Start of the Thirty-Seventh Year

Life was not so bad b efore 1937. After that year the authorities from Moscow closed our Jewish school, the synagogue and the church. The synagogue building was turned into a school and the church building became a club. Religion was strictly forbidden. Religion, Jewish and Russian songs and celebrations were strictly prohibited. Almost all the religious books were destroyed and repression began. Newspaper articles about conspiracies were aimed against the prominent Jewish leaders, Yezhovshchina, Blucher and others. We were all afraid of something.

Jewish books disappeared. The resettlement of Jews began in the so-called “Jewish autonomous republic,” with its capital Birobidzhan, which was very far from Belarus. Three families from our village left. Before leaving, they came over almost every day and tried to persuade my father to go with them. Mom almost agreed. I also wanted to go, to see something new, as I did not understand the potential problems. But my father said, “No. My mom is here and I will not leave her.” Friends who left sent us letters. They said that they were well, and mentioned a lot of mosquito bites. A movie about the area, called Raiders of Happiness, was shown in our village. Mr. Fedor Beloryss was put in jail for three years because he called Simka a Jew. On the one hand, it was a good lesson for others, but on the other hand, it angered non-Jews, even our neighbors, and this immediately affected us, the children. One day I went to the school yard where there were two poles and a mesh stretched across them, used by the older children for volleyball. I loved to watch this game. One time, my older brother finished playing ball with Stepan, and we started on our way home. Stepan grabbed a stone, threw it at my brother and hit his head. My brother cried and cried. I grabbed a stone and threw it back at Stepan, but I missed. We went home and on the road, passing by Stepan's house. I was so angry that I began to break the fence until my brother pulled me away to stop me.

There were mass arrests of small, so-called “bourgeois people.” Those of the children who did not come from a bourgeois family teased those who were “bourgeios” and called them names. Possessions of the wealthier people were taken from them, like horses and cows, if they had more than two of each. Food products, corn, potatoes, were confiscated and sent to the Red Army. Relatives of the bourgeoisie set fire to farms, schools. There were even cases of murders of people who led the removal of livestock and products.

The goal of V. I. Lenin in his life was to create a new system, the socialist system, based on the equality and brotherhood of people, accomplished through agitation and propaganda. Some of his main propaganda slogans were, “Proletarians of all countries, unite. “ The most powerful weapon of our party is agitation and propaganda.” “ Land to the peasants, factories to the working.” In the Constitution was written: “freedom of religion.” But then there was a revolution. It was a fight to win. I remember the word “NEP,” which meant “New Economic Policy,” i.e., to give people a certain freedom to produce and sell.

We knew that Lenin was supported by many politicians, poets, writers, and all progressive people in Russia and abroad. I can say with certainty that the Jews believed in Lenin's slogans, and participated in the struggle for his ideas. They saw that the Jews were released from the so-called “settlement area,” [Editor's note: The Jews in Tsarist Russia were restricted in where they could reside, and this was “the settlement area”] and now they could freely reside in other cities. They were free to learn, and to travel to Palestine. Who else but the Jews must be aware of this and always respect the blessed memory of Lenin. Presently I often talk on Skype with Belarusians who now have land, cottages, major construction projects, and roads. To grow you must believe in someone. The power of blackmail, deceit, and promises captured Stalin, about whom Lenin said in an address to the employees of the Central Committee, that he should not be allowed in power. Stalin was a dictator and anti-Semitic to the core. He destroyed the socialist system and built a violent totalitarian system. Stalin enforced the creation of collective farms. In the past, when the peasants had their own land and farms, they grew vegetables, fruit and grain. Stalin ordered the demolition of all of the individual farms and collected their animals and produce by force, supposedly for the needs of the workers. I remember a day when my parents planned to go to the district center, which was 40 kilometers away, a trip not possible by foot. They needed a horse and cart. Previously such a need was simply solved. One would ask any farmer, as almost everyone had a horse. My father would pay to use the horse and cart, or my dad repaired shoes as barter; issue resolved. Now there was so much red tape to apply for a permit to use a horse and cart. People were terribly angry that Stalin took everything away. Now, living in the capitalist system, I believe that capitalism also needs to be modified. For example, with regard to the issue of health care, medicine has been turned into a business.

There was a terrible event in our town in 1940. There was a tiger in the forest believed to have escaped from a train while animals were transported to the zoo, but no one knew exactly where it came from. The tiger attacked people as they walked on the road or worked in the garden. It was a terrible commotion. People began to arm themselves with homemade bayonets and pitchforks. The tiger had already injured nine people. After a few weeks the panic subsided. It was time to gather berries. One day I was with Gershun, Chaim and three other guys, armed with homemade bayonets, at 5:00 am, on the way to the forest close to our village to collect berries and mushrooms. Suddenly we heard a scream. We all ran toward the screaming where we saw that there was a baby girl on the back of the tiger. The tiger escaped and we screamed as we fled towards the village shoe shop. I showed which way the tiger ran and the entire village rushed to search for the tiger and the baby.

After two hours of hunting through the forest the girl was found dead, under bushes. Her stomach was torn open and bloodied. The girl was the daughter of the shoemaker, Simha. A group of people came from Moscow with twelve large specially trained dogs. They stayed in our shtetl for about a month, each day running the dogs in different directions, but the tiger was no longer seen. Then the war began, so we did not hear any more about this tiger.

The south-west side of our shtetl bordered the village of Zagor'e. When Poland was divided in two parts one part was under German control, and the other was part of Byelorussia, called Western Belarus.

At this time, three Polish aircraft landed on the Zagor'e territory. We all ran to look at them, but everyone, including a policeman, were afraid to approach the aircraft. Only Yasha, a man, small in stature, married to a Belarusian, approached the aircraft. Nine pilots alit. They did not want to surrender to Germany, and so they flew to the Belarus side of the border.

Yasha and one policeman took the pilots to the village council in Davydovka. From there, they called Moscow. Three days later a plane flew in from Moscow and took all of them. Yasha and his two sons were killed in the war.

There were no Jews in this village of farmers, and the villagers were not friends with the inhabitants of our shtetl. During the German occupation of Zagor'e, a shepherd fell in love with Liza, a very beautiful Jewish girl from our shtetl and the daughter of the blacksmith, Haim. As a result, this shepherd saved one person out of more than 120 Jews. He married her in the church and warned that if anyone touched his wife, he would burn down their house. After some time had passed, the same girl, Liza, fell in love with a German officer who was the chief of the area. He took Liza from the shepherd and sent her to Germany to his mother. The mother, of course, disliked Liza. She beat her and abused her. But Liza survived and waited for the end of the war. In Germany, a Russian officer married her and took her with him to Moscow. And then she came to Kalinkavichyi, Belarus to visit. I saw her and talked to her in the cafeteria, where my sister worked.

She said that when the Germans first entered the village, many were happy, because after the Revolution people's businesses, mills, little factories and land were taken away from them. The children of those affected by this policy hated the Soviets and Jews. Many of them began to work for the Germans, particularly as police. She saw how the Belorussians came to the houses and robbed them of furniture, bedding, dishes, and told them, “You will all be killed.” She saw the Germans speeding down the streets of our town on motorcycles and cars. It was scary. They just fired their machine guns at the retreating Russian soldiers. In recent years she and her husband lived in Krasnodar.

Why were the Jews hated? Stalin's orders were terrible. Everyone knew that many Jews worked in the Central Committee, such as Sverdlov, Kaganovich, Blucher, Trotsky and others, and they decided that all the blame and all the suffering descended from Jews. And as soon as the war started, everyone rushed to take revenge and kill Jews. The (Communist) government was maintained. That is, in this way, Stalin carried out his devilish deeds while distracting people, and making them believe that he cared about them.

There was an incident. The pilot, Chkalov, appeared on the horizon in a small, two-seater aircraft. Chkalov flew his plane very low, under the bridge, did not get caught, and survived. The story of his courage spread throughout the country, and to Stalin, whose speech was published in all the newspapers. He said that we should not risk harming or losing people. To build such an aircraft requires two or three years. To raise a brave man like Chkalov requires 20-30 years, and we have to take care of people, etc. Everyone in the country, including my mother, said, “Here is the man. This is our Father.” Yes, his “paternal concern” for humanity will be long remembered.

In 1939, during the partition of Poland, my father, and other residents from our shtetl were drafted into the army. Two Poles were captured in the Russian territory who did not want to remain in Russia. The commander ordered my dad to shoot these two men but my dad could not do it. The commander said, “Oh, you're a Jew,” and he shot them.

Before they returned from the war, I had a dream that my father, uncle Gregory, Shlema, and others returned home safely. I told my mother about the dream, and she ran and told the neighbor's wives, those who had husbands in the war. And when the men eventually returned, my mother told them about my dream. I was happy. Everyone laughed, joked and talked about his service in the Army.

However, in these times of martial law our material conditions deteriorated. Dad walked 10-15 km with four friends to other villages where it was cheaper to buy sheep and calves. Usually they returned in the evening, carrying the animals on their shoulders. They arranged for a shochet to slaughter the animals so that the meat would be kosher. The shochet also slaughtered chickens. When a sheep was butchered, the meat was laid out into four equal piles to split among the families. There was no scale to weigh them evenly. When the last portion remained for us, we all sat down at a table with drinks and snacks, listened to stories about the animal purchases, sang Yiddish songs, and had fun. But soon happy days came to an end for many, many years.

At 4 in the morning of June 22, 1941, without any declaration, the Second World War began. The war brought fear and horror. People, neighbors and friends changed before my eyes. The Belarusians already knew that they would kill the Jews but the Jews did not believe or want to believe this. Why was this? In the evening we saw the glow of red lights and heard the thunderous sounds of explosions of bombs dropped from airplanes. Traitors on the ground lit up the fields and turned in pilots to the Germans. People were in a panic.

The Red Army was forced into a terrible retreat. Our street seemed to be the center of activity. Women, with their children in their arms, went out into the street where they watched and cried. Men feared that by deserting they would be shot so they left voluntarily. Some men sought the village council for protection. The Jews did not know what to do. Those Belarusians who were friends with the Jews were already aware that the Jews were targeted to be killed, but the Jews believed that the Germans would not touch them. The f ear intensified. Planes were still flying and dropping bombs directly on the retreating soldiers.

Just a few days after the war began, the parents of my Belarusian friends would not allow their children to come into Jewish homes. Once, my friends Eugene and Marat came to my house. We were sitting and playing dominoes. Zhenya's sister, Manya, quietly arrived at my house. She struck her brother on the head with her hand, and said (I swear that I convey her words verbatim), “Germans are In the village and you sit in a Jewish home.”

There were rumors that the spies were poisoning the water. My father and the other men, directed by the village council, began to guard the wells from which our drinking water was drawn. We were still in our place for about 3 weeks, but I did not see my friends. Two or three times there were Germans on motorcycles. We were overtaken by a fear that would continue to possess us for many years.

This is how I remember the last time I saw my father. I was awakened during the night by the sounds of thunder and lightning. I trembled with fear with the belief that I was hearing German tanks shooting at our homes. My father saw that I was afraid and came to sit with me and to reassure me. After that I never saw him again. He left with the retreating troops in the morning.

One day I heard the sound of an airplane. Almost all the inhabitants ran outside thinking it was our aircraft, for there were three stars on the wings of the planes, not solid, but with stripes. We found out later that they were camouflaged stars. These aircraft were German. They fired machine guns at our wounded soldiers who were riding in horse-drawn carriages, and the soldiers cried out in pain. I followed them and wept. On the next day our soldiers ran along our street, retreating, to avoid being surrounded. I was later told that the entire group was surrounded by the Germans, and all were killed.

At this time, my sister Lena traveled to my mother from Belostok, Western Belarus, to give birth. The party had sent her husband, Boris Gorelik, to work there. When war broke out, he escaped to the border and out of our town. He was taken prisoner two times, but managed to escape. During the days he hid in the woods and continued his escape at night. I remember when he arrived at our door one Friday night, ragged and very hungry. The next day he left with military units.

During the retreat of our army, one of the military commanders came to our house for a drink of water and told my sister Lena, “Jews must leave immediately, because all of them will be killed.” Lena was terrified, and told my mother, “Get ready immediately and I'll go look for a horse.” But Mom remembered that during the civil war the Germans behaved well and respected the Jews. It was the Poles, who came to the village after the Germans left, who treated the Jews and Belarusians very badly. The Jews and Belarusians were beaten and whipped and forced to work for the Polish army, cleaning the horses and preparing food. You had to comply and obey or face beatings. Once they shot a married man for disobedience, leaving his widowed wife alone

God must have sent my sister to us so that she could save our family and others in the village. She ordered my mother to gather things we need from our house. She ran to David, who had a horse. David came when it was still dark. Naturally, he asked for money, and my sister counted out the payment to him. My sister also ran to our relatives, cousins, and neighbors. ? She explained the situation to them, and told them that we were leaving. When David brought the horse around to us we were ready to go but the relatives did not have enough time, or maybe did not want to leave. None of them survived.
In the evening before we left I went to say goodbye to my Jewish friends, for what became forever. We loaded the little children and some of our possessions onto the cart and started out for the station which was 8 km away. We were like a flock of geese walking behind the cart, led by my sister Lena. Later, I referred to Lena in my poem, “Our captain.”

We made it to the train station in Stankovichi. On the way we met a group of soldiers with people in civilian clothes. Airplanes fearfully roared overhead. We also drove through villages where people eyed us angrily and said that the war began because of the Jews. We traveled by train to Gomel, Belarus, away from the front. In Gomel we lived with my mother's sister, aunt Zina Orman, and her two children. Her husband, Uncle Fima, had been drafted into the army. Aunt Zina had a small one-bedroom apartment. We somehow all fit, and lived there for two weeks, until a train was arranged for evacuation.

Almost every day, German planes bombed the city. Half of the homes were destroyed within 2-3 weeks. As the city burned, people ran all over. One time I stood in the street, watching shells fired from mortars by our soldiers engulf the German planes in white clouds. It was fun to watch, and I wondered why the German aircraft did not fall from the sky. While engrossed in this show, a soldier grabbed me, and took me to hide under the roof of a house.

He told me that fragments of iron shells falling to the ground could kill you, and there had already been such events. Then he ran off. Sovyet Street was so badly destroyed that one could see the station from Paskevich park, located 1.5 - 2 km away. The streets were littered with roofs, glass, windows, bricks and other refuse. One day, while walking on Komsomolskaya Street, near the park, I heard the whistle of the plane, and a moment later I heard the roar of explosions as the plane dropped a bomb and flew away. I remember that my aunt had a cat, asked my older brother Yuri to take her cat out of town. She gave him money for the bus and he brought the cat to the outskirts of the city. After three or four days the cat came back. I wondered how the cat was able to find her way back. After a few years we had also traveled the difficult roads, and after wandering about, we also returned from evacuation.

There were special fire brigade groups in the city to extinguish the fires. There were trenches and dugouts on the streets from the bombing and falling debris. People actually lived in the street in dugouts, and even remained in these for a long time after the war. We lived with my aunt. People ran and rushed to the train to evacuate, passing each other, not only Jews, but all the villagers, mainly women and children. There were no vehicles and so we all walked. Now, when I think about it, so many people were carrying baskets and suitcases with crying children in their arms, I wonder, “My God, how could people have lived through this ?”

The emerging train consisted of approximately 14 freight cars, windowless wagons, with solid doors. Along the inside door was a bench, and bunks made of planks. There were no toilets or water on the train. The cars were filled with adults and their children, all screaming and crying. Many remained in the town, not wanting to leave their homes , furniture and all of their things. They did not know that they would remain forever. Many children were left behind.

Many believed in the power of the Red Army because we used to sing, “The Red Army is the strongest.” They did not know that the generals were traitors, and with the tacit consent of Stalin, they disarmed the Army, on the border of the city of Brest. After the war, according to eyewitnesses, the tanks had no engines, there were not enough weapons, and the command staff was allowed to leave on vacation (see the film House With Lilies).

The infantry did not even have a sufficient number of older rifles and other equipment. At this time, the Germans had passed by our village on motorcycles with sidecars in which automatic machine guns were installed. Later it turned out that when the war started there were already many spies and traitors among the common people, especially farmers. At night, they pointed flashlights to the planes which bombed the objects and revealed the location of the retreating troops. Then these parts were surrounded and captured.

Meanwhile, the refugees, including my family and I, continued on our way to the train. Everyone walked, there was no transport in sight. While people were loaded into the train cars, German planes roared above us, seemingly out of nowhere. Everyone ran, fleeing into the forest. The Germans bombed exactly where they saw a large crowd. Everyone started to jump out of the train. My older brother, Yuri, who was then 15 years old, grabbed my mother and sister Lena by the hand and we ran. We were not bombed by the aircraft, and it flew away. The wailing sirens stopped and the loading people onto the train continued. The train started its journey In July 1941. We were bombed by German planes on our second day of transit. We all fled towards the woods. It's hard to describe the commotion and hysteria. People were screaming and crying and searching for lost children. As we were bombed several more times as our journey progressed , we experienced many terrible and dangerous situations.

I was then ten-years-old. The train was moving at a speed of 30-35 km per hour. As my sister Rosa sat on a bench near a door that was slightly ajar, she dozed off and fell out of the wagon train. Mom saw her fall, and without hesitation, jumped out after her. My older sister Lena wanted to jump too, but those standing near her grabbed her and held her back. The train stopped at the next stop, five or so kilometers from the place where my sister and mother fell, and we ran to look for them. From a distance I saw them bloodied, my mother carrying my sister on her shoulders. Our God, have mercy on us all. With joy we all cried and ran to keep up with the train. A few days later my mother became ill. More fear for us. Women in the neighboring cars came and brought drugs, water and some other products. And again, with God's help, she recovered.

Our mother, Bella Abramovna Heitmann, was included on the list of “Mother-Heroine,” in her 41st year, with 8 children. She lost her husband, our father, Boris Yudkovicha Spevak. He died at the front, crossing the Dnieper River.

My mother was still young and very beautiful. She was very economical. If she had 5 rubles, she used only one a day over five days. Unlike some neighbors, she never borrowed money. She was very wise. She gave people a lot of clever tips. When she was asked, “Which one of your children do you love more,” she replied, “You have five fingers on your hand, no matter which one you cut, the pain is the same.”

Dad loved my mother, but we were treated very strictly. One day I was walking with the boys in the street and we saw a very large nest on the top of a tree, in which birds laid their eggs and raised their chicks. Some of the boys said, “Let's climb up to pull out the eggs.” As far as I remember, Jack climbed first and could not reach the nest. Then I climbed and was able to get to the top as the storks circled directly over my head. At this time my dad was coming home from work for lunch and he saw me. My friends fled. In order not to frighten me, he said: “Zunele, my son, do not be afraid, come down slowly. All is well.” When I came down, crying, he took me by the ear.

My father had two brothers and one sister. His brother, Motul Spevak lived in Babruysk after the war. His other brother, Kigas Spevak and his sister, Genia Spevak, lived in Gomel.

My dear reader, I want you to imagine the circumstances of our evacuation. We traveled in commodity railway wagons, which were used to transport cattle and horses. The cars did not have windows, toilets or water. About 20 people with young children in each wagon cried day and night. Our train was forced to stop when German aircraft bombed the stations. The stations had several levels, where people were running around to recover lost children, find and collect water in jars or buy whatever food was available. In every train car, in every family, there were some accidents. One day, my oldest brother Yuri, who was 15-years-old, ran to the food shop to get a piece of bread, but he did not come back. We didn't know that was caught by a policeman. Mom and my sister Lena could not find him, and ran in tears to keep up with the train, which had started moving. We shouted for him and prayed to God. Two days later my brother caught up with our train with another passenger train. Again, according to the saying, fear and joy go together.

The main reason for the long, difficult and exhausting trip for a distance that should have taken 4-5 days, but took a month, was the fact that the trains going to the front with manpower, weapons, tanks, artillery, and evacuated factories, were given priority by the rail lines. There were also several rail line explosions. Once we moved out of the danger zone, we were dropped off in several villages. Our family, Frenklah Mar'yasha and three children, and Nina, from Gomel, with three children, were all dropped off at the station, Kanash, in Chuvash Republic. Four horse carts picked us up and drove 35 kilometers to the collective farm, Aldiarovo. We were dropped off near an empty house without electricity or water. We were happy and tired, enveloped in the darkness. We slept on the floor, relieved after the heavy, long, tedious and terrible roads. I thought of my family and friends, jealous of the fact that they did not have to leave their homes, to escape and to suffer. They stayed in our village. At that time I could not imagine that they would all be massacred: my grandmothers, cousins, aunts and uncles, and all the Jews of our town.

Because we arrived in Chuvashia in the fall we were able to harvest some grain and potatoes, but we were generally always hungry. My brothers and I went to the fields armed with snow shovels to search for and dig up frozen potatoes which mom then cooked. All food products from the farm were taken away by the state for the army for those on the front and the reserve soldiers. There were military reserve units stationed near us and they were also starving. One day a soldier approached me, just a child, and offered his gun for a piece of bread. I looked enviously at the gun, but I did not have anything. I too was hungry.

Since we arrived in the fall, we did not have time to prepare wood for heating, and so we sawed down trees in the woods and dragged them home. Then we cut the trees down for firewood and warmed the house. We were very far from the front in Chuvashia - East Siberia, but there was an order to dig anti-tank ditches. As there were no able-bodied men around, women and children dug in the freezing winter at 25 degrees below zero, in the frozen ground, with spades, crowbars, and pickaxes. Many were sick. My older sister, Lena's five year old daughter, Alla, was ill. She had a sore throat and the doctor said that if there was at least one penicillin pill, he could have saved the girl.

Everyone said that the need to dig trenches was a useless job to make us work. In the spring all of the ten evacuee families went to work on the farm. Everything was done by hand since almost all the horses were taken to the Army. We dug in the ground with shovels and pickaxes and carried manure and fertilizer on stretchers. It was very hard labor. One of my friends, Joseph, collapsed and died.

The main work consisted of manually clearing a few acres of land, raking and planting seedlings of tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage and other produce. After a few weeks we removed excess leaves and weeded the gardens and watered the plants with water we carried in buckets. In Chuvashia, where we lived, there were many underground water sources with very cold and clean water. We carried the water buckets at least 200 meters.

We started a harvest in autumn. Almost all the food was dispatched to the army, to the front for the Victory, and a little remained for us. We had a better life during our second winter. One might even say it was a good life. We had grain, potatoes, milk, butter and other products. The situation on the front changed for the better, as well. The Germans were stopped for the first time. I heard Stalin speak over the radio saying, “The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours.” As I remember, we all began to dance and shout “Hurrah,” and adults drank in celebration.

Boys left for the army almost every day from our village and the others near us. They rode on a cart with flags and brides or girlfriends, and went from village to village and sang farewell songs to the sounds of the accordion. A big dinner was arranged for a farewell for them. People cried and sang the farewell songs. I still remember these songs.

I missed my father during this time. My mother often told me about how he was a good family man, and that he loved his children. I often dreamed about him, good and bad dreams, and shuddered and cried in my sleep. I told my Chuvash friend, Vova, about my dreams. He didn't like my dreams and my predictions.

I made friends with Vova from our first days in Chuvashia. He taught me the Chuvash language, which I quickly mastered. One day he asked me, “Kigas, what is this strange name for you? I've never heard that name before.” I explained to him that I am a Jew, and that it was a Jewish name.

“So tell me, why don't you have horns?”

I was surprised by his question and I almost touched my head. Well of course I laughed and said to Vova, “This is nonsense. We are people just like everyone else.”

My Aunt Zina and her husband, Uncle Fima Orman, who was wounded in both legs during the war, arrived in Chuvashia from the front. Doctors wanted to amputate Uncle 's legs when he was in the hospital, but he refused. He had difficulty walking or moving around but we had such joy visiting him. He talked a lot about the war. His stories about how he helped to defend Moscow were especially interesting to me. Subduing Moscow was the most important strategic goal for Hitler. He planned to surround and capture the city and hang all of the members of government, including the radio announcer, Levitan.

According to his story, every person in Moscow helped to dig anti-tank ditches, trenches, and dugouts to hold all the available artillery in Moscow. Anti-aircraft balloons filled the air above the city which forced the German planes to fly higher in the sky and interrupted their bombing. Trains originating from Siberia brought soldiers from there who were accustomed to the cold and frost. Uncle Fima said that the army lived underground, as he himself had. He told me that German planes flew day and night, and were brought down by the soldiers on the ground. Artillery, tanks, and mortars fired from both sides made the earth shake so much that Uncle could not even lift his head. The Germans had their sights on Moscow and looked forward to being victorious. It was the winter of 1941.

Every year on November 7, the whole country celebrated the holiday of the Day of Victory of the October Revolution. There were military parades at Red Square with all of the armed forces marching, tank units driving, and convoys of heavy artillery equipment. This year the German troops were at Moscow's borders and the country was in a panic. Key institutions left Moscow and evacuated to Siberia, and the Urals. The Party Central Committee decided to stay and reassure the people and show that we had the power to win, but there was no parade of tanks. The tanks were all on the front line. Then Stalin personally called the director of the Chelyabinsk Tractor plant, Mr. Zaltsman and Isaak Moiseevich to have them organize the factory to work around the clock. All of the other plants, Kharkov, Minsk, and others, were destroyed by German aircraft. During the movement of a train from Ural to Moscow, mechanics, electricians and others worked without interruption, setting up all the necessary machines and spare parts, and the tanks arrived in Moscow at the appointed time for the parade of troops at the Red Square. Mr. Zaltsman was awarded a title, and he received the Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. In the years of repression after the war, he was deprived of all of his earned ranks, and he worked as a factory foreman. A lot of characters like Uncle, who did not want to change their names, or marry a Russian, were in the same position. Uncle Fima was useful for all of us. He stayed with the children when all went to work. Prior to his arrival I often stayed with the children, or rather, I was forced to do it.

Winter is quite harsh in Chuvashia. Temperatures reach 50 degrees below zero. We did not have adequate clothing or shoes. I learned how to weave the bark of the vine to make very comfortable shoes for the winter. We wrapped our feet with homemade wool towels, put on sandals, and then tied the vines to our feet. I also made these for other evacuees.

In 1942, a group of 47 women who were evacuated from Leningrad with their children arrived in our Belyaevo village in Chuvashia. They were Russians. One boy, Sasha, was my age. We became friends and went together to work in a collective farm where we were responsible for watching the horses graze, mostly at night. There were cases of wolves attacking and so we made fires to keep them away. Once we fell asleep and the fire was extinguished. Wolves approached, and the horses began to neigh. We were frightened. To prepare to climb a tree to escape from the wolves, I rested my hand on the ground where there were still ashes and hot coals underneath. I burned both of my hands and cried out in pain, which drove away the wolves. My hands hurt for two weeks after that.

Together, with the people from Leningrad, we collected vegetables, mainly tomatoes and cucumbers, which were handed over to the warehouse. Leningrad women differ from our Belarusian Jewish women, in that they often spoke about love and men, and sang love songs that I learned, but did not quite understand yet.

As I remember, a young woman married her Chuvash husband in Moscow. He served as an officer in the Army and sent his wife to his parents in Chuvashia to keep her safe. Larisa, one of the women from Leningrad, rejected the husband of a Chuvash woman who had just returned from the front, and was the father of my friend, Vova. There was a big scandal. I helped pull her out from their house when there was a fight between his wife and mistress.

The boy from Leningrad, Sasha, told me a lot about the terrible events that took place in Leningrad during the blockade of the city. People died of hunger in the street. He said that they ate everything and everyone, cats, dogs, leather shoes, and all that came to hand. Children dragged along the street, witnessing dying grandparents, other children, their parents. Sasha survived, because of the move. He went about collecting cigarette butts, rags, bark and anything he could find. Then somebody told me that all the evacuees left Chuvashia, but Larissa stayed in the village, in the house of my friend Vova as a housekeeper.

In 1943, after the liberation of Belarus, my sister Lena and her three-year-old Sarochka, went to Belarus, Kalinkavichyi. All the rest of us remained in Chuvashia. Kalinkavichyi was the district center for the train station. Before the war, many Jews lived there. After the war, the survivors who evacuated from Davydovka, Parichi, Azarich, Shatilki and other nearby towns came to live in this city, because their homes were destroyed.

Before the war, my two sisters, Lena and Fanya, lived in Kalinkavichyi and were married there. When evacuations began, my sister rented an apartment, and worked in the snack bar at the railway station while I stayed and watched her child. During this period I heard that there was not a single Jew living in the towns. Where they all went, how many, and how they died, no one knew, because it was never covered in the newspapers, on the radio or in books. The word “Jew” was forbidden to be spoken or written due to the great hatred of Jews. One day I went to the snack bar where my sister worked. There was another girl working there, Riva, a very beautiful girl. A soldier came to the snack bar and asked for a drink of water. I was standing nearby. When she returned with the water, he cried: “ A Jewish face!” The soldier seized a large kitchen knife, and brought it straight to her neck. I flinched, and she turned white. Poor thing, then fell ill and died a year later.

At this time, war was all around us. We boys, 10-15 years old, often went into the woods, 1.5-2 km away from town. The woods were pitted with holes and dugouts. The forest was an ammunition dump, with weapons, shells and a variety of ammunition was strewn everywhere. We played by emptying powder cartridges and guns. There were many accidents.

And this is what happened before my eyes. My sister brought several bags of dried nuts from Chuvashia. Our whole family in Chuvashia went to the forest and collected the nuts from the trees. We dried them and sold them in the market. My sister in Kalinkavichyi did not have time to go to the market, and so that job was entrusted to me.

One Sunday afternoon I took the bag and went to the bazaar. On the road I met my friend, Vasya, and asked him to come with me. It was hard standing and selling the nuts all day. The bazaar was located next to the city school which had been used as a military hospital during the war. In the morning, those from among the wounded who were able to walk, strolled through the bazaar, talked with the women and bought something.

A man with a cart stopped right next to me. He was very drunk and unsteady. There were a number of wounded soldiers from the hospital around and he started to argue with them and swear. And he shouted with a drunken voice:

“I'm a partisan, If.. you ... I'll ...” He got his gun out of its holster and aimed it at the soldiers and pointed the muzzle of the gun straight at me. I ducked under the table. Women screamed and scattered. At the point when this man seemed to put his finger on the trigger one of the soldiers grabbed his arm and twisted it so that the man shot himself in the chest. This big fellow roared and crashed to the ground. Soldiers and other people put him on the cart, and took him to the hospital. After everyone calmed down, trade continued.

My sister Lena was a diamond! She was the tallest in the family, slender and strong. First, she pulled us all out of the town which saved our lives. Second, while in Chuvashia, she carried sacks of potatoes, cucumbers, cabbage or nuts on her shoulders, and walked for more than two kilometers to the railway station. She went to the market in Kanash, where she stood all day to sell the goods, and used the money she earned to buy clothing, shoes and food for the whole family.

She gave birth to my second niece, Faniya. My sister had lived in Kalinkavichyi before the war , and because her husband, Michael Salzman, was an employee of the District Party Committee, authorities evacuated them and their child before us. Lena came to the city of Buzuluk and in the All-Union Tracing Bureau found cousin Faniya and her three-year-old son, Arkady. They were barely alive.

The picture of this meeting is prominent in my mind. Lena found out the date of their arrival, asked to borrow the farm horse, and in the evening she went to meet them. Those of us waiting in the house were full of anticipation. I climbed up on the stove, waiting, waiting and went to sleep. When they arrived, I was shaking. I quickly came to my senses, jumped down from the stove and began to look for this niece. I looked on the floor and there sat a small, thin girl. Everyone looked at me. “Where is Faniya,” Mom said. “Here she is,” and pointed to the girl.

After my sister arranged a place for her daughter in a kindergarten in Kalinkavichyi, she allowed me to take a trip to the shtetl where I was born. Jack and Nick met me. They took me home, fed me, and we talked for a long time.

There were many sad and scary stories. They told me about how a peasant came to my grandmother, Golda, and demanded milk and bread. But she did not have anything. He grabbed a shovel and killed her. No one said a word.

My grandmother had a very big house built by my grandfather Abram Heitmann. I loved going to visit them.. Grandmother always treated me to delicious pastries and sweets.

Grandfather was a tall man with a beard. He was the owner of the plant. According to the stories, he had money in a Swiss bank, but we don't have documentation about that.

My grandfather, Abraham Heitmann

Grandmother Sonia was my father's mother. I remember her a bit, but I do not remember Grandpa Yura, my father's dad.

Because of my grandparents I remember two Jewish holidays as they were fun for me. On one holiday we ate matzah with the whole family. For the other, grandmother brought Chanukah gelt, and we spun the dreidel. How much joy and fun! How many decades have passed and I still do not know why we spin the dreidel, and what letters are on its sides. And now I know that when children spun the dreidel, the guards came to see if we prayed to the Jewish God, which was forbidden by law, subject to imprisonment. When the guards left, the prayer continued. I also learned what the letters represent. The letters mean “nes gadol haya sham,” a great miracle happened there (i.e., Israel).

Now the place where our house used to be is overgrown. The house was dismantled by people from another village. I didn't even ask who these people were, and they did not tell me this. All the furniture, everything was looted. The large two-story barn, where there was a cow and calf, two pigs, goats and other animals is gone.

Locals also told me that the situation of the Jews of our town was very difficult. No one was allowed to go out into the street so that no one could try to escape. Everything edible was taken from the Jews and they were all so thin.

A boy from our group of friends, Marat, had somehow escaped from under the noses of the police. Someone helped him. He hid in the school toilets. As it was already getting dark he would have fled into the forest, but then suddenly went to the toilet next to Petro. Marat was frightened and began to cry and ask, “Uncle, do not betray me.” But he was grabbed by the ear and led to the police. Marat was immediately shot. Another neighbor said that there was a baby in the forest which was 300-400 meters from the village, who cried day and night. People heard the baby but no one went to his rescue.

People also said that three children from the village Azarichi escaped, fleeing into the woods. But nobody knew whose children they were. Then a few years later, I learned that these were the children of my mother's brother, Semen. They were my cousins Fima, Yasha, and Anya. I met them a few years later. I played hide-and-seek with girls I did not know, running through the streets. They hid from me forever. So, apparently, they were ordered by adults to stay away from me. And so ended my concept of “homeland.” I never returned to the shtetl.

My sister believed that I should belong somewhere. I did not attend school, so she sent me to the Gomel orphanage. I was accepted there, as they took children whose parents, or one parent, was killed at the front. In addition, my mother and whole family was in Chuvashia. There wasn't enough food to eat in the orphanage. In those years there was a big bazaar market in Gomel. My aunt Zina sewed and sold boots. The teacher in our school sold buns in order to help to feed the children. We, the boys, under the supervision and protection of elders, stole everything we could. Then we gathered together in the bombed-out bath house, and ate together with the girls. In those years, there were many thieves everywhere, who worked in groups. I was friends with the leader of our group. His nickname was “crowbar.” The police eventually arrested him because of a gun, and he was imprisoned in Gomel. I knew a lot of words and expressions used by the thieves, and I realize now that these words were taken from Yiddish or Hebrew.  This was done to ensure that prisoners were able to warn each other when the warden approached if they were engaged in some unlawful action. We spent a lot of aimless time playing sports. We didn't have good balls so we made them ourselves from rags. We played football (soccer) but there weren't older kids who could show us how to hit the ball and teach us the rules of the game. There were fights between the orphanage kids and the city kids. In those years, I loved to read books such as Two Captains, Queen Margot, and 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky. A few years later I craved working with cars. I wanted to be a driver. Later, it turned out that in life I was firm in my decisions. As soon as I turned 17, I took a six-month driving training course.

The following years were filled with great events in the world and on the fronts of the war. Everything in Russia was put to use for the army. Russia was in a very difficult financial situation with three-quarters of its men serving in the army. We were starving. There was nothing to eat. I was hungry for ten years, including the years in the children's home, where we didn't even have enough bread. The first time I ate enough to be full was when Comrade Khrushchev announced that the canteens would provide bread for free. I was studying at college at this time, and after school we ran into the dining room to take the bread. We were so happy to have this food. In late 1943, God turned his face to the people of Russia and sent help from America. Now I say, “God bless America and the American people,” who came to the aid of the Russian people.

In the years 1944-1945 the US Air Force bombed the German tanks, the German defenses, the German artillery, and factories where they forged the lethal weapons of war. We learned after the war that U.S. troops freed many Jews from concentration camps, people who were already prepared to be sent to the gas chambers. I remember articles in the press reporting that American planes spent five days non-stop bombing the German front line in Germany.

I went to the city of Kalinkavichyi to see my mother and my cousins, Fima and Yasha. Anya was not there. She had married an officer and went to live in Krasnodar. The meeting was indescribable, filled with joy and at the same time sadness. We had so many questions. Three out of thousands survived. Yasha said that all the Jews in the town of Azarichi were ordered to report to the school. Many stood in the street, others were inside the school. Suddenly Fima felt a board on the floor move. He lifted the board and saw a hole. When the Jews began to move onto the street there was commotion and panic because they realized that they were to be shot. Fima lifted the board, and three of them, Yasha and Anya, climbed into the pit.

They were lying on one another in the dark, trying not to breathe. When it became quiet they climbed out of the pit and fled into the woods. They heard shots and ran in terror, further and further away. In the afternoons they hid in the bushes, and at night, they fled without knowing where they were headed. One of these days they came upon partisan guerrillas. The guerrillas might have shot them, but one of them, Uncle Stepan, a Belarusian, was a very good man, and, in fact, our second savior. He fed us and helped us to our feet.

At the beginning of the war these so-called “ partisans” were people who did not want to serve in the Red Army. They were deserters. Many of them went to serve the Germans and were mocked by people even worse than the Germans. Others hid in the woods. At night, they came home, and during the day, they went into the woods. One time, one of the deserters came to spend the night at his home in the village (Malye) Avtiuki. The Germans visited this house, looking for him. One of the Germans asked a five-year-old boy, “Tell me where's your dad?” and gave him some pieces of candy. After that, the boy told the German that his father was in the cellar. The Germans went into the cellar, dragged his father out, and shot him.

It is said that the guerrillas were real bandits. They came into the house, robbed, drank liquor, and raped girls and women, Belarusian and Jewish. If any of the women happened to be pregnant, they killed her. A girl named Rosa, from Mazyr, was killed. Drunken “partisans” raped her, and when they learned that she was pregnant, they shot her. “We were crying,” said Yasha.

Jews among these partisans were thought to be spies associated with America. It was said that Moscow received special instructions that they should not be trusted. In 1941-1942, after the defeat of the Germans near Moscow, Belarus began to organize these guerrilla groups. One of the units in the Gomel detachment fought not only the Germans, but also the “partisan” drunkards and robbers. My father-in-law, Zalman Shulman, was sent to the partisans on the instructions of the Central Committee. I still have the document indicating this. He died before the arrival of the Soviet Army. Four of his brothers were also killed on the fronts of the war.

Years passed and I read and reread a book of historical importance, Black Book with Red Pages, written by V. Levinym and D. Meltser, about Belarusian partisans during the war. In this book I found the name of one of the thousands of heroes of the Jewish partisans, Yasha Demburg. Yasha was my wife's uncle, who gave us a couch for our wedding.

Somewhere in the 1950s, the former Belarusian partisans organized a meeting in Minsk. I also participated in this meeting. As they embraced and kissed, they told us incredible stories about their experiences. We learned about how they placed mines under railway train rails and rescued each other. I swear, it seemed as if Uncle Yasha was at that meeting. There was a story about Uncle Yasha who had knocked out a soldier who was guarding his sleeping comrades, with a blow to the head. The guerrillas immediately came in and shot more than 50 Germans. Thus, they made it possible to carry out subsequent operations.

The objective of the guerrillas was subversion. They placed explosives under trains carrying tanks, artillery, various armaments and German soldiers to the front. The partisans were very active. They provided a great amount of assistance to the Soviet Army as a force, as well as gathering information about German deployments.

After the liberation of Minsk from the Germans, Moscow appointed many of the guerrillas to government jobs. So, we are saying that the Belarus government was made up of partisans. Later on, the brother of my friend Eugene Slobida, from the Gomel orphanage, was appointed a member of the government. Alexander Sloboda was chairman of control, and I went to see him in his office.

Eugene graduated from the same college in Gomel that I did, but in the department of road construction, and he worked as a foreman on the construction of roads in the Gomel region. One day my wife and I stopped by to visit him. They received us very well. After all, we were once like brothers.

Yasha continued his story. “In 1943, we joined a partisan unit in the Soviet army. Prior to this time it was called the Red Army. I served in the army before the end of the war. They viewed me as a hero. In 1947, I learned that my immediate commander of the guerrilla army, “comrade,” R. Kozlov, who was very fond of me, was working in the Government House in Minsk. I went to his office and we hugged each other like family.” Prior to his retirement, he worked in river shipping.

His brother Fima also spoke about the events of those days. About how he and other guerrillas joined the army, fought at the front, and were wounded. He had to amputate the fingers of his left hand. He participated in the liberation of the Jews from the concentration camps. The people they liberated were scary to see as they were all skin and bones. They did not know nor understand where they were. They were sent to medical facilities and it is unknown how many actually survived their liberation. Fima worked in a furniture factory in the town of Kalinkavichyi after the war, and married a girl named Ida. Fima and Ida's son married the daughter of a cousin of Lazarus. They have three children and now live in Israel.

Life in the country, including Belarus, was very hard. Devastation was all around. There was not enough housing, not enough food, not enough men to work. Yet, it was announced that with the demobilization of soldiers from the Army, military units were assigned all over Europe for the implementation of the power of socialism. In almost all the countries of the world the socialist slogan was, “We lost people, we suffered the brunt of the Nazi occupation, the horror of the war, and now you are obliged to help us.”

We were given one piece of bread three times a day in the orphanage, a little American stew [Editor's note: Probably SPAM], and tea with condensed milk. It was hard, but a little better than my mother in Kalinkavichyi. In Kalinkavichyi, we were issued bread by ration cards, depending on the number of people in the family. The bakery did not always have flour or enough bread for all. People stood in line from four o'clock in the morning, shouting curses at each other. The whole experience was a nightmare.

We helped my older brother Yuri. As he was very agile, he was able to creep among the legs of people in the lines, and took bread by getting ahead. One time, my younger sister Rosa lost the weekly bread ration cards and the whole family was left without bread. It was just a tragedy. Our neighbors helped us. One of them, Riva, went from house to house and collected a few cards for us to use.

These were the most difficult times in the life of our generation, not only during the war, but also in subsequent years. Only those who survived this horror can understand. There was no food and no place to bathe. We lived in one room. In the whole city, one apartment housed three or four families, with one toilet and one kitchen for all.

My God, how many incredible situations and conversations. There was nothing to buy in the shops. After demobilization from the army I was still dressed in soldier's pants and boots. I remember a time when I was standing in line for bread and the store did not open for a long time. People began to rebel. A man approached me and said, “What is best for you, to stand in queues or go to war?” All were silent. In general, people kept a tight rein.

And here we are now in America. We have a daughter and a son. Here, one can get everything, but I need dollars. Sometimes I start to tell my children some of the stories of my life. I grew up in a family with eight children without a father. I can say that my son listens with great care and compassion, and once said, “Dad, so what do you want? Do you want us to live like you used to live?” His words made me tremble. “My son! What are you, God forbid. God grant that you and your children and children's children never, never in the future know this.”

 My life in the orphanage was more stable and I began to attend school. At the age 15 I had already completed seven years of schooling. The orphanage director said that if someone wanted to attend the military-technical school, which was in Leshchinets on the outskirts of the city of Gomel, they may apply. I happily complied. At that time I liked the military uniform and the possibility of prospects for promotion. I went to Leshchinets, submitted the necessary information and received the exam schedule.

I passed the first exam which was mathematics. The next examination was Russian language diction. We all trembled in fear of this exam. As it turned out, a teacher from our school we did not like was going to administer the exam. This teacher was always finding fault with something. She was tall and thin, and we called her “cornstalk.” Someone told her that I called her this name and she punished me for this. I persuaded the whole class to stand backwards before she entered the class the next time. She was taken aback. Can you imagine?

And now she administers the exam in the military school. Under pressure from the director of the orphanage I had to take the exam a second time. Again, I passed. I believe that this exam was the hand of fate that led me to my present wife.

As the children in the orphanage heard each report on the radio about the victories of our army, we shouted, “Hurrah.” Beginning in 1943 America began sending us food, clothing, and a variety of equipment. We were sent to unload rail cars with American products: jars with pork, corned beef, canned, cream in jars, and so on. A million different clothes: women's jackets, underwear, sweaters and much more. After unloading the cars, all of the items were transported to warehouses. I was able to take beautiful underwear to girls in the orphanage. They doted on me after that!

A lot of people received parcels by post. Some of our students began to wear narrow trousers that were called dudes. For that alone, two of our students were expelled from college.

We also received great Chevrolet cars from America. One such vehicle was allocated to our children's home. The driver of the car was Yurin Rosenbaum, another student in the children's home. He was older than I was and had a driver's license. We were friends with him. Yurin's older brother, Senya, was also in our children's home. Fate brought them from Poland to our Belarus orphanage. When the war broke out in 1939, they first went to Minsk, and then they were moved to an orphanage in Gomel. In 1941, the orphanage was evacuated to Kazakhstan, and there they remained until the liberation of Gomel. Many years have passed now since we stayed in the orphanage. I lived in Minsk, they lived in Gomel. And now I have an unexpected meeting in America with Yurin's older brother, Senya. And then Yurin came with his family. Again, more meetings and memories. We all have successful children and grandchildren.  Senya's son is a doctor, and another is an engineer.

In 1945 we heard on the radio that the German fascist invaders were destroyed and peace finally arrived. We danced and danced for joy. But the joy was mixed, and we also shed many tears. I would walk down the street and see German prisoners being led, daily, to and from work. They walked in shoes made for them from wooden planks that pounded heavily on the stones of the paved road. One time I walked closer to them to say, “Ich bin a yid.” (I am a Jew). When they glanced at each other and smiled, I spit at one's face. These Fritz-fascists brutally killed, burned alive, buried children, women and the elderly. For a thousand years their nation will suffer a brutal disgrace. One day, I was walking down the street with Petya, a boy from the orphanage, and at the bus stop we saw a man in a military tunic, with no legs, trying to get on the bus. He swore and shouted, apparently was tipsy. People tried to help him, but he shouted at everyone. We were scared and sorry for the front-line soldier. We were in tears but my heart was heavy. We remembered our fathers. My father was missing, Petya's father was dead.

After a couple of years, the number of men returning from the war increased, and we saw more and more wounded people. They walked and crawled on buses and trams. I always thought that my father could have been wandering someplace but did not want us to know. What terrible years those were in the 20th century.

An unforgettable incident occurred to me when I was in the orphanage when I was 13-14 years old. There were about 30 people in the large bedroom, where each child had their own bed and nightstand. Once I began to argue with one of the boys by the name of Victor Isayenko, who was 2-3 years older than me and, of course, stronger. I do not remember what we argued about, I only remember that he came over to me and struck me in the face. I cried and fell on the bed and could not sleep for a long time. When I fell asleep I had a dream that a German soldier was chasing me trying to kill me. While I ran away from him I grabbed a stick from the ground just as the German was going to grab me. I hit his face with the stick, using all of the force I had in me. I beat him repeatedly as he fell and bled into his uniform. I thought he had killed my father.

When I woke in the morning I still trembled with fear, and Victor came over to sit with me for a minute. Maybe I groaned in my sleep. That dream haunted me for many years. I had not spoken with Victor for a long time, and then we became friends. After 20 years he came to see me in Minsk. He worked as a flight instructor. I often think about and analyze the past years. The war, carried out by Hitler and Stalin, swept like a terrible hurricane, tornado, and tsunami, not only over Europe, it claimed the lives of millions of people, including six million Jews who could have brought a higher technological progress to the world. Felix Zandman is an example of this. During the occupation of Poland by the Germans, later American industrial scientist, Felix Zandman and his family, hid for 17 months in the basement of a Polish woman's home. Felix later developed the computer foil resistor technology and was honored by President Bush on May 8, 2001, in a speech the president gave at an Electronic Industries Alliance Government diner.

My carefree life in an orphanage ended in 1947. I was sent to live with my mother in Kalinkavichyi. I found that I needed to get a birth certificate from my teacher, Maria Ivanova, (for whose son, Kolya, I later got a job in Minsk). Two or three years ago a census of all the children was completed which indicated dates and places of birth. All of the available documents were in the Gomel registry office. I went to the registry office, where I stood at the window, and an employee asked what I needed.

- What is your last name? - She asked me.

I replied, “Spevak.”

- What was the name of your father? Boris? Who was he by nationality?

- Jew - I replied.

- What is the family name of your mother, Bella? What is her nationality?

- A Jewish woman, I say.

- What do you mean? Your father is Jewish. Your mom is Jewish, and you are Belarusian? That's what it says here.

 I remained silent.

She asked - Well, what do you want to be?

I slowly said “Jew.” And it was so recorded even though after all of my young carefree years living in an orphanage, I absolutely did not feel Jewish.

Of course, I knew that many Jews were killed, and that only a few people from our town remained alive, and that it was the fault of the Germans.  I did not hear from any source that the Belarusians, Ukrainians and other people of the Soviet Union and Europe contributed to, or helped kill Jews. How could people know the truth when it was not discussed in print, radio, books, speeches at meetings or at the school. We did not discuss it. It was written and said that the great Russian people won the war and saved everyone. The names of the heroes were listed, but never a Jewish name among them.  In Kalinkavichyi, I heard from older people around me that Jews were not at the front, and that they hid in Tashkent. Some said “Look, almost no Jews are mentioned, not in the press, not in books.” I believed what I heard, and walked with my head down and felt humiliated. Only now, especially because of all I can find using a computer, I learned that many Jews were heroes.

For example, the children's home in Gomel, in which I was raised was called “Special orphanage number 1, Chernyakhovsky.” In the mornings we lined up, young pioneers in red ties, and recited our greeting, “To our squad named Hero of the Soviet Union, Comrade Chernyakhovsky, be ready. Always ready, while our hearts feel proud!” It was said that the Marshal, Hero of Soviet Union, Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky, was one of the outstanding generals. He was commander in chief of the Belarusian Front and was killed in battle. We children were proud of the fact that our children's home was named after him, a true Russian hero. Who would have thought, or had the slightest idea, that this character's name was not Ivan Danilovich, but Isaac Davidovich. Oh my God! I would have run with pride to the orphanage if I knew about it.

My mother met me with great joy. Finally there was a breadwinner in the house. Mom looked aged. My sister, Fania, had grown old, having no front teeth and dressed in ragged clothing. I immediately went to work as a loader and then a driver. With the first salary I earned I sent my sister and mother to the dentist. And when the dentist put in new teeth, they began to look quite different.

I worked as a driver, and in those years, to be a driver, you were also an engineer. It was a very prestigious profession, but you had to work as a driver-mechanic, because cars often broke down. A bumper would fall off, the tires would puncture, the car stopped because the poor quality of petrol clogged the carburetor, or the starter would not work.

Now, who would believe it! Last week, Grisha, an employee of our valet parking, called me outside and said, “Come with me.  I have something to show you.” And he brought me over to a Tesla car. You don't need gasoline, water, oil, etc, to drive such a car. Everything is controlled from the screen, as if the car was a computer. Oh my God! Who would have believed that such progress would come. Such interesting times.

But back to the time when I worked on the lorry, I came home tired and dirty. But, by the end of the month I brought some money home. Mother and three small children were very happy. Before my return from the children's home, mom sent a letter to Moscow to Comrade Voroshilov, to say that her husband had been killed at the front, and her family had difficult economic circumstances. The answer from Moscow was, “You have many children. Let them help you and provide for themselves.” What scoundrels!

We received false news that could only disturb my mother. An unknown woman came to our house and asked,

- Are you Spevak Bella?

- Yes - my mother said.

- And your husband's name was Boris?

Mother, alarmed and excited, said:

- Yes, but why?

- I saw your husband in the town of Rechitsa.

Poor mother sat down in surprise. For this news, my mother sat this woman right down at our table and fed her and she stayed the night with us. When I came home from work, my mother told me about this, but she didn't think that her husband would not return to his wife and children. My mother went to Rechitsa, where her sister lived. Of course, the woman's story turned out to be a hoax.

Stalin arose during a difficult time for the country. He knew how to lead the masses and win, but he walked in the footsteps of Vladimir Lenin, a genius, who understood that he could rely on Jews. Jews were loyal and not deceptive. They applied their knowledge for the benefit and protection of their country, for the cause of building socialism. And we all know that the Jews led the revolutionary movement and joined the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, people such as Sverdlov, Trotsky, Uritsky and many others. Stalin also used these devoted business people, but he deceived them, seized power, and then had them shot or rot in prison. During World War II, Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovky, the son of a Karaite Jew was appointed to a command at the Russian front. In order to survive, hundreds of Jews changed their Jewish names to Russian names, and then the Jews attributed the merits of these people to the Russians, and not the Jews.

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