Preface

My mother is 98 years old. She was born in Khmelnik and raised in Shargorod, a small town in Ukraine. I thought it’s worthwhile to record her memories for posterity. They are not in any particular order, I’m writing just as I recall them.

How Shargorod Became a Ghetto

During WW2 Shargorod was under Romanian occupation. Romania was allied with Germany. One Shabbat the streets were filled with droves of tired people. A well dressed woman carrying her husband on the back collapsed in front of my grandfather’s house. These were the Jews deported from Bukovina.

My grandfather took charge of distributing the people to different homes. His family began peeling potatoes to feed the refugees. When my great-grandfather saw it, he exclaimed “Shabbes!” They showed him what’s going on outside. He sat down and began peeling too.

Every house was filled with people. Great-Grandfather was saying “There is still room”.

The newcomer Jews spoke German and looked upper class with their dress and behavior. Soon they were looking just like us.

In winter the typhus epidemy began. The earth was frozen and they couldn’t dig the graves. The bodies were stored till spring on the upper floor of the synagogue.

They had Passover Seder in my grandfather’s house. A neighbor woman came and exclaimed with envy: people are dying everywhere and you are celebrating! The next day one of the guests got typhus and soon died. In spite of the warnings he got involved in trading clothes from the dead. Until then nobody got sick in our home. My mother and her mother also got typhus, one after the other. The fever was treated with cold compresses and they were wrapped with wet clothes. They survived.

On a positive note, many marriages were arranged between the newcomers and the locals. Many old girls (over 30) found husbands.

After the War the Jews from Bukovina went back, and took our family with them. That’s how we ended up in Chernowitz.

Daily Life in Shargorod Before the War.

When someone got sick, they called Leibl Rophe, a Feldsher ( a doctor without a degree), who would get 5 rubles for a visit. For more serious cases there was a gentile doctor, who would get 10 rubles. Both gave similar medical treatment for every illness, like “bankes” etc.

Shmul-Ber, the water carrier delivered water from the river with the horse and buggy.

There was a store managed by an Armenian. The Jews call him “Timhe”, an allusion to Amalek.

There was one big synagogue, “The Turkish Shul”, and many others. Some were just for the learned people, and others for the working class.

Elisaveta, the “Shabbes Goy”, was coming on Shabbat to light the fire in the stove.

A shochet (ritual slaughterer) was employed by the community. People would come to him with a chicken and give him a “kvitel” (a ticket). A shochet was paid for the tickets. My grandfather was a shochet, and so was his father.

Fillip Samborsky, the Gentile Neighbor:

His quotations that my mother recalled. “When the Germans come, I can send your girls in the pasture with the geese, but your boys are circumsized”.

“Ukraina mate (mother) , a Russia diadko (uncle)”.

An Orphan Girl Married an Orphan Boy

In the wedding there was a “badhan” an entertainer. He knew the worth of everyone, and would publicly announce: Haiim the “gvir” (rich man) is giving that much as a wedding present.

My Grandparents Marriage

My grandmother told her father Mordechai that she will only marry for love. And she did. Their marriage lasted 70 years.

In their first meeting, my grandfather’s brothers and grandmother’s brother were walking behind the young couple. They got involved in conversation and became fast friends.

The suit for my grandfather was custom tailored from sacks for sugar that were dyed black. My grandmother made her own dress.

They lived in Khmelnik in her father’s home. At about 1937, after my grandmother’s sister got married they moved to Shargorod to live with my grandfather’s parents. That saved their lives. Nobody in Khmelnik survived the War.

My grandmother became very attached to her mother-in-law Maryam who died shortly before the War. She had a feeling that she will never see her sisters again, my mother says.

Eventually the ties between the Shargorod and Khmelnik branches expanded. My grandfather’s brother who just returned from the War married my grandmother’s niece who was much younger than him.

Hunger Relieved with Acorn Coffee

It was the year 1933 during the “Holodomor” – the great famine caused by communists expropriating grain from peasants. The hunger was bad for everyone, but even worth for the Jews. My grandmother would send my mother to the field to find something edible. My mother’s younger sister got very sick, her belly was swollen from constant hunger. My grandmother took her to Odessa to a doctor they knew from Shargorod.

They traveled on a roof of a train. The doctor treated her with coffee made from acorns and she got better. When they returned, my grandfather exclaimed: “you have switched my daughter!”

Making a Living While Unemployed

My mother comes from the Rabbinic family. For years after the Communist revolution her father my grandfather was called “servant of cult”. He was under pressure to denounce religion and was prohibited from getting a job.

My grandmother was providing for the family. She would buy sugar from the local factory and travel to Odessa to sell it. That was illegal and called “speculation”. She was bringing back from Odessa shoes for girls who needed them to get married.

One day during the famine a relative came to visit. There was no food at home. My grandmother took a piece of cloth, went to a neighbor and sold it. With that she bought bread for the guest. When the guest asked why they are not eating, she said “we already ate”. The relative introduced them to illegal gold coin trading through a certain man without one hand.

With all their poverty they had a charity box, that the children were not allowed to take from. This is for the “Ureme” (poor) people.

Later my grandmother learned bookkeeping by correspondence, and become a chief bookkeeper/accountant at the local store. Only then they started to have a steady income.

My grandmother’s youngest son was born in 1937. They said it was a “present” from Stalin, who finally allowed the religious people to work.

How They Came to Arrest my Grandfather

The front of their small house in Shargorod was facing the street and the back against the river. One summer night they came to arrest my grandfather. When my grandmother opened the door, she told them he’s out of town. They went to look for him around the house. My grandfather escaped through the back door and was standing against the white wall in his white underwear. In the light of the full moon they passed right by him and didn’t notice him.

Business Dispute in Soviet Russia

There was a store with two people managing it. One of them tried to persuade the second one to commit something illegal. He refused saying, my wife has relatives in America. They will send her a typewriter and she will work and earn honest money with it. The first one reported him to the secret police. He was executed the next day for ties to America and conspiring to have a typewriter.

How My Mother As a Young Girl Went Alone on a Train to Visit Relatives.

Without money for a ticket she went to the train engineer and offered she will help shovel the coal. She shoveled the coal into the furnace of the steam engine. Then swept the floor of the cabin and went to sleep on the floor. At the end, the man woke her up: “Young girl, wake up or you will soon end up in Romania”.

When she found the family of Ezra Shochat in Zhmerinka, she saw ten young children sleeping on the floor. The mother was boiling clothes in a big vat. Ezra Shohat was probably my grandfather’s friend or a relative.

Yasek Kviatkovski, my Mother’s Friend

A Polish boy was a friend and a schoolmate of my mother. He would come to my mother’s home to study together. One day Yasek disappeared from school. My mother went outside and saw (his father?) a Pop (Christian Priest) hanging from a pole. A sign on his chest: “Religion is opium for the people”.

Years later, in Chernowitz, my mother met Yasek on a street. She asked him, what are you doing here? He said, didn’t your parents tell you? Your father helped me to get a job and a home.

How My Mother Became a Doctor.

My mother’s family survived the WW2 in Shargorod, a small town that became a Ghetto, when Jews from Romania were deported there. But that is for another story. After the war the family moved to Chernowitz in Bukovina, now western Ukraine. My mother went to the University there and studied Math and Physics with excellent grades.

When she showed her diploma to my grandmother, she exclaimed: “they will send you to teach in a village, and the Bandera people (Anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalists) will kill you!” Better go study medicine! Everybody needs a doctor!

This is how my mother became a doctor.

Stalin’s Death

When Stalin died in March 1953 on Purim, everybody on the street was crying. My grandfather’s face was shining. (Recalls my great uncle)

Nazi Germans in WW2 Vs Kaiser Germans in WW1

In a small town Chernivtzi (near Vinniza) the people remembered the WW1, and how the Germans liked the order and cleanliness. When the Germans came in the WW2 the people swept the streets and welcomed the German Army. The Germans tied the Jews back-to back and threw them in the river.

When German soldiers marched through the town, one stupid girl shouted a welcoming message to them. Later one soldier went into their house. The girl’s mother lied down between them. The soldier shot the mother.

Geography and Fate

My father’s family lived in a small village of Lipnik, Bessarabia, which was part of Romania between the Wars. Shortly before WW2 it was annexed to the Soviet Union as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Lipnik was near a big railroad junction. When the war began, his family took a train eastward and ended near Stalingrad. This is how they fled the Holocaust.

My mother’s grandparents lived in a small town of Khmelnik, Ukraine. It was far from the railroad. Getting to the train would take hiring a horse carriage, which was not available in the rush of the War. None of my family from Khmelnik survived the War. All is left of them is a wedding photograph taken in 1937.

Sara Siusa, my Great Aunt

After the War my grandmother with her younger brother went to Khmelnik to find out what happened to the family. They found a gentile family who was hiding Jews in the cellar. They told them about their sister Sara Siusa. She lost her husband and children, and was walking crazy on the street in a coat with a big pregnant belly. A woman across the street thought that she was hiding a treasure under a coat. She invited her in, killed, and buried her in the front yard. When my grandmother had her dug up they found a baby skeleton inside her.

My grandmother wanted to file a complaint about the woman. The neighbors told her it was dangerous. She had ties with the secret police.

My g-grandfather Mordechai

My g-grandfather Mordechai was hiding in the cellar of a gentile friend named Prokip. There was also hiding in the cellar an orphan boy and the Torah scroll. Somehow they were discovered and Mordechai was killed. His wife was murdered earlier with her grandchildren. Don’t know what happened to the boy or to Prokip.

My Grandmother’s sister Leah

My Grandmother’s sister Leah (Pupale, “a doll”, because she was beautiful) married the son of the Rabbi from Turov and moved to Kiev. She, her husband and children were murdered in Babi Yar. Before her marriage she got sick in the throat. A Jewish military doctor who was treating her fell in love and proposed to her. She said, “I am engaged”. My mother was always wondering if marrying this doctor would have saved her life.

Moving to Czernowitz after the War

When they came to Czernowitz, the city was largely empty. Before the War it had a thriving Jewish population with Jewish Major. The Jews who lived there were largely decimated or deported.
Someone suggested to my grandparents a huge empty house outside the city. They spent all day cleaning it. At night they heard the neighbors’ dogs barking. They felt unwelcome and decided to move back to the city, close to the other Jews who were returning there.

Storage Shed Discovery

At the storage shed by the apartment they moved in, they found many Jewish books. Years later my grandfather told me that at that time he had a thought of abandoning Jewish practices. Finding these books made him change his mind. All his life he was a Torah scribe, a shochet and a mohel.

Circumsizion Underground in Soviet Russia

Over the years my grandfather circumsized hundreds of Jewish boys in Chernowitz and other cities. It was prohibited in the Soviet times and was done in secret. If a boy’s father was a Party member, he would go away on vacation. His wife would rent a room in the village where nobody knew them. My grandfather would come, circumsize the baby, and walk outside all night. In the morning he would change the bandage. My grandmother was asking, why are you doing this? He said it’s a Mizva (a good deed). She would answer: with the Mizva you can’t go to the market. Over the years he became known outside of Chernowitz. People would send him plane tickets to come to circumsize their boys.

Mail Order Business in Soviet Russia.

For a while my grandfather had a mail order business. He was selling a calendar where he would rubber stamp the dates of Jewish holidays.

My Father During the War

My father’s family went on a train eastward when the War started. On one of the train stops his father, my grandfather went out go get water. The train left without him. They never saw him since.

My father was mobilized to dig trenches around Stalingrad. They would not let him in the Army because he was not a Soviet citizen then. After the war he studied chemistry in Chernowitz university.

My Parents got Married

My mother met my father who moved to Czernowitz from the east of Russia, where his family was during the War. The Rabiner (his title as a Rabbi) who lived in the same building arranged the marriage. His widow, we called her the “Rabinersha” gave me an electrical shaving machine for my Bar-Mizva. Years later I came to see her in Israel when she was in an old-age home.

How I almost wasn’t born

I was born 5 years after WW2 in Chernowitz, now Ukraine. That was a time of heavy antisemitic atmosphere in the Soviet Union. My mother, told me about the time she went to the hospital to give birth to me.

When she arrived, the midwife who was Jewish was about to go home after her shift. She offered to stay to help my mother. The next midwife (non-Jewish) told her to go home and said she will take care of my mother. She didn’t. My mother had to give her first birth alone.

I was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. Using her animal instincts (her words) my mother unwrapped and cut the cord. Thinking I was born dead, my mother proceeded to tie the breasts to stop the milk. The doctor entered and told her “your baby is alive”.

How my Mother Was Accused of Trying to Poison a Patient

It was 1953, at the time of the infamous Doctors Plot. In the last throes of Stalin’s rule a huge antisemitic campaign has begun. It was supposed to culminate with pogroms and mass deportations of Jews to Siberia.

My mother was then a young doctor at a clinic treating coal miners in Stalino (now Donetzk). My father was working as a lab chemist at the chemical reagents factory.

One day my mother was arrested. My father saw her taken on a motorcycle for interrogation. They showed her a prescription supposedly written and signed by her. My mother has a distinct handwriting, and it was obviously different from that writing. Another doctor has written this prescription and signed my mother’s name.

My father was very organized. He kept locking the drawers in the lab to prevent his tools from disappearing. In the general atmosphere of suspicions toward the Jews someone called for an investigation. Maybe my father is plotting something sinister. My father was then transferred from the lab to the factory floor. Possibly his boss was trying to protect him from accusations. But my father took it as an insult and resigned.

After these two incidents my parents and I went back to Chernowitz to live with their parents.

Before leaving they posted an ad selling their furniture. People who knew my mother came and brought her presents, instead of buying the stuff.

My Mother As A Doctor and Father in The Lab (1950’s)

Stories From the Coal Mine

A story from when my mother was a doctor at the coal mine #18 clinic in Donezk in the early 1950’s. There was a patient who obviously was pretending to be sick, but nobody wanted to confront him. He was related to someone in the secret police or something. They let him lie in bed all day and eat as much as he wanted. Eventually he became extremely obese and couldn’t fit in the bed.
Other stories about simple country girls who came to work there and were assaulted down in the mine and got pregnant. Or about the mother who fed chocolate to her newborn baby.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, My First Book

My First Book was the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, to which my father subscribed, and I was an avid reader. This is how I learned all about avocado many years before I got to taste it in Israel. I knew a lot of countries on the map, I never dreamt that one day I could visit them.

Often my father got letters from the encyclopedia editors. They instructed him to remove pages about the Soviet leaders that were ousted. Thus a long article about Beria (a chief of secret police) was replaced with an article about Bering sea. They had to make it very long to match the pages.

The Encyclopedia had 50 volumes which were published over the years. In Khrushev’s time the 51rst volume appeared with the names of people that were repressed in Stalin’s time, and later rehabilitated (many posthumously). We found there the name of Gersh Budker, my grandfather’s cousin. He was involved in a Soviet version of Manhattan Project. Eventually he became a head of the Nuclear Physics Institute in Novosibirsk. Gersh’s parents were killed in the civil war by Petlyura’s bandits. He grew up in my grandfather’s family until he left for Moscow to study.