Bielsk Podlaski
Memoirs of Nahum Freidkes
· The Freidkes family from Bielsk Podlaski in Siberia
· The Jewish fighters in the World War
· For the Memory and Honor of Jokers
The Freidkes family from Bielsk Podlaski in
Siberia
My name is Nahum Freidkes (in Polish Frejdkes). I was born on June 3rd, 1931,
in Bielsk Podlaski where I spent my first ten years. The following is a
testimonial of my memories as well as on behalf of my sister, Gita Kogos, who
was born in Bielsk on July 25, 1933. Nowadays we both live in Holon, Israel.
Our father’s father, my grandfather Moshe-Nahum (Moses) Freidkes was born in
Bielsk as well. He married Ms. Gita Kaplan of Bialystok and they had seven children.
Our grandfather Moshe -Nahum died during the First World War (probably in 1916)
from the Typhus epidemic. A few months later our grandmother died as well. The
family made a living by selling fabric in nearby villages and towns. Our
grandfather would pass through the villages with a horse-drawn carriage and
sell his goods. After a while he opened a shop in the city.
After the passing of our grandfather, our father, Kalman, the youngest of the
seven children, along with his brother Jankel took on the family textile
business. They ran the store which was located at 68 Mickiewieze, opposite the
city square and the city’s municipality. My father’s brother Jankel with his
wife Ester and his two children (Misha and Bella) resided above the store. On
the roof of the house, our father built another apartment where my parents, my
sister and I lived until 1939 when the house was burned down, in August 1939
before the war when we were on summer vacation and only my father was at home.
Over time, additional buildings were built in the long courtyard that ran from
behind the house to the parallel street. These were used as storage spaces and
apartments for rent. Among the tenants were the branch of the Beitar movement
and the HeHalutz Hazair (a Zionist youth movement) branch in the city.
Our father, Kalman, got married in 1930 at the age of 32 to Shejna (born 1903),
daughter of Benjamín Kowienski and Nehama from Lida. Our mother’s father (our
grandfather) Benjamin was a textile merchant as well who owned a large store in
the city. Our mother Shejna, had two brothers: Zorach and Abraham. Both were
married with children: a girl named Raja was born to Zorach and his wife Sara;
Abraham and his wife Frida had a baby boy who was born just before the war
started.
In addition to his business, our father Kalman, was a very active public
figure. He was a member of the city council as a representative of the Jewish
community. He was an activist at the Zionist movement and served as Chairman of
Keren Hajesod in the province. Among other things, our father Kalman
established, together with others, a social-cultural club of the Jewish
community for mutual aid institutions in the city. The World Zionist Movement,
in its early days, established a company called "Hachsharat Hayeshuv"
which served as a financial instrument to finance its activities. On the list
of founders of the company appears the name of our father and the name of our
grandfather Benjamín Kowienski. Apparently, both were among the founders of the
Zionist Movement at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Our family was very socially active, accepted and respected by the Jewish
community in the city.
For example, on Friday nights, our family hosted students from a local yeshiva
at our home for Shabbat dinner. On other weeks, members of the He chalutz
Zionist Group, who held very different ideas, would be our guests for Shabbat
dinner. Our family had close relationship with Christian community as well. I
remember, for example, that when I returned from school, I saw people from ND
(a nationalist-anti-Semitic party) holding a sign saying, "Do not buy from
the Jews." But that evening a Polish neighbor from the Maziuk family, who
also had a shop by us, came to apologize and explain that the sign holders were
strangers and that the residents of the area had nothing to do with them.
In Bielsk there were two Jewish schools: a Hebrew school of the national Tarbut
schools chain, established by the Zionist movement in Poland where the language
of instruction was Hebrew; and the Yavne school of the Bond movement where the
teaching was in Yiddish. My sister Gita and I studied at Tarbut. The schools
chain operated schools and kindergartens in most Polish cities and high schools
in the big cities. In Bielsk there was an elementary school and a kindergarten
by Tarbut. Tarbut's nearest high school was in Bialystok. The Bialystok Tarbut
high school, established by the Kaplan family of our grandmother Gita, was the
first Gymnasium in Poland to teach in the renewed Hebrew language. By the
outbreak of the war, I had just completed my 2nd grade of elementary school
while my sister graduated the Tarbut kindergarten, which was located in the
same building as the Tarbut school.
Our family would travel every summer to Nowojelnia and then, on the way home,
visit Lida at our maternal grandparents. On September 1, 1939, the war caught
us in Lida. But even before this visit, in April 1939 when we visited Lida for
Passover, we all felt the winds of the approaching war. I remember how everyone
talked about the approaching danger, while the Polish authorities carried out
civil defense maneuvers. During Passover holiday dinner in 1939, while I, as a
youngest grandson, got up to ask the traditional questions, the electricity
suddenly went out and instead a siren sounded. The darkness was illuminated
only by the papers lit by grandmother Nehama. A few minutes later there was a
lull and the Passover Seder continued as usual. Later that week, as I was
walking down the street with my uncle Abraham, another siren sounded and this
time, gas grenades were thrown on the street to demonstrate to the population
the possibility of a chemical attack. After that, I remember that my uncle
purchased gas masks for the whole family and demonstrated at home how to wear them.
September 1st, 1939, The Germans attacking Poland
The bombing blast was very strong so the windows of the room opened wide. I
fell out of bed and woke up. It was still a dark night, but the black
threatening horizon was illuminated by the explosions from the military airport
near the city. Ammunition and fuel went up in flames and the air filled with
heavy smoke which we felt from a distance.
At the time, my parents, sister and I were at LIDA at our grandparent’s house,
where we stopped on the way home from vacation in Nowojelnia. I was eight years
old and my sister Gita was six years old. My uncle called to hurry down to the
shelter in the basement. We all gathered together: my sister, my parents, my
grandparents, two uncles with their spouses and my cousin. Our maid sat down on
the stairs and did not want to join us at the bomb shelter saying she was not
afraid. Only when my uncle shouted that the Germans might use gas she complied
and joined us at the cellar where we closed the door. All day long there were
bombs and sirens. All day, while the Germans invaded Poland from the west and
from the north (from Prussia), the Polish radio broadcast made desperate pleads
and appeals to the allies of Poland (England and France) who pledged to stand
by it and help it fight against the Nazi invaders.
The airport continued to burn all day and in a short distance from our house,
the city's train station was destroyed as well. Through the window, I saw two
soldiers with bayonets carrying a man who was raising his hands. They turned
around the corner and shots were heard. The adults told us that a German spy
was caught signaling the German bombers where to bomb from the roof of one of
the buildings. Most of the day we ran to the shelter and in the evening, there
was no electricity. Only paper was lit.
Two days later, my father had managed to get a taxi for a trip to Bielsk which
was hundreds of miles away. On the way, we heard the bombardments. When we
passed on a bridge full of vehicles and people near Grodno there was another
siren so the driver turned the car into a side alley and stopped. We heard
explosions. As the siren ended, we returned to Main Street. I clung to the rear
window of the car and saw the bridge where we had passed minutes ago,
destroyed, sinking into the river with all the vehicles, horses and people on
it.
In the evening, we arrived to Bielsk. We did not have a house because it was
burned down earlier and so we lived in a small apartment that our parents
rented. The war continued and when we looked up at the sky we saw the
Messerschmitt bombers over us again and again. The radio was open all day and
night, and it gave information and instructions to the people. About two weeks
later, we heard artillery shelling and approaching echoes of battle. A Polish
officer in a torn uniform knocked on the door and asked for "water and
civilian clothes." My mother gave him to drink and my father opened the
wardrobe for him. He parted from us with a blessing "Szczesc Boze"
(God bless you) and disappeared. A short while after, Germans entered the city
on a victory parade. From the basement window, I saw the tank chains and German
boots marching and singing: "Today only Germany is ours, but tomorrow the
whole world." A curfew was imposed and it was forbidden to walk around the
streets except during defined hours. The Germans remained in Bielsk for about
two weeks until they transferred the city to Soviet rule under the
Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement known for the partition of Poland. During their
stay, they searched our apartment where there was a safe belonging to the
owner. A German officer demanded to open it but our parents did not have the
key. He shouted: "If you do not open in ten minutes I will shoot." My
father ran for the keys and came with them at the last minute. On another day,
German soldiers broke the locks of the freight cars at the railway station with
merchandise that arrived for our parents' shop on the eve of the war and had
not yet been unloaded. They called the villagers from the area and passed
through the street and handed them the fabrics they had stolen from the cars.
When they told my father, he stopped a military police patrol in the street and
told them in German that their soldiers were robbing at the train station. The
patrol took my father to the station when the robbery was almost over and they
wrote a report to several soldiers. The officer then turned to my father and
said: "We did not come here to defend Jewish property. I write a report
only because I do not want a German soldier to be a robber."
Two weeks later the Germans left and the Soviets arrived. I saw the Germans
again only when they arrived to take the bodies of their soldiers killed in the
battle to conquer the city whom were temporarily buried in a churchyard. After
a while, during the period of Soviet rule, a German delegation arrived to
Bielsk to transfer the bodies for burial in Germany.
Soviet occupation period
The Soviet regime had been in our region for almost two years and our lives
have changed in every way. My school, like all other institutions of the Jewish
community, was shut down and I went to study in a government school where the
teaching was in Russian and Belorussian. Before the occupation our mother was
busy working in the family store, and so when we were born, my sister and I
were cared for by a hired nanny named Anna Klimowska. Anna lived and spent most
of her time with us. Anna was Russian, a widow of a Pole who was a railway
station manager who was murdered during the October Revolution. She was very
educated and knowledgeable in Russian literature. From her we learned Russian,
which was my first language. My parents spoke Yiddish and when I grew up I
started speaking Polish as well. At kindergarten and later in the
"Tarbut" school, the studies were taught in Hebrew and Polish. After
the occupation and the partition of Poland I moved to a government school where
Russian returned to be my principal language.
Our parents and relatives and all their friends were persecuted by the
Communist establishment. For the communists, my father was persona non-grata as
he was a rich merchant and an active Zionist. His business property was
confiscated and his brother, my uncle Jankel, was arrested by the police
shortly after the Russians arrived because they found goods from the store that
he hid in the house. He was in a prison in Bialystok until our deportation to
Siberia. Nevertheless, our father was given a decent job most likely because
the Russian authorities needed his expertise. He knew Russian well and had excellent
organizational and managerial skills and experience. Therefore, he was employed
as an accountant in a construction unit that worked on the construction of a
new border between Russia and Germany on occupied Polish soil. This job,
however, did not last long; at the beginning of 1941 the communists informed my
father that he was let go and that soon a replacement worker of "their
own" would come from Russia. This was an alarming sign and so my father
decided to look for a way out of the Soviet Union.
At the time, my mother’s parents lived in Wilno after they moved there from
Lida. The Soviets gave Wilno as a "gift" to independent Lithuania
before they took control of the three Baltic countries. During the interim
period, Grandpa and Grandma thought that Lithuania would belong to the free
world, and therefore fled from Lida to Lithuania. Unfortunately, it turned out
that this was a deception of the Russians and Lithuania soon became a Soviet
republic. During the interim period, in Wilno there was a Japanese consul who
helped many Jews leave and stay away from Nazi danger. He issued thousands of
Japanese visas and many traveled through Russia to Manjuriya and from there to
Japan. Our grandfather informed our parents that in Wilno a group of Jews had
managed to rent a Russian plane that flew them all through Russia to Manjuriya
and from there they arrived in Tokyo and later to Israel. There were also Jews
who went to Manjuriya by train through Siberia. It was illegal and extremely
dangerous under a communist regime that oversaw the movement of every citizen.
(Incidentally - I met a person who was on that plane, in Israel). Right after
Passover in April 1941, our parents left my sister and I under the supervision
of a family member and went to Wilno to organize another group that will fly
out. But things got complicated and dragged on for too long so our mother
decided to return to Bielsk to take care of us, the children, while my father
stayed with her parents in Wilno to continue trying to organize a group to
leave the Soviet Union.
Deportation to Siberia and war again
On June 20, 1941, early in the morning, NKVD people appeared at our door steps
and asked about my father. My mother gave them a wrong address in Lida, they
wrote a protocol and then told us to pack everything we could. My mother was in
shock and couldn’t function. The young soldiers helped us pack and then took us
by a truck to the train station. There, we met many other Jewish and Poles
families. We were all put on a freight train that was guarded by the NKVD. Each
car, had three level plank beds installed, as originally it was intended to
transport animals and goods. The cars were packed with dozens of people and
were locked from the outside. The train was very long and in every car there were
30-40 people. On June 22, the train passed through Minsk city of Belorussia and
stopped at a side station to obtain drinking water and food. But suddenly we
heard another siren and saw, through the narrow, barred windows, people running
in all directions. We tried to communicate with them and they told us that the
Germans attacked Russia that morning and we are back in the war. Nevertheless,
the train, its passengers and guards kept on its way.
No one told us where we were heading, and for several weeks we were riding
east. People on train managed to read only through the narrow windows the names
of the stations we passed along the way. Luckily, when the Russian soldiers
took us from our home, I took my school bag which had my atlas. In the atlas I
found the map with the names of the places we passed. This is how I figured we
were going to Siberia. I remember sitting on the floor of the car and
explaining to everyone that the train was heading to Siberia. On its long way,
the train stopped in several stops but we were not let off. Only a few people
whom from time to time, went under guard, to bring water and some food were
allowed to leave and quickly return. The wagons were very crowded and the
sanitary conditions were very poor. Our journey to Siberia lasted several
weeks.
As noted before, our father was not with us on the train and we never saw nor
heard from him again. Only after the war we learned that our father had
returned from Wilno to Bielsk by foot through the front lines, during the war
and risked his life to return to us. He did not know that we were sent to
Siberia because two days after our deportation, the war broke out. We learned
that he was in a ghetto in Bielsk and his fate was like that of other Jews.
Recently we were told that his name appears in German archives on the list of
Jews murdered in Treblinka in November 1942.
Memorial stone in Treblinka for the
Victims of the Treblinka Extermination Camp from the Bielsk community
In
Siberia - the beginning
Our train arrived at its final stop in Biysk, Altayskiy Kray. From there began
a mountainous area without railway lines. From the station, we were transported
hundreds of kilometers by wagons on rough roads in the mountains, the valleys
and forests, through bridges and in places without defined paths. A few days
later we had arrived at a detached from the world village named Solonowka among
the high mountains of Altay. We lived in a two-room house where two families
resided in each room. We shared our room with the Pomerantz family (Bella and
Mina and their mother) while two Polish families from Bielsk whose names I do
not remember, shared the other. Each family consisted of a woman and children.
We did not know what was Mr. Pomeranz’s destiny. Mr. Pomerantz owned a flour
mill in Bielsk and from what we knew, he was arrested by the Soviets. The
families in the other room were families of officers of the Polish army who did
not return to their homes after the war in 1939 and their fate was unknown.
Our mother was forced to work in physically hard labor at a factory which made
bricks. However, at the end of August all were mobilized to harvest the grain.
Our mother, who grew up in the city, failed in tying the wheat. When one of the
Russian workers from the kolkhoz company asked her: “So, what did you do in
your home”? One of the Poles responded: “They did not do anything. Others
worked for them.” That day, my mother returned from work exhausted and very
upset as she did not expect a Polish woman who was in the same situation to
make such an anti-Semitic remark.
Luckily the situation did not last for long. At the end of the summer the
Polish government-in-exile in London signed an agreement with the Soviet Union
and joined the war against Nazi Germany. As Polish citizens, we were released
from detention to the place we were originally sent to and were given
permission to move to another place.
The cow ate the photographs
To use our rights as Polish citizens we had to obtain identity cards with
pictures. A photographer arrived to photograph the adults and promised pictures
for the next day. But the next day, my mother received a photo from him that
was not hers. She asked for her own photo but the photographer replied that
"That's what was left, and he does not have her photo as the cow ate it
all." It turned out that the photographer hung the negatives to dry at the
yard and a cow that was nearby, ate some of them. The process of issuing the
IDs was delayed but eventually we received them along with the rights of being
free citizens.
In Solonesznoie
We were happy to leave Solonowka and move to a larger village called
Solonesznoie. Life there was also very difficult. Freedom of movement was
practically challenging even for residents. There simply were no means of
public transportation and everyone had to manage by themselves. Our one-room
house had a large brick oven in the center. Inside the stove, we would light a
fire from trees and dry branches. During the winter the oven was used for
cooking and baking as well. Above it was a large surface, about two meters long
and very wide that was a bed for the whole family. We used a ladder to go up to
bed. In the corner of the room was a cooking facility for the summer, when the
central oven was not lit. A "samovar" that boiled drinking water was
there as well.
In the yard of each house was a bathhouse called Banya. It was a round or
square structure built of wood, with a tiny dressing room and a central wash
room with a bench next to the wall. In the center of the Banya there was a
place to light a fire and above it hung a large pot with water. There were no
windows and the smoke would come out through a chimney in the center. After a
while of burning, we would pour water on the fire and the room would be filled
with steam. Next to the Banya, we stored the logs we would collect and kept it
for the winter. The houses were heated with these logs as well.
Life in Solonesznoie was difficult and there was a shortage of food. The
terrain was mountainous and hard to walk. In winter, we did not see the paths
and we all walked in the deep snow. In the summer, there were plenty of snakes
and predatory animals that would reach the houses.
Like us, most of the families’ deportees, after becoming "free
citizens," left the rural areas and moved to the cities. Leaving was
challenging as there was no transportation and so all needed to exploit random
opportunities. Eventually, my mother, sister and I left Solonesznoie and set
off for the big city, Biysk.
Altayskiy Kray and the city of Biysk
Altai is an area in southwestern Siberia bordering Mongolia and Kazakhstan.
Most of its territory is mountainous and is a continuation of mountains from
Mongolia and China to Tibet. Biysk is located at the edge of the mountainous
region on the banks of the broad river Biya. The river descends from the
mountains and is one of the water sources of the river Ob. The Ob crosses all
Siberia from south to north and eventually spills into the Arctic Sea. This is
where the railway lines end. From there, to reach Mongolia, there is only one
mountain road that leads up to Ulan Bator (the capital of Mongolia). To reach
this mountain road, one must cross the river to the other side of the river.
The distance to Mongolia was hundreds of kilometers, but the area across the
river, where the mountain road was, was declared a "border area" and
a special permit was required to cross to the other side of the river.
A wooden bridge of several kilometers long was built across the river Biya.
Each year before winter, the bridge’s central part was dismantled and then
reconstructed after the winter and the thawing of the ice. In the winter,
transportation was conducted only on ice. In the spring and autumn when the
bridge was still dismantled and the ice was only partially melted, it is
impossible to cross the river. In 1941, after the outbreak of the war, no one
was available to dismantle the bridge before the frost. Consequently, it was
destroyed by floating ice floes after the winter, during the thaw. As a result,
for many months the passage to the other side of the river and the road to
Mongolia were cut off. Biysk also had no public transport and most of its
streets were unpaved. The main street paves were made from partly rotten wood
on which we walked everywhere. In spring and autumn everything was covered with
deep, difficult to pass mud.
In winter, the temperature would sometimes drop to as low as minus 44 degrees.
On such days, a municipal siren would be activated in the morning to let all
know that on that day, all should stay home and not leave the house for any
reason be it work, school or otherwise. Up to when the temperature reached
minus 40 schools and work places were open. The most difficult month was
February. Around that time, the temperature would drop to around minus 30
degrees accompanied by strong winds and snow storms known as "PURGA."
The wind stormed and the snow would rise and turns in the air. It was
impossible to see anything at a meter’s distance and it was extremely difficult
to find one’s way. There were stories about people who froze to death just a
few meters from their houses because they did not find its direction. In the
summer (July - August) the temperature would reach 25 ° C and higher. But even
then, the high mountains remained covered with snow. The local agriculture
adapted to the climate. For example, there is a certain type of wheat that is
seeded in autumn. The seeds remain frozen in the soil all winter and the wheat
grows only in the spring.
At the end of every summer, in August there were electromagnetic storms. The
air was full of static electricity that would break up with lightning day and
night even when there were no clouds in the sky and no rain fell. The animals,
especially the cows and the dogs, would feel the electricity in the air a few
days before the storm and they would make loud noises.
During winter, all wore special clothes. Our boots were made from especially
compressed wool as were the rest of the clothes such as coats, hats with
earmuffs and gloves. One had to make sure to tie and close every garment well
before going out into the street. At the time, I met at least two people whose
ears had frozen and fallen.
Most of the houses in the city were wooden houses of one or two floors. All
entrances had double doors where one had to enter the outer door, close it
behind, and only then, about half a meter away, open the inner one. All windows
were double windows as well, and were protected by an external shutter. There
was no running water at the houses so residents would bring water from the
river in buckets. In the winter, a window would be opened in the ice to reach
the running water. People would store the water in the house in a barrel and
replenish it every few days. Once a week we would bathe in a public bathhouse,
not far from our house. There, every bather would get a metal bowl and fill it
with hot water that was used for washing.
Every apartment had a radio or, rather, a speaker that had only two stations:
the Moscow station and a local station that would announce local events, the
weather forecast, and so forth. The Soviet Union was disconnected from the
world and it was impossible to listen to foreign stations, to receive
newspapers or any information from abroad. The authorities made sure the
citizens knew and heard only what they were permitted to know and hear. It was
permissible to correspond with people abroad but all letters went through
strict censorship. Therefore, we had to write that in Russia all is well and
especially that there is everything one might need and there is no need for
anything else. Nevertheless, we wrote to our relatives in Israel (Palestine
then) and South Africa , and hinted gently, sometimes using a word or two in
Hebrew and symbols and codes that we needed help and what was our real
situation. Our relatives understood, and sent us packages mainly of clothes
that we sold or replaced for food. (Our father's sister, Sheva, married a
resident of Lithuania and they emigrated to Cape Town in South Africa after
World War I. My cousin Tanchum Arieli (a son of my father's other sister named
Shcerbaty from Lutsk) immigrated to Palestine. He was one of the founders of
Kibbutz Negba. He was a commander in the fights to save the kibbutz during
Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.)
In Altay,
there is an autonomous region of Oyrotim. The Oyrotim live in tribes and are
mainly engaged in hunting as well as in some agricultural activities. Some of
them are nomadic. Externally Oyrotim are very similar to the Mongols and are in
fact a mixture of many peoples who have wandered for hundreds of years between
mountains, countries and regions of government such as China, Mongolia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and even Turkey. A small number of them settled over
time in the cities and engaged in conventional professions. I only knew one of
them. He was a sports teacher at our school after he was wounded in the war and
was discharged from the army as a cripple.
The population in the city of Biysk was mostly Russian. An Altai population
concentrated mainly on villages and high mountains. During the war, the city
absorbed many refugees from European Russia and other Soviet republics.
Industrial enterprises (mainly military) and their workers were transferred
from the center to Siberia. I especially remember ELEKTROSTAL, a large factory
from Leningrad that was transferred with its employees and their families.
Many of the city's residents during the war were Poles and Jews who had been
deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities before the war and who, like us,
had been able to move from where they were originally sent to, to the
relatively large city.
During the war there was a severe shortage of food. Bread, for example, was not
seen at all during the first years. At the end of the war, in Biysk, bread was
distributed according to coupons. At the local stores the shelved were empty.
Most of the shopping and especially food could be bought only in the market.
What could be obtained were mainly potatoes and sometimes other vegetables like
carrots, beets, cucumbers and dairy products. Luckily for us in the Altai area
there were lots of bees and therefore we could sometimes get honey. In the
winter, frozen blocks of milk that could be cut into pieces and thawed, were
sold in the municipal market. Honey was sold in frozen blocks as well. In the
summer, we collected berries and some apples. We would also get fish from the
river. It was customary to buy a large amount of food that was available that
season and to store it in the basement of the house. For example, potatoes were
bought in bags and stored for the whole winter.
Night of the Wolves
It was a full moon night at the end of March. My mother rented a two-sled wagon
harnessed to cows (because all the horses had been taken by the army) with a
sled driver and a boy to assist him. The driver was supposed to take us from
Solonesznoie to another residential area where the road began, and trucks would
travel to Biysk. The sleds carried our belongings while my mother, my sister
and I, walked by foot behind it. Sledding was the only means of transportation
in our area. We walked all day long and continued at night by the light of the
moon and stars. We walked about 60 kilometers in three days on the curved road
between snow-covered mountains and forests. In the background, we saw a peak of
the Altai Mountains named Belukha, which is over 4,600 meters high.
The night was clear and along the sides of the road we saw, from time to time,
skeletons and bones of animals. The driver explained that these were beasts
devoured by the mountain wolves. The mountain wolves are very large and always
hide in the high mountains. The driver tried to calm us down by telling us that
the wolves live in large groups and go hunting at night but usually do not
attack people. We moved step by step on our long journey surrounded by frozen
waterfalls that freeze in the fall and resume their flow in spring, rocks of
all shapes and colors and shadows of various pine trees shadows of reflected
light of the moon from the endless snow. We saw no one around except for us.
We were very tired walking in a place where we did not see any village or house
where we could rest until suddenly, on the side of the road not too far away,
we noticed a very large construction built entirely of uncut trees and without
windows. The structure was surrounded by a high wall made of large tree trunks
with an iron gate that enclosed the entrance. It was a winter cattle pen with
food for the animals when there was no grass or other food outside. The farmers
gathered the food for the animals before the snow and stored it in such pens.
Inside this structure, a few people lived with the animals, cared for and feed
them while big dogs guarded it.
We were very tired, so my mother asked the wagon driver to go into the winter farm
that we saw so that we could rest until morning. He refused claiming that he
didn’t have enough food for the animals for a longer journey. Nevertheless, we
just could not walk anymore.
Suddenly we heard from a distance a growing howl and saw, in the light of the
moon, wolves descending in a long line from the mountain in our direction. The
driver pulled out a shotgun and fired two shots into the air. The wolves were
not impressed and continued in our direction.
The driver then turned the sled carts and we all ran to the winter farmhouse
and knocked hard on a gate that opened and closed right behind us. The wolves
remained outside but did not give up and continued attacking the winter farm.
The guard dogs made their voices heard from the inside, and the dialogue
between them lasted all night. The wolves continued to turn around trying to
break through the fence. Needless to say, there was no way anyone could sleep
not to mention there was no place for it. We sat crowded in a corner that was
allotted to us until morning. The farmers lit a bonfire, and to no avail threw
burning torches over the wall from time to time in an attempt to drive the
wolves away. They repeatedly explained to us that the wolves did not attack
people during the day. Indeed, when the sun rose, the wolves went back to the
mountains.
As we emerged from the farm, we saw a wide path around the farm that the wolves
had created. That night we must have disappointed them and they remained
hungry. We continued to our destination very tired but relieved. When we
finally arrived at the village, it turned out that the snow that had begun to
thaw had destroyed a bridge on a river and that the trucks could not continue.
We stayed in the village for about a month until the traffic was renewed.
Our mother fell ill
Our mother got sick - she had gall bladder stones. One night, she had such a
painful attack that she sat very weakly and was unable to talk. At a certain
point, the village women who were standing around her bed thought that she had
stopped breathing. They talked among themselves about needing to inform the
authorities of her death, and how they would take my sister and me to an
orphanage. My sister and I held hands, unable to cry, thinking it would be our
end. But, after a few minutes, one of the women started shouting that my mother
resumed breathing and is back to life. A doctor was immediately called and he
concluded that the crisis was behind us and that our mother would just need to
rest. My sister and I resumed breathing as well.
Life at Biysk
At the end of the journey, we arrived to Biysk where we lived at Oziornaja 4a
in one room of a two-room apartment (the owners lived in the other room) until
our return to Poland in the summer of 1946. Many refugees, Poles and Jews,
among them from Bielsk Podlaski, were gathered in the city. The common past and
similar fate connected between all of them. Our mother was in contact with many
of the people of Bielsk, both Christians and Jews, through the membership and
activities of Zwionzek Patriotuw Polskich, a national organization of Polish
immigrants with branches in most of the refugee concentrations in the Soviet
Union. Among other things, the organization provided some information about
what was happening in Poland. It distributed a Polish newspaper printed in
central Russia under the supervision of the authorities, of course. Living
closely with neighbors under difficult life conditions led to solidarity and
mutual assistance among the Polish, Jewish and Polish exiles. We especially remember
our mother and a wife of a Polish officer who often visited each other.
Life was difficult in every way. Our mother tried to get a job as a librarian
in the municipal library, but during the interview she was asked how come she
knew Russian so well. She said she had finished school in Lida during the time
of the Czar's rule. Unfortunately, this was a trick question. My mother was
placed on a list of suspects disloyal to the Soviet government. Consequently,
she was refused any sort of office work. Due to health issues, our mother was
unable to do physical work, so we made a living by selling the objects we had
managed to take during our exile to Siberia and from the help we got through
packages sent by relatives in South Africa and Israel.
Some of the Jews and the Poles could make a living from their profession. Such
were tailors, shoemakers, bakers (who baked in their homes and sold the baked
goods on the market), doctors, dentists and more. There was someone who created
wooden spoons and sold them. There were musicians who performed in halls. Next
to us lived a musician from Riga who played the saxophone. He had a son name
Alek. Many worked in various factories in the city. A Yiddish writer named
Jasny who could not publish his works, found a different "cultural"
job and worked as a guard at the theater.
My school in Biysk
In Biysk there was a small Polish school where several grades were taught
together. But since my sister and I knew Russian well, we attended Russian
governmental schools. I attended high school number 3 (FOR BOYS) and my sister
attended school number 1(FOR GIRLS).
Other schools were of single gender schools, boys or girls only. There were
great differences in the schooling level among the different schools.
Fortunately, I studied at Urban School Number 3 which was intended for the best
students who passed challenging admissions exams.
There was only one other Polish boy in my class, a student named Gonorow (not
from Bielsk), and the rest were Russians. The school was located 4 kilometers
away from our home, but I insisted attending it and walked there every day.
There wasn’t public transportation that got there, so it was especially
difficult during winter. In this school, however, we studied more hours per
week than what was customary in the others. We also studied extra subjects such
as technical scribbling, agrobiology, world literature (in addition to Russian
literature and Soviet literature taught in all other schools), the constitution
of the Soviet Union and more that were not part of the curriculum in other
places.
The teachers in this school were also better than the ones in less challenging
schools. I especially remember the pedagogical director, who was a refugee from
Estonia and apparently knew the world even outside the Soviet Union. There were
two principals in the school: the pedagogical director who oversaw the teachers
and the political indoctrination, and next to him was an administrative
director who was in charge, among other things, of discipline which was very strict.
I was a good student and always helped the others. In the past year, I was
chosen by the students to be the secretary of the school’s student council. I
was also the editor of the student newspaper. The pedagogical director
suggested that I join the Komsomol. He told me that usually one could get
accepted after turning 16, but because I was an outstanding student, even
though I was only 15 years old (the only one in the class), he was willing to
approve my joining. I did not want to join and excused it by claiming that we
are Polish citizens and will return to Poland after the war. A few days later,
he came to speak with me again and said that he had inquired about it in the
"high windows" and he was told that since after the war Komsomol
would also be in Poland, I could join. I dodged again and he must have
understood that it was just an excuse. Nevertheless, he accepted it and I was
off the hook.
During the war it was impossible to print textbooks. Therefore, at the end of
the school year, the books from each class were collected and where handed over
to the next entering class. In a history book of the Soviet Union that I
received, I noticed that several pages were glued together and that other pages
were missing. I turned to my classmates but apparently, the same pages were
missing and the same pages were glued. My friends advised me to ignore this and
not ask questions. But I couldn’t resist and carefully and secretly opened the
glue and found pictures of former heroes and leaders presented to us in classes
as traitors. Apparently, their status changed in the eyes of the authorities
after these books were printed. The policy change required an update and it is
likely that an instruction has been received to update both the books and the
history retroactively.
At the time, there were not enough notebooks as well, so and the teachers had
found a method to whiten and erase printed text from newspapers and use it
instead of notebooks. It was done in the school lab with Calcium oxide. The
resulting paper was of very poor quality and could only be written on in pencil
as ink would stain it too much. Still, it was better than nothing.
During the summers, we, the students, were required to come and help with the
school’s maintenance. We arranged logs for the school’s winter irrigation,
fixed and painted the fences in the yard and the like.
The students decided there was no God
One day a lecturer from an organization of "young atheists" arrived
in the city. Students from all the city’s high schools gathered in a cinema to
listen to his lecture. He spoke against the church and religion, quoted from
newspapers of the czar period and presented examples of "miracles"
that modern science can explain today as natural phenomena. At the end of his
lecture he turned to the students and asked that if there was still someone who
believed in God to raise his hand. Everyone were silent and I heard him say to
the secretary sitting next to him: "Write down unanimously." The
following day I read at the Chronicle of the City section of the local
newspaper: "The schoolchildren of the city gathered for a special meeting
and after listening to a lecture and holding a discussion, decided unanimously
that there was no God."
The Typhus epidemic
The health care system has worked to prevent various epidemics, mainly through
vaccinations. Health nurses would occasionally come to the schools to vaccinate
all the students. Unfortunately, for some diseases there wasn’t a vaccine. A
severe plague of typhus spread in the city and many who fell ill, died. At the
beginning of 1943 I became ill and as a result stayed home in bed for almost
six months. I was exhausted, could not eat or stand on my own feet. Given that
the conditions at the city’s hospital were unbearable, and was not very sufficient
in caring for the sick, it was decided to keep me at home under the care of a
doctor who was a refugee from Leningrad. At the time, there were no cure for
Typhus, so the doctor’s advice was just to hold on. After many months of being
home, my mother had found a Polish doctor who lived across the river and went
to seek his advice. Despite the danger of crossing the river when the ice was
already moving, the doctor came and after checking me concluded that the crisis
was over and that I needed to eat to get better. According to his
recommendation, we got a fruit called "kaluquva" and I began to drink
its juice in large quantities. A few weeks later I gradually started walking.
After almost six months of absence, I was finally able to return to school. The
teachers suggested that I would be held back a year as in any way I was younger
than the rest of my class. Nevertheless, I insisted on not losing the school
year and made a significant effort to complete what I had missed. Thankfully,
at the end of the year, I passed the exams successfully.
Victory Day, May 9, 1945
On May 9th, 1945, early in the morning, I heard loud knocks on the window
shutters. My friend from the Piotr Arbusov school, a local Russian boy who
lived close by so we used to walk to school together, was outside, knocking and
shouting: "Nahum, wake up! The war is over!" I opened the window. It
was still dark, but the lights in the houses along the street started lighting
up one by one. Their windows opened and we heard the radio broadcasts Germany's
surrender. The radio broadcast was filled of cheers and enthusiastic songs.
People went out into the streets, yelling, laughing, dancing and crying. A war
cripple without a leg was waving his cane; a truck driver was honking. We got
dressed quickly and went out to the street.
In the morning, a celebratory service took place in the school. We sang the
Soviet anthem and the principal spoke and promised that the students' fathers
would soon return home from the front. Everyone was extremely excited. I,
however, already knew that my father would not come back. Many months before
the end of the war, when Polish soil was gradually liberated, we received
bitter news about the fate of the Jews. In a Polish newspaper that we obtained,
we read Julian Tuwim's article, "We are the Jews of Poland," that
described the Holocaust. We read more news and articles and collected
information on what was happening in Poland. We tried to contact family members
and everyone we knew. We sent many letters to the Red Cross, which compiled
lists of survivors, as well as to the different municipalities and
institutions. The municipality of Bielsk Podlaski had passed our letter to our
childhood caregiver Anna Klimowska. Anna had written back to us that she saw my
father during the German occupation while he was held at the ghetto.
Apparently, she spoke with him several times through the ghetto fence. She told
us that the ghetto was demolished by the Nazis and that all the Jews were sent
to their deaths. She told us that all our relatives and acquaintances were
murdered by the Nazis. The victory on Germany was too late for them, and for
us.
Preparing for another war
In the summer of 1945, a few months after the war with Germany had ended, a
partial curfew was suddenly declared in the city. It was forbidden to go out
into the street from a certain hour in the evening until morning, and the
shutters of the windows facing the street had to be locked. Every night there
was noise of heavy traffic passing through. It turned out that the authorities
had begun to transfer military units from Europe to Mongolia, preparing an
attack on Japan. Tanks, cannons and trucks would arrive at the train station
where they would be unloaded and transported at night through the city and
across the bridge towards Mongolia. And indeed, the attack on Japan began soon
after. The Soviets, however, did not manage to conquer everything they planned.
The Russians stopped their advance after the Americans bombed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Japan surrendered and the war ended.
Back in Poland, 1946-1950
Poland and most of Europe were badly damaged and destroyed in the war.
Therefore, the repatriation was carried out gradually and for long. My mother,
sister and I, returned to Poland only in the summer of 1946 together with other
repatriates. We took a special train from Biysk - with all the Polish and
Jewish refugees who were with us in Altai. This time we traveled as free
citizens. After the train crossed the border to Poland, we met with
representatives of the Jewish aid organization "Joint" and the Red
Cross. Some of the passengers, who had a place to go back to, descended on the
way at various stations. Most of the Jews, however, no longer had a home to
return to nor a family to reunite with, along with some Poles, landed at the
final train stop in Szczecin city. It was a former German city annexed to
Poland as part of a new international arrangement according to which part of
East Germany was annexed to Poland. The German population fled or was deported
to Germany. At the same time parts of eastern Poland were transferred to Soviet
Union. In Szczecin we were housed in the empty apartments the Germans had left
behind. The city was largely destroyed. I remember how the authorities
continued, more than a year after the war, to remove the rubble of buildings
and to discover and remove hundreds of skeletons of people (probably Germans)
killed in the bombing.
After a short while we moved to Lublin where our cousin Raja Kowienski lived
with her uncle Leon Lewinski. The uncle, who fought as a partisan in Jewish
partisan’s organization FPO, in the Wilno forests, managed to smuggle her out
of the ghetto when she was 5 years old and thus saved her life. Her parents and
all the rest of her family were murdered. We were told that her uncle Abraham
Kowienski and his wife Frida lived in Wilno outside the ghetto with false
papers. Once when they were walking down the street with their baby someone
recognized them as Jews and turned them over to the Lithuanian police. The
policemen killed them in the yard of the house and the teller received three
kilos of sugar in return (yes - for the baby as well). This was the price the
Nazis set for every Jew.
Sometime after Lublin, my mother, sister and I along with Raja and her uncle,
moved to Lodz where we stayed for three years until my mother, sister and I
immigrated to Israel while Raja and her uncle left for Berlin, Germany where
she lived until her death. In Lodz, we lived on 64 Piotrkowska Street until our
immigration to Israel in March 1950.
Toward the end of the war, while we were still in Siberia, the terrible picture
of the Nazis extermination of the Jews began to uncover. The shock was great
and unbearable. There were lists, articles, radio broadcasts and stories about
what the Germans have done. Many institutions such as the Red Cross continued
to update and publish lists of survivors and lists of seeking relatives. We
continued to search but found no sign of our father, grandfather or
grandmother, neither my father's brothers nor their children nor my mother's
brothers. No one survived. Jewish extermination camps survivors, as well as
Jews that were hidden and those who returned from Russia, concentrated in the
city of Lodz. The city became the main national center for Polish Jews. Many
social, political and cultural institutions and organizations were established
there. I joined the Hanoar Hatzioni (Zionist youth) movement where I served as
a instructor and the secretary of the movement's branch in Lodz. I participated
in summer camps, and held various positions organizing, training and lecturing
in various branches of the movement throughout Poland on behalf of the national
leadership in Lodz.
At the time, I had also worked at the National Bureau of the Jewish National
Fund in Poland (Keren Kayemet) and was appointed secretary of the Coordination
Committee of all the youth organizations of the Zionist parties.
In Lodz two newspapers of the Zionist movement were published in Polish. An
editor of one of them, the monthly magazine Opinja, asked me to write a youth
section called Kolumna Mlodych. I told him that my knowledge of Polish was not
good enough for writing in the newspaper, but he replied that the language
issue was his problem and not mine. I shell write and he will correct and edit.
So, I did. I published the section several times and in March 1949, when I
turned 18, my editor granted me a press card of PAP (Polske Agenctwo Prasowe).
The magazine was closed by the authorities a short while after, and I
immigrated to Israel. Thus, ended my journalistic career in Polish but was
renewed a few years later in Hebrew in Israel.
During the last year of our stay in Poland, the Communist authorities
prohibited the existence of Zionist movements and organizations. Nevertheless,
we continued to operate illegally.
My sister Gita studied in the evenings at a Hebrew school named after
"Ghetto Fighters" that opened in the city but was closed by the
authorities after a while.
While lived in Lodz, our
mother once visited Bielsk where she met the Blumenthal (Beryl and his brother
and their mother) and Kam families, with whom she was in Siberia. She had also
met with our Polish neighbors from before the war.
We made a firm decision to immigrate to Israel, but there were all sorts of
difficulties made by the government which occasionally changed its policy
toward Israel and the Polish Jews. At one point, we already had passports for
the journey, but one morning police officers appeared at our doorstep and
confiscated them, apparently according to the changing directives of the Soviet
Union towards Israel.
In Israel
On March 30th, 1950, we finally arrived at Israel via Italy. We took a special
train organized by the Jewish Agency from Warsaw to Venice, where we were
transferred to an Israeli ship called Kommiut that transported us to Haifa
port. The ship was very old and used to transport coal for the British navy.
For the transport, three-story beds and ladders to the deck, were installed in
it. The journey continued for a few days. On the way, near Crete island, a
storm broke out in the sea. An alarm sounded and everyone was required to go up
to the deck. The high waves reached the deck and we almost drowned. This was
the last voyage of that ship after which it was dismantled for scrap because it
was not suitable for sailing. I remember the burning lights of Haifa in the
early morning when we reached the shores of Israel. There was a great
excitement and many wept. From the port, we were taken to shacks in a transit
camp at Haifa called Sha'ar Ha'aliya. Two weeks after, we were moved to a
different camp of shacks called the "Israel camp." It took many
months before we moved to a one-room apartment of 23 square meters in size. In
Israel, my sister Gita and I worked and studied in different places. Gita
graduated Tel Aviv University in economics and married to Leon Kogos, a
Holocaust survivor from Moldavia. They have two sons Benjamin and Noam and five
grandchildren. I have attended Tel Aviv University as well and received my
degree in accounting and law. I am married to Rivka from Schreiber family, a
Holocaust survivor who was born in Antwerp, Belgium. We have three children
Dina, Anat and Itamar and nine grandchildren. Years ago, I established an
accountancy firm in Tel Aviv and was active in various public and professional
organizations. I served as the President of the Certified Public Accountants
Organization in Israel, as a lecturer at Tel Aviv University and in many
professional and social organizations in the fields of accounting, economics
and business management. I have published over a thousand articles in the
economic and general press, mainly in Haaretz, where I edited a regular weekly
section for almost twenty years. I was the editor of the Certified Public
Accountants Organization magazine for seven years, as well as published another
professional independent journal.
Our mother, Shejna Freidkes died in Israel in January of 1989.
Others from Bielsk who
arrived in Israel after the war were the Pomerantz, Barchat, Kam, and
Blumenthal families.
My visit to Bielsk
In 1996 My wife and I visited Poland. Naturally, I visited Bielsk as well. I
could only identify the Cinema building and the train station from which we
traveled to Siberia, but not the buildings or streets. In the town square,
across the place where our house used to be, in the old town hall, a municipal
museum was opened with a permanent exhibition on the history of the city. I
asked to see exhibits of the Jewish community as before the war, half of the
city's residents were Jews. To my great disappointment, the two young workers
of the museum did not know what I was talking about. They tried to help but
could only find a postcard with a photo of a Polish officer who fell in defense
of the city, and said they thought he was a Jew because his name was Levi. They
also found an old sketch of the synagogue that was once there and is gone.
That's all that was left from the Jews in Bielsk.
Fortunately, there are people in Poland who have not forgotten the role and
contribution of the Jewish community to Poland during the nearly 1,000 years of
its existence on Polish soil. One of them is the historian Mr. Wojciech
Konończuk, who has made a continuous effort collecting, editing, and
publishing testimonies. We are grateful for his contribution. I was also very
happy to hear from him that in November 2017 a square in the heart of Bielsk
was officially given a new name: "Plac pamięci zydów Bielskich"
or "Square in memory of Bielsk's Jews".
As a member of the Jewish community I am grateful for initiatives taken by some
museums and other institutions around Poland who act to commemorate its Jewish
citizens.
Nahum Freidkes
_____
Seder night from 1939
A large and bright dining room. The long table set for the holiday is covered with a white tablecloth and many Passover dishes are on it. Grandparents (Benyamin and Nechama Kubinski), my parents (Sheina and Kalman) and my sister Gita, my mother's two brothers (Zorah and Avraham) and their partners and my little cousin Raya sat around him. We are all festively dressed and ready to welcome the holiday.
I was 8 years old and got up to ask the questions when suddenly the light went out and alarm sounds were heard throughout the city. Only the candles lit by Grandma Nechama illuminated the table and us sitting around it. We all froze for long minutes until a calming siren sounded and the electricity came back on.
No. It was not (yet) a war, but the atmosphere was very tense and the writing was on the wall. It was in my hometown (Lida) in Poland, where our grandparents and uncles lived. We came there, like every year, from our city of residence in Bielsk Podlaski to spend the holiday week together.
Germany did not hide its intentions and openly declared its "Aspiration to the East" (Drang nach Osteen). After the Austrians also "united" with Nazi Germany and they annexed Czechoslovakia, Poland was marked as their next target. The Poles decided to fight, and the authorities conducted civil defense maneuvers. The time they chose as the most appropriate for testing the alarm horns was when all the Jews (about a third of the city's residents) were sitting at the holiday table. And so the scourge of darkness was brought down upon us. This moment became for me symbolic and a harbinger of the great darkness that soon followed.
And when I was walking, on the holy day, with my uncle Avraham in the street, we heard an alarm again and from a military car passing by, tear gas grenades were thrown. My uncle quickly pulled me into the yard and we moved away from the place. He explained to me that Poland is afraid of a gas attack on it and is examining the preparedness of the population for such a case. That day my uncle purchased gas masks for our whole family and showed us at home how to wear them.
This is how we spent the last joint family Passover. Six months later, on September 1, 1939, the Germans attacked Poland, occupied and divided its territory between them and the Soviet Union. Our place was in the part controlled by the USSR.
Two years later, in 1941, we held a limited Passover Seder. This time it was just the four of us, my parents, my sister and I, in a small, half-dark room in a rented apartment. Our house burned down even before that. On the table was a bottle of wine and a small packet of unleavened bread that my father obtained secretly, since the authorities forbade baking them as a religious custom that is not acceptable to them. From that evening I mainly remember the conversation between my parents that took place at the table. My father then says that Yitzhak Greenbaum (Zionist leader and Israel's first interior minister) and Ze'ev Jabotinsky were right in their call for the "evacuation" (evacuation and rescue) of the Jews from Poland even before the war broke out. That evening I saw my father for the last time. He was murdered by the Nazis in Treblinka in November 1941, while my mother and sister and I survived in Siberia.
Shortly after that Passover (on June 22, 1941) the Germans attacked again. This time Russia and the Second World War broke out in full force.
Nahum Freidkes
_____
The Jewish fighters in the World War
I refer to Vicky Idzinski's article "Where did the Russian speakers go" from January 3, 2020 and would like to add that the media and the Israeli establishment ignore both the fate of Soviet Jewry during the comparative period and its part in the war against the Nazis.
On May 9, 1945, the remnants of Hitler's forces surrendered and the World War ended. The whole world celebrated this victory achieved by brutal fighting, with a tremendous effort and with close cooperation between many countries and peoples. We, the Jews, also celebrated our victory and survival.
The countries raised their flags and also counted their heavy losses. We, the Jews, did not have a country or a flag to raise, but we also counted our martyrs and the members of our people who were murdered with so much brutality by the Nazis and their helpers.
The nations of the world took pride, each in their part, in fighting and winning. Whereas we remember every year and keep in our memory the partisans and ghetto rebels, who bravely fought their last war, and the volunteers of the Haaretz-Israel Brigade. But in addition to them, many Jews participated in the war of existence as soldiers in all the allied armies. Their contribution and their share in the victory far exceeded their relative share in the Allied populations.
The media and institutions in Israel, for some reason, ignore their share in the victory and are content to celebrate the heroism of the partisans and ghetto fighters only. But the Jews also fought the Nazis as soldiers in the allied armies and their relative share in the fighting was much greater than members of other nations.
The time has come to remind ourselves and the world that about a million and a half Jewish soldiers also served in the armies of the countries that fought against the Nazis, and about a quarter of a million of them fell in battle. This is in addition to the six million of our people who were murdered. At the time, the Soviet Union published data and analysis on the participants of the World War. Among the recipients of the title "Hero of the Soviet Union" in the Red Army, the Jews were in second place (in absolute numbers and not in percentages). Whereas relative to their part of the population they were in first place. And when soldiers returned from German captivity - Jews were not among them because the Nazis spared others and murdered them.
Many of the elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Union still living with us have signs of heroism and excellence. They don't always get the treatment and respect they deserve in our country. A state initiative is urgently requested to collect and preserve their testimonies as they preserve the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, because soon it will be too late. Israel celebrates many holidays and memorial days. One of the most important should be May 9, the day of victory over Nazi Germany and its allies. We all live thanks to this victory and thanks to it the State of Israel was also established. The Soviet Union awarded about 12,000 of its soldiers the "Hero of the Soviet Union" badge, according to their publication about 2,500 of them were Jews. The population of the Soviet Union during the war was about three hundred million, of which about three million were Jews, i.e. about 1% of the population, but their proportion among the recipients of the badge of heroism was, as mentioned, over 20%. The time has come to publish and emphasize this to the public and the whole world. This is extremely important for our image in our own eyes and in the eyes of our friends and enemies alike and for future generations.
The government decided back in 2002 to establish a "Museum of the Jewish Warrior" near Latrun, but the matter is still "under treatment" until there are no more witnesses left alive. To the best of my knowledge, no action was taken to collect evidence either.
The duty of the state authorities is to check the omission in the establishment of the museum and the publication and dissemination of news about the part of our brothers as fighters in the war and victory in it. We must also include the subject in our education system.
Nahum Freidkes, Holon
_____
For the Memory and
Honor of Jokers
Humor has always been the weapon of the weak. Of those who could not express
their distress and could not change their situation.
During World War I was in Siberia for about five years. Despite being a young
student at school, I was well aware of what was happening around me, the
culture, the atmosphere and the reality of life and memories from those days
that accompany me to this day.
The years pass, the times change and the folklore of the past is not always
understood by our children and grandchildren. That is why I decided to compile,
tell and explain some of the jokes from that far-off period when "The Sun
of Nations" (Stalin's nickname) shone above the Great Power from the East
and threatened to burn our world of the West.
Life was difficult. There was a lack of essential necessities, individual
rights were limited, and the dictatorship of the government was felt in all
spheres of life. Many Soviet residents at that time tried to comfort themselves
and their friends by word-of-mouth jokes. "The songs help live" -
says a popular Russian song. And the stories and jokes even more. The humor
helped the Soviet Union residents to live and survive in difficult times, but
it also posed a great personal danger to both storytellers and listeners.
Every joke was a ten (years in prison in Siberia...) and its tellers were among
the "Gulags" (forced labor camps) who built the land of socialism,
its developments and factories. Comedians Gigan and Schumacher (in Yiddish)
were among those at the Gulags for their sense of humor and joke-telling, and
therefore "earned" their reputable contribution to the construction
of socialism.
We remember the great vision of the "International" anthem: "The
old world we will destroy to the ground -and a new will be built in its
place." Indeed, the first part of their vision was fully fulfilled in the
Soviet Union and even beyond their borders.
There is a story about foreigners who met around a roundtable to entertain each
other by telling jokes about their governments, its governors, and
leaders. All participated but the Russian, who was silent. The others asked
him: “Are there no jokes about your government that you can tell us?” So the
Russian replied: “There are! But it’s not worth telling them.” “And why not?”
The Russian replied, “did you hear about the dug trenches, paved roads, bridges
built, and towns settled in the distant tundra and other remote places?” “Sure
we heard and admired the huge enterprises of the Soviet state,” they answered.
“And do you know who built these magnificent projects?” “No, we haven’t
heard.” “All these were built by the jokes tellers.”
In another meeting, the representatives of the various countries talked about
the commonly used vehicles in their country. The German said that in the city
they travel in Volkswagen, while for special events they take BMW. For visiting
the neighboring countries, it is common to use Mercedes. The French said that
within the city they usually use Renault, for official visits, Citroën, and for
other countries, Peugeot. The Russian explained that for travel in the
immediate vicinity, the commoners use Zis ,more important people use Volga
model cars, while visiting neighboring countries, we travel only with… tanks.
The Constitution of the Soviet Union stated that the elections for its
institutions would be general, direct, proportional, and secret. In Kolkhoz the
day of the election, a long queue of voters was formed on a ballot box. The
foreman saw his employees spend working hours for what he considered a
non-productive cause, and therefore decided to streamline and shorten the
process. He pre-filled all the envelopes in the ballot papers and distributed
them to the people waiting in the queues, who then only had to send them to the
ballot box. And then he sees one of the voters turning aside, carefully opening
the envelope he received from the foreman, and peering into it. “What are you
doing?” - asks the manager. “I just wanted to know who I am voting for” - the
employee answers. “What, don't you know that the elections are secret?” - The
manager scolds him.
As for free speech - An American tells A Russian: With us in the US, I can
stand in front of the White House and shout to the President: "You are
crazy!" And nobody will do anything to me. The Russian replies: for us
it’s even better: I too, can stand in Moscow in the Red Square before the
Kremlin and shout: "The American president is crazy!" For that, I
will get a bonus and a promotion at work.
A new immigrant from the Soviet Union arrives in Israel. People ask him: “What
is the economic situation in the Soviet Union?” “You can't complain” - he
replies. “And how is the general feeling of citizens?” You can't complain. “And
the conduct of the government?” And he continues: “You can't complain.” “And
how does the situation in Israel seem to you?” “Oh, in this place, I can
already complain about that.”
In order to convey and explain to the public everything they need to know, a
special role was created in the Soviet Union called
"agitator-propagandist". Those in this position underwent special
training and would travel from one place to another, convene meetings and
lecturers and explain various topics such as the “Five Year Economy Plan” of
the country's economic development for the next five years. The lecturers were
instructed how to explain and illustrate to the listeners the bright future
they should expect. For example, guide the listeners - if you see in the
distance a person driving a car, point to it, and tell your listener that after
the upcoming "Five Year Plan" we will all be driving cars, like
him. Following the instructions, a lecturer reached his audience and
started lecturing. During his lecture he opens a window and sees a beggar
leaning on a walking stick. He addresses his listeners, points to the beggar
and says: See him? After the completion of the new "Five Year Plan,"
we will all look and feel like him.
Another lecturer explains to his listeners how good it will be after the
government plans are fulfilled and new horizons are opened to everyone. The
broadened horizons promise happiness, wealth, and a good life. At the end of
the lecture, during the questions phase, one of the participants asks the
lecturer to explain to him what these “horizons” of which he spoke are, because
the word "horizon" is unfamiliar to him. "Horizon," the
lecturer responds, "is something you see at a great distance and, as you
try to get closer and reach it, the farther it gets from you".
In another case, a lecturer explains to kolkhoz members that at the end of the
first Five-Year Program, each will win a bicycle, at the end of the second
Five-Year a car, and at the end of the third Five, each will get an airplane.
One listener asks the lecturer "Why would a kolkhoz member need an
airplane?" The lecturer then gives him an example: "Suppose in your
kolkhoz there is a lack of matches and you can't get them in the nearby
city. But you heard that in Moscow you can get everything. In this case,
you can get in your plane and fly to Moscow to buy matches".
I personally remember a lecturer from the "Young Atheists"
organization who lectured to us at the high school students' meeting in town.
He spoke of and cited newspapers from the Czarist era that described phenomena
defined by the church as "miracles", whereas today science can
explain them as ordinary natural phenomena, without "miracles" and
without relying on supreme power. At the end of his lecture, he asked us all
whether there is anyone in the lecture hall who still believes in God. Everyone
was silent and he dictated to his secretary for the record: "Write
unanimous." The next day, I read in the local paper the important news:
"The city's school students gathered for a special assembly and, after
hearing a lecture and a discussion, they unanimously decided that there is no
god."
The Soviet Union authorities claimed that their technology was superior to the Americans’
in all areas. When the Soviets learned that in the US an electric chair is used
for the execution of criminals, the Soviets decided to install such a device.
Comrade Beria (head of NKVD) invited guests to demo the new device. A prisoner
was brought into the next room and guests were asked to check how fast and
efficient the Soviet process was. Indeed, a few minutes later a cry of pain was
heard from the room, but the shouting continued for long minutes. Beria angrily
turned to one of his assistants and asked why the process was taking them so
long. Comrade, the assistant explained, our facility is fine, but as usual, the
electrical power shut down…. so we use papers.
The lack of various commodities meant that instead of buying what was needed
and when people needed it, people bought what and when products were available.
(or "what is being shared today.") There is a tale of a
man walking through the street and seeing his friend standing by a door of
closed shop, followed by a long line of people. The man went to him and asked
what is being sold ("shared") here today. His friend replied that he
did not know. “So why are you standing here?” His friend replied that as he
walked down the street, he felt unwell and slept on the door of the store that
was closed. When he woke up, he saw the long queue that had formed behind
him." And if I have already managed, once in a lifetime, to be the first
in line, why should I give up my place?"
The shortage of goods led to many thefts from factories by their employees. At
a particular construction site, a guard stood by the gate and checked the
passers whether they removed anything from the factory. One morning he saw an
employee with a wheelbarrow full of garbage coming out of the gate to spill it
outside. The suspicious guard checked to see whether something was stolen and
hidden under the garbage and only then let it pass. This procedure repeated the
next day and the day after, and again every day. The worker would pass with a
wheelbarrow full of junk and the guard checked it repeatedly without finding
anything. After a few days, he turned to the employee and swore that he would
not betray or harm him in any way, but he was very curious to know what
the employee was stealing. "The wheelbarrows" answered the employee.
In the Soviet Union, two newspapers circulated nationwide: "Pravda"
("truth") which was a Communist Party newspaper and
"Izwiestia" ("news") government newspaper. There was a clear
separation between them and so they said in "Pravda" there was no
"Izwiestia" while in "Izwiestia " there was no
"Pravda" (in "truth" there was no news and in
"news" was no truth).
The kindergarten teacher asks the children to tell them something about what
they do at home. One child says: “Our cat gave birth to little kittens. They
are still blind, evidently very loyal communists …” “Stop,” says the
kindergarten teacher, “the supervisor of the Ministry of Education will come
tomorrow, and you will tell the story so that he will hear too.” The next day
the supervisor comes in and the teacher asks the child to tell the story again.
The boy starts: “Our cat is breeding little kittens…” “Is that all?” “they
weren’t anymore” - says the boy - “they had already opened their eyes.”
A new district governor is conducting a tour with his secretary at various
institutions in his district. They get to a hospital and he asks: “How much
does it cost you to hospitalize a patient?” “A thousand rubles per day,” says
the hospital manager. “That is not reasonable,” the governor says, “this is
excessive and we must all save.” They also visit a school and, again, after
being told how much its upkeep costs, the governor demands to reduce expenses
and save. The same goes for the kindergarten and every other institution. They
end up at a prison. “Holding the prisoners does not cost the state anything” -
explains the prison manager - “they work hard and the prison profits from large
surpluses in return for their work.” “That is not reasonable” - says the
governor - “we must improve their conditions and make them work a little less.”
When the governor and his secretary return to their office, the secretary asks
the governor why he has demanded that everyone cut expenses, but that the
prisoners' situation be improved. “What do you think comrade” - the governor
replied - “when our turn comes, will we be put in kindergarten?”
A Russian was asked how Soviet citizen felt in their country. And his answer
was: "Like being on the bus, some site and all others stumble and
tremble.”
Stalin was a pipe smoker. He once entered his office and couldn't find his
pipe. He activates a red communication button with Beria (the head of the NKWD)
and says: “Beria, my pipe was stolen.” We will deal with them immediately -
Beria responds. Stalin sits down and sees the pipe. He calls again: “I found
the pipe.” “Too late,” Beria answers, “they have already pleaded guilty.”
The authorities, for some reason, attach great importance to the fact that the
defendant explicitly states that he is guilty. In his book "Keep
Forever", journalist and author Joshua Gilboa talks about his imprisonment
and interrogation for his Zionist activities. After several days of continuous
investigation, the tired investigator (also a Jew) gives him a suggestion:
“Sign the plea that you are guilty, and I will recommend a light sentence for
your actions.” “But explain to me what I am accused of” - the defendant asks.
“Don't you trust the intelligence of our people?” “Sign your admittance and I
will find the appropriate law for an accusation.”
Molotov (the foreign Secretary) and Stalin await a conversation with the
president of the United States. Stalin coaches Molotov: “The American will
probably make all kinds of suggestions. No matter what he offers, you will
always answer ‘No’.” The call arrives and Molotov answers: “No ... No ... No
... Yes ... No ... No …” The call ends and Stalin punches the table: “What did
you say yes to?” “He just asked me if I could hear him” - Molotov answered.
The children were taught that Stalin is their father and that mother Russia is
their homeland. Ask a child what he wants to be when he grows up. “Orphan” -
will be their answer.
A tourist lands in Russia after a long flight and says: "We have arrived,
thank God." A Russian who stands next to him corrects him: "Here we
say thank Stalin." His hosts ask how he is doing and he says
"everything is fine, thank God." And again someone fixes it
"Thanks to Stalin for us". When this repeats for the third and fourth
time, the tourist gets upset and says: "Stalin is just a human, and what
if he dies?” So someone answers, " then we say thank God.”
The Soviet Union strictly enforced isolation, preventing contact and flow of
information between its residents and the outside world. There were only two
stations on the standard radio - one from Moscow and one local broadcasting
station that would announce the weather and local news. It was not possible,
and explicitly banned, to hear foreign broadcasts, and residents also could not
travel abroad. Strict isolation and restrictions helped convince the public of
the benefits of the regime and that, in capitalist countries, life was much
worse. This isolation broke during the World War when the Red Army and other
Russian officials entered Europe. While everything was devastated, signs of
life that preceded the World War could be identified and did not match what
Soviet citizens knew and had been told to think about life across the border.
People who visited foreign countries in the military or other jobs were briefed
in advance by the authorities to praise the Soviet regime and to tell
foreigners that Russia has no shortage of anything and everything is plentiful.
A Russian was asked abroad whether or not Russia had oranges. He did not know
what those were but replied: "Certainly, in Moscow there are huge
factories that produce oranges."
There is a story told of a Russian citizen who returned from Europe to his
country and was prosecuted for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda. What do you
blame me for? He asked. And the prosecutor explained: This man dares to argue
that there, across the border, there is life before death.
The flow of information that reached the USSR about the possibility of living
differently and having a "life before death" was one of the main
causes of the decline of the Soviet Union. Knowledge is power, and the gradual
process of its infiltration and impact on the population lasted for years and
only in December 1991 did the Soviet Union finally fall.
Knowledgeable people say that even the one who dismantled it, Mikhail
Gorbachev, was exposed to Western culture on his visits abroad for a few years
before finally deciding and causing its decline. Detaching the population from
information sources and controlling what citizens know is characteristic of
dark regimes in those days and times. What's more - advanced technology opens
up amazing and threatening possibilities for rulers. Although formal democracy,
which is still in our world, allows citizens to speak as they wish, it gives
too much power to the government to act as it wishes in the area of information
distribution and supervision of its use.
The Soviet regime is now gone. Many important changes have caused this, but
telling jokes made also a modest contribution to its collapse.
And so we will remember and honor the men telling jokes,
Nahum
Return to table of contents
Back to the Bielsk Podlaski home page
Updated
February 25, 2025
Copyright © 2025 Andrew
Blumberg
JewishGen Home Page | KehilaLinks
Directory
This site is hosted at no cost by JewishGen, Inc., the Home of Jewish Genealogy. If you have been aided in your research by this site and wish to further our mission of preserving our history for future generations, your JewishGen-erosity is greatly appreciated.