Aaron (Arkadiy) Smushkevich
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Aaron (Arkadiy) Smushkevich, the son of Moisei (Moisha) Aronovich Smushkevich, lived from 3-6-1909 to 8-17-1990.
Aaron (Arkadiy) Smushkevich
03.06.1909 – 08.17.1990
At this sacred moment, dear father, I recall all the kindness, love and encouragement, which you showed to me during your lifetime. You provided for my needs, rejoiced in my achievements, guided me and strengthen me. Though you are gone physically, the bond of love, which united us, will never be severed. My words and deeds always are a source of reverence and credit to your cherished memory
Yizkor Book of Remembrance
The memories were written by his daughter
Nelli (Smushkevich) Medvinsky
When I remember my father, I see a tall and handsome man with wavy brown hair and bright blue eyes. In the old age his brown hair had turned gray, but it still stayed thick and wavy. He was a good- looking man. He was a man with hands of gold and was physically strong. He was hardworking person and was not afraid of work. He started to work as teenager in the bakery. In this bakery Aaron made new Russian and Ukrainian friends. They called him by the Russian name Lenya. Although his parents called him Aaron, all other family members and my mother called him by his nickname. Later on, his co-workers called him Arkady Moiseevich.
Aaron was born in the small town of Lubny (the Ukraine) in the Pale of Settlement. At that time his parents did not register their children’s dates of birth. He thought he was born in 1909. When he applied for a passport he put the 6th of March, 1909 as his date of his birth. (I do not know why it’s March 6). He grew up in a big and friendly family. But it was a terrible time (the First World War, the Revolution, the Civil War, a famine in Ukraine).
Aaron attended a yeshiva. Only at the age of 18 he got a possibility to get an education and to learn the Russian alphabet. He was capable of working day and night. After a hard day’s work in the bakery he attended the evening school of young workers. But it was not enough for him and he found a very good tutor and took private lessons. He especially had aptitude for mathematics and physics. His mother Khaya was afraid for his health and she asked him to stop studying, but Aaron had his goal and he achieved it. In 1933 he was admitted to the institute in Kharkov (as University in U.S.A). In 1938 he graduated it becoming a railroad engineer.
Although he worked hard, he had the ability to enjoy life and could find time to spend it with his friends and have fun. In his spare time he jumped on his bike and went together with his friends to the outskirts of Poltava town. He even found time to take part in a biking competition. He sang Ukrainian songs with his new friends.
He was not a singer, but I remember many years later, he sang them in the company of his Ukrainian and Russian friends with joy.
In Kharkov, he met his future wife, Mina (Nina)<ref>Her name was Mina but all except her parents called her Nina. </ref> Kirsh.
She was a beautiful girl with dark hair and gray-green eyes. There was something aristocratic in her beauty. Nina was his neighbor. When Aaron went by her house he often heard laughs and music. Nina and her sister played the piano in their home and their friends always met there. Aaron was intrigued to know who lived in this house. When he saw Nina he was smitten with her beauty and wanted to be introduced to her, but was afraid to approach her. She was like a girl from a fairy tale for him. He asked his sister Rakhil for help. Rakhil found a way to introduce herself to Nina and then she introduced her brother to her new friend. They fell in love and had romantic relations for a couple of years. They could not get married because Aaron was a student and was not able to support a family. They waited until Aaron was in his last year of study and almost graduated from the institute. On December 24, 1937 Aaron and Mina (Nina) Kirsh were married.
In 1939 they became new parents with a baby-girl. It was me; their only child. They lived together with Nina’s parents. They took care of their baby-girl. Aaron (Lenya) worked and Nina attended a Medical Institute and dreamed of becoming a pediatrician.
On June 22, 1941, their life along with the lives of millions had been changed. When World War II commenced Aaron was evacuating equipment from a machine-tool plant. He was leaving Kharkov with the last equipment on a locomotive of a cargo train together with an operator of the train. He was almost killed during an air-bombardment. Aaron’s mother - Khaya - said that only one of her nine children, Aaron, was born in "a shirt" and it’s a good omen. It’s only a sign but Aaron was really lucky. In the big railroad station they had to get water for the locomotive. The operator of this train was going to get it. But at the last moment he changed his mind and asked my father to find water. My father went to search for water and at this moment air-bombardment started again. One of the bombs fell very close to the locomotive and destroyed it completely. My dad left the locomotive before it was a struck by the bomb. The operator was not that lucky and the bomb killed him.
Aaron managed to reach Cheboksary where his plant was evacuated. It was a military factory. They worked day and night to support the Red Army. My father worked there as head of the transportation department. It was wartime: chaos on railroads and the need for military equipment to get to the front-line on time. There was a slogan: "Everything for the front". Also it was Stalin’s time and if something went wrong people were shot. But Aaron was lucky again. Nothing bad happened.
My mother and I were evacuated to Siberia. In May 1942 my father managed to come for us. I was only 3 years old. I know nothing about the peculiarity of children’s memories, but maybe it was a very special moment and I remembered the day when my father arrived. It was night. We lived on the second floor. My mother and I slept. Suddenly somebody started to knock at the door of the first floor. It was my father. We were together again! He took my mother, my mother’s sister, sister’s daughter, and me to Cheboksary.
In Cheboksary we lived in a small room without running water and a restroom. It was the war but our family was together. All the time my father and mother were worried about their parents. In December 11, 1943, Nina got a letter from Kharkov from her neighbor. In that letter neighbor wrote that Nina’s grandmother, Nina and Aaron’s parents, and Aaron’s sister Golda were killed by the Nazis. This was terrible news. I remember that moment very clearly. My mother and I were going outside. On her way out she checked the mail and found the letter from Kharkov. She returned home and cried. I understood that something terrible happened, but of course, I could not comprehend the tragedy. For my parents May 9 (the Victory Day) was always "a holiday with tears in their eyes".
Unfortunately on Victory Day my parents were not together. At that time my mother was a medical student. She and I lived in Gorkiy (Nizhniy Novgorod). We visited my father and left him in the evening of May 8, 1945. I remember there was a celebration in the train. People cried and kissed each other. In excitement somebody threw me up into the air. My father stayed in Cheboksary. I have his letter to my mother from May 9, 1945. In this letter he described a celebration. At 4 A.M. all people were outside and at 8 A.M. everybody with their family came to the plant. There was a meeting and then a parade. The celebration was inside homes as well as outside in the streets. But on this happy day my father worried about us getting to Gorkiy.<ref>His worries had a reason because it was wartime, trains were stuffed with many people and he was afraid of our safety.</ref> His beloved Nina and I were "whole life" and he was sad that he stayed alone and could not celebrate this Victory day with his family.
The war was over, but nothing takes place without consequences. For many years my father had problems with his stomach. It started when he was a young man and worked at the bakery. He used to taste bred right out of the oven. Unfortunately he damaged his stomach and got gastritis. Later on, after he was admitted to his institute he was sent with other students to a collective farm to work. It was during the times of the famine in Ukraine, and students ate terrible food if any at all. His chronic gastritis became aggravated
In winter 1947 he suddenly felt terrible pain in his stomach. When my mother came home she understood that her husband had a perforated ulcer. He was in urgent need of surgery. The situation was very complicated. It was postwar times, in a small provincial town, without public transportation and private phones. Their neighbor managed to find a car but it was winter and a lot of snow. The car was stuck in snowdrifts. The neighbor and a driver carried my father to a hospital. There was only one hospital in the town and there was a surgeon who just started to work, and could perform only simple surgeries. My father’s life was in his hands and every minute was very important. My mother could manage to get the address of the experienced surgeon and went to find her. It was night and it was dark. The provincial town did not have electricity on the streets, and there were a lot of snowdrifts - time was running out. Nina was desperate. When she reached the surgeon’s house it was night and the surgeon was asleep. My mother woke her up and begged her to perform the surgery. They went on foot to the hospital. Every minute cost him life. The surgery was performed after the ulcer perforated and many hours had passed. My father had peritonitis and was in bad condition. He would be dead if he had not gotten antibiotics. Penicillin was a new drug and only recently appeared and his hospital did not have it. My mother was the chief physician of the orphanage and she got an appointment with the Secretary of Department of Health Chuvash Autonomous Republic (Cheboksary was the capital of this republic). He gave Nina permission to get penicillin. Nina stayed in the hospital for ten days and nights until her husband was out of critical condition. At that time I stayed with my neighbor. My mother came home only when Aaron could eat dietary food. She herself prepared the food. She cooked and then quickly got back to the hospital. My mother’s courage and her care saved my father’s life.
After my father recovered from the surgery my parents decided to leave Cheboksary. It was a small provincial town. There was only one movie theatre and one Russian school. They did not see a future for their daughter there. But most importantly they felt lonely there and wanted to live with their relatives. They were brought up in friendly and loving families and family values were important to them. The war was over, but my dad worked at the military factory and could not leave his work without an important reason. After his surgery my father got a disability. In August 12, 1947 he got discharged from the factory and had a possibility to leave Cheboksary.
It was not easy for them to return to Kharkov because their parents were killed there. They decided to try moving to Kiev where Aaron’s sisters Hannah and Rakhil had already lived. In 1947 my father went to Kiev. I have Aaron’s letter to Nina from Kiev.<ref>Aaron’s letter from September 23, 1947. At that time he lived in Kiev with his sister Hannah’s family.</ref> He described a complicated situation there. He must get a job, acquire the right of permanent residence, and find a place where his family could live. He tried with all his power, but his efforts failed. He was desperate and wanted to go to other cities to find a job. Aaron wanted Nina’s advice and asked her to write or wire him. He wrote that it was very important for him to work and live near his relatives and not feel lonesome. He wanted to find a job and have a peaceful life. He wished for his family to not be hungry and have some bread on the table. Aaron had a lot of problems there and his letter was filled with love to his family, especially to Nina. He called her many times my dear, my dearest, my darling, my beloved Ninochka. In this letter he just called her Ninochka or Ninusya not Nina. He wrote how he missed his family and dreamed when they would be together because he could not be content without his darling wife and daughter. He thought that his separation from the family would not last long and they would be together shortly.
Aaron suffered in Kiev while his wife had a very hard time in Cheboksary. Aaron’s family lived in a room that belonged to the factory. There was a rule if Aaron stopped working in the factory his family would have to move out of the room. It was difficult for Nina to carry everything out. She lived in a small town where large construction had never taken place. During the war, the big factory filled with many people moved to the town. It was very difficult to find a room even to rent. Sometimes two families lived in one room. Nina got letter after letter from the factory to vacate this room. She ignored these letters and stayed in this room. But the administration had their rights and they won. One day they came and threw us out onto the street. My mother managed to put me in a friend’s house. My mother slept in her office in the orphanage where she worked. I remembered she was afraid of visiting me too often because our friends were waiting for a newborn baby. They could ask my mother to take me away from them any moment. Finally Nina rented a small room in a communal apartment.<ref>A communal apartment means that many families lived in the same apartment and shares the same kitchen and toilet.</ref>
My mother started to prepare me for school. She wanted me to feel happy because I was going to school for the first time. It was the end of August and we did not have enough time for preparation. She found fabric and a seamstress and bought everything necessary for school. September 1, 1947 I went to school. It was Russian tradition to bring flowers on the first day of school and I brought a beautiful bouquet.
Usually, in the morning I went to school with my mother and I was happy because it was a long walk.<ref>Now Cheboksary is a big city with numerous theaters and museums. The city’s population is 453,700 in 2004 but in the beginning of the 20th century there were only 5100 people lived there. In 1947 Cheboksary was a small town. Before World War II most local population was Chuvash. There was only one Russian school and only one Russian library.</ref> I came back alone from school. But I did not walk home. My walk was to a kindergarten where my mother worked. She worked part-time as a physician at this kindergarten. She had gotten permission from the director of the kindergarten and she paid money for me to stay there after school. There I ate, did my homework and waited for my mother to finish her work and take me home.
My mother rented a room near the kindergarten. In the evening we listened to the radio. I remember we read some books. It was very difficult to find a good book there.<ref>There were not many good books in a bookstore in postwar time.</ref> I recall that sometimes the neighbors of our communal apartment met together and we played cards. I became a card-player. Of course, it is a joke but we had a good time. One time our neighbors cooked meat dumplings. They were very tasty and all of us sat together and enjoyed. I only detested vinegar, which they used with their food.
My father lived in Kiev with his sister Hannah’s family. He could not possibly survive without them there.<ref>My father without his relatives would be homeless in Kiev but in former Soviet Union people could not be homeless (their fate was in prison). Also my father could not rent an apartment because he must acquire the right of permanent residence. It was a complicated situation: to get job you must acquire the right of permanent residence. To acquire the right of permanent residence you should have an apartment and a job.
</ref> He did not pay rent, but he needed to have money for living expenses and for moving his family to Kiev. For almost four months Aaron did not have a job in Kiev. Only Nina was earning money. His beloved Nina, his girl from a fairy tale - worked hard to earn money. She worked as the chief physician of the orphanage, part time in kindergarten and consultant in the children infectious hospital. Almost all money, that she managed to earn, Nina sent to her husband in Kiev.
Little-by-little they collected some money. They hoped it would help move them from Cheboksary. At that time there was changing of money in the Soviet Union. There was panic amongst the people. My father was desperate. He wanted to buy something and save some money but there was nothing in stores. With his nephew, they decided to buy cigarettes. I doubt that it would help them. But they did not have this chance. When they tried to buy cigarettes the police came. My father managed to escape, but his nephew was arrested. In panic Aaron ran to his sister Hannah’s home. Hannah’s son-in- law was an officer. He went immediately to police station and managed to free Aaron’s nephew.
Money was gone but they had their life to live. They hoped that finally they could achieve their goal and the family would be together soon. Unfortunately their separation lasted longer and their dreams came true only in May 1948. Although Aaron found the job in the middle of October 1947 he did not have his own place for living and he could not bring his family to live together. In 1th of March, 1948 Aaron got a new job as chief of the transportation department at the big machine-tool plant. He got a big room in the building that belonged to the plant. But they had to wait until I finished the school to move. In May my father came to pick us up. Before the war my mother had black hair but all tragedies turned them gray. All relatives remembered her young and beautiful. It was the first time in her life she dyed her hair. We said farewell to our friends in this town and we moved to a new city and to new life.
It was a long trip on the railroad. During our trip we had two transfers. There was no direct train from Cheboksary to Kiev and we were fortunate because the couple days of this trip in a packed train were not fun. Our first stop was in the old beautiful city Gorkiy (now Nizhniy Novgorod). My parents had a very good time there. They met my mother’s friends from her student’s years. But for them it was important that we also stayed a couple of days with the family of my father’s second cousin Necheim. My father’s uncle Boruch, who was brother of my grandfather Moisha, lived with his son. It was an unusual reunion. Both families went through terrible loses and tragedies. They only recently moved to Gorkiy and they wanted us to move to this city. Necheim was a big boss in his field and he would like to help us. Moscow was our second stop. We stayed with the family of my mother’s uncle Aaron.
The road was very long. It took us more than a week before we finally arrived to Kiev. I remembered my first meeting with my father’s sister Rakhil. She carried her two-month old son Mikhail in her arms. At that time her family lived in a typical apartment for the Soviet Union. Her husband, she and her two sons lived in a small room, but they had a lot of neighbors in the apartment and they shared with them not only the kitchen but the lavatory as well.
Then we went to my father’s sister Hannah. There were two small rooms and a kitchen there. Hannah, her husband Chaim (Fima), their daughter Rita and daughter Zina with her family lived there. Zina’s son Mikhail was one and a half years old. He had long blond curly hair and was playing under the table the moment we came. They were a big friendly family and they found a place for my father when he came to Kiev. The family stuck together through good and bad times and they helped him greatly. We often visited them on Sundays (Saturday was not a day off at that time). We lived in the outskirts of the city and it took a long time to get there by a streetcar.
In the communal apartment on the fifth floor we had a big room. My mother started to work as a pediatrician and I went to school. My parents tried to organize a new life in this city. But suddenly their life changed.
The transportation department of the plant had a lot of cars. My father as boss of this department was responsible for them. In the Soviet Union the directors of plants as a communist party bosses were in position of "small tsars." It was an unwritten rule that the director could use the plant’s cars as his own. My father used to organize leisure trips for him and boss’ friends. Once his boss ask my father to go to the countryside and to buy pigs. To make money for buying pigs my father would have committed a crime. Being an honest person my father rejected this order. He immediately lost his job and the right to live in a room that belonged to the plant.
Although he was discharged from his job in November 1, 1948 we still lived in our room until spring. We even celebrated the New Year there. My parents bought me a beautiful Christmas tree. We even celebrated my birthday in this room with many of my schoolmates in March. Many of them brought me the same present. It was a popular children’s book about World War II. All books were with the same inscription: "Happy birthday, my dear friend Nellie."
They had not yet evicted us from our room. Maybe they could not do it because of it was winter. We stayed there, paid for the room and waited until it happened. One beautiful sunny day workers from the plant came and threw us onto the street. I remember a large pile. There were some furniture and personal belongings. My friend Faina and I did not go to school that day. We sat, talking and painting pictures. Sometimes Faina’s mother tried to help us. She brought some food and gave us a rest. I was ashamed of this but I did not have a choice. We had to guard our stuff. My parents took a day off. They found a place to live in the suburb of Kiev.
My parents managed to rent a room but they could not find transportation to carry our stuff to the new place. The new place was only a 20-minute walk away. They started to carry out all our stuff themselves. It took a lot of time but finally we slept in our beds. We rented the room from a woman who owned half of the house. There were two connected rooms: a small bedroom and a living room and also a kitchen with a big stove burnt by coil. Every room was heated by fireplace, which we kept by coal. We lived in a small bedroom and we had to walk through the living room where the owner of this house and her daughter Sima lived.
Sima and I became friends. There was a big backyard with o lot of fruit’s trees and all day long we played there in the summer. Sima’s mother and my parents got along with each other well. The woman’s husband was in prison and our rent helped her to survive.
We were there for a year. In summer she needed our room for her grown son and we moved in a small room in a house nearby. I had a lot of friends and all of them helped us. My friends carried out plates and other stuff. There was a backyard with fruit trees and a lot of beautiful flowers in this place. All summer I watered flowers. At the end of summer we moved back to Sima and her mother.
All that time my parents tried to get their own apartment. Unfortunately it was not easy. There was a postwar time and Kiev, especially center of the city, was ruined after the occupation. The Germans leaving the city burned almost all building on the beautiful main street Kreshctatik. When we came to Kiev Kreshctatik lay in ruins and a narrow path was meandering amidst hills of stones and broken bricks.
My parents sent many applications for the apartments. My dad was a good engineer and it was possible to find a job but without an apartment. After many attempts he was hired and the new boss promised to give him a room when the company got apartments from the government. My parents were very happy and counted every day until their dream came true. But life is not a fairy-tale. It’s not always a happy ending. When time came his boss asked my father to pay him a lot of money for the room in the tenement building. When Aaron started to work his boss promised him a room but there was nothing said about money (bribe). It was illegal to buy an apartment in the Soviet Union at that time. People only could get an apartment from the government or from their job. Aaron was in shock that he was so naïve. My parents did not have money and he could not pay a bribe. That evening my father hoped to return home with the papers on the room in the center of the city. But everything was in vain. He understood that after this happened it was impossible for him to work here. In a short while he was discharged because of staff reduction.
Finally my parent’s attempts got the results. After many letters from my parents’ work the local authorities gave them a room in a one-storied house in the suburbs. The room was in a terrible condition. My father was never afraid of work. He could fix anything. He put a new floor and painted the room. He constructed himself a shed in the yard. It’s very important because we heated our room by coal and we need place for it. It was a hard work for him as a result of it he hurt his back and he had low back pain for many years.
Our room had an entrance from a street and a tiny lobby but did not have an indoor toilet or running water. My mother cooked on the oil-stove. First couple of months we did not have electric power and we used candles and a kerosene lamp. For some times we did not have even a radio. We did get the radio and I liked to listen to the radio. Especially I liked music and theater plays.
In many years my parents had their own place even though it was in a bad condition. Nobody could evict them and they felt happy. On Sundays (their day off) we usually went to theaters or different concerts. We saw many beautiful classic ballet performances (Swan Lake, Nutcracker and many others). It was a long way by a streetcar to the center of the city. I usually fell asleep during our return trip back, but anyway it was a holiday for us. My parents were theatergoers and their love of theater became my passion for life.
We attended different Kiev museums sometimes. My father took days off during my winter vacation when I was 14 years old. But my mother could not take days off and unfortunately we went to Moscow without her. We visited many famous places and museums in Moscow. But I could not forget my first visit to the Tretyakovskaya gallery. I tried to remember every word of our guide. When we returned home I told with joy to all my friends about famous artists and their art.
Even as I visited many exhibitions and famous museums in Europe and the US but my first visit to this art gallery I would never forget. It was like first love and I am a very grateful to my parents for first impression with great art.
At that time they bought a grand piano. The room was small and they put the grand piano in the center of the room between the beds. They wanted me to take piano’s lessons against all odds. Piano was bought by chance, as at that time my father worked as an engineer in Kiev cargo yard and one of his customers told him that there was a possibility to buy a piano from a special warehouse. It was Stalin’s purge time and KGB confiscated different stuff from their victims. They took for themselves everything what they wanted and put the remains in this special warehouse. My parents were very sad of this situation but it was their only chance to buy a piano. They could not help unknown ex-owner of this piano and if they would not bought somebody from KGB would took it. They decided if the previous owner had a chance to pick a buyer up they would choose the ordinary people. I started to take piano lessons and my mother sometimes played too. Later on, when our family moved to another apartment my parents sold it and bought just a piano. Three decades later my husband sold this piano almost for nothing (very cheap) to strangers. My husband explained to me why he sold the piano to this people. They were poor and they wanted the child to play a piano. Also, he gave them piano table and all my music books for free. That is the end of this story.
In 1953 my parents moved to the center of Kiev. We had a small room in a communal apartment with a lot of neighbors but there was cold running water and a gas stove in the kitchen and even a restroom.
It was a small room. Even yet it was open to all our relatives and their friends. Once my mother’s sister family lived in this one room for almost one year. Some time my parent’s friends from Cheboksary lived there for more than two months. There were two adults and two children and one of them was a baby. Seven people! But everybody found their place. It was not luxury living and it looked like a gipsy camp but a friendly one. People need help and my parents gave it to them. It was part of their nature to help people. They helped people with all their heart. They gave them not only place to live and food to eat, but their problems became my parents’ problems and they shared their joys and sorrows. I had never heard that my parents wanted any gratitude from people and they had never talked that they helped somebody.
My parents liked people. Friends and relatives gathered in their house for holidays, birthday parties and often on Saturdays or Sundays. In the Soviet Union it was difficult to buy food but my parents managed to prepare it. They both could cook very well. Once in winter when we lived in the suburbs of the city my father with his friend went to the countryside and they bought together a pig. My parents managed to prepare different sausages from pork. They had never done it before but they put a lot of spices and it was a very delicious. My father often helped my mother to prepare holiday’s dinner. My mother baked pies and different cakes. My father using his youth’s experience in a bakery prepared very tasty ponchiki and pirozhky. It was something special!
In 1961 my parents got a new one-bedroom apartment. They never had anything for granted. For getting this apartment my father was to work on construction of a three-story building. Many Saturdays, Sundays, days off and sometimes after work he took active part in the building construction. On one happy day we moved to a new modern apartment finally.
The apartment needed new furniture and a lot of different stuff. Aaron was an engineer and Nina was a pediatrician but in the Soviet Union the salary was too poor. They worked very hard to make ends meet. Nina decided to take an additional part-time job as an emergency physician. When she had 12 or 24 hours shift Aaron cooked dinner and then took two hours round-trip by a streetcar to bring food to Nina. They did not have cafeterias in the hospital and Aaron wanted his hard working wife to have a hot meal.
My parents decided to decorate their new apartment. It was not easy to buy good stuff in the Soviet Union at that time. People could not go to store and buy good furniture, or a refrigerator, or TV-set. There were shortages of this stuff and there were big queue to the special stores. Someone tried to find particular people like salespersons who could help them to buy this commodity.
After big efforts my parents managed to buy modern furniture, a refrigerator and a TV-set and those things gave them special joy.
Aaron and Nina were excellent parents. They gave me their unconditional love and they were with me every moment when I needed them. After my marriage they treated my husband like their own son. Before our marriage my husband even in his wildest dreams could not think that this warm and loving relationship was possible.
My husband and I were going to celebrate new 1965 with our friends. We started a preparation for couple months ahead. We wrote poems, made cartoons, and prepared charades and others things. Everybody should be in special fancy dress. But we could not make it. I got the flu and we stayed home with my parents. During our celebration of New Year I shed tears because of the flu. In Russia we believed that good New Year celebration means a good year ahead. But it was not a good celebration for us. I was sick with a fly and tears were running of the time and this year was a terrible year to our family.
This year we lost my dear mother. It was a blow to our family. We were desperate. Once in the morning as usually she went to her job and all of a sudden she had a terrible headack. She lost her contious and she was diagnosed with stroke.
The next day she passed away. After that my father tried to repair his life but he had never been the same. He remarried two times but it did not work out for him. Nobody could replace his love he had lost.
New life appeared in our home in 1966. Birth of my son Mikhail brought happiness to our family but particularly we felt loss of my mother. We missed her very much and we indeed need her help and her advice. At that time Aaron became not only my father but also mother for my husband and me and grandfather and grandmother for Mikhail.
At that time my father worked hard in the college. He had many day and evening classes but anyway he found time to help us. He helped us with everything in our home - keeping and he took care of his grandson from the cradle. He carried him in his arms, he bathed him, and he took his turns watching him at night. He had a long vacation in the summer time and he looked after his grandson in our rented country house. Mikhail became his love, happiness and joy.
My father was with us in good and bad times. He tried to help us in any possible way. In the twilight of his life (he was in his late-seventies) he helped my husband Joseph in the construction of a summerhouse. It was even hard work for young people but it’s not possible for my father to be sitting and watching.
Age did not change my father’s mind or memories. At the end of 1980 he still managed to read and write in Yiddish although we spoke only Russian in our home. The Yiddish magazines, newspapers, theaters were prohibited. He also tried to recall Hebrew, although it was difficult for him.
In the last year of his life he started to feel sick. But at the beginning of his illness he did not bother us. When he passed away I found the note in his jacket’s pocket. There he wrote his name, his address and his children’s phone number in case if something would happen to him.
I think my decision to immigrate to the US shortened his life. He did not want to immigrate without my husband who worked at the military plant and could not get permission to immigrate. He loved my husband like his own son and did not want to leave him. He told me about his loneliness after my mother’s death and he did not want it for his only daughter.
In 1947 my mother saved my father’s life. Unfortunately I could not help him. He was treated from heart condition but it was not the main problem. My father had ulcer of cardiac part of stomach and pain in this case often is mistaken for heart pain. When physicians understood his diagnosis it was too late. Of course, there was a medical mistake but maybe his time had come. He was laid to rest beside his beloved Nina whom he outlived 25 years.
Nobody could choose his or her parents but I was lucky to have mine. This July will be 40 years since we said goodbye to my mother and 15 years for our farewell to my father. I’d like to thank my father and my mother for being wonderful parents.
April 15, 2005
Stamford, CT
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