By Ilya Magid

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY BEFORE WORLD WAR II

1. Introduction
2. About my Childhood
3. My School years

Editors: Steven Siegel and Dan Smollens

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY BEFORE WORLD WAR II

1. INTRODUCTION

That is a brief word about me before world WWII

I am Ilya Magid, Jew. I was born in the town of Orsha, Byelorussia in 1924 (in that year Lenin died.)

There are some words about Orsha. The first mention about Orsha is in a Chronicle in 1067. From the year 1300 Orsha was under authority of Lithuania, later Poland, and after 1772 under Russia. In 1922 Byelorussia joined the Soviet Union (including Orsha). About 50 thousand people lived there before World WWII, of which 30% were Jews. Near Orsha was a big railway junction (on the ways between Minsk -Moscow and Leningrad -Kiev.)

I remembered Lenin was the name of the main Street close to the center. On the right side of the street there were the 'stolovaya', (in America that is the name of the restaurant where it is possible to eat dinner, but not to drink alcohol); the main post office, and playground, (in the evening there played a military orchestra, for which we had to pay money); further down the street there was theatre.

On the left side of the street there was department store, long two -story brick buildings of the NKVD (KGB). In front of the building was an open Small Park. Some shops continued along the street.

My mother, Frada Chernikovsky, and her four brothers lived there. One of her brothers was the owner of a plant producing beverages. When I was about 2-3 years old, my mother and father divorced. The attitude of her brothers about that divorce was unknown to me. My father did not contribute to our support.

Probably in 1928 when NEP (New Economic Policy) was ended (it was begun in 1923), the government began to persecute business owners. Then my uncles moved to Leningrad. They sent us each month 50 rubles. (That was a very small income.) In the beginning of WWII I completed ninth grade of High School.

The 'People's Socialist State' did not give us any money.

2. ABOUT MY CHILDHOOD

My childhood was connected to collectivization in the Soviet Union (the 1930s). The peasants were forced to join the 'kolkhoz' (collective farm.) The rich peasants were deported to Siberia. The villages collapsed.

I remember that each week my mother's brothers, who lived in Leningrad, mailed us a package with four loaves of black bread. (The distance between my town and Leningrad was about 800 kilometers.) Maybe in Leningrad bread was more abundant, or perhaps it helped that my uncle worked in the trade.

During that time I broke my tooth eating that dry bread. (I always had good appetite.)

I remember how my mother took me to the town's women's bath with her. Some things I hid from my mother. I knew where she kept her money. Sometimes I stole money and went to the 'stolovaja'. That was a hard time. Many orphans after the civil war (1917-20) were in our town. During the night they lived near the warm tank of asphalt. (The asphalt was warmed for covering sidewalks.) I remember once one shop wanted to sell chintz. Before the shop opened there came so many people, that when the shop was open, one woman was crushed.

In the 1930's there were 'torgsin', special shops, where you could buy everything, but only with dollars or gold, not rubbles. If you had American relatives you could live well.

I remember at first I lived with my mother in a small room in the house of my uncle (Pioneer Street 12). The street goes down to the river Dnepr. There was a big fruit garden. That was the property of my Uncle Kusja. Through our window I saw a big pear tree. In the fall the pears became so yellow and mellow that they fell to ground and split into a many pieces.

Later we lived in a big almost all-Jewish neighborhood. There was a big two-story building facing the street (Lenin Street, house 43). Around the courtyard were located 4 or 5 one story long buildings. They surrounded a big field. We lived in a two story building on the second floor. There lived also two more families. There was a kitchen for all the families. We had one room, and went to our room across a corridor, where there was a bed with an elderly mother, our neighbor. They had two rooms: a living and bedroom. The neighbor worked in the town's theater as an administrator. Sometimes the artists of a traveling theater stayed with her.

The old mother lived also in the second family. Sometimes she asked my mother to cook her fat meat pies in our pot and then mother gave her the boiled meat back.

I saw the performance of a troupe of midgets in our theatre.

I remember one case. I dreamed to buy skis. Many times I asked my mother to buy skis for me. She answered that we did not have money for skis. But I previously had stolen money from her for skis. I had a problem buying them. Once I went with my mother and unobserved threw the money on the ground in front of me and cried, "I found money!" After that she permitted me to buy the skis.

The story about the skis had a continuation. Once I skied on the street, One boy asked me, "Give me the skis, I will ski only a short distance." I gave them to him, but he skied and did not think to give them back to me, then I began to beat him with the ski pole. He threw the skis down and ran away. That boy was connected with a gang and that gang persecuted me.

I remember also another incident. On the main street (Lenin Street), one man stood and drank some beverage at a kiosk. He had in his left hand a suitcase. One orphan tried to open his suitcase, while squatting. Many persons passed near by but nobody confronted him.

Very often I went to the daytime showing of the cinema. There played the revolutionary films

I remember a spring, workers palled the ice-floes to the shore by hook and line from the bank of the river. They built high mounds from the ice-floes. Then they covered them with sew dust. They used the ice to preserve ice cream during the summer. Maybe there were other uses were. Around the ice-cream venders was a paddle of water.

3. MY SCHOOL YEARS

At that time I never heard about synagogues and religious life. But in 1924, I had my circumcision. I remember only that the Yiddish language when mother spoke to other people and she went to a special man to kill a chicken (shochet).

I studied in a Byelorussian school. (I was assigned to attend that school) When I went to school in first grade I had an accident. My classmate was a doctor's son. For him there came a driver with a horse and sleigh. I hitched a ride on that sleigh. When the sleigh began to move, I fell and my foot got caught under the runner and the sleigh pulled me. People from the curbside shouted to the driver about that. He stopped the sleigh. I tried to stand up but my foot was broken. I began to cry. The driver brought me to hospital. My mother came to me. I remember that other patients of my room liked me as young boy. One patient made some toys for me from bread.

When I was in second grade I fought with another student (8 years of age.) For that reason I was sent to a special school. (I think that I was dressed badly and nobody would defend me before the official.)

In that period (1931-32) the Soviet Government had a policy for education. They collected all children from 7 to 16 years of age and forced them to go to school. (There were orphans and others.)

That school was located about 3 kilometers from my house on the outskirts of the town near a cemetery and a small church. That was difficult walk, especially in the winter. Our school was a one - story wooden house. There were a big room for studying, a recreation room, and a room for teachers. In the school there was one designated eating time for warm meat. (That was the reason why students went to school. That was a time of hung.)

The study room had a cylindrical stove at the end of the room. There were located two classes: beginning and advanced. There was one teacher and one blackboard. The board was divided fifty-fifty. She gave exercises for both classes. One class was located on one side of the room, and the other class- on the other side of the room.

I was the youngest in the school. To protect myself from other students I gave my dinner to the strongest student, who defended me. I told a lie, "I had already eaten chicken at home". Teachers could not do anything to protect me. Very often the student argued with the teachers. I was a pawn in their hand. I remember that I stood on a table and thumped my feet on the surface of the table. The teacher went to my mother and spoke with her. I remember the following situation:

a.) Once a teacher expelled from class one boy and one girl. They began to have sex in the recreation room. That became known. All students went out from class and began to shout and persecute them.

b) The peasants came to a hay market on a wagon. One student cut the peasant's bag, which contained his lunch usually bread and pigs fat ('sidur'). I saw the peasant hunting for that student near our school, but he did not find him.

Our special school had only 4 grades, therefore I had to return to my regular school for the fifth grade.

When I was 10 years old my father visited me. We walked in the town. He told me that he wrote a manuscript called, "History of Partisan Movement in Byelorussia". He had family in the city of Minsk (it seems he had two daughters). Very soon he went back to the city of Minsk.

One time in the mathematics lesson I presented the theorem that appeared some other way in textbook, and my teacher was astonished.

Once in our class my classmate and I wanted to settle our relationship. We decided to fight. After class we and many other students as spectators went to the yard at my house. The result of the fighting was that we fell to the ground and continued to fight there. One adult person drove us away and stopped our fighting.

Near our town Orsha there was a military airfield. Aviators had problem with sex. Prostitution formally was forbidden. There were many agents who provided the aviators with women. One of the places was the town's movie house.

On the main street (Lenin's Street) there was a row of kiosks, where you could buy drinks, beer, etc. A man with a woman would buy refreshments. Afterwards they would go to the rapids along the bank of the river and there had sex.

On one side of the river there was a stadium. Orsha's teams played there against other teams in soccer. At the time of one of the gams' somebody shouted, "Sex was taking place along the river bank." All spectators ran there. The ball playing was interrupted

On the other side of stadium was our school. Once during recess somebody told us, "A drunken woman lay on the bank." All the boys from our class ran to the bank to see that woman.

I remember only one teacher from school. He taught us mathematics. His name was Kaletski. He was a good teacher and had two journals, one official and the other his own small one; in both of them he wrote remarks about the students.

There was a library with reading room. I read many books. I had a problem with the librarian. She gave me only one book and the next day I returned it. The librarian argued with me. I read in the reading room many books about the geography of different countries, economics and other subject.

In the year 1940 before WWII there was the winter war with Finland. The result was that the Government by horse-drawn wagon drove to our homes to sell only the ration of bread.

I saw soldiers training on skis from the rapids along the bank of the frozen river. Many soldiers never skied. We watched as soldiers rolled from the bank with broken skis, poles and feet. (The commander ordered them to ski.)

I described my life also in the book "My military time" (1997).