son I am interested in the economy and the like the educational system. Education is For Zoya it was difficult to part with would come visit us in America, but did operation of private businesses. Frankly, expensive. Healthcare is costly. In Russia, the city, with her colleagues, friends, not want to emigrate.” I don’t really like this economic system; both were free. The American education is and with her students. It was especially I was brought up with the teachings long and too general. My granddaughter difficult to part with her beloved work. of Marx. I believed that America is a attended university for 4 years and still “When I came to the U.S., I settled in Views Needham, and there I felt very detached on Life country which exploits the working class does not know who she will be! Our from life. There were no buses running on by expropriating the fruits of their labor. students had living stipends. It was a Saturday or Sunday, and they did not run and Religion There were shortcomings in Russia, of pittance, but it was some money. Children in the evenings either. I was stuck there course, but I see them not in the system from the poorest families could go to a as a whole, but rather in the fact that very university because they did not have to in that ‘village’. It was difficult for me, and “My grandchildren are “infected” with unjust people seized power. For example, I pay. I myself lived off a stipend when I I felt drawn back to Leningrad. I wrote to religiosity; they go to synagogue every still believe that Lenin and Plekhanov, who was a student. It was difficult, but we had my eldest son: “Go to the director of the Saturday. They attended a Jewish school

64 65 enough for bread and for water, and we Autumn in Newton I don’t love you, my Russia… Ну что ж? Была война. Но, Родина, ты could survive. The same with doctors: the Прекрасна осень в Ньютоне, Я не люблю тебя, моя Россия, нас не оценила, medical care was not very good, but I could На берегу реки. Я честно говорю, что не люблю. На классы, группы разделила, always go to the doctor and not spend a Деревья разноцветные Забрав отца, украла мое детство, Вот нам, евреям, бирки прилепила, И шорохи листвы. penny. I also do not like how people are И юность исковеркала мою. Людьми другого сорта назвала. Идешь дорожкой узкою, valued in America: this one is well-off, Мне б в восемнадцать с мальчиком И это вам нельзя, и это невозможно, Любуешься красой. that one lives in poverty... It’s all about Природой нашей созданной встречаться, А то совсем запрещено. making money, money, money. Money is Как будто неземной. Любимой быть, самой любить. И не ходите, не просите – everything. We did not have this attitude in Бредешь вот с этим “вокером”, Но я должна была над раненым Такое указание сверху нам дано. my time. И думаешь о том, склоняться, Я не люблю тебя, моя Россия, I maintain the Russian culture even in Что жизнь не зря потрачена, И утки, судна выносить. Я честно говорю, что не люблю. America. I know Russian literature, and И вспомнишь о былом. Мне б в восемнадцать по полям, лугам Но верю, что изменишься уже И было хорошее время, artists, and theatre culture, and poetry. носиться, в другое время И были лихие года, I read Russian books and watch a lot of Весенний аромат цветов вдыхать. И будешь справедливей и добрей. Но все, что случалось, Russian television. I love to write poetry А я должна была в палате тесной Тогда вернусь к тебе в другое время случалось со мною, when I am in the mood for it.” Со мною уйдет навсегда. И гноем, кровью и мочой дышать. И назову любимой Родиной моей. Люблю я и позднюю осень; Ну что ж? Была война. Мы, Родина, Деревья без листьев стоят. тебя любили, И словно нагие девицы И жизни не жалели, чтоб тебя спасти. Смущенно так смотрят на нас. И в смертный бой шли рядом русские, Красавицы, вы не горюйте! татары и евреи Дождитесь прихода весны! Сражались рядом, погибали рядом. Она вас оденет зеленым нарядом, Не спрашивая наций, возраста, И будете вы хороши. Спасибо Америке доброй! наград, Примите от всех нас поклон. Погибших в братскую могилу За то, что наш возраст осенний опускали. Согрела весенним теплом. Назвав одним лишь именем – Zoya and David, 2015 Советской Армии солдат.

66 67 For more information about the Experiential Learning Practicum, please visit these websites http://www.brandeis.edu/bgi/ and http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/grall/russian/ or contact us at [email protected] and [email protected] (for Russian Studies)

Translated by Kristen Foaksman’16 and Breanna Vizlakh’16, Brandeis University students

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