ON THE WAY TO THE SOVIET UNION

My sister and her friend took me to the railroad station and there I found out which train was heading east. I caught a military train carrying machinery from Germany. I boldly climbed aboard. In the wagon I saw two young Russians and two women, one of them elderly and all of them in military uniforms.

I said goodbye to my sister, waving from the open door and the train started to move. One young soldier, who was very drunk, attached himself to me. I didn't understand his intentions, but when he tried to hug me I pushed him away and he got angry. The elderly woman took my side and asked him if he couldn't see that I was still a child, and to leave me alone. He went to another corner and fell asleep. In my naiveté, I was not aware that I was in danger. I sat at the open door, dangling my legs for a while and said goodbye to Poland, at least to the part I was leaving. I swore to myself that whatever was ahead of me, I would never go back there!

I looked back at the passing villages, woods, forests, rivers, bridges and only one thought came to mind. How many innocent people found their death here, in this area? How many unknown, lonely graves were there?

The next morning I was in Lublin, a former Jewish city with a vibrant Jewish life. It was notoriously famous because Maidanek was there. I knew a lot about the extermination camp as I had talked to a survivor. When the Nazis and their collaborators decided to kill the rest of the Jewish prisoners, eighteen thousand were slaughtered in two days on a big field. The operation was called "harvest". The Polish inmates in the barracks were celebrating this event. They drank vodka when the Jews died and made toasts to the German's efficiency in eliminating the "Yids".

I found the collection centre on the outskirts of Lublin. It was swarming with crowds of Russians and Ukrainians who were returning home from Germany, from labour camps. Many of them had volunteered for that, but now they were hiding that fact, making themselves victims of the Nazis. Their baggage looked otherwise, it looked as though they had a lot of loot and were bringing home their trophies.

Because the Germans robbed all of Europe, especially the Jews, it was not a sin to take it back except the wrong people were doing it. The real victims were dead, or in such a state that worldly goods didn't interest them.

Overwhelmed and lonely in this noisy crowd, I wandered around looking for a place to sit on the floor of a big hall. Suddenly, it came to me that I was all alone; nobody cared about me and my "bright" future and I became cloudy with my tears.

After being with my sister again for a whole year, now I voluntarily separated from her and Luba, and finding myself again alone, it hit me with such ferocity. Alone in the world, nobody to talk to, even the language is foreign, the people around - strangers...

I cried for my destroyed, happy childhood, my family, my home. I cried in fear of what the future would hold for me (if there was a future). And I think, deep inside, I begin to understand that I am making a mistake leaving my sister and aunt, and going into the unknown. Silently, I cried. I cried for my parents, I cried for my ruined childhood and I couldn't stop crying.

On the third day, somebody reported to the office about a girl who cries in the corner. I was led in and after a few questions, they assigned me to the medical team who occupied a little house nearby. I slept with the nurses upstairs on the floor. Downstairs was the medical part with the drunken doctor, Tatar, who was supposed to check the health of the people. Mostly, he drank and made demands on the nurses and made them miserable. The food came from the main office where the kitchens were. It was mostly soup from American cans, but it tasted good.

Looking out the window, I noticed a strange wasted land with long rows of barracks. I asked what was in there, although I feared the answer. Maidanek, they told me very casually. The next day there was an excursion set up and I was able to join them to see ....

So, I joined the big crowd of curious people. Dragging myself between the barracks, I felt all the sorrow of my people who perished there. The gas chamber, the crematorium, a stone table outside to operate on the victims who swallowed their jewellery, the barracks full of shoes, children shoes, toys, glasses, cans. Mountains of rotting clothes of the poor, as the best were sent to Germany. The cement table had a hole in the middle for drainage of the blood.

It was a windy, spring day and this dead city depressed me to the point that I wanted to be dead, too. Why did I survive? It was more difficult to live with this sorrow and memories that I couldn't forget. I couldn't eat or sleep for several days and was afraid to look in its direction. The crowd reacted differently because for them it was a trip to a horror museum. I was angry at the whole world, and where was God? He was certainly not in Maidanek. God? I stopped believing when I was twelve years old.

One day, there was an inspection to check the work of the medics. The head of the Commission was a General, a Jewish doctor. Our drunken boss Tatar, tried to divert their attention away from himself. He wisely reported to the General that he was giving shelter to a Jewish orphan, and his medical staff took care of her under his direction. He never noticed me

The General asked me who I was and then ordered the head nurse Maria to bring me to his office in the city the next day.

The next day, when we arrived there, he sent Maria out to do some errands and now alone, he spoke to me in Yiddish, asking me about my story. We talked for a long time and we cried together. In the end, he hugged me and wished me good luck. He ordered his adjutant to give me a bag of fresh white rolls. I then went back with Maria to the Collection Centre.

I had no knowledge that this place was swarming with NKVD who were checking the arrivals and sending some of them right to Siberia. Many Russians, especially Ukrainians, claimed to be the victims of the Soviet and Nazis, and they stayed behind in the D.P. area. They hoped that they would arrive happily as refugees in the USA, Canada, Australia or South America. Justice was blind, or worse, it cooperated with criminals for some reason.

Finally, in the third week, the transport left for the east. Now, I was leaving Poland for good. Sure, I was delayed in my studies, but I hoped that soon I would be able to catch up. The first stop in Brest Litowsk gave me a surprise. I was taken off the transport, the only "foreigner" and I was "investigated" at the station by NKVD. I didn't understand what they wanted from me, but by the end of the day, they temporarily settled me in an orphanage for delinquents outside the city. Actually, I had no idea what was going on; the only thing that bothered me is the delay in my studies.

Because there were mostly boys in this place, I was placed in a little attic room with a window above the roof of the lower buildings. My bundle was taken from me to the storage for safety. Life there was dull and boring for the delinquents. Now they had a new target - the Jewess from Poland. I was oblivious of their conspiracy that started with small pranks like collecting lice to drop in my room. But, the next thing I definitely resented. They stole my bundle from the storage room, with the help of a girl who kept the key, and I was left with my toothbrush that was in my pocket.

The next thing was really frightening and forty years later it occurred to me what hell I miraculously avoided. One night I woke up from a noise and looked in the direction from which it came. To my horror, I saw a head trying to climb in through the little window. I jumped up and pushed the head back, seeing at the same time that he was not alone, a whole group was there. What did they want, I asked myself as I pushed back the next head. Sometimes I was successful, and only the appearance of the night guard saved me from a gang rape. I was still stupid, not being able to grasp the meaning of even this. But, the Director knew better. The next day, I was sitting on a train, going east to Kiev.

Why Kiev, I had the nerve to ask. I planned on going to Moscow. They shrugged me off. They were in such a hurry to get rid of me that they didn't even bother to give me some food for the trip. The little money I had was stolen with the bundle.

Later, I understood who the people in the train were. Russians and Ukrainians, who were going home from forced labour in Germany. Some of them - but many volunteered, or collaborated with the occupants.

Sure the majority refused to return fearing reprisals, the millions who rushed to the west, us "victims of Bolsheviks", were 99.9 percent criminals, helping the Nazis in killing the Jews, and other victims.

Anyway, I was in a crowd of people going home, but fearing it. For me, I was thinking there was no way back to Poland. Whatever happened, I was on my own.

So, I watched how others ate, craving for a crumb. For two days I looked out the window - so I didn't have to watch them stuff themselves.

The news came that the war was over while I was on the train. We passed cities with fireworks, people were celebrating, but all I could think about was food.

Anyway, on one nice day in May 1945, a strange person stepped out of the train in Kiev wearing a red coat, red hat, pink shoes and no luggage. It was early in the morning, and I walked the streets and wondered what the signs meant. I thought the Ukrainian word "Pezukamia" was a bakery because a bakery in Polish is "Piekomia". I later found out it meant "barbershop". After some wandering around, showing people my "document", I realized nobody had heard of a "special school". Finally, somebody advised me to visit the Ministry of Education, that they should know.

I found the building and got the Department of Elementary Education. They promptly asked me what grade I wanted to attend, where I lived and my address. When they found out that I didn't live there, they asked a few more questions and decided to send me to the orphanage NKVD in Kiev. They even gave me an escort, a woman who spoke Polish, as a translator. Outside, out of earshot, the lady asked me why I came there. Didn't I know that the country is ruined and people were starving? She suggested I had better think again and turn back ....

I was silent, but still stubborn. She brought me to the orphanage and left me in a big dormitory full of girls .... girls? Yes, but they were brought from the streets and many of them were prostitutes, or petty thieves or even worse. A very colourful crowd, and in the middle was me. The leader, a sixteen-year-old big mouth shot me questions. Are you from Poland? Did you leave a sister there? Oh ya, you probably stole something and ran away! And her questions were peppered with swear words, which she noticed I didn't react to. Do you understand this? And that? A full slew of swearing, and all I would do was look at her innocently. She found this so funny that she took me under her protection, like I was a mascot. Luckily, the Director of the orphanage, Eva Abramovna, put an end to this.

After investigating me, she took me to her quarters, which were within the same building, where she lived with her mother-in-law as her husband was still in the army. These two warm Jewish women kept me there for a couple of weeks, not knowing what to do with me. From this institution, the kids can only be transferred to a Juvenile Correctional Institution. Or better - one can be sent to work in Kiev factories.

What about my studies? I already knew that no special schools existed, that it was a lie that had lured me there, but I couldn't see a way back. I would never admit my failure, and now I have to make a life there. Doing everything in my best interests, Eva Abramovna personally took me by train to a big plant which made all kinds of cables and wires for the industry. So, my fate was sealed. I was placed in a dormitory with ten young girls and in the morning began to work in the factory for six hours a day as a teenager.

KIEV

The workplace was dusty and noisy. I was put in a little cubicle with an accountant and given the task of cleaning the place. In between cleaning, I had to make lines on sheets of paper for my boss, run errands for the Nochalnik in the next cubicle and learn the trade.

I was so dazed with everything around and not understanding what I was supposed to do, my mood was so low in this noisy environment that I acted like a robot. In the evening, I found out who my roommates were, what kind of girls they were. Actually, they came from the same orphanage, but were considered to be the "better kids" who could be re-educated with work. At their young age, they were already the dregs of society, and working by day at the factory, they had visitors at night from the nearby barracks. The nights were noisy, too. I put my cover over my head and tried to get a little sleep.

Right from the beginning, they resented me. First of all because I was Jewish (internationalism, equality) and second they resented me because I behaved differently but especially because I had plans to get an education. See, all Jews were the same. "They wanted to be better than the rest of them. They didn't fight on the fronts like their boys did; hiding in Tashkent; they care only about themselves."

I was devastated, but I couldn't even argue because my Russian was so limited there was no use in trying. The proportion of Jews who were named ”Heroes of the Soviet Union” (the highest medal for bravery), was greater than others. So many died in the battles. Still the lie persisted.

Second, I studied at the night school instead of whoring. Sure, they were envious, and my life among them was not a picnic. The next morning, I woke up to find my shoes were gone. They stole them to sell. So, I went around barefoot. I was totally in shock with their attitude towards Jews, their behaviour and vulgarity.

It was my bad luck to end up in this company with my high ideals. It was like you were thrown in a garbage can. The worst thing was that they were smart enough to understand that and they promptly hated me for my difference.

And because it was the easiest thing to put a label, a racist label - I am a Jew. This explained my difference. So let’s blame the Jews. Simple - like that.

Now their life is less boring. They were busy making me miserable.

There were ten beds in this room, and at night a few soldiers from the nearby garrison also bedded here .... Next to my bed was a girl (girl?) named Liza. She "worked" every night with a new partner. Soon, she developed a venereal disease.

I don't know what others developed but one got pregnant, and I remember the uproar, the laugh in the room, when she said that she got pregnant not by sexual contact. This crowd didn't believe in immaculate conception....

Anyway, for me it was a rude awakening from my dreams about an ideal equal society and about a decent life. Everything around seemed dirty and cynical. It was a whore house with street youngsters.

We ate lunch in "Stolova," a type of cafeteria where we paid with ration coupons. The food was so poor, mostly pickle soup, millet kasha (wormy) and compote. Everybody knew that the kitchen employees were stealing our food to feed their families, but there was nothing we could do about it. In general, it was a starvation diet and now I understood what the woman translator was talking about.

My Russian was poor, and I tried not to talk much, but I had to communicate somehow. Sometimes I got in situations where my lack of words made me do things I didn't want to do. For an example, we used to sit on long benches in the "Stolova." In order to get out, we would have to ask the person next to you to move. I forgot how to say "excuse me" in Russian, and I waited a long time before everybody left the table.

After a few days of this bedlam, I felt that my dreams were going up in smoke. I simply fell into such despair that I cried at work. My boss found out and promptly sent for help from the boss of the plant, a woman by the name of Loja Vasilievna.

She was very sympathetic to my wish, but she said that now it was summer vacation, anyway, and there was no school. But, what I really needed to do was to improve my Russian. Right. She very cleverly solved this problem by sending me to a private Russian teacher who was a Jewish woman who lived with her teenage son in a communal building. She was a communist and couldn't refuse the order, but I didn't think she was happy to do it without pay. But, it only lasted a couple of weeks because it was the end of vacation.

After work, glad to be away from the dormitory, I walked a few blocks to the house of the teacher. Usually, I came too early and had to wait in the yard for her arrival. The yard was big with a lot of tenants who lived there. In the middle of the yard grew a lonely pear tree with ripened pears. I looked up, longingly. It would be so good to eat a pear. At the same second, one of the pears fell out of the tree and with one jump, I caught it and bit it with gusto. Only then did I see children running to the tree, but seeing the trophy in my mouth, they turned away, unhappy.

I had no idea of the rules in the conglomerate; that nobody had the right to take a pear unless it fell down. The first who reached it was the winner. I didn't know how many eyes were watching that tree.

Soon, the school year began and I registered for the sixth grade with much chutzpa, having no idea how to manage the language. When I went to my first evening class, I was surprised at how many students were older than me! Many people were in the war and lost years of schooling. I didn't own any schoolbooks and we had to write notes, but my writing is atrocious, even I couldn't understand it.

Everybody was getting food rations or coupons once a month which could get bread in the store and a meal in the "stolova". Usually, you had to line up for bread and it was always black bread. Rye. Once, for the anniversary of the October Revolution, they brought a small amount of white bread. I hadn't seen white bread for a long time, and wanted to try the forgotten taste. The line was long, and I spent a few hours in line to have this rare treat. Happily, I ran home to the dormitory and hid my treasure under the pillow and went out to the washroom to wash my hands. When I came back, the bread was gone and my roommates were smirking. I didn't say anything to them. What was the use? For them it was a lasting joke that they liked to tell, how they stole the white bread from this Jewess, ha-ha!

I was detached from my roommates, quiet and silent, mostly coming in for nights. The only other Jew, a 23 year old woman lived in the next room and had a steady lover. Her name was Raja and our girls liked to watch through a crack in the door her antics with her lover.

Soon she was pregnant too, but was hiding her bulge, telling everybody that she gained weight from eating potatoes.

One day, she got slim again. A couple of weeks later, the plumbers were checking some pipes and under her window in the sewer, they discovered a baby with cotton in its mouth, suffocated.

The police questioned Raja, and she confessed it was her baby she killed. No, they didn't put her in prison. She was a Komsomol and the organization interfered, claiming she had made a mistake and she was a good member of the Komsomol. She would improve.

I was stunned with this final decision. You can kill a baby and get away with it? Incredible.

I had no idea that our neighbour over the fence was the boss of the Ukraine, Nikita Krushchov, but I found out in an interesting way. As I walked down the street, I always wondered who lived behind the long, green fence. I wondered because it was strange during these hungry times to see ripe fruit growing on the trees, which was rotting, and nobody was taking it off. In the garden, off the factory office, was a pear tree. We waited for it to ripen, and then we raided it. This was a tradition of the girls who worked in the factory. They said that in this country there was no such thing as private property and everything belonged to everybody. It was easy to convince me to join them, I loved fruit and we didn't have such a luxury included in our diet.

We went to the garden together and climbed the tree. We were very busy putting the pears in our blouses when suddenly an officer with a gun came running, screaming, "Get down, bastards or I will shoot!" Everybody fell out of the tree like ripened fruit on our side of the fence. This was Kruschov's guard. This true Communist lived there like a rich landowner not bothering about the rotting fruit when everyone around him was starving. One of our girls went out at night once, to get some fruit. She disappeared. A father of three boys was a butterfly collector. He had climbed on the green fence to capture a rare species, and disappeared.

Once, there was fire in the factory. Our neighbour came with his guards and screamed that my boss is careless and it was sabotage. While I was on an errand, I was walking down the steps of the factory office as he and his cohort were climbing up. I got a good look at him, but the guard pushed me roughly to the side.

This summer of 1945, in many cities were going through the process of catching Nazis, and the verdict was always hanging.

Many people went to watch these public executions. The Jews returning from evacuation were faced with the tragedy of "Babi Yar"and I am sure that many attended these executions, but not me. I didn't want to see such things.

One lawyer, a member of the trials committee , approached me and asked, "You were in Poland under the Nazis?" Yes I said. "Do you want to testify what you went through?" No, I don't want. I can't! I was not able this time to talk about this. It was too fresh a wound. No!

Anyway, they finished them off without my testifying. Later I was asking myself if I was right in refusing? But I was still a kid - 15 years old and afraid of public speeches, especially as my Russian was bad.

THE EVENING SCHOOL

I was very quiet at evening school, afraid of being called to the desk for a report. I couldn't imagine how I would do it in Russian.

My fall and embarrassment happened a couple of weeks later. The geography teacher, who was an old, fat lady, called out my name and I went to the wall map. The subject was "Spain." I knew the answers, but couldn't answer in Russian. Finally, I began to answer in Polish and the next thing I knew, the teacher was trotting me to the principal's office. My schoolmates were smiling, amused as I went to the principal's office. After explaining my situation, he gave me a few weeks respite, to listen and learn. I was learning fast.

I didn't have a place to do my homework because by the time I came home from school, everybody was sleeping and I couldn't wake them up with the light. Again, my boss intervened and I was permitted to do my homework in the factory office. Nobody was there at night and I had enough room and light and often stayed there late.

My living conditions at the dormitory changed a little as I was moved to a smaller room that held only four people. One of them was a lame girl named Gala, who was silent and moody and lived more in her imaginary world than in the real one. Sometimes she broke her gloomy silence and talked to me, but not often. Second was Lida, a hunchback who was fragile and often sick in bed. She was later transferred to an invalid home and was replaced by Olga, a tall, robust girl who had a fiancé in the army. The last, but not least, was an older woman by the name of Nodiezda, who worked as a typist in the office. She was around sixty years old, from the former noble stock (or privileged stock) that had lost everything with the revolution and was bitter towards the whole world, especially the Soviet regime.

It was a tiny room, with four beds and a little table in the middle. Rats plagued the whole building. They were so big and bold that daylight didn't even stop their activity and they ran back and forth under our feet. When I was home, I usually sat with my legs crossed on the chair, holding a piece of wood aimed at the intruders. Sometimes I was lucky to kill one, but there were a lot more.

The other thing that often tormented me was the stealing, especially of the ration cards. If it happened at the beginning of the month, it meant disaster, a month of starvation. It happened to me a few times and I had my share of hunger. Sometimes I didn't have food for a few days and it was hard. Later, in school, the students organized "snacks," a piece of black bread and that was what I existed on. Sometimes, my boss's wife, who was a good woman by the name of Dar Faustovna, brought us a few potatoes on a weekend when there wasn't any school, and I made soup.

One time, as I was doing my homework in the accountant's office, I was looking for a pen when I found two dry black crackers. It was so tempting, that I came to the conclusion that the good Jewish woman, named Esther, knew about the starvation and had left me these morsels. So, I ate them. The next day, she confronted me publicly and said I stole her crackers. I had nothing to say, as the fact was evident. That fat, ugly spinster, who still lived with her doting parents, was never hungry. Anyway, I was banned from her office and now occupied the Director's Secretary's office. I learned my lesson and I never again looked in drawers that didn't belong to me. But the shame stung for a long time.

It looked like work, school occupied my whole time, but it was not so. Even with my intensive reading, on the weekends I felt very lonely. The dormitory was not a place where I wanted to be so I went walking, watching people, whole families, spending time together and my envy was great.

It was killing me, the longing for a family, to have somebody to care for, somebody to love and to be loved. Only an orphan could understand this feeling of being alone in the world.

Sometimes, I went alone to the movies and for a couple of hours I lived in another world, but the awakening was even more painful. Again, I was alone, looking in people's windows where families were together. I always came home late and went promptly to sleep.

Yes, books were for me a big consolation. I don't think I would have survived without them. I read like a drunkard drinks vodka. One book after another. Never without a book. This kept me going. Often starving, but reading. This, no one could take from me - books.

My illusion about an ideal society, where everybody was equal, evaporated soon after my arrival. It was not a democracy, but I was honestly indebted to the Russians for liberating me from the Nazis. The Russians paid dearly, too, in that war, and the economy was in havoc.

On the first anniversary of the revolution, I went with all the workers to the parade to look with curiosity at the huge crowds, banners and hear the chanting. But, once was enough for me. Never again did I go to these parades, even when I was forced to. I would leave the parade and go back home.

The first summer I was dragged to enter the youth organization, the Komsomol. Everybody had to belong so I allowed myself to be coached and then went to the Regional Office for the card and emblem. The leader of the office asked me if, while in Poland, I knew about Komsomol. I knew he expected me to say yes, that all my life I dreamed of belonging to it, but I said no, and they accepted me as a member. I didn't like the meetings, as I didn't have time, and I didn't like the propaganda; the whole business seemed very artificial to me. But, I had to go along with it.

So, my living conditions improved a bit and I was doing well, without books, in school. Sometimes something happened because I didn't know all the rules.

Because I loved to draw, in my spare time on the weekends I worked with water colours at our little table with the window opened and sat with my back to it. Once, a group of youngsters from the nearby men's dormitory were passing and one of them poked his finger at my back. I got mad and poured the glass of water that I kept for my brushes, over him. I thought the incident was finished, but suddenly our door opened with a bang and this guy, with his head down like a bull, hit me hard in the face with his head. He left me with such shiners, that I was black and blue a whole month. That was a lesson - don't mess with urchins. I was in a jungle.

So, after I had spent one half a year in the U.S.S.R., I began to adapt. We youngsters got winter rubber boots so I was no longer barefoot. The only thing that bothered me was that I sent a few letters to Siedlce but I didn't get a response. I wondered if my sister and my aunt were still alive. Sometime in January 1946 1 got a message from Eva Abramovna to come to the Organization to get some letters from Poland. In my happiness of the wonderful news, I ran all the way there.

There were five letters, and some pictures. My sister wrote about things I would never have guessed. First of all, two weeks after I left Poland (I might have been still in Lublin), our Marysia came from Auschwitz. She was sent to Maidanek after the ghetto uprising in Warsaw. After ten weeks, she was sent to Auschwitz where she spent two years in different commandos, Shoe and Canada. Then she went on the death march. Eva wrote that Marysia was different than she was before. No wonder.

The second news was that my sister and Marysia and later Luba were married to Polish­-Jewish soldiers who came from Russia. Marysia's first husband, Mietek was killed in Maidanek, the rest of the family was killed in Treblinka.

She also explained how they met each other. When the Americans in Germany liberated Marysia, she spent a long time in a hospital. While there, she was anxious to go back to Poland to find out if somebody survived from her family, especially her beloved brother, Lazar. She rode a bike from Germany to Poland, registered in a Warsaw Jewish Community and headed for Bojmie. Early in the morning she approached our house where the kitchen window was open. She looked in and realized from the strange jar of milk and the half loaf of black bread that no Jews were living there. The neighbour told her that the two younger girls were living in Siedlce.

She pedalled more than twenty-three kilometers and found Eva and Luba. The same day, my sister wanted to pass a busy street full of military vehicles with a soldier in the middle regulating the dense traffic. The guy noticed her and offered his help. He looked at her and asked if she was Jewish. She said she was and he told her he was, too. He was surprised there were still Jews in that city and told her he would like to visit them. She liked him and gave him their attic address.

That evening, he came with his buddy Alex Spinak. This was her future husband, Paul Berger, and Alex was the future husband of Marysia. Now, my sister was Eva Berger. They moved to Warsaw where they found a Rabbi to marry them. In the meantime, Luba's cousin Max, who also came from Siberia, found her, and they married in Germany.

One letter was from Marysia who wanted me to come back and go west with them. I was in turmoil. Happy that they were alive, but not knowing what do with myself. I was so thrilled that I was not alone in this world; I shared my happiness with everybody in the factory,

The next day, I went to the Polish Consulate and they agreed to send me back with the first transport. All I had to do was wait. So, I waited in anticipation. Meanwhile, the party boss of the plant got wind that I was planning to return. He asked me why my big dream of getting an education evaporated so fast and I answered that my family wanted me back. Now I had doubts. Maybe I should stick to my plans and get my education. All of them had families now, and where would I fit in? And, then there was my promise I made to myself of never going back. Why was the party boss taking such an interest in my life? Later, it occurred to me that I was a propaganda tool for her. In her speeches, she pointed at me as an example of a person who preferred life in the U.S.S.R. and refused to return to the west.

But, I was too stupid to understand her game, and she played on my proud and stubborn character easily, and won. Unfortunately, I didn't have anybody to tell me the truth and to give me sound advice. Nobody. That's how easy a life can be turned around and a human's fate can be made. I was fifteen years old and easy to manipulate. She convinced me that this was my destiny.,.

I never showed up at the Polish Consulate for the transport and I wrote a patriotic letter to my sister, to go ahead and not to wait for me, as I wanted to continue my education. After sending the letter, I cried for many days, felt lonely and miserable. Especially on weekends when I was free and with nobody to visit, I would walk the streets. I looked in people's windows at families together around a dining room table or doing something not alone. I longed to be a part of such a life, but reality was different. I cried myself to sleep every night.

Eva, Paul, Marysia and Alex spent a year in a DP camp in Germany. Luba and Max settled in Paris, France. Then Eva and Paul found Paul's uncle Simon in France and moved there. After one or two years in 1949, they emigrated to Winnipeg, Canada.

Marysia gave birth to a boy, Jerry, in the DP camp and then they moved to Palestine where her brother Isaak and his family had lived since 1933. When she arrived at the doorstep of my uncle's house with her husband and baby, aunt Pearl said, while pointing a finger at her, "This survived and my brother did not!" That was how she met the inmate of Maidanek and Auschwitz. They didn't stay even one night with them. They found a room for rent and Alex began to work as a truck driver.

So, I was in the U.S.S.R. Food was still on rations and we stayed in long lines to get it. We were supposed to get a pound of sugar a month (one half kilogram) but we could exchange it for one kilogram of cookies. Once, I did that and I tried one while I walked the one block home. I ate the whole kilogram at once, and I hated them for the rest of my life. No cookies for me.

I ended my sixth grade with honours and I thought of skipping the seventh grade and jumping into the eighth grade in another school. I had the summer to learn the program and I did it myself although not very well. That fall, I entered the eighth grade in the other school. This time, nobody asked me for documents because if you managed to learn the program, then you were considered O.K. I didn't feel worse than the others; again there were many adults who had come back to school after the war ended.

It was here that I met my first friend, Stella. She was my age, left the day school for the evening school and had a mother who worked in the food department of a hospital. They have an abundance of food. Stella generously shared her sandwiches with me. She was a generous girl (with such a mother one can afford to be), but wasn't a very good student. She attached herself to me and we got along very well. I helped her with the schoolwork and her grades improved. She was smart, but spoiled and lazy. Her father perished in Stalin's purge of 1937 like all the fathers of my future girl friends. Stella often invited me for dinner on weekends and her mother was a good cook. I enjoyed their homemade food immensely.

Next door lived her mother's sister with her twenty-five hear old son, Anthony who was also a student. His father perished in 1937, too.

So, I had a friend and we often studied together, especially before exams, and I spent entire days in her garden preparing us. Sure, she didn't work; I worked and only had time in the evenings. But, I certainly made time to read books, my lifelong passion. Now, being fluent in Russian, I enjoyed all the classics and there were many. This was a whole new world for me, a real discovery of treasures that I hardly knew before,

I read in Polish Leo Tolstoi’s books, Dostojewski, Chekhov, Gorki but there were a lot more books here and fascinating ones. I was always with a book under my arm - I read at lunch, on the tram, even as I walked. I even read my books at meetings which I attended, but never really listened. The Russian literature was a whole new chapter in my life. I remembered how I missed books in the war, how I dreamed of all kinds of stories which I never finished, waking up. Books were my friends, they filled the gap I had in my lonely life and made the days more bearable.

I finished the eighth grade with honours, the school even informed the factory of my success and I was the model member of the Komsomol. Two thousand people worked there, but I was the only one going to school.

That summer, I had more fun because I had a friend. Sometimes we went with a group of youngsters on a long trip to the River Dnieper and spent the day swimming on the beach, although I didn't swim, as I never learned how. We walked a few miles through the fields and meadows in the fresh air, under the bright sky and life didn't seem to be too bad.

Meanwhile, Eva wrote to me regularly from Canada and I knew what was happening in her life. Marysia and her family moved with Eva and Paul to Winnipeg, Canada after struggling for a couple of years to make a living in Israel. There, Alex worked in his profession as a denturist, Miriam had a daughter, Annette, and they made a nice living. Luba and Max still lived in Paris, were doing well in the jewellery business and had two sons, Albert and Serge. Paul had a little business of travelling around with his truck and bought a house. Soon, a few years later, they had three children - Yvette, Sharon and Lyndsey. Time after time they sent me parcels with clothing and it was a Godsend to me. I didn't have money to buy any myself.

My letters to them were always the same because I knew they were going through a censorship. I always wrote that I was O.K., working and studying. No details. Our correspondence was steady and regular. Maybe it was for that reason the K.G.B. got suspicious because one day in 1949 a civilian came to the factory and asked for me.

I didn't know him, but he seemed to know about me. He asked me about my connections with my relatives and asked many more questions. I answered them truthfully, knowing very little about them and their methods. He left me alone, but I soon found out they kept watching me.

I was transferred in the factory to the office of the wood department to help the accountants. There were two of them, a woman by the name of Nina Petrovna who was very moody and mean, and an old asthmatic man who hated her. They often argued and I tried hard not to get involved. But, when this woman got in a mood, she "bit" me, too.

I still lived with dreamy Gala and querulous Nadiercla at the dormitory. I was seldom home; came in late only to sleep. Once, I read on a poster at work that a concert was expected in the club at the factory that evening. To my surprise, I read that one of the singers was my roommate Gala Klimenko. I was stunned. I knew her for a few years and had never heard her sing. I decided to attend.

I never in my life had seen such a fiasco. Gala got a long dress from somewhere and limped onto the stage with an old lady who played the piano. Without any sign of a voice, she began the popular song "The Dark Night" and stopped, forgetting the rest. She couldn't keep the tune and soon the audience was shouting for her to get off the stage. She persisted; and three times she failed to continue. There was an uproar from the crowd. She, stupid as she was, pointed at the old lady and said it was her fault. Finally, a hand came out from behind the stage, grabbed her leg and dragged her down. The public had a good time watching this spectacle.

After that, Gala did not talk to us for a year. People in the factory gave her a new name - The Dark Night.

Nadielda got older and more bitter. She didn't want to live in the dormitory with us anymore, which made her more cranky and gloomy. Luckily, I had a few friends and spent time at their houses.

First, there was Sveta, a student of the University, the only daughter of her mother who was a chemistry professor. Sveta was very bright, intelligent and grew up without a father (Stalin's purge in 1937). She was often falling in love with boys, but the feelings were not always mutual and she suffered, until she found a new object of her affections.

All the families of my friends were anti-Soviet. No wonder; who could have loved a regime that made you an orphan and repressed you?

Another friend was Maja (the same story with her father) and she had two siblings and a mother who was an opera singer. Her mother lost her voice while giving birth (no epidural in those days) so she ended up working in a mill. Maja was a student, too, very intellectual who was a good reader, and we always talked about books.

I ended the ninth grade with honours again and because I had friends, I had a much better summer. We often went to the Dnieper or played volley ball in Stella's yard. It was a hot summer and even though we lived on the first floor, we opened the window for fresh air. My bed was right under the window, but I didn't hear the thief who crawled in, stepped over me and grabbed Nadiezda's clothing from the chair near her bed. Why only her clothes, nobody knew. Maybe he thought she was rich.

During the winter there was a bad accident. I was studying late by candlelight so that I wouldn't wake my roommates with electric lights. I don't know how, but a spark fell on my quilted blanket. Sleepily, I covered myself and fell asleep. I woke up from somebody shouting "Fire, fire!" I looked at my blanket and half of it was red! Burning, I dropped to the floor and we extinguished the fire with our shoes. But, the smoke was horrible. The janitor punished me by refusing to give me another blanket so it was good I was small because the rest of the winter I had only half of one.

In the tenth grade I was the first candidate for a gold medal. Deep in my heart I felt I didn’t deserve it as my Russian was not perfect even after four years of studying. My other subjects were not worth the high marks, but nobody else was better so I was first. When the exam ended, my marks didn’t qualify for the medal. The main subject was an essay on Russian literature on which I got a mark of four. This mark was good, but not excellent. I had made several mistakes, some were political and that was unforgivable. For example, I used somebody’s aphorism that Russia was such a huge country that even the sun got tired from crossing from one border to the other - big mistake. The sun could not be tired above a socialistic country, the sun had to be happy.

There were other stylistic mistakes. I knew I didn’t deserve the medal but my ego was wounded, my confidence crushed. Even a “nobody” could get a medal and I was ashamed by my failure. Stupid? Yes, but I suffered and had a good cry that night.

The factory administration gave me a gift for successfully ending high school. The Komsomol leader made a speech about what a model I was, quite a hero. I had a real dilemma. What faculty was I to choose? What profession? Doctor? Out of the question as there was no evening medical school, except ... chemistry was not my strong subject. There was a fierce competition of medalists there. Architecture? I like it, but again, it was like medicine, for people who had the support of their family, not like me. I didn’t want to be a teacher, either. So what was left? What did I like? Books! The library course was better. It had evening classes and even if a well-paid job could not be found later, what did I care? I didn’t need much. Books were what I liked, and that would be my profession. Period.

In the fall of 1949 I was accepted in Kiev University and took the four-year library course. When I wrote to my relatives abroad about my choice, I was sure that they expected something more prestigious, after all my speeches, but Eva didn’t comment. Luba urged me to change direction and become a gynecologist, but what did she know of my choices? It reminded me of a story about a famous Russian ophthalmologist named Filatov. After saving the sight of an artist, the doctor received a gift from him. It was a portrait of Filatov painted within a human eye. He thanked the artist very much and then asked his assistant that if he had been a gynecologist, where would the artist have painted him??

Sure, as I thought of the future, taking the library course was not the most practical choice, but I didn't have many choices and I had to earn a living and shelter.

Years later, I came to the conclusion that I wished I had a profession decorating, designing, drawing, etc. But, it was too late; I had achieved my diploma and was working. Except for this, life was not easy and I had to survive in that society and I didn't have time to dream.

Actually, I was doing what I had done before, the only difference was instead of going to school in the evening, I took the trolley and went downtown to the University. Again, my group was students of all ages. A girl by the name of Tania Kysenko and I were the youngest. We became friends instantly. She was the daughter of a doctor who lived in a little town nearby; her father perished in 1937. Tania was a very pretty girl, and although she was very short sighted, she didn't wear glasses. We had an agreement that I would warn her if somebody we knew was approaching. I would say Right! Left! And she would turn to the side with a sweet "Hello". Sometimes I would play a practical joke and directed her "hello" to a stranger. He would look surprised, and sometimes they would follow us.

I was still working on Ukrkabel and living in the dormitory with Gala Nadiezda but after working all day, in the evening I took a bus to the University and came home at midnight. This was my schedule.

My friend, Tania, worked part time in a library and rented a room so she was more free and usually she came to my area so we could take the bus together. Because I was always starving for books, she was now my source of new books, and (even though she herself didn't read them) I appreciated very much her efforts. She was always late for our rendezvous and, knowing that I got mad waiting, she would hold the book for me above her head, waving the trophy, which always improved my mood.

I was always living in silence, keeping my secrets to myself. Her openness and trust, her way of life, taking it easy and joking about everything pleased me. That was exactly what I needed - a friend with a sunny disposition to melt a little of my gloomy outlook on life.

And I enjoyed her company (funny, she did mine) It never occurred to me to tell her about my past. What for? And she was not interested.

I still have my other friends. Svieta, Maja, Stella and introduced them to Tania, but for some reason they didn't like her very much.

Tania had an inborn sense of humour and a talent to tell funny stories. She was especially merciless when it came to a current or former boy friend. At that time, she had a boy friend by the name of Jura. He was a student of polytechnics and he owned a motorcycle. They often went out of the city on trips. With all her chutzpah, she was too shy to go to the washroom in his presence. So, once when they were in a secluded place, sitting on top of his motorcycle kissing, she felt that she couldn't hold it any more. And in the darkness she let it go; peed on the machine. Suddenly, he stopped kissing her and asked, "What is this noise, like water running?" But she couldn't stop. Then he said, "Oh, the carburetor is cooling."

The second story was again about the washroom, and Jura.was worse. She was at Jura's place, in the yard, waiting for him to bring his motorcycle from the garage. Remembering the last incident, she decided to visit the lavatory that was in the yard. It was a very primitive shack with a board that had a hole in the middle. Sure, Tania, without glasses, stepped in the hole with one leg and sank up to her hip. She had to call Jura for help. Jura dragged her out and covering his nose, he helped her into his garage to clean her up. But, the stink was still there, so there was no rendezvous. She had to go back to her rented room to take a bath.

She made me laugh so hard that a couple of times we were expelled from the library where we were studying. The rest of our group would look at us and smile; two pranksters, always giggling.

We occupied the last seats in the class and took turns to write the lecture, but with Tania's comments, it was a difficult job to do. The students around laughed so hard they would shake and begged her to stop.

My childhood and my adolescent years were lost in the war. Now, with Tania, I was feeling like I was back where I was supposed to be - young and not so gloomy, more optimistic. I simply tried to act like this girl who was careless, light headed. I was not always successful. We were very different, but at least I was able to appreciate her humour - she was my stability.

Usually, after leaving the trolley, we had to walk a long way to the University through the main street, Kreshchatik, and this was our time of fun, walking in the crowd and laughing at everything and everyone and at ourselves.

I am sure that some people who were not in the mood for laughing in this harsh reality of Russian life looked at us like two lunatics who couldn't stop giggling. But that was Tania's work. She always made me hysterical and finally I was again young - 20 - and trying to enjoy life.

Except for this wonderful talent, Tania was a lazy and confirmed slob. She hated to do anything, especially to study and was always in a good mood until exams. Then she would turn into a nervous wreck with diarrhea from fear. She would get so panicky and miserable - a different person and not like the Tania I knew. She would shake and spend her time on the toilet. She clung to me for help and I helped her many times. Even though I was lazy, too, I read more. Our courses were of literature from all over the world so I always invented an answer that was suitable. For her, the passing mark of three was a dream; I easily got a five.

One of her other faults was her inability to come in on time; she was always late. It drove me crazy. But, who is perfect? She was a delight to be with, and thanks to her, my four years of University were a lot of fun. I will always remember Tania and our good times together.

THE CASE WITH THE KOMSOMOL

But, not everything was a laughing matter in those years. 1952, the third year of University, was a very troubled year for me and for all Jews in the U.S.S.R.

The Kremlin doctor’s case had opened such an anti-Semitic hatred that everyone from the very top was against cosmopolites (Jews). Then there were the "poisoning doctors". The country was boiling with hate for Jews.

Latent anti-Semitism turned into open hostility and physical, mental and political abuse. Devoted doctors, who treated their patients for many years, were now rebuked; accused of poisoning and simply went from friends to enemies.

My correspondence with Eva, Luba, and Marysia was not a secret (my letters came addressed to the Ukrkabel and the secretary of the director usually gave them to me).

Because my relatives often sent photos, I showed them around, proud to have somebody related to me. I was not alone.

I was young, naive, not born in Russia and had no idea that such things could turn suddenly against me.

Thanks to my relatives and their help with clothing, I was now dressed nicely (only I had to keep this clothing out of the dormitory so it wouldn't be stolen).

So I kept it at my friends' houses. I thought that I didn't have enemies but I was wrong. Some people were envious that I was studying (instead of whoring), that I had something in the future to live for.

Sure, they could do it too, but they chose the easy way. They wanted to live now! They didn't want to think about the future.

All these nuances were unknown to me. I was busy with my life, my friends, and very far from political issues.

The Komsomol to which I officially belonged was a boring duty, a waste of time, and at meetings I usually tried to be invisible and read a book.

Here I was very passive.

Now, the Russians and Ukrainians remembered that Jews had relatives in other countries. So, why would they care about Russia? These cosmopolites always looked to the west. That was when our factory leader of the Komsomol got into the action. He found an opportunity to get promoted.

One day I was called to the Committee, not suspecting anything unpleasant since I was a model citizen. Anyway, this time was different. This little bureaucrat accused me of many crimes he had read about in the paper. I also had close relatives in three capitalistic countries; Israel, France and Canada. Isn't that cosmopolitanism? He ordered his members to vote for my exclusion from the organization! I was an enemy. Funny thing was, most members who knew me well didn't vote! So, he scheduled me to appear before the Regional Committee the next day, in the city. I was baffled; how can I turn from a model citizen to an enemy so fast? Even though it had upset me very much, I didn't care to be a member of the Komsomol, but I still didn't want to be thrown out like a rag.

The next day I was standing in the Regional Office under the hostile scrutiny of twenty members who didn't even know me. Now, as I listened to my "crimes", I realized that nobody would be on my side. They asked me why, if I came from Poland and my sister went to Canada, didn’t she come to the U.S.S.R. I explained that my sister left Poland, not Russia. They suggested my sister was against their socialistic ideology and I got angry and said that my sister was able to choose wherever she wanted to live, and that she doesn't even know she is being judged by them. They considered me arrogant and ordered me to give them my card and emblem back. I gave them back, and went to the door where I heard somebody whisper to me that I should go and apply to the Federal Committee. The person gave me the address that was two blocks away. It was dark and late, but I went anyway.

The guy on duty told me to write down my complaints, as he was busy listening to two famous comedians, Tarapunka and Shtepsel, who were performing on the radio. So I wrote my complaint.

"I came to the Soviet Union in the hope of finding a new home, escaping the Nazis and anti-Semites, Now, I am told that it is not my home; I am a cosmopolite, a stranger, and an enemy. Where could my place be; in Canada?"

I left, and took the long trip back to the factory. I was so hurt, so humiliated, I could only cry. Again, I didn't want to be in this Komsomol, it meant nothing to me, but they excluded me because I was an enemy? The factory was buzzing; my case was on everybody's lips. Now, many former friends remembered that I proudly showed them pictures of my family abroad; isn't that propaganda of capitalism?

A couple of days later, the Director of the plant called me into his office. Not looking me in the eyes, he told me that he had to fire me. Where was I to go now? I didn't have anybody. I asked him to postpone for a few months and I would graduate from University and leave. Reluctantly, he agreed. He was a Jew.

A few weeks passed in limbo. People avoided me like the plague. But, my friends outside the plant stayed loyal as they had no illusions and they were not surprised. The only place I felt better was in the University where I didn't tell anybody about my predicament; I hoped they would not find out.

Finally, I was called to the Federal Office of the Komsomol where I left my complaints in the General Office. A few officials politely received me. They told me that my exclusion was a mistake and gave me my card back. But, they wanted to give me some "good" advice: to stop writing to my relatives. I asked them why, as I was living alone in Russia. They said it was because I knew how the capitalists and their propaganda worked? My letters could be used as a tool against them. I told them I was sorry, but I couldn't do that. They said it was my choice.

I had already decided, and on the street I dropped my shredded card in the first garbage can I passed and said goodbye to Komsomol! I didn't want to belong to such an organization.

Again, I was extremely lucky that I wasn't thrown in prison, like many innocent people had been for less "crimes" than mine. A few weeks later, I found out the reason why they gave me such light treatment.

The bosses of the Komsomol consulted lawyers and checked my background. They found a mistake that they had made with me. When I came there, I was under age and got a Soviet passport at sixteen years, which meant citizenship like other youngsters had. Nobody bothered to put me through the procedures that foreigners had to go through to become a citizen. So, they didn't have the right to make me a member of the Komsomol if I was not a citizen; how can they exclude me now? Anyway, they decided not to open a can of worms and to leave things as they were. Formally, I was the winner; in reality, they lost a loyal citizen. Now I knew that I put myself in a shitty cage.

It was 1953 and Stalin died in March. Everybody knew; it is a historical fact of the psychosis of the zealots and fanatics. At his funeral, many died as a result of being tromped on by others who wanted to see the great man for the last time. It was sad and pathetic.

I graduated from University in 1953. The last state exams were written in Harkov where the main branch of our faculty was located. I got vacation time from the factory. People who went to school got paid vacations. Some rules were wise in this country.

Together, with my friend Tania, we went to Harkov. Tania had other kinds of problems, not like mine. She decided that upon getting her diploma, she didn't want to end up in the little city where her mother lived. She wanted to stay in Kiev. She needed to marry a guy from there. Jura was out of the picture and she urgently needed somebody who was ready for marriage.

She asked me if I knew anybody and I remembered Stella's cousin Anthony, the geology student. He must have been thirty years old and possibly unmarried. Tania was ready. She asked me to show her a picture of him and to leave the rest to her. She decided he was a fish she was going to catch.

The blunt cynicism amused me, except that I had little sympathy for sullen Anthony. We went to visit Stella. Tania was in her best shape, ready to conquer and Stella and I watched her tactics. She played the role of a kitten, fragile and helpless, but very coquettish. I wondered, with admiration, about her skill and, how she did it with her shortsighted eyes. But, she did it. He was smitten, a fool, and after graduation, she returned to Kiev to marry Anthony. It is also true that she divorced him a few months later because he sweated too much ....

Tania was not the first and surely not the last to marry for convenience. Actually, she was a selfish manipulator who didn't think that she was ruining maybe another life. She only did what suited her.

Maybe that was what my other friends saw in her, when I saw only the good things, like her great sense of humour and they didn't like her. Who knows.

I knew that I would never do such things. I was too idealistic, too romantic and not a person who could cheat and lie in such serious matters like marriage.

So, I was disappointed in Tania and considered her cynical and manipulative (even if I didn't like Anthony) and when our lives turned in different directions after graduation from University, I never wrote to her.

Now, I think I was too judgmental. I didn't have the right to do this. There are no saints. Everybody has faults (including me) but look at the good things and our four years of friendship was good. This I should remember. And I remember.

TO HARKOV FOR THE LAST EXAMS

We boarded the train for Harkov. I didn't like this city, which was on the steppes of the Ukraine; it is very dusty and industrial.

We got there late, and we had to find our own place, as there was no place in the dormitories for us. The first choice was a corner with a woman who coughed all night long so we looked for another place the next day. A woman with a child rented us a bed, and we went to sleep.

Suddenly, in the morning, the curtain that we thought hid a closet, lifted up and a huge guy crawled out who was also a student. The woman.forgot to tell us about this little detail. He turned out to be an agreeable guy and we got used to him. Anyway, everybody was busy with his or her exams. We were all strangers in one room.

We registered at the University for the exams, checked out the cafeteria where the food was lousy and went to the park to study. It was not a good place to concentrate because there were too many students around distracting us. As usual, Tania was not in a mood to study but she feared the exams, so I was the boss and she had to listen to me and stop flirting.

Every three to four days we had a state exam before a big commission and the stress was high. I was the most relaxed student, not because I knew more but simply because I didn't care about the marks because I knew I would pass and I had nobody to show them to. Maybe it was because of my attitude that I did so well, getting all A's, the best marks. Tania dragged behind, getting the lowest, but she was happy.

We got bold and tried to help others in desperate situations. One friend was sitting by the open window, trying to answer the questions and she was sinking! I found a long stick outside and attached the answers to the end of it on a piece of paper. I poked her in the back with the stick and she grabbed the paper. She passed the exams. The other students were watching our manipulations from the auditorium and considered us comrades who risked so much to help a mate. To them, we were the pranksters who didn't study much and they were very surprised when it was announced that I was one of the honour students.

It was July and very hot in the city. There was only one little river by the name of Lopain that was dirty and not meant for swimming. Once, passing a little bridge, I informed Tania that in the distance I could see a naked man in the river. Where? Where? Tania frantically looked for her glasses, but she couldn't see anything with them. Very disappointing. She was so curious to see him that she wanted to walk there, but I refused.

My mind was occupied with more urgent questions. After I got my diploma, where would I go? Before the exams, I tried to get a job at several big libraries in Kiev. They were enthusiastic to hire a specialist with a diploma, but after regarding my application there were always two questions: What was my nationality and did I have relatives abroad? 1 answered yes and they quickly changed their minds. They suddenly didn't need to hire.

So, I had to make a hard decision. I wrote one last letter to Eva, explaining that they should not worry if I stopped writing for a while and that I was O.K. Then I asked to be registered for the rural area. It was an unusual request, because I had a free diploma with the right to settle anywhere, but really, I didn't hope to find a job in the big city. But, my profession wasn't needed in little libraries. I was a bibliographer; a reference specialist and such people were only needed in big libraries. With their diplomas, everybody happily left for their homes; I parted with Tania and was left alone.

The Ministry of Culture in Kiev gave me the destination of my future work - Nikolajev, on the river Dniestr. My good friends Stella, Sveta and Maja got jobs in Kiev after they graduated. They were Ukrainians. I boarded the train for Nikolaiev. Even though I lived in Kiev for eight years, I really didn't know the country. As I looked out the window of the train, I wondered what my future would be.

I burned my bridges to begin a new life, but my heart ached about the severed contact with my sister. I remembered too well what I said to her when I left Poland. "I won my life in a lottery. Now I will do what I wish with it. If I fail, it is never too late to end it." Everything turned out differently than I had dreamed.

Early in the morning I arrived in the office of the Culture Department and presented myself to the boss. His reaction was that he didn't have a position for me in the city and I would have to go to a rural area. Sure, he didn't have a position for me because all the libraries in the city were packed with his relatives and friends without an education. I later found out that they had bribed him.

He sent me to a lonely village far away in the steppes, which at that time, was isolated because it was quarantined as a result of an outbreak of brucellosis in the cattle. The village librarian was very surprised with my arrival. First of all, they didn't need a new member on staff and second, why would I waste my education in a village library? To my luck, this was the day when the country was in an uproar because of the arrest of Beria and nobody had time for me. In this havoc, I boarded a truck that was going to Nikolajev. I had to sit on top of some cows, and was thumped around all the way to the city. The roads were terrible.

I got back to Nikolajev late and it was after hours so I had to look for a place to spend the night. Across the street I spotted a Jewish looking family and asked them if I could stay one night; I would pay them. They readily agreed. They were a family of four: two very fat parents and two kids with shifty eyes who showed a great interest in my belongings. The bed bugs were ravenous and I slapped them all night, which made red spots all over my body.

In the morning, when the office opened, I left my things and went to talk to the boss again. He was not happy that I rejected his first offer and I tried to convince him that he was wasting money to send me to a place where they didn't need me.

My suitcase with my belongings got smaller after spending the night with the Jewish family in Nikolajev. Yes, it was a nest of thieves. When I returned from the office across the street, my belongings shrank and money I kept there disappeared. I couldn't believe its .... Jews? I knew people could be low, but this was pure robbery. I looked in the eyes of the father and he understood what I was thinking. He shrugged and said "children", as though it was an explanation for what they had done. That was the way children played? I took my things, turned around and didn't bother to say goodbye. There are people, and then, there are people.

That again proved that bigotry and hatred of other races are stupid and cruel. No races. There is mankind - consisting of good decent people, and not so good and not so decent scoundrels.

The myth of a superior race is for naive fools or manipulative murderers like the Nazis, who suited themselves with this idea - to steal, rob, kill - to enrich themselves. And they quite succeeded because there is a lot of trash in this world who don't want to work. Why not take away what others have?

Jews were the chosen victims (chosen people) and the tragedy of the Twentieth Century is the greatest tragedy of mankind.

Yes, there were many massacres before and after, but nothing can compare with this planned murder of six million.

What I want to say is that Jews, like other people, are not saints either. There are noble people, and there are scoundrels, but nobody deserves to be condemned because of their race or religion.

In my long years of wandering, I met very different kinds of people including Jews which I despised, not less than other non-Jews, who were the same scoundrels. It is not your nationality - it is what kind of person you are.