Moisei (Moisha) Aronovich Smushkevich
Moisei (Moisha) Aronovich Smushkevich was the son of Aron Smushkevich. He married Haya (Chaya, Khaya) Abramovna Smushkevich [839] [MRIN: 291]. Their children included Israel Smushkevich, Golda Moiseevna Smushkevich, Anna (Hannah) Moiseevna Smushkevich, Rosalia Zerebchevskaya, Aaron (Arkadiy) Smushkevich, Shaya Smushkevich, Abram (Arkadiy) Smushkevich, and Rakhil Veyts. All of these children were second cousins of General Yakov Vladimirovich Smushkevich.
In loving memory of my paternal grandparents Moisha and Khaya Smushkevich
by Nelli Medvinsky
January 2005
Moisha and Khaya
Moisha was born in the village of Brusky (the Poltava region) in 1869 or 1873.<ref>I don’t aware of the exact birth-dates of Moisha and Khaya. In the book “Trampled Mezuzah (The Book of the Drobitsky Jar)” it was written that Moisha was born in 1873 and Khaya was born in 1872. But when my father Aaron applied for his birth certificate in 1989 he put that Moisha was born in 1869 and Khaya was born in 1871. Also when my father Aaron sent the information about his parents and his sister to be published in the book “Trampled Mezuzah (The Book of the Drobitsky Jar)”, he put Moisha’s year of birth 1869, Khaya’s year of birth 1871 and Golda’s year of birth 1911 (not 1912).</ref> He was married to Khaya Lomotskaya.<ref>There are two versions her Hebrew name: Chaya and Khaya. Khaya was more common in Eastern Europe.
</ref> Moisha, his wife, and their children lived in a small town called Lubny (the Poltava region).
They had nine children. One son passed away shortly after he was born. The others grew up healthy. Moisha was of medium height, lean and had dark hair and dark eyes. Khaya was a tall, stout, and a good-looking woman with bright blue eyes. Their children Israel, Hannah, and Rakhil took after their father and Rosalia, Aaron, Golda, and Avraham took after their mother appearance.
Moisha came from a poor family but he prospered. I do not know how he managed to earn money. One possibility was that perhaps his wife had a good dowry. Moisha had barns (called "supky") for grain (wheat, rye) and flour. He also had a bakery. He became prosperous selling grain. He was a merchant of the first guild.
Moisha’s brother, Leibal Smushkevich, who immigrated to the USA, was well-to-do in the USA and he invited his brothers to immigrate. His brother Zeival had eight children and he was afraid of immigration. Moisha also had a big family but he decided to immigrate to the USA in 1916 – 1917. Moisha had money and he thought that he could manage well. His brother Leibal sent the affidavit and other papers that Moisha’s family could immigrate but Moisha’s eldest son Israel was called to the army. Moisha did not want to immigrate without his son. Then, the Revolution and the Civil War started in Russia and his family could not immigrate.
After the revolution the Soviet authorities began to confiscate private property, gold, and jewels. They confiscated Moishas’s barns and also wanted to get his gold and valuables. They tortured him and then hung him upside - down. He was forced to give up almost everything, but he did manage to keep some of the gold coins. After these events, Moisha’s family moved to Poltava (the city). In Poltava, he did not have his property. He rented a large house and worked in a bakery. There was a cart in his backyard that he used to work in the bakery.
In Poltava in his spare time Moisha gathered medicinal herbs and then sold them. I think he had knowledge of herbs for many years (maybe from childhood) and when he lost his own business it helped him to earn some money. His brother Zeival also gathered medicinal herbs to make a living.
In Poltava, Moisha was arrested because the Soviet authorities thought that he had gold. He was released because they did not find anything. He hid his gold coins in the hollow tubes of a brass bed. Later, he often helped out his children with these coins. Riva (the wife of his son Shaya) remembered that on one occasion, Moisha gave his son, Shaya, two gold coins (each was worth 10 gold currencies) so that he could buy presents for his wife on the Russian holiday, the International Women’s Day. Shaya and his wife Riva were newlyweds and Shaya did not have the money to buy the presents, and the two gold coins that Moisha gave him was a lot of money at that time and was enough for Shaya to dress up his wife. My cousin Zina remembered that Moisha also gave gold coins to her mother, Hannah. Hannah’s daughters, Zina and Rita, used it for tooth crowns. Later when Moisha lived in Kharkov he put the gold coins into a jar and buried them in his backyard. During the Second World War, when my parents (Aaron’s family) evacuated from Kharkov, Moisha gave them 3 gold coins (each was worth 5 gold currency). I have one of them as a memory of my grandparents.
My father Aaron remembered that when the family lived in Lubny every morning his mother Khaya milked the cow and all the children came with their own mugs to drink fresh milk. They had a cow in Poltava too; it helped them survive during the famine in the Ukraine.
Moisha and Khaya loved their children very much and treated everyone equally. Khaya said: "It does not matter which finger you cut, you will feel the same pain." When her son Shaya caught smallpox, Khaya saved his life and put in a lot of effort to make sure that nobody else got sick.
Moisha and Khaya tried to do their best to ensure that their children grew up healthy and happy. Unfortunately, Moisha and Khaya did not have an opportunity to provide a good education for their children because at that time there were many restrictions for Jews in terms of education. It was especially difficult for people living in the shtetl. They could only send their sons to a yeshiva where boys studied Yiddish and Hebrew. Only after the Russian Revolution their youngest sons, Avraham and Shaya, could go to a school. But an education did not mean much to Moisha and Khaya’s generation, which lived in the shtetl. Khaya told her daughters that an education could not help to perform house chores or milk a cow. When my father, Aaron, started to go to an evening school after work at age 18 Khaya was afraid he would hurt his eyes and asked him to quit his studies.
In 1933, Moisha moved to Kharkov with his family. Only their oldest son, Israel, who had his own family, could not move to Kharkov. At that time, their daughters Hannah and Rosalia already lived in Kharkov with their families and their son Aaron studied at the Kharkov Rail-road Institute. Moisha and Khaya wanted the whole family to live in the same city.
In Kharkov they rented half of a house. There was one bedroom, a big living room and a kitchen where Moisha and Khaya put two beds for themselves. Aaron, Rakhil, Golda, Avraham and Shaya lived with their parents. Moisha worked as a salesman in a vegetable warehouse. Khaya took care of the big family. Aaron and Rakhil attended the institute; Shaya went to school;Avraham and Golda worked. Later on, after getting married, the children moved out of their parents’ house.
Moisha and Khaya spoke Yiddish, Ukrainian, and Russian with a Ukrainian accent because all of their life they lived among Ukrainians. Moisha even managed to write in Russian. I have the letter from Moisha to my father Aaron that was written in Russian. Of course, it was not perfect Russian but Moisha has never attended a school. He was able to study this language himself. Their children knew Yiddish and Ukrainian. After they had moved to Kharkov the children’s families spoke Russian because they lived in a city where the majority of the population spoke Russian. At that time (1930s and later) people were ashamed of their Jewish names. Although children had Jewish names in their documents, almost all of them were called by Russian names in public. (I put given names and nicknames together in the list.)
In the morning Moisha and Khaya used to drink tea. Tea - drinking was a morning custom. In Poltava, Moisha heated a samovar in the backyard using coal and a boot (to circulate hot air). Of course, they often prepared tea in a kettle but it was fun to drink tea from a samovar. In Kharkov, they made tea using a kettle. Usually they had a late breakfast (around 11 A.M). Shaya’s wife Riva remembered she was young and had good appetite and waited impatiently for breakfast.
They observed Jewish traditions. On Yom Kippur they went to a synagogue. After night service at end of the fast they returned home and first drank tea with a piece of honey cake ("lekach"), and only then they had the holiday dinner. Their granddaughter Zinaida remembered that grandchildren got presents from them on Chanukah. On Purim Khaya baked tasty hamantaschen. The whole family got together on Jewish holidays, especially on Passover. For many weeks before Pesach, Khaya started the preparations. She fried goose fat. They ate cracklings and put goose dripping in jars. She kept it for cooking on Passover. They observed all Jewish laws and customs on Passover. They wanted for their children to maintain the traditions. Shaya’s wife recalled that Moisha asked his son to continue to do it and especially commemorate Passover. Shaya kept his word. He and his wife did their best to celebrate Passover every year.
After World War II there was significant anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. People were afraid to go to the synagogue and openly celebrate Jewish holidays. Once Shaya’s brother Avraham came to him on Passover. It was a warm day and all the windows were opened and Jewish songs were loudly playing on a record – player in their apartment. Avraham was scared that people outside could hear it, but Shaya was not frightened. It was his holiday and he wanted to celebrate openly and have a good time.
Moisha and Khaya loved their grandchildren. They were very attentive to them and often gave them presents. One time they gave their granddaughter Zinaida a small silver cup, a silver saucer and a small silver spoon. Later, during the Ukrainian famine, her mother Hannah was forced to sell the gift to buy food for the children.
Zinaida remembered that during the summer, their mother usually sent her and her sister Rita from Kharkov to Poltava and their grandparents took care of them. Once when Zinaida and Rita were in Poltava there was a famine in the Ukraine. Zina remembered that there were swollen corpses lying in the streets. At that difficult time, Moisha and Khaya tried to feed not only their children but their grandchildren as well. Zinaida remembered that one-day Khaya sent Zinaida and Shaya to get a bread ration. The bread was of poor quality and tasteless. But at that time, this bread meant life for the family. Knowing that Shaya would be tempted to eat the bread on the way home, Khaya told Zina keep watch and make sure that he didn’t eat it.
When I was born, my grandmother Khaya often came to my parents’ house and bathed me. After this she tied a three-cornered scarf around my head. It was in special style (I have a picture of me with this scarf around my head).
Moisha and Khaya lived in love and harmony. They tried to follow advice they gave each other. Shaya’s wife remembered that after the wedding, the young couple lived together with Shaya’s parents for a couple of months. Khaya liked her daughter-in-law and got along with her but sometimes she was jealous. Moisha told his wife: "You are his mama but Riva is his mamochka".
After the Second World War began, Moisha and Khaya did not evacuate from Kharkov. All their children tried to convince their parents to evacuate with them but they were afraid that their daughters would not be able to support them and their sons would be drafted for active military service. They also remembered German behavior during the First World War, when, during their occupation of the Ukraine, the Germans usually did not hurt peaceful, unarmed people. Unfortunately, they did not know or understand the great difference between the Germans in 1914 and the Nazis in 1941.
My father, Aaron, wanted to take his parents with them but they were afraid to evacuate with him. I have the letter from their daughter Rakhil to my father Aaron from March 28, 1942. In that letter Rakhil was worried about her parents and her sister Golda. Also, she wrote that she asked them to evacuate with her but they rejected Rakhil’s offer and promised her to leave Kharkov with their son Aaron. She added that their parents did not keep their promise and later rejected Aaron’s offer to take them with him. Rakhil thought that if their parents were still alive they were regretting that they did not evacuate when they had the chance. She added that nobody could help them right now.
When all of their children (except Golda who was deaf- and-mute and lived with them) had left the city Moisha and Khaya were desperate. My father Aaron received a letter from Moisha in which he asked his son to help them leave Kharkov. (Aaron saved this letter.) They were terrified to leave home and go to a strange place. Also, they could not evacuate without traveling warrants and train tickets and they were without their children, without their support. They felt like orphans. Khaya was crying all time. But unfortunately, it was too late. The letter was written on October 9, 1941, but by the time Aaron received it, Kharkov was already occupied.
Kharkov was occupied on October 24, 1941. In December 16, 1941 the Nazis ordered all Jews to go to the barracks near the tractor plant, which was located right outside the city. The barracks were meant to serve as a temporary ghetto. There, they stayed in terrible conditions. There were no bathroom facilities or heat and the windows of the barracks were broken. It was a very cold winter (-30 C) and many people died from the poor conditions. Miraculously, Golda managed to escape from the ghetto and go to her girlfriend’s house. Her friend told Golda not to return to the ghetto. But she was worried about her parents so she took some food and returned to the ghetto. In January 1942, Moisha, Khaya and Golda along with over thirty thousand other Jews were killed by the Nazis and buried in a mass grave, in a place now referred to as the Drobitsky Jar (on the outskirts of Kharkov).
More than thirty thousand Kharkov Jews were murdered in the Drobitsky Jar. During many years afterwards, the Soviet government did not reveal the truth about this tragedy. There was no monument; just grass grew in the place where thirty thousand Jews had perished. Only many years after the Holocaust, Jewish activists received permission to put up a monument. In 1954, a plain concrete obelisk was placed in the Drobitsky Jar and a new granite obelisk replaced it in 1967.
The obelisk was dedicated to "victims of fascist terrorism". The Soviet government prohibited dedicating the obelisk to the memory of Jewish victims. In 1991, a book called "Trampled Mezuzah (The Book of the Drobitsky Jar)" was published. It’s a true story about the Jews in occupied Kharkov.
The names of Moisha, Khaya and Golda are listed in the repository for the names of those who perished in the Holocaust in the Hall of Names in Yad Vashem, Israel.
Their daughter Rakhil and granddaughter Zinaida have named their sons after Moisha. Their daughter Rosalia and son Shaya have named their daughters after Khaya (her nickname was Galina). Their son Avraham has named his daughter after his sister Golda.
With the exception of Golda, all other children of Moisha and Khaya survived the war. After the war, Israel, Rosalia, Avraham, and Shaya returned to Kharkov with their families. Hannah, Aaron and Rakhil lived in Kiev. But the children of Moisha and Khaya stuck together in good times and bad.
Descendants of Moisha and Khaya carried out their wishes to leave Russia and immigrated. In 1990 their son Avraham with his family immigrated to Israel. Their son Shaya and daughters Rakhil and Rosalia with their families have immigrated to the United States in the end of 1970s. Israel’s, Hannah’s, and Aaron’s children with their families have also immigrated to the USA. Now grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great- great -grandchildren and even great-great-great-grandchildren of Moisha and Khaya are living in different cities of the USA.
Brothers and sisters
If we do not know our own history, we are doomed
to live it as though it were our private fate.
Hannah Arendt
.
All of Moisha’s and Khaya’s children; Israel, Hannah, Rosalia, Aaron, Rakhil, Golda, Avraham, and Shaya - were born in the shtetl<ref>Moisha’s and Khaya’s children did not know real dates of their birth because they were not registered at their birth. Their daughter Hannah knew that she was born on Purim in 1902. Their daughter Rosalia thought that she was born in 1904 while her papers said it was 1905. My father Aaron only knew that he was born between a son who died and his sister Rakhil. After the Russian Revolution people applying for a passport could wrote what they wanted. All children, when they applied for a passport, should put dates of their birth but it was not actual dates.
</ref>. They lived during a terrible time and their life was no party.
All of them, except Colda - who perished in the Holocaust - were lucky to survive difficult times. They grew up to be hardworking and decent people. All of them appreciated family values and they cared for and helped their parents. They were good spouses and good parents. Throughout all hardships of their lives, they tried to do the best for their children and they passed a gift of good parenting on to their children.
Now almost all of us - their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren - live in other countries, but all hold a part of their blood and their soul. Their morals and family traditions were passed on to their children and the children’s families.
We have this letter by Moisha to his son Aaron, translated by Aaron's daughter Nelli.
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