Service in the Army

After two years of living in Kalinkavichyi I was called to serve in the Army and served three years in Ukraine.

I stopped breathing in joy, and replied: “Yes, Comrade, thank you. I will be grateful for the rest of my life.” A few weeks later, he went on vacation. No one said anything to me about going to the school. When the colonel returned from vacation a month later, he saw me and asked why I was still there. Why had I not gone to school?

I told him that no one called me or said anything further. He brought me to headquarters, gave me money and arranged for me to travel to the school in Leningrad. But it turned out it was too late. The class was over. I did get enrolled in the school after a week, and spent two weeks there. I really wanted to be an officer, but, of course, I was a Jew. I was sent back to my unit. On the way back I visited my mother for two days. What a joy that was! While In Leningrad I lived with my mother's uncle, Shmuel. Throughout his life he worked as a plumber in a factory,  and now he was retired. He was very happy to drive me around the city to show me the attractions.

There was a military alert one night while I was serving in the army that involved several hundred cars during military exercises. Behind me was a secured car GAZ-51, with a radio station installed on the back, and a chief and three radio technicians in the cab. We drove for about two hours. The road was illuminated by the headlights. The road and the whole column of cars turned slightly to the left. I saw a shadow falling from behind the cab which made it look like I should go straight, and I fell straight into a ditch. My car flipped. The whole column stopped. The soldiers ran out and dragged us out of the ditch. We were all bloodied, but, thank God, all alive. With one year left to serve in the Army, I suggested that after demobilization it would be nice to have a second class driver's license because the salary was automatically increased by 7 percent. I passed the driving test on the first attempt. For the first time I felt that I had a good memory after studying the rules. Similarly, I passed the exam for the right to drive a taxi in New York.

After serving in the army for 3 years, I returned to Kalinkavichyi, where my mother lived with Fania and two sons. I got a job as a driver. At this time in my life there was a big change. I fell in love with a beautiful girl named Broniya. We organized a group of four girls and four boys  to get together in the evenings to play cards or dominoes, dance, tell jokes, or go to the movies. One warm summer evening, our group went for a walk and picked up a bottle of wine in order to play “spin-the-bottle” after we all took a few sips. When it was my turn to spin the bottle, the neck pointed to Broniya. Everyone knew that I loved her, and they watched to see what would happen. I remember that I raised my head to the sky with joy. I hugged her, and she slipped from my arms, in violation of the rules of the game. She did it because she was afraid that her mother would find out.  Sometimes I gave her a ride to her house.

One day she asked me to let her out of the car before I reached her house, because her mother would scold her if she saw us.

Like all the other women, my mother went to the market early in the morning two or three days a week, to buy food. But the more important goal of these market visits was to learn about the Kalinkavichyi news and  gossip. Who escorted whom? Whose boy kissed which girl? One woman says that her son is the best, and another says that her daughter is the most beautiful. In this way, the women learned everything about everyone. My mother would tell me about all of the small-town gossip. One day she said to me, “Yesterday you were seen with Nina. If you are not serious about her you shouldn't go out with her. It's a pity because the girl has no parents. You could ruin her life. It matters what people think and say.”

One day my mother insisted that I take a train to the city of Rechitsa, to my uncle Ishee, who wanted to introduce me to a girl from Moscow. I told my mother, “Mom, I'm not going to marry now. I'm only 23 years old. I want to go to study.” I loved my mother and so I obeyed her and went on this journey. I stayed in Rechitsa for two days and met with Lena three or four times. She told me, “I want to be honest, Kolya. I was with a guy in Moscow and I had a close relationship with him.” Girls were honest in those days.

In the morning my uncle and aunt eagerly awaited my news. I told them everything. Mom said that I had done all right. In small towns in those years, about eighty years ago, what the neighbors said was of great importance. If a girl was known to have hugged or kissed a boy before she married, bad rumors were spread about her. In the more distant past, such women were stoned to death.  Just think, what a quantum leap the Jews of the Soviet Union have achieved. We moved to another country with other customs, orders and laws. And they stayed there with their prejudices.

We recalled this situation later, when we were already in America, living in Queens on Woodhaven Boulevard. Fate has thrown more than twenty families from Belarus, Leningrad, Moscow and other cities, into ten six-storey buildings: Idelchik, Feigin, Azbel, Pinchuk, Kaplan and others. As before in the Soviet Union, we went out on weekends for a glass, and became involved in our discussions, disputes, and anecdotes. During one conversation, someone said that the 18-year-old daughter of Joseph met an American, slept with him, and did not come home.  I said, “Thank God my daughter is 18 years old and meets our guy from Minsk.”

Events in my personal life continued. My older sister Fania in Kalinkavichyi met Bronia's mom in the street, who told her:

- Fanechka, tell your brother that my daughter will never marry a chauffeur. Bronechka graduated from high school with a gold medal and entered the Mozyr Pedagogical Institute. She will marry an engineer.

In those days they were wealthy and lived in a house. The father returned from the war healthy. When I came out of the army, I had one pair of pants, two shirts and two jackets. After my sister told me about it, I made a decision to prove to Bronina and her mother that I will be an engineer and marry her daughter. This love inspired me to study. At this time I  bought a broken, absolutely unusable motorcycle. I worked on repairing it during every spare minute. One day, I offered a ride on this motorbike to a girl from our company, Bronina's girlfriend, Manya Turk. We decided to go to the town of Mozyr, which was 14 kilometers away. We drove 5-6 kilometers and then the engine stalled. I poked, started it, and we drove on. Motor stalled again. We pushed, struck up, pushed again, barely dragging ourselves home. My coworkers had a lot of laughs at our expense and assumed that we had something going on in the woods.

In 1950 I began to attend night school. I was serious about my studies and encouraged my two brothers, Lev and Arkady, to go to school. Every day, I told my brothers that they should not miss classes, that they should read and write and try to remember what they read, and not just run through the streets. I gave them a ruble for good grades. Both of my brothers graduated from high school and went on to higher education, more than me, and our family is proud of their accomplishments.

During these years in Kalinkavichyi, my two older sisters, Lena and Fania, lived in houses near the center of town. My sister had a lodger, Tomochka, a pretty girl, a shiksa who was an agricultural college student. Both my brother Lev and I found her attractive, but when my brother saw her, he caught fire, and no one could put out the fire in his soul except Tomochka.

Their wedding was different from mine with Arcadia. For our family, the center of the universe was the city of Kalinkavichyi because my mother lived there. The wedding of my brother, the “collective farmer,” was held in Kalinkavichyi. The farm where he lived and worked, and where his wife was born, was 50 kilometers from Kalinkavichyi. The farm had a distillery, a large number of livestock, and grew many cereal and vegetable crops. Our whole family came from all over the USSR: Leningrad, Minsk, Odessa, Gomel, Rechitsa, Dnepropetrovsk. The staff of his collective farm arrived by bus: the agronomists, leading foreman, and milkmaid. After consuming delicious high-calorie snacks and heartbreaking toast, the orchestra performed their songs. We danced the popular dances of the time.  

 My nephew, Arkady, sang some songs. Arkady had a very good voice and could have been a stage performer. All in all, the wedding was great fun. A few days later, I called and asked my brother Lev if all went well. He said, “Thank God there wasn't a fight.” After all, in those days in Belarus, after weddings, neighbors expressed their resentment, jealousy and so on, and weddings ended in fights, and sometimes murder. I personally observed this.

My friend, Michael Goman, worked as a printer for many years for the regional newspaper, “Path to Communism,” whose office was located in the center of Kalinkavichyi. Michael's father had been killed at the front. The printing work involved four women placing individual letters, made of a lead alloy, onto a special form that was then installed on the platform of the printing press, tested and approved by an editor. Table machines moved around drums through which paper rotated in contact with the letters to type each entire newspaper page. These machines were powered by a small gasoline engine that constantly broke down. Misha and I often had to twist the big wheel manually. For this I received one ruble for 100 copies of the newspaper. Printing was accomplished in the night. It was hard work, but there were a lot of girls around.

After we were demobilized from the army, we again worked together in a printing house, but I was already working as a driver editor. Then I went to study. Now Misha and his wife live in Israel.

The young people happily spent time in Kalinkavichyi during summer vacations with their friends. Students and others came from various cities including Leningrad, Minsk, Moscow, and Gomel. Everyone was always excited to see each other after a long separation. Going to a bar and drinking a mixture of beer and vodka, called “ruff” made the time more fun. The guys felt bolder, more likely to approach the girls. The official meeting place was a sidewalk area made of planks about half a mile long with houses, shops and cafes. The house at the end of the pavement belonged to Sonya's mother who sat at the window and kept track of everything about everybody. The sidewalk was crowded with a stream of young people, in particular in the evening.  When it turned dark, many couples parted together. This summer fun lasted for about two months. The rest of the year we dealt with the separation and kept up correspondence until the next year. During these years, my sister Lena and her husband Boris and two children, moved to Leningrad. They were happy to see me when I visited, and wanted to persuade me to move to Leningrad when I finished college. They said, “we will find a good girl.”

Talented students in college usually held concerts once or twice a month. Often after the concerts, clubs organized dances accompanied by accordion music. Students, including myself and my niece Mariya, participated in these dances. Mariya studied for half a year and left school, returning to her parents in Leningrad.

It was hot during one of those evening dances, and I went out for some fresh air. It was dark, but I could see a street brawl under the light of an electric lamp. Three guys were punching the secretary of the Komsomol organization of our college. I jumped in and butted my head on the face of one of the attackers. He screamed and fell, and the rest fled. It was said that the attack had been planned. Apparently, Ivan Zaremba, Secretary of the Komsomol organization, refused to grant a scholarship to a student.  After they all fled, Ivan hugged and thanked me. At the next meeting of the Komsomol committee he appointed me as his deputy. That's how I got a promotion at Komsomol.

When I came for vacation in Kalinkavichyi, Mom had some family history to relate. She told me that grandmother Zelda has a cousin Rachel, also a grandmother, who lives in Minsk. Her husband left her with three children before the war. She suffered through the war alone with them. Rachel has a granddaughter.  I heard my mother's long story and soon forgot about it.

One evening I went for a walk into the city and met Claudia, a girl I knew from Belarus. She studied at the College of Agriculture. She was very cute, plump, blonde with big blue eyes. She knew that I was a Jew and she told  her brother. We went to the buffet, had wine and beer, and went for a walk in the park. As I walked her home in the dark, her brother suddenly darted out to the street from behind the corner of the house with an ax in his hand, shouting, “I'll kill you, Jew snout.” Naturally, we were confused, but I'm stubborn. Claudia grabbed my hand and together we ran away. I think I was shaking with anger. She cried. We stood there for about 15 minutes, talked, kissed and parted. I went to school and never saw her again.

I was pursued with an ax another time. It occurred in the children's home where a girl named Lyuba had a birthday. I read that flowers were a good gift. At four in the morning I walked two or three kilometers to an area outside of the city where I saw houses with private gardens growing cucumbers, tomatoes, and flowers. I reached the peonies crawling on my stomach through a garden. It was already beginning to get light and when I left the garden onto the road, the owner saw me. He shouted, grabbed an ax and ran toward me. I was let go, unhurt, and I gave the flowers to my queen.

The main purpose of courting the other girls in Kalinkavichyi was a desire to show Broniya that some girls were interested in me. I wanted her to be jealous. I think now that she had some feelings for me. After 15 years, I met her in New York. She took a step forward to kiss me, but this time I was not interested. She already had a husband and two children. But back then, I did all that she requested. In later years, after reading books about love, and about the lives of famous people, I realized that only a small percentage of married couples maintain that love for their lifetime. I am sure that it would have happened in a life with Broniya.

One wonderful sunny day when I was a student, I went out onto the street and took a deep breath of dizzying fresh spring air. I felt that someone was staring at me, and right there in front of me was my childhood friend, Eugene Kochura, from my village, Davydovka, whom I had not seen for 12 years. These last years had been full of the most terrible and also greatest experiences. I wanted to throw myself into his arms, but some inner strength kept me back, wanting to be free from bad thoughts and terrible memories. We embraced and went to my hostel room to reminisce. When we met it was a time when people everywhere angrily tore up the portraits of killers. I was deputy secretary of the Komsomol organization in college. A secret letter of the Central Committee of the USSR was read to us, which described violations of party discipline committed by Stalin, as well as the fact that Lenin warned that he should not be allowed to be in power.

For a long time we talked about our memories of the moments of our past lives. While parting, we wished that humanity would never again live under circumstances like those under Stalin's rule. After Eugene left, I still spent a long time thinking about the Jews of our town, something we could not openly discuss. I felt as if his thoughts and his soul were frozen in time, and mine as well. This was the problem of the century in which we lived.

When I lived in Gomel I went to the city bath on Fridays and visited Zina, my favorite aunt, with whom we were evacuated. She always allowed me to borrow her soap. In those years people did not shower. Bathers were given a metal pail to fill with water, and then proceeded with the pail into a common room with wooden benches or to the steam room. I went to the steam room where there was a guy with a broom who gave me a very unfriendly look. His face contorted with anger and he came at me. We were the only people in the steam room, yet there was no place to retreat. I hit him on the head with a basin. He fell and two minutes later I was out of the bath.  I was pleased with myself, but I did not tell Aunt Zina about this.

Dear readers, do not think that I always won.

After graduating from college, Kolya Grischenkov and I were sent to work in Minsk. It was like another world. Without friends or family we were completely alone, even on weekends. One Sunday as I rode on the train, someone touched my shoulder. I spun around in surprise and saw the familiar face of Joseph Saltzman, a guy from Kalinkavichyi. I was so happy, I almost kissed him. He did not understand my loneliness. He was already married and had a wife and son and his own house. He gave me his address and invited me to visit. There were no phones yet in 1956. After a while I decided to visit him and to meet his wife. We spoke about Kalinkavichyi, relatives, acquaintances who live in different cities and about the Jews who died during the war. We remembered the forge where I often went to help kindle the embers. We also remembered the blacksmith's brother, Chaim Vinokur, who married a Rohul grandmother, who gave birth to three children. He left her with the children and wandered off somewhere. She suffered as her children had nothing to eat.  One of the daughters, Sima, born Galya, was to be my future wife. She was then 18 years old. I told my mom about her. Joseph knew I was a good guy and he introduced me to her.

We agreed to meet. It was love at first sight. We both, as they say, turned out to be birds of a feather. My father died at the front, her father among the partisans. I had one pair of pants, she, one dress. She lived with her grandmother and her Aunt Rohul and Uncle Peter rather than with her mother.  I invited Kolya to the registry office, where our marriage took place. Ah, this wedding! Is it possible to even visualize or compare weddings now and then in the 1950s? My wedding was held in a wooden house in which Uncle Stepan, disabled in WWII lived, and . Uncle Peter and Aunt Polya and two children. Uncle Peter was a very kind, friendly man and madly in love with his wife, Polya. We had tables but not enough chairs in the

175 square foot room for a total of 22 people. We had a

Seated are my wife's cousin Fira and her husband, Misha, and Kolya, my witness

Life went on. We continued to work quietly, hiding, like all Jews. It should be noted that 1948 to 1966 was a period of calm and prosperity, even for Belarus Jews. Young people from small towns were free to study at universities in the major cities such as Leningrad, Minsk and others. My friends from Kalinkavichyi, Marat Shulman, Izzy Heitmann, Iosif Kogan and others settled in Leningrad to work, study and marry. My niece, Galya Golodets, graduated from the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute.

After my wedding, I graduated with honors, and began evening school at the Polytechnic Institute. I faced great difficulties. We lived in an apartment the size of 16 square meters. After work between the tram, bus, and queue for shopping I was barely home. My wife also worked hard in the factory and then took evening classes at the University of Physics and Mathematics Faculty. We did not see each other all week. I was physically affected by this difficult load, and I left my studies.

All the years of thinking about learning never left me. All the time I thought: “Well, what will you, Kigas, do all of your life? Will you work as a foreman or mechanic and never get a promotion at work?

Every day I told my wife that I could not continue. I had bad dreams. I was not satisfied with such a life. I wanted to study at the Institute. She would tell me that it was very hard to pass the exams. I said I would try. To my luck, in those years there was no harassment of Jews. I entered the Polytechnic Institute.

After two years we had saved a little money. We moved to a private apartment, which was more than 4 square meters. It was fun. I bought a suit for myself, and a new dress for my wife. After a week of living in our new apartment we met after work to go to the movies. When we arrived home, we discovered that we had been robbed. The second suit I owned in my 28 years was gone.  The first, I burned, when I was 8 years old. My wife was hysterical. She calmed down and called the police.

When our daughter was born, we got a one-room apartment in the Mosyukovschina village of Minsk. After 5 years it was simply unbearable. We moved back to the city to a private apartment. At this time, my wife gave birth to our son, Borenka. My mother-in-law and her husband, former employees of the Army Intelligence, received a one-room apartment in a house with water and other amenities. We moved in with them with our newborn child. Then we finally received our own apartment.

During these years, my second sister, Fanny, with her second husband, Yuri Golodets and three children, also decided to leave Kalinkavichyi. But where to? In the beginning they decided to go to Minsk. In those years I was married, lived and worked in Minsk, and wanted them to move to Minsk. But a residence passport permit was required in order to look for a job.

I turned to my friend, Volodya Makovsky, a former lieutenant colonel and now the head of the personnel department construction trust. I gave him snacks and drinks and asked him to arrange the passport permit for Minsk. He gave me the passport and residence permit and I gave them to Yuri.  

Yuri went back to Kalinkavichyi without examining the passport. They were living in Kalinkavichyi. After some time they still decided to go to Leningrad where they lived for about 10 years, during which time they decided to go to Israel. Yuri went to the Visa Office and was questioned,  “How do you live here? You have a residence in Minsk.”

He clutched his head. He had to go to Minsk and end his permit there, register in Leningrad, and only then would he be able to go to Israel. My sister is gone now. It is no longer the same. Three families and their offspring, grandchildren, live in Israel.

Last year, my favorite niece, Galya Golodets, came to visit me in Miami with her husband. We had a very good time with them, visiting different places every day. In the evenings we reviewed movies of our family, pictures of our parents, grandmothers, grandfathers and all of our mishpucha. Galya described her vacation in Miami in one of her poems.

When my youngest brother Arkady was demobilized from the army, he naturally wanted to live in a big city. He slept on the couch in our apartment, and my wife and I slept in our small bedroom, which barely fit our bed and a cot for our daughter. After a short time, he got a job through a friend, and met a girl, Layla, whose parents lived in Odessa. They were married and decided to live in Odessa near Layla's parents. My brother had learned to build roads in the technical college he attended. He got a job in his specialty and they lived in Layla's parents' apartment for 25 years. He was not able to get a state apartment. When someone from our family visited him in the famous city of Odessa, it was not very convenient. Eventually, under pressure from her children, my mother agreed to leave Kalinkovichyi to see Odessa. Her lovely son, Arkady, came to pick her up and brought her into the city. When she drove through the streets of the city she could not imagine how much there was to buy in the markets. “I got so much news here I could never have believed, and now I will tell all of my friends.” Arkady and Layla bought tickets to bring mother to the theater, for the opera Carmen.  When mom entered the hall and saw the chandeliers, and the gold-covered dome, she was overcome with admiration. Arkady said she sat spellbound during the opera, and she seemed to think that the story was real. When the opera hero killed his mistress, mom started crying and screaming. Someone called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. There, a doctor declared she was suffering from nervous shock, and that she should go home to Kalinkavichyi.

I studied and worked for five years for a construction company, to repair and construct new bridges in the Minsk region, as a master mechanic. There were 15 people who worked under me, including plumbers, welders, and electricians. The work was not easy. By 11 am, more than half of the workers were already drunk and had disappeared somewhere. According to socialist laws, fired workers did not have rights. One sunny summer day, my wife and I, and my friend and colleague, the senior foreman for bridge construction, Volodya, and his wife, left town for some relaxation. We bought food, and sat by the lake under the trees. My wife went for a walk, and Nadia, the wife of a friend, said to me, “Look, Nick, get rid of this Jewess. We have a beautiful girl for you. We will help you with the apartment.” They did not know who I really was.

Bella, a very nice, professional woman, also worked for this construction company. When she married, her husband was also a civil engineer. We became good friends, visited each other's homes, and spent many happy days together.

Bella now lives in Israel. She came to visit us in America. We had visited her home in Israel. Her husband died, but our friendship with her continued. She said that the first years in Israel were so difficult. Her husband could not find work and did not know a single letter in Hebrew. She applied for a job in a hotel, and they said, “How are you going to work if you can not talk to the people?” And she replied: “If I could talk, I'd hire you to work.” She was accepted for the job, and when we arrived in Israel, she gave us a tour of the hotel.

Back to life in Minsk. In 1972, after a six year long wait on a list to buy a used car, I received notice that my turn arrived. I was in seventh heaven! The car, a Moskvich 408, was in such bad condition that we had to ask a friend to tow it to a garage. I began to repair it, but there were no spare parts.

I pulled out the engine and carried it up to my apartment on the 5th floor. I put a board over the bath tub for a platform for the work. The engine and car lacked pistons, rubber sleeves for the valves, and a braking system. I had to keep the engine over the bathtub while I waited for parts from the Slonim repair plant so the children could not take a shower in my apartment. I had to negotiate with the neighbors.

It took about a month for the repairs. My daughter and son still remember this. The car brought us difficulties and joys, because up to this time people were generally forbidden to own their own car. A man with a car was called a capitalist, and that was not compatible with life in a socialist society. After I finished the repairs, including rubbing some pitch on the bottom so that it would not rust, my wife and I took a ride with the kids in the car. Oh! It was great!

Back to my life in Gomel. I was smiling, double happiness. For the first time I could get Party work. While in the orphanage in Gomel, I was friends with Victor, a city boy. His house was destroyed during the bombing. The entire family, mother and two children lived in a hut they built under the house where I visited him many times. It took eight years for me to leave Gomel for Kalinkavichyi, and then I was in the army. After the Army I met Victor by chance in Gomel. I told him that I was studying in college and had at least a year more. Victor said that he was working for the Komsomol as first secretary and that he would definitely find me a job after graduation. “In the future, we have a chance to get work with the District Party Committee,” he said.

Of course, I was very happy and lived for several days with high hopes. Then I came to my senses. Jews were not hired. Instantly everything collapsed. Following the meeting I was cool with him and told him that after graduation I had to work in Leningrad as my two sisters lived there. The second time I was happy about work was when I was able to get a job in the White House office. My wife's stepfather, Nathan Grozovsky, was a captain in the army during the war and served in counterintelligence and then the State Security Committee. He met Mao Ze Dong in China. I saw his pictures from these meetings. When I graduated he went to the draft board with me and I was assigned the rank of lieutenant. During the Khrushchev era, hundreds, maybe thousands of military personnel, regardless of the length of service, were discharged without any apparent reason. There was an agreement with foreign countries on the reduction of armed forces. And what do you think? The first cut from the rank of officers were the Jews, including my father-in-law, without consideration for his contribution to the motherland. He would have had a good pension in six more months. He had a big grudge. One day he met his friend in Minsk, Kozlov, a colleague from Army counterintelligence, who lived in Moscow and worked as head of a department at the USSR State Planning Committee. We were invited to his home where he had a few shots and talked about their shared memories. It was very interesting to hear about their service. The conversation turned, finally, and it was arranged that I would get a job at the State Planning Committee of Belarus as the head of the transportation department, the agency that deals with regional  distributions. Naturally, I was delighted.

As agreed, by 9 AM I was in the office of the State Planning Commission where I was introduced to the personnel department as Nikolai Borisovich. I was given forms to fill out to leave with the HR department the next day. That's exactly what I did. But it was the same thing that happens in America when you say in such cases, “We'll call you.”

In those years my mother lived in a house divided in two halves. She lived in one half, and my second oldest sister, Fania, lived with my mother.  Then Fanya married Yuri Golodets and moved into his house. My youngest sister, Rosa, remained with my mother, with her husband and two children. They cared for my mother very well. Our elder brother, Yuri, also lived in Kalinkavichyi.

Almost every year, all of my mother's children visited her during the vacation. There were Lena, Fanya with the  children from Leningrad, Lazarus, who lived and served in the Army, came from Dnepropetrovsk, I came from Minsk,  Lev from Svetlogorsk and Arkady from Odessa. Some traveled by car, some on foot. They came with their wives and children and arranged a week-long feast-meeting.

And my mother walked from one to another and hugged and kissed us. I remember how gentle, happy, clever and warm her eyes were, a look that still stands clearly in my vision and warms my heart. Particularly special for her, was that her friends and neighbors often told her what wonderful, good children she had. Her heart just melted with joy and happiness. And then we all went home and continued to call and write to her.

She lived with her beloved daughter, Rosa, her husband, Aronchik, and her two granddaughters, Anya and Sveta. They loved my mother and cared for her. Rosa graduated from medical school and worked very hard. I remember when I was last in Kalinkavichyi, neighbors and people in the city called her for medication, even at night. She was a master at cupping. Right now, my mother's granddaughters, Anya and Sveta and their children, are living in Israel. Mama Rosa helped them and they bought two apartments next to each other. They all love to receive visitors, especially family whose numbers are dwindling. They prepare snacks and traditional compote for guests. Rose also used to travel, regardless of the distance. She was here in America two times. In my life I stick to the rules that my mother taught me. For her, all of her children were equally dear. But I think that she preferred my oldest brother, Lazarus. He dedicated his life to service in the army, and always tried, like our younger brother Lev, to help the family financially.

For example, when Arkady and I went to college, Lazarus always asked us to visit him during the holidays. Once Arkady went to see him in Dnepropetrovsk. There he got a bucket full of herring. What a great support for students. We hid the bucket of herring under the bed. The whole month we had something to eat with potatoes. Lazarus has two daughters, Sveta and Pauline, who now live in Israel with their children. They always call us and are interested in our lives.

Looking back on those cold, hungry, miserable years, it is difficult to describe and analyze all the problems, moral and physical, which my mother had to overcome. Unfortunately, when all of her eight children grew up we were able to take care of ourselves, but we could not provide her with the emotional and material help she deserved. We were too poor, except for my brother, Lev, and sister Rose. A particular incident played an important role in Lev's life. When I lived in Minsk and drove to the farm to eat fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, I asked my brother:  

- Is everything okay with your studies at the Vitebsk Institute of Agriculture?

And he said:

- I have an unpleasant history with the director of the collective farm. I do not want to ask him for a leave to go to Vitebsk for an exam, as I practically dropped out.

I shouted at him:

- Come with me, take a bottle of cognac and an application for leave and let's go to his home.

I was a friend of the director and we ate and drank together many times. He went to the director's home to resolve this issue.

The director knew that I knew powerful people in Kalinkavichyi and in Minsk, who could put pressure on him. Thus, my brother successfully graduated and received a diploma.

After more than five years it seemed that life had adjusted, and all was good. The Soviet government knew that thousands of Jews were killed on the fronts of World War II. Thousands were given the rank of officers, generals, Heroes of the Soviet Union. Many talented managers, together with the plants they ran, were evacuated to Siberia, the Urals and other regions of the country. There, they worked 20 hours a day, forging weapons for the front for the victory. They were forced to change their names in order to receive an award.  Medvedev, Prikhodko, Lavochkin, and many hundreds of others, and no one knew that they were Jews. I just found out recently through research on the computer.  Since 1967, after Israel's crushing defeat of five Arab armies, the Russian government had become disordered. There were many problems, and the Soviet government found it necessary to place the blame on some outside group for these problems to distract people from reality. The Soviet government blamed the Jews. It began with indiscriminate firing. The party claimed that Russian Zionists were secretly penetrating the institutions of the Party and state apparatus, and pretending to be staunch communists. After skillfully penetrating the Party, they would gradually destroy the socialist system.

I worked at that time in a department of six people. When we heard the latest news on the radio, everyone stopped working. The news stigmatized Israeli aggressors. I drew my head into my shoulders and pretended not to hear anything while checking my work. I secretly cried in my soul. And if I had the courage I would have said something to them. But I did not know anything about what was going on in Israel or in the world. After all, we had no information other than what we heard on the radio or read in Soviet newspapers.  At an official meeting attended by about 100 people, the Party Central Committee ordered speakers to rail about the negative impact of Jews on the implementation of the five-year plan, on drinking at work, family disorders, and so on.

My uncle Fyodor, a Russian national, husband of my wife's aunt, worked in the Kremlin in Moscow and was fired. He was called to the personnel department.  “Your wife is a Jew,” he was told. Military secrets might be at risk. He was told to divorce his wife or he would be dismissed. My uncle and his wife did not sleep all night. The next morning, he went to work and resigned. At that time, I was with my wife in Moscow and we spent the night with them. They suffered. This was a tragedy for them.

Those Jews who had just graduated from higher education institutions were not accepted in jobs.

Jewish children were abused In schools. One day, our daughter came home from school and told us that a list was made of Jews in her class.

- Well, how many - I asked.

She listed the names of four students.

- And you, my daughter, you are also a Jew.

She jumped up and said:

- No, I'm not Jewish, it's the worst thing that can be.

She cried and beat her fists on the table. We could hardly calm her.  I explained that her mother and father were both Jewish, and so was she. It is not so bad. We were born Jews and we always will be. On Earth, there are many people who love us, and we will go to them.

In Moscow it was allegedly “revealed” that there was an organization of Jewish doctors who wanted to poison Kremlin employees occupying positions of power.  Many people remember ”The Doctors' Plot.” Hundreds of young professionals were sent to work in Siberia and the Far East, to the remote corners of the country, including my friend Simon Ilitsky, an engineer and Bella's husband.

There was a movie in the Soviet Union, about the life of a young Jewish doctor, Lyuba, whose father was arrested and sent to prison. Lyuba was pregnant, and was sent to work far away from Moscow, where she worked in a hospital.  It was during this period of time that The Doctors' Plot was exposed. Radio announcers and newspapers provided the names of the doctors: Haimovich, Abramovich and others. Lyuba's patients were fearful, and Lyuba was fired from her job. When I watched this movie, my heart sank. I still think: “God have mercy. Grant that our future generations will never experience this.”

In subsequent years, the government in Moscow established the Committee for the fight against Zionism and Israeli propaganda. The committee consisted of retired generals, famous artists and others, who spread propaganda and agitated against Jews leaving for Israel. The members of this Committee, themselves under the threat of arrest and Stalinist repression, carried out  all government orders. They stigmatized the Israeli aggressors as “hawks," and depicted them in magazines and newspapers, with large hooked noses.  The Jew, Zhirinovksy, and member of the Russian Duma, wrote that Jews intended to conquer the whole world. However, many, including my friend and teacher, Edward Silberman, found ways to learn some truth, by listening to Voice of America, the BBC and other forbidden stations. And then I told the truth to people. Edward was fired from his job and was nearly sent to prison for this.

In Minsk, I personally know of three people who served as chief engineers and were dismissed without any apparent reason. The director of transportation and Minsk city executive committee, where I used to work, comrade Bialystok, was fired. A retired general was appointed in his place. He was an absolute anti-Semite. Within six months he dismissed all the Jews. The secretary Faina Yakovlevna was transferred from the office to the library because she overheard conversations among employees. It was one of the most difficult periods in my life when I was released from work because I was Jewish. My place was taken by a retired general and minister of industry. I spoke about my plight to my friend Alexander Potapchik, whom I knew from technical school in Gomel. He treated me sympathetically and told his uncle, a former guerrilla. Uncle called someone, and after many trials and testing, I got a job. I still dream about going to Minsk to see Sasha and thank him.

At meetings during this period, people spoke against Israel, and condemned those who left. And some Jews, such as Zhirinovsky, supported such statements, to protect themselves.

These layoffs and meetings put a heavy burden on my soul. My thoughts swirled in my head; I experienced and analyzed them. I matured. Yet there was no answer to my question, as to why this was happening. My brothers and family, all of us, all worked, lived honestly and gave to our homeland. In the words of the poet Mayakovsky: “My work joins the work of my republic.” So why this hatred, these insults and humiliation? One of the evacuees, from our village Davydovka, a survivor, Mr. Petlah, traveled to the cities of Kalinkavichyi, Mozyr, Gomel, Minsk and others, and learned where the relatives of those killed during the war live. He collected money, and with the help of local residents, he erected a monument to those Jews who were killed. The monument stands somewhere about 2 km away from the shtetl. Local authorities decided to build a veterinary hospital at this site. Having learned about this terrible mockery, Comrade wrote a letter to Moscow, but received no reply.

At the end of the 1960s-1970s, the Jewish people began to rebel. There was no end to the humiliation, suffering and abuse, situations that were very bad for the future of our children. Many decided to leave the country.  The hijacking case of Dymshits-Kuznetsov gave impetus to, and served as material for Western media, especially in America, as evidence of Soviet “human rights violations.” Finally, the ice was broken. An American official met with Russians In Helsinki, Finland, and a contract was signed after the talks. America was to give grain to the Russians, and Russia was to allow 50 thousand Jews to emigrate to Israel. Italy agreed to assist with the movement of the Jews (God bless Italy!) and Austria and Poland. Moscow organized OVIR, the Department of Visas and Immigration, and we had to turn to this office for the appropriate visa. There were different categories of certificates that were required in order to receive a visa to leave the country.  For example, one needed a home management certificate stating that one's apartment had not been renovated. To get this certificate, if you had renovated the apartment, you had to break it down to its original state.  We had hung lacquered cabinets in the kitchen. I had to break them into pieces and remove them. This was necessary to obtain the certificate.

We had to get a certificate of employment and trade union membership, a certificate from our childrens' school, and the institutions of higher education we attended. There was a form to fill out for each person, including the written permission of parents and children, to leave. I had to travel from Minsk to Kalinkavichyi to my mother, in order to obtain her written consent for my departure. This had to be done at the City Council, where a certificate was issued by the chairman.

Mom was crying. I was leaving for good, and it was very hard to part with her son. In addition her son would be branded as a traitor by the city, since he was leaving for Israel.

I can see in my mind and in my eyes, a picture of how I packed my suitcase and began to walk away from my mother. We left the house, went a few steps, and then she began to lag behind while crying. I went ahead further and further until I lost sight of her. I had not yet received a certificate from the doctor concerning the state of my health, a certificate from the recruiting office regarding military service for each family member, an invitation from relatives in Israel and so on. OVIR organized queues. Day and night there were crowds of people at the OVIR visa office. This office was located in a private house, and the noise from the crowds interfered with the residents' sleep. They shouted at us, insulted us, and poured cold water on us.

In July, 1979, I handed over my documents to the Visa Office. Hundreds of emigres were unable to leave this year as they stopped issuing visas. Then arose the so-called “refuseniks.” Their hard lives were much talked about and written about. A dozen years later, I met my friend, Yasha Gasov. His visa was rejected for 8 years. He told me that he had not been able to work for about 5 years except for some informal moonlighting. He received some money through secret channels from the United States. The main center was concentrated in Moscow. There were so-called “peaceful demonstrations," which were dispersed by police and vigilantes. People were beaten during these rallies. You could hear the crunch of falling posters, cries of women and young people, shouting, “You signed the Helsinki Agreement.” The question is, where did this courage come from, the courage of the Jews? The courage of Dymshits, Sharansky, Nudel and thousands of others?

At the end of 1978 we began to take the first steps to leave for Israel. Our kids knew nothing about it. We kept our plans a secret and did not say anything; we hid it from neighbors, best friends, and even relatives.  We didn't know if we could go or not. Despite not knowing, we were still still considered traitors, and even Zionists, though I had never heard this word, and did not know until then, who these people are. We did not tell my wife's cousin, Kate, who was a quarter Jewish. Her father had graduated from the Belarusian Minsk Sports Institute. He was a good swordsman.  Kate's grandmother, Rachel's, influence prevailed. Kate overheard conversations about Jewish topics and became very interested in all Jewish matters. When she was 13 years-old she traveled with a group to Israel, and she stayed there forever. She graduated from Tel Aviv University, married and has three children. I called her a heroine when she came to visit us in New York.

Her grandmother and mother live in Minsk today. Her older brother, Vadim, of course, also a quarter Jew, graduated from Minsk Radio Engineering Institute and decided to move to America. He was issued a student visa and came to stay with us. At that time we were living in our house in New Jersey. He lived with us for several months, eating candy and not looking for work. Finally, he went to work in the Russian grocery store. He worked there for a few weeks and quit. I told him that I would find him a nice girl.  He said that he had a girl in Minsk. Generally speaking he was a smart guy and understood that money does not grow on trees. He rented an apartment together with a friend in Brooklyn, got a job and saved money. After some time his girlfriend Elena, from Minsk arrived, a very beautiful girl indeed. They moved to Canada where they found jobs in their fields. Helen teaches music. They bought a house, have three wonderful, gentile children. God bless them!

To continue on about my secret, I did not work for five months, hiding at home, so that no one knew about it. The children continued to go to school, and my wife was still working. At this time, thirty years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, in Minsk, in the month of May, the city gave permission to meet at the place where thousands of Jews were killed or buried alive. People remembered their relatives and friends. On one of those days, I was approached by a colleague, Gregory, who said: “Borisych, and you're here? What a pleasant surprise.” He did not know I was Jewish. We started a conversation about information that had never been published or reported  about the killing of innocent people. It was all prohibited information, or disguised in some way. Hatred of the Jews of the Soviet Union did not come from the people. Each of us had best friends and girlfriends who were not Jewish. This hatred came from the government and the communists. It is they who forced us to leave our homeland. We had a long talk about the terrible atrocities carried out against the Jews, and our fate. And then after the meeting we wondered, to go? or not to go?

Finally, the farewell. We said goodbye to the birch trees of which we were very fond; the forest, where we collected berries and mushrooms. We bid farewell to the birds that sang to us in the morning, and now twittered: “Where are you going?"

In particular, I will miss the nightingales. When I worked on the construction of an overpass for Moscow street, in Minsk, one of the employees was looking for me, and instead of asking for me using my name, Spevak, he was confused and asked: “Where is Soloveitchik-nightingales?” They all laughed and called me Soloveichik.

We bid farewell to our youth, and mentally to our friends who could not come to say goodbye because tomorrow they could be fired for associating with us. The goal of government leaders was to stifle and intoxicate the people. Distract them from failure, mismanagement of the country, the people, religion, and the economy.

Before leaving, we said goodbye to our homeland. Homeland, as I understand it now, is a place where my family can live in peace, where our very presence does not offend others, where our children can learn where and what they want. For us, the Jews, the Motherland is Israel. Only one nation, one people on the globe, the Jews, who were slaves in Egypt thousands of years ago and then after their stay in the Roman Empire, were scattered around the world.

The Romans captured Jerusalem; destroyed and plundered it. And the earth was turned into thickets and desert. I was in Israel in 1982 and saw the slums and general wretchedness of the city. When I returned to Israel in 2012 the city of Jerusalem was unrecognizable. It is one of the best cities in the world for all religions. After the Romans, the Spanish Inquisition forced Jews to again scatter all over the world, to go underground, to change their names,to adopt another religion, and so on. And now again, just think, I have to take the kids without any idea where we're going, without money, without language, without having any idea about life in Israel. What do we know about this country? When I was expelled from the party, one of the committee members said: “Come on! Let him go, he takes a gun and kills our friendly people.” Can you imagine? We have lived for hundreds of years in Belarus; our grandparents and great-grandparents lived in Belarus. Suddenly, the Arabs became friends and we became enemies in a single night! When I delve into the details, my heart shrinks from the offense. We did not know whether or not to go to America. We knew absolutely zero about America.

So we ask Russia, when we ran away with fear, leaving our families, jobs, apartment and all of our possessions, how did you respond? In June 1979, with our suitcases and boxes, we went to the railway station in Leningrad, accompanied by my family. I wanted my ten-year-old son to remember the sights of the city. The examination of our documents and luggage seemed to last forever. It was horrible. Mentally I was sedated and do not remember much. And then the train picked up speed at Brest. Will we ever meet with those who remained? For when I was expelled from the party, I was told severely, “your feet will never be here anymore.” I left my mother, four brothers, three sisters and their children. The train carried us farther and farther away, to the complete unknown, the other completely unknown, unknown country for us. We absolutely did not know anything about Israel and America. I did not know the place where I was taking my children. At the same time, I could not stop thinking about my mother.

In Warsaw, changing to the train to Austria took only 15 minutes. Everybody was running; tickets, panic, bribes - 15 rubles, cash, screams. We were always accompanied by the police.

That's Austria! I took the first steps of my 40 years in a capitalist country. My wife and children went to look for the garbage in the street, for the hungry, unemployed working class, about whom we heard every day in newspapers, movies, and meetings. And yet, we wondered, are we on this planet or in some incomprehensible dream? We went into the first shop where we saw hams and different varieties of sausages hanging all around. I thought this could not be edible, it must have been advertising. I dared to ask the seller about the food, thanks to the fact that I studied German. The seller immediately cut off a piece of sausage and gave me some to try for free. “Oh, how delicious!" I told him.

And the market! I remember the taste and aroma of bananas. The children jumped for joy. The communists had no idea how to bring bananas to Belarus. Two weeks later we landed in Rome, Italy, finally breathing free! We said, “Thank you! Italy!” It was the first country to extend a helping hand to the Jewish people, and agreed to allow us travel through their country. And I thought: “There are also good people in the world. Do not be discouraged.” We were “immigrants.” We had never heard this word before.

We went to the post office which was an assembly place for information, like where to find cheaper accommodations or learn a few words in Italian to communicate.  As I later found out, and when applying for a job in the United States, some of the most friendly people in the world toward the Jews are the Italians.

While in Italy, I sent a package to Minsk to my wife's relatives, and another to my family in Kalinkavichyi. To this day, I'm not sure whether they ever received our parcels. Next on our agenda was how to sell the last bits of property that we acquired over a lifetime: dolls, some utensils, a drill, a couple of bottles of champagne, two cameras, and Cuban cigars.

I remember the flea market and the huge bazaar, where there were mountains of clothes and so many books, and live chickens butchered on the spot. All this was unusual and interesting for us, but also mentally strange. I had never sold anything in a market. What if someone I knew from Minsk saw us and wrote about it? We read about the famous artist, Emil Gorovets, in the newspaper, and how he had to beg in America and work and menial jobs.  It was not true. Then when we were in America, we realized that even if this was so, then there was no reason to be ashamed.

In general, on the one hand life was hard, but on the other, things went pretty well. With a little money, my wife and son went on a trip to the south of Italy, to Sorrento, Naples and Capri. I went with my daughter to the north of Italy, Venice, Piazza and other interesting places, where we took guided tours. Upon arrival from the guided tours we met with a few people we had met before, to exchange information. It was not expensive. Drinking “Napoleon” cognac, for example, was only a few liras. (Previously, for a bottle of brandy in Minsk, you could “buy” the chairman of the Union of  Road Transport or could drive a tractor from the factory and sell it.)

We discussed a lot of questions about emigration, political issues, and whether to go to Israel or another country. We discussed how to earn money at the bazaar and where to hide money to keep it safe. We earned some money picking tomatoes. There was a guy from Minsk, Arkady, who lived with a friend in the same apartment and hid his money there. One day he discovered that his money was gone. His friend stole $2,000 hidden in the house, and went to Canada. It was a lot of money at the time. We met Arkady much later, in Queens, New York. He was still upset about the theft of his money.

The author at the Leaning Tower of Pisa

In Venice, houses are right on the water. There are no sidewalks. All movement around the city is accomplished by beautiful boats. Some boats had sails. This was a new sight for us.

We were familiar with the Italian Fiat cars. It is very interesting how they drive in Italy. They stop on the road to talk, and park right on the sidewalks. In general, we were in another world. We lived in the port city of Ostia for about 2 months. We swam in the Mediterranean and sunbathed on the beach, comparing it to the beach in the Crimea and Sochi. We saw that Italians drink a lot of wine. We watched through the windows, the way they sat down for dinner, and reminisced about Minsk, where the wine is called ink. People came to line up at 5 AM to buy this cheap wine, and all were glad when it finally arrived.

  The Story of My Life     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2025 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 26 May 2023 by LA