By Ilya Magid
2001

JEWS THEMSELVES ARE GUILTY FOR THE EXISTENCE OF ANTI-SEMITISM (Aaron story)

1. Time Before World War II
2. Time of World War II and After the War
3. Emigration Life
4.Some Real Stories

A Jew did not have to assert himself
Aron

JEWS THEMSELVES ARE GUILTY FOR THE EXISTENCE OF ANTI-SEMITISM
(Story of my neighbor Aron)

I. Time before World War II

Aron told me, "My grandfather was the big Rabbi Weizel. He had a double last name, but I do not remember his second last name. His name is mentioned in the Jewish encyclopedia.

I was born in the town of Baranovichi (Byelorussia). When I was one year old, WWI began. Our family four children, moved from Baranovichi to the town of Gomel. At first I studied in heder, until it was closed. Then I studied in a Russian school. There at a certain time, a private teacher came to teach me. (He knew Hebrew better than Russian.) I was going with my father to the synagogue.

I remember how we celebrated Passover. My father sat on a chair, on a pillow, and conducted the Seder.

At 14 years of age I traveled to my sister in Moscow (1926). Later my brothers also came to Moscow. I enrolled in FZO (factory and workshop school). There I was paid 16 rubles a month. When I was 16 years old I was enrolled as mechanic at the plant, where I received 60 rubles a month. I tried to receive a room from the plant. They promised it to me but they did not give it to me. I changed plants. Then I received a room (I now had a dream to marry).

(At that time, there were a labors exchange; we received jobs through the exchange, which was closed after 1929).

I studied in the 'rabfak' (educational establishment set up to prepare workers for higher education). I entered the Institute and graduated in 1932 and was assigned to the ball bearing plant (10 thousand workers) by the foreman.

I understand why anti-Semitism rose among Russian. In our plant among the leaders there were many Jews, but among the workers there were only a few Jews. [There were also many Russian leaders, but nobody envied them.] On payday some wives came to my workshop and received money for their husbands, or waited at the plant exit, because if their husbands received money themselves, they guzzled away their money. [In the Soviet Union, each worker had to sign a pay list. We did not receive an envelope with money as in America.] Many Russian women dreamed to make a match with Jews, who were not drunkards and who did not beat their wives.

2. Time of World War II and After the War
With a high rank in the plant I had to be accepted go to member of the party. I was accepted into the party during wartime.

In the beginning of World WAR II my father was evacuated from Gomel to the interior of the country. I continued to work at the plant. Very soon Germans approached Moscow. All workers were dismissed. I was kept in the group, which had to blow up the plant.

I remember one case. In the workshop, where I worked as foreman, there was a good worker, but a drunkard. Many times he was not on the job, because he often was drunk as a skunk. I covered for him. He told me, "Right now we will lynch you".

I was married in wartime. My wife lived together with her father and mother in one room. We exchanged our two rooms for one apartment (That was good, because in another case if somebody died, and the room became, free, the government would take it.)

Soon after World War II another person and I were sent to Germany. We had the task to confiscate all plant equipment in a certain plant. We had adequate documents for that. We were there for two months. I had the military uniform of the rank of captain; another person had the uniform of the rank of major. (Previously he served in the army.) We arrived in Germany at the military commandant's office and showed our documents. Nobody knew where the plant was. They gave us a platoon of soldiers with commander. The commander was drunk all the time, and beat his soldiers. When we asked them, "Why did not they report to the upper level?" They said, "Right now we are waiting for the demobilization. If the commander wrote a negative report about somebody, he would not be demobilized." All other military commanders also were drunk all the time.

After two weeks we found that plant. There was manufacturing under the prison. (Prisoner Telman was there in the 30s.) All was destroyed. There were ovens for burning, which were not needed for our plant and other equipment. We received the order, "Make a clean sweep." The Soviet soldiers loaded two railway cars with equipment for our plant.

We saw a Jew, who lived in the concrete tube during the fascist time. The Germans gave him food at night. Right now he was discontented because he had the same ration of bread as other Germans.

On the border between Poland and the Soviet Union there was necessarily an overloaded train because in the Soviet Union there is a wide railway track but on the West it is narrow. All our equipment was loaded onto the platform. There was a big line for the train into the Soviet Union. We waited a long time for our train. Maybe it was necessary to give the commandant something.

There I saw the long railway train with Polish Jews, who had left at the time of the war in the Soviet Union, to the Caucasus. They were shoemakers, tailors, barbers, etc. and lived there no so poorly. (In the Soviet time there always a big shortage of those things, especially in the wartime). They told me that they did not know what life waited for them in Poland, but we could emigrate from Poland. They understood that they could not emigrate later from the Soviet Union.

After World WAR II my father drove to me in Moscow. (We lived five people in one apartment). I continued to go to the synagogue with my father. When we went to the synagogue we did not speak to other people. There were many stool pigeons. If we had spoken to them, as KGB members, they could misquote have our conversations. He died in 1954

Once I returned from the synagogue with two other religious people. One of them told me in a conversation, "When the war began, all Jews were exiled". After several days the KGB called me to ask, "How did you know those people?" They called me to the KGB three times. They told me that I should help them to report about similar conversations. It was a proposal for me to become a stool pigeon, 'stucach'. I refused that suggestion. I calculated later that a 70-year-old Jew from our group began that conversation. After that I did not go to the synagogue".

When I asked Aron what was the town from which his father was evacuated, he told me, "Are you working for the KGB? They have many agents here. Are you calling the KGB? I understand the situation."

Aron told me, "I have to meet with the KGB early. Once I was called into the district recruiting office where our plant was located. When I appeared, they told me to wait. I was invited to a room where there was a representative of the KGB. He told me, "We are interested in the leader of the manufacturing division. There will be a meeting with him and you have to inform us about him. That leader was a good specialist and active person. (He was Russian. Maybe he was very talkative.) I did not have to report to the KGB office but my appearance was at his private apartment. The representatives of the KGB lived there, usually a government three-room apartment. (In that time the majority of the people lived in communal apartments there was one family in each room. They had one restroom and one kitchen for all.) I did not go to meet a representative of the KGB for different reasons. Very soon the leader of manufacturing division was dismissed.

After the war I worked as a foreman of the tool workshop and the last job was as an engineer-constructor in the construction bureau of the plant

About the last job, one of the leaders of our plant was assigned to organize an engineer constructor organization. He took some people into that organization, including me. I worked there 28 years before I retired.

I have one son. My son finished Moscow aircraft institute and specialized in automation. Then he together with some other graduates were assigned to the same plant. That plant was located close to our apartment. There was a fence; we knew nothing about the plant before my son went there. That was a very secret plant. Maybe the plant was underground.

He prepared his dissertation secretly at work. He found an institute where the dissertation was accepted; he then became Ph.D.

Other graduates from his group received a promotion but my son as a Jew did not. He was very angry. He moved to another division of the plant, but there also was no promotion. That was what compelled him to emigrate.

My son quit that secret job. He could not enroll in another job, because nobody would accept him. That helped the case. In their building was a fire. A crew of workers was assigned to repair the apartment. The crew and my son got drunk after work. My son told the brigadier about his problem at work. He told my son, "I appointed you." His good acquaintance was a leader of the organization; there were jobs in the automation of the tractors operation. That was my son's specialty. Other specialists were not there. He was enrolled in that job and worked there 2 years before he emigrated. My son, unknown to us began the process of emigration. He had two children, a son and daughter.

In the Soviet Union, my grandson studied in English school, then he went to Mathematics school. He was the Mathematics Olympic winner and was assigned with other students to America for several months. Then he returned to Russia.

3. Emigration Life

My son emigrated in 1987. I emigrated in 1992.

In America my son could hardly find a job. He concealed that he was a Ph.D. At the interview for a job, the company employer gave him an assignment. He sat at the table and wrote; he did not use a computer. (He did not know how to use a computer). Other coworkers were surprised. After a week his employer came to him and he explained to him that it was necessary to take another assignment. The employer went with him to the leader at the upper level. Then he was accepted for that Job.

Right now my granddaughter is 26 years of age and a grandson is 29 years of age.

My granddaughter graduated from Brandies University with a degree in biology and worked 3 years in that specialty. Then she decided to go to medical school. She had a big loan for education (may be a hundred thousand dollars).

My grand son after emigration entered MIT and graduated with a specialty in 'physics'. He did not like his job and decided to become a physics teacher. For that he studied one more year. He taught physics in a school near Miami for 3 years; then he was bored teaching physics, and he decided to become a dancing teacher. Right now he works as a teacher of South American dancers in N.Y. City.

Aron is a resident in our complex of buildings for the elderly. His wife died 5 years ago. (She was a good woman. Such woman does not exist now.) Here we have many services for people. Aron used only few of them. He helps ill people. Other younger people in our buildings do not help other people because they have their own problems.

His philosophy is, "G-d is absent".
My father was an uneducated person and he believed in G-d.
How could G-d know about each person?
Why does somebody have bad behavior and I have to have trouble?
It is not serious that the Mashiach comes close to us.
The Soviet Union collapsed because Yeltsin fought with Gorbachev.

4. Some Real Stories

4.1 Acceptation to the Party

Aron said, "In the Soviet Union in our building there lived one family. The husband was a Jew, but the wife was Russian. They lived well and had two daughters, one 20 and the other 22 years old. Once, a company of Jews gathered in one apartment. Suddenly this excited Russian wife ran to them and cried, "My husband was not accepted to the party, because he was a Jew, but he is not the same as other Jews"

(We did not have any parties except communist party. Entrance to the party was good for his career)

4.2 Save of Holocaust

The husband after death of his wife decided to get married. Two adult sons objected to his decision. (They lived in one apartment). Nevertheless he brought his wife to their apartment. She had a Russian last name and the mark in her passport was 'Russian'. The sons said, "She is else Russian".
The wife began to speak with them in clear Yiddish. She told her history. (That happened in the wartime in the occupied territory.) "The Germans ordered the Jews to take their things and form a line, I was included. One Ukrainian woman came to me and ordered, "Run, I will stand here instead of you." Maybe she knew the real situation. The Ukrainian woman showed her documents, and the neighbors supported her. The Germans dismissed her. I was helped to get Russian documents. That is how I saved myself."

4.3 Drunken Friend

The leader who took me into the construction organization took also high qualifications person. He was my friend, Russian, was not an anti-Semitic. He had a gold head but education only through high school. In a social party he did not leave because he did not finish all the vodka. Once in the company he sang. One specialist heard him, and invited him to sing to him. He told him, "I take you to study to be a singer, but it is necessary to end drinking". He refused. (It was impossible to see, what kind of terrible condition he was in as a drunkard.)

I ask him to help enroll my son when he was out of work. He had an important relative in ministry. That relative refused to do it, when he knew that he was a Jew.

His wife once pulled him from drunken company to their home. He lied and returned to drink up more vodka. There he died.

4.4 Jews themselves Organized anti-Semitism

That was in the time when I was a pensioner. We relaxed in the south in Zaporozie the birthplace of my wife at the plant rest house. One Jewish family acted defiantly. The husband had a good job. He worked at the center for manufacturing pens. He loaded the tubes of the pens with the ink sticks for the people and they paid him. (That was in the 70's.) That was a cash job; the government did not control his money. (For that job he had to pay big money illegally to somebody). His wife had gold rings on all fingers, etc. They loudly discussed emigration to Israel and made themselves conspicuous in public.