Judy Patkin, Galina Zilberstein, Barbara Karchmer
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TOPIC PAGE
Contents 2
Overview 3
UKRAINE
Vienna & Dnipropetrovsk 5
Kharkov 5
Lubni 7
Poltava 10
Kirovograd 11
Krivoy Rog 13
Zhovty Vody 15
Pavlograd 16
Novomoskovsk 18
Dnipropetrovsk – Shabbat 20
Odessa 20
Melitopol 23
Dnipropetrovsk & Vienna 28
Minsk 30
Baranovichi 31
Bobruisk 33
Stary Zhurovichi 36
Ashmiany 37
Minsk 38
OVERVIEW
In some locales, Joint is now charging pensioners for the services they provide. This came as a rude awakening and is true only for the oblasts where Menachem Lepkivker is in charge – Dnipropetrovsk region, Zaporozhe region, Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Perhaps it is a trial balloon to see what is possible. Pensioners are charged on a sliding scale of 10% - 60% according to the size of their pensions and what they must pay out for rent and utilities. Although the actual amounts are small, the impact on people who are already poor is significant. The Chesed coordinators report that many pensioners are no longer taking help from Chesed or getting along with less aid as a result. If they have patronnage help two or three times a week (help with shopping, cooking, laundry and cleaning), they say they no longer need it. Some people even decline food and medicine. So a program which is barely keeping up with the need, is squeezing the poor even more. It is infuriating to know that the isolated elderly, who are not able to emigrate are being pushed into a corner. The Joint, which was charged with taking care of them in the former Soviet Union, is doing less and less. Our own Adopt-a-Bubbe program, which is modest by comparison, often fills the gap with food and medicine.
By and large, the Joint is far less able to care for pensioners in Belarus than in Ukraine. In many parts of Ukraine, pensioners are receiving hot meals at home or at a central facility, even in small communities. In Belarus this is rare. Each visit to Bobruisk has produced complaints. The economy in this city is sagging and the pensioners are often the “richest” members of their families. Young people are unable to find work and women over 30 years of age are hardly ever able to find jobs. The outlook is bleak.
Since we go about once a year to visit our Adopt-a-Bubbe program, we often see some of the same clients we have seen before. It was difficult on this trip to see people who had once been in peak health now declining. Nina Kaufman, a woman in her 40’s who was a double amputee and a severe diabetic, has died. Clavdia Ovichenko, our poster lady in the “Catalogue of Philanthropy,” fell and broke her hip and is lying in bed with a bone protruding, barely conscious and waiting to die. Naum Verbitsky, who I last saw riding his bicycle all over the town, has problems with dementia and often cannot remember names and places. The list goes on and on. It is especially hard to see pensioners who should be helped to live productive lives, just left to their own resources. They don’t waste surgery on pensioners. I know of four pensioners who broke their hips and are just left at home to die or recuperate. It’s a hard reality.
Obtaining a building for Jewish religious organizations is still a problem. Most progressive or reform religious congregations struggle to find adequate space. We saw this in Odessa, Pavlograd and Novomoskovsk. In Bobruisk, the one synagogue given back to the community was snatched away at the last minute by chabad, and both the orthodox and progressive communities need to rent space which is expensive and may keep changing. In Odessa, real estate is expensive, so the progressive community is forced to look into purchasing an inadequate building in a bad neighborhood for a lot of money. Communities where Jews probably built at least half of the real estate before WWII, are unable to offer anything suitable. Old synagogues are often in disrepair and left to fall into ruin. On the other hand, even the smaller villages have newly refurbished or brand new churches.
There is a work plan in Belarus which allows teenagers and young adults to go abroad for three months at a time to hold down a job and earn money. We were told of one girl who went to the U.S., worked in a photo shop and brought home over $4,000. The only complaint was that it is difficult to obtain a visa for the U.S. In spite of the bad economic situation, many people are staying put. Emigration is down to a trickle. The U.S. won’t allow anyone in without an invitation from a close relative and Israel and Germany are not desirable options.
New building is going on in many cities, including a tremendous surge of new apartments and business building in Minsk, Belarus. Dnipropetrovsk has high-rise apartment buildings and luxury homes going up in central parts of the city. The small synagogue where we eat breakfast will soon be surrounded by tall buildings. The outskirts of Minsk have block after block of new high-rise apartments, which we are told fill up as soon as they are finished. There must be a tremendous movement of people to the cities and away from the rural areas. In the small village of Zhurovichi, Belarus, the government is building new small homes to lure younger families out to the farmland. Apparently, many villages have aging populations. A new white brick house is being built right across the street from Zelda’s wooden shack.
Automobiles continue to keep up with the latest models we see in the U.S. SUV’s are everywhere. Still, in Belarus I suspect you are on your own when it comes to repairs. Ukraine has many modern gas stations, especially near the larger cities. In Belarus they are modernized versions of their old brands, and not quite as sharp as they are in Ukraine. The price of gas is high everywhere, just as it is in the U.S.
The people who live in Belarus like President Lukashenko. He keeps the country stable and at peace, which is what they want. They appreciate the low level of corruption and crime. The streets are safe, even late at night. They know Lukashenko is not perfect, but they do not want any alternatives. They also like his tough stance with Russia and the West. They don’t understand why American presidents dislike Belarus so much, yet support Russia and Ukraine, which are much more corrupt and just as un-democratic.
I. Sunday, October 10 - Vienna, Dnipropetrovsk
We met Lew and Louise Lifsits at the airport in Vienna and were on the same flight into Dnipropetrovsk. They are staying for three months. Lew is a physician and gerontologist with the Hebrew Rehab. and the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital Medical Center. Louise has expertise in teaching handicapped children. Lew will be working with the physicians and staff at the Beit Baruch Assisted Living Center. The Lifsits were met by Slavik Brez, and we were met by Yan and Tanya Sidelkovsky. It is very cloudy with some intermittent drizzle, but not really cold.
Arrived in Dnipropetrovsk on Sunday, October 10th, but without luggage checked through from Boston. It’s all sitting in Vienna because the plane is too small to carry it – all six pieces. Apparently it will arrive on Monday’s flight and they will bump someone else’s luggage - very annoying. The person at Austrian Air gave us a kit to tide us over until the luggage arrives. They also said they could reimburse us for half of what we needed to spend to replace missing items, up to a total reimbursement of $200. We would need to save receipts to hand in to them. No one was very interested in this option.
We were immediately taken to the Holocaust site at Gagarin Woods where there was a commemorative event already taking place to mark the anniversary of the murders. Arkady Schmist led the ceremony. Many students and adults were there. Students held banners which said, “Never again,” in Russian and in Hebrew. There was a special lantern with candles which various representatives of the Jewish community lit, including myself. They asked me and Lew Lifsitz to make some remarks. Afterwards we went to get our flowers, which were given to us at the airport by Yan and Tanya Sidelkovsky, to place at the bottom of the hill at the base of the memorial monument. Both Galina and Arkady Schmidst told us that it was not a particularly Jewish thing to place flowers at a grave site, so we shouldn’t put them directly in front of the monument. The monument faces south towards Jerusalem, and Arkady has placed some stones on the hill which directly face Jerusalem. Arkady also told us that there were two torahs carved at the top of the monument because the murders took place on Simchat Torah, so the torahs are suspended in the air. Between 10,000 and 13,000 Dnipropetrovsk Jews were murdered at this site in October, 1941. Babi Yar took place in Kiev on September 28, and by October 13 the Nazis were in Dnipropetrovsk. It took two days to kill all the Jews they had gathered there.
We are staying at Hotel Dnipropetrovsk. The heat has not been turned on yet, but it might be switched on by October 15. There is plenty of hot water, though. This little touch is to remind us that we are in Ukraine. Actually, the room was quite comfortable – not cold. We are in the back of the hotel – not facing the Dnipr River with its cold wind. We are meeting Yan and Tanya at Beit Baruch for dinner. It’s been a very long day, since we left home on Saturday around 1:00 P.M.
II. Monday, October 11- Kharkov
Yan told us that the phone numbers for Kharkov have been changed from 6 digits to 7 digits. That probably explains why the Chicago friends of Galina Agapaeva have been unable to reach her.
We drove to the Kharkov Synagogue, about a three-hour drive, – called Mendel Rohr Synagogue after the lubavitch Rabbi, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and George Rohr, an American philanthropist from Miami. Rabbi Moishe Moskowitz met us in his office where we talked for a short while. He is always very warm and pleasant. Then we toured the main sanctuary and after our visit with Galina Agapaeva (next item) went downstairs for a sumptuous lunch. Alexander Dikovsky met us at the synagogue. He is the manager of the Kharkov Medical Clinic for the Jewish community, which is located at another synagogue building, which also houses the boys’ Yeshiva. The girls’ Machon is in the main synagogue on a lower level. Dikovsky was born in 1949. His grandmothers taught him Yiddish, and he used to be fluent in it, but he doesn’t remember enough to speak it today.
Alexander Dikovsky told us a little about Kharkov over lunch. Before the Russian Revolution, there were 13 synagogues and another 20 study houses in Kharkov. The Mendel Rohr Synagogue was built in 1913. Before WWII the population of Kharkov was 900,000 and there were about 150,000 to 200,000 Jews. The Germans reached Kharkov early in November in 1941. Some people had already been evacuated further east. About 15,000 Jews were taken to a Kharkov industrial center and put in barracks there where they worked. This makeshift ghetto was surrounded by barbed wire, but in mid December they began liquidating the ghetto – from December 12 to 15. Those who were too old or infirm to walk to the ghetto (around 2,000 people), were herded into another synagogue which was then set on fire. This building was rebuilt and today houses offices. It was only burned on the inside. Alexander said that it is around the corner from the synagogue we were in. On the anniversary of this burning, the Jewish community holds a commemorative event with Rabbi Moskowitz presiding. The management in the office building is very respectful of the commemoration. The rabbi leads adults and children from the Mendel Rohr Synagogue to this building where they hold a ceremony. There were many rabbis in Kharkov who didn’t want to leave, who were also burned alive there.
Our first visit was to Galina Apa’aeva, a friend of Galina Zilberstein’s friends in Chicago. The Kharkov Galina and Garik in Chicago grew up together in Kharkov and studied at the same technical institute. Garik later went to Moscow for further schooling and eventually came to the U.S. Galina was born in 1933. She trained in civil engineering, but her father was a well-known architect in Kharkov, so she became an architect as well. She said that she used to be quite beautiful when she was younger. Galina has a daughter, Lena, who works in a shop from 9:00 A.M. until 9:00 P.M. Galina, who is bedridden, stays on her own during the day and a patronnage nurse from the Joint comes in twice a day for a two-hour stint to take care of her. The apartment was very neat and clean, and she looked well taken care of.
She was sitting on her bed when we arrived, leaning heavily to one side, wearing a plaid flannel shirt and a warm mohair scarf over her shoulders. Her hands were very warm to the touch. Galina told us that she fell about five years ago on her right shoulder and broke some part of her back – perhaps the scapula, but it wasn’t clear. She had fallen on her way up a steep hill to the hospital to visit her husband, who has since passed away. She also has an inoperable brain tumor and her right eyelid is almost entirely shut. She has bad headaches, dizziness, muscle weakness and is unable to stand well or walk. She is quite lucid and carried on a good conversation, answered questions and even made a joke. It was sad to see her so incapacitated and to be unable to help.
We visited with Alexander Dikovsky further at the synagogue used for the medical clinic he manages. The physician was not there, and the clinic was closed. Dikovsky would like to have instructions in Russian on how to use the various medicines we send. We told him to send us a list of those he needed more information on and we would see what we could do. He showed us some capsules called Charco Caps, which were a complete puzzle. Galina said they were excellent for gas and bit into one of them to demonstrate. Used clothing is very valuable and they would especially appreciate children’s clothing in all sizes for those who attend the Jewish schools they run. Most children who go to their schools are very poor. They would love to have a variety of shoes for these children. He asked that we not mix packing clothing with medicine, but send them separately, which we usually do.
Dikovsky has had some problems with out-of-date medicines. He knows they are quite good, but some people complain so loudly that they are afraid that the medical authorities in the city will close them down. They had an incident at the summer camp this year and finally had to grease some palms to calm down the authorities. Dikovsky said that for him, it just isn’t worth the risk.
He would love to have vitamins. They are especially requested in the fall and in the spring. We told him that they were on the way in boxes we had recently sent from Boston. We asked Dikovsky to have a couple of his satisfied patients send us a thank-you note with their picture – something we can use in a newsletter or mailing to our members. Many people are thrilled with the medicines we send. When Yan Sidelkovsky asked in a phone call what he could bring on today’s trip, Dikovsky said nothing because he had enough from Boston already. That was good new for us.
We drove about four hours from Kharkov to Lubni. We met Boris Rudman, our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator at the entrance to the city and he led us to our Hotel Lubni. We arrived around 9:30 P.M. and checked in. The woman behind the counter checking us in could not read English, so we had some fun telling her our names and addresses – we shortened everything to Boston. Our hotel is rather spare, but clean. There is no heat and it is getting rather cold since the rain stopped. There is hot water, but in the morning there was next to no water pressure and the water was only cold, so I could barely wash my hands and a shower was out of the question. Tomorrow morning we will visit some clients with Boris and then leave for Poltava, where we will do the same. We head back to Dnipropetrovsk at the end of the day.
Yan spoke with Tanya on the phone, and she picked up our six bags, which were held in Vienna, and has them safely stored at their office in the synagogue in Dnipropetrovsk. Apparently there were no problems with customs. That’s a relief to everyone.
III. Tuesday, October 12 - Lubni & Poltava
Lubni is a very old city and was founded in the year 980. There are about 220 Jews now out of a total population of 68,000. Perhaps 60 Jews take advantage of the Shofar Club, which offers many free activities for all ages. Before WWII, there were about 8,000 Jews in Lubni out of a total population of 32,000. About 4,000 were killed in the Holocaust on October 16, 1941. A Jewish historian, Gennady Markovich Henkin knows the whole story, but he was in Dnipropetrovsk for a few days working at the Holocaust archives there.
We had breakfast with Boris Rudman at the hotel and he told us a little about himself and the Jewish community in Lubni. Boris was born in Mirgorod, where his father was stationed in the military with the rank of captain. His father was a technician for an American bomber called “Frantic,” a joint venture between Americans and Soviets. His grandfather was very devout and lived to the age of 93 in Kharkov.
Boris serves about 20 pensioners in the Adopt-a-Bubbe program, but only takes care of seven or eight people at a time when he receives funds from Yan. He usually gets about $70. That’s all the funds will support at any given time. Most people are helped every three months by Adopt-a-Bubbe. It is not always food, but sometimes they repair a refrigerator, purchase paint for an apartment, or repair a TV. The clients are very appreciative of the help. Food does not seem to be a big problem because Chesed Shofar delivers hot meals to the most fragile pensioners five days a week, and on Friday they receive three meals to carry them over the weekend. Chesed feeds about 30 pensioners a hot meal at a central location, and many others receive food through the “Super Market” program, where they can obtain certain foods three times a month at the supermarket for 90 gr. or $5. The head of Chesed Shofar is Sergey Mordukhov, and we also met with him.
Our first visit was with Dora Isaakova Dubrovskaya, who was born on August 19, 1915 in Poltava and is 89 years old. She was thoroughly delightful to meet and talked non stop. Dora lives in a single home, which is large and spotlessly clean.
Dora has two sons, age 63 and 65, who take care of her. One lives in Kharkov and the other in Mikolaev. Dora’s pension is now 284 grivinas/month ($54), an amount which every pensioner has been given recently as part of the election campaign in Ukraine. Formerly hers was 22 gr./month ($4). She used to work in a bank in Poltava. However, Dora said that prices have risen considerably and there are no longer government subsidies, so the rise in pension goes just as quickly as it ever did. For instance, 5 kilos of flour went from 5 gr. to 12 gr. Dora is unsteady on her feet and walks with a cane. She has poor hearing, but managed to understand us very well. Dora is one of the first clients of Adopt-a-Bubbe, and has been helped since 1998, when the program began in Lubni. She said, “If not for this program I wouldn’t know what to do.” Adopt-a-Bubbe repaired her hearing aid, her refrigerator and her TV. Every two or three months she receives a chicken, vegetable oil and butter. She doesn’t need to put in an order because they know what she likes. Dora said, “Thank you very much.” Adopt-a-Bubbe is able to help people in ways which Chesed cannot, so the two programs work well together.
Dora gets medicine from the Joint. She has many problems with her stomach, pancreas, liver, and hypertension. She knows Boris Rudman well and used to know his father, too.
A patronnage person comes from Chesed twice a week for several hours, and she shops, cleans and does the laundry. She arrived while we were visiting – Marina, who is the daughter of Sergey, the head of Chesed. Two years ago Dora fell in her apartment rushing to answer the phone and broke her leg. It was set in a cast and when she came home from the hospital, her son in Kharkov moved in with her for several months. She didn’t need surgery.
Dora told us about her family. Her father was a big party boss and was transferred to Lubni in 1920. Dora married in 1939. Her husband was a lieutenant in the army. Their first son was born just before the war began and was one year old when she became pregnant again. She went to Poltava to be with her mother. Her husband’s brother was drafted into the army and was to report on June 22nd. They had a farewell party for him with many friends attending, and her husband took the baby to accompany his brother to the military post where they would say goodbye. The new recruits were in the bath house because they were showering as part of getting ready. A senior officer came out and told them that war had broken out. Her husband joined the front and she stayed with her mother in Poltava. One of their neighbors worked with the KGB and he came to tell them to get out. “Don’t you know the Nazis are killing Jews?” Most of the population didn’t know to leave. She and her mother and baby left with another family with documents to certify that they were married to military personnel. This enabled them to receive help from the military in evacuation. They left in September, 1941, for Tartaria, which is along the Volga between Chelyabinsk and Ufa. The journey took a month. The second son was born in evacuation. Two or three weeks after they left, the Nazis occupied Poltava. Tartaria was very crowded with evacuees – mostly from Moscow. The new baby was sickly and cried all the time, so their landlady asked them to leave. They couldn’t find another apartment and didn’t know what to do. A large monastery was being converted into tiny rooms, but they were refused space. Dora finally wrote to Stalin about her plight. She said that everyone curses Stalin, but she thanks him because a letter was sent 10 days later to the Tartaria authorities and they got an apartment. Dora’s husband survived the war, but at age 65 he had a stroke which left him blind and an epileptic. He died in 1977 when he was 68 years old.
Our second visit in Lubni was with Lev Israilovich Feldman, who was born December 27, 1929. His wife died 2 ½ years ago, but she was older than he is. He has one son who lives in Irkutsk and can only visit every few years, usually when he goes to Moscow on business. The son used to work in Petrozavodsk on Kamchatka, which was even further away. Lev was born in Lubni and his parents were, too. He served in the army and worked in a distribution center for supermarkets. He was evacuated to Tashkent, but came back to Lubni after the war. He has one sister and one brother. The sister died, but the brother also lives in Lubni. Lev also worked for the railroad, firing the burner for the steam locomotives. He stayed on in another position when the trains became electric. Lev’s pension is 284 gr./month ($57) after the raise. Before the raise it was 198 gr./month ($38). “Just because it is high now doesn’t mean it will stay that way forever.” He pays 60 gr.($11) for rent and utilities, including the phone.
Lev takes medicine for his heart, stomach, laryngitis, dizziness, liver, and indigestion. He has over a dozen medicines in a plastic bag, including sleeping pills. Most are herbal.
Luda Rudman, Boris’ wife is the patronnage person for Lev, and we met her there. She has six clients and works 32 hours/week. She comes in twice a week for Lev – on Tuesday and Thursday. Lev’s wife used to be her client, too. She was very sick. Luda cleans, does laundry by hand, cooks and shops. Lev doesn’t need personal care. In fact, he walks to the Shofar Club, which is a short distance away. Luda used to be an engineer in a meat processing plant during Soviet times. Now the plant belongs to shareholders and is not in great shape. Many parts of it have closed down and she was laid off.
Lev receives help from Adopt-a-Bubbe every three to six months, depending upon the grant. His hearing aid was repaired by Adopt-a-Bubbe. People receive 50 – 60 gr. ($9 - $11) worth of help each time. Boris said that he would rather help people less frequently, but do something substantial for them, rather that dole out little bits at a time. They are more appreciative, too.
The apartment was cold. Lev goes outside by himself, but uses a cane. He goes to a Torah study class at the Cultural Center. It is led by someone from Kharkov on Shabbat. Lev reads the papers. He receives hot meals from Chesed at home and he cooks a little for himself.
Our third visit was with Misha (Mikhail) Isaakovich Zagarmeister, born December 9, 1921 in Lubni. I had seen Misha once before, but several years ago and he looked much more frail this time, and he is blind. He said that when he was in the army, his sergeant used to make fun of his name. He made up a rhyme with Mr. Twister the Foreign Minister, etc., etc. Misha is from a large family with three brothers and three sisters. His grandparents were religious, but not his parents. His mother died in 1924 when he was less than three years old and the youngest. His mother went to the river, caught a cold which became pneumonia and then peritonitis. His mother’s sister, Rachel, adopted Misha and raised him as her own son. Two of his sisters were shot in Simferopol during the war. The third sister married in Kharkov and died in a bombing raid there. The oldest brother died at the front. The middle brother went as far as Vienna in the war. He died 20 years ago.
He was drafted on June 22, just as he graduated high school at age 17. He was pushed back by the Germans in Kiev and was part of the Stalingrad battle. He was not wounded. He entered Kiev University in the history department. He was sent after graduation to teach in Uman at a junior college, but when he got there the job was taken. So he went to Lubni and worked for 33 years at a local school teaching history. He realized when he began working that his students must love him, so gave them the best knowledge with showmanship. He traveled widely throughout the USSR.
Misha talked about the deep dissatisfaction of young people in Ukraine and the high suicide rate in this age group and quoted the figure of 10,600 who died from suicides in one year. Misha listens to short-wave radio and gathers information from Voice of America, the BBC and a German station as well as local Ukrainian stations. He is blind, and his patronnage people also read to him.
Misha became blind in 1995. He does not use braille and no longer can read, which is a real loss since he was an avid reader. He has glaucoma and cataracts. He was operated on in 1994 for glaucoma and was told not to read, but he did and he attributes his reading to his blindness. He takes eye drops, Immodium, a digestive aid, heart medicine and herbal medicines. Misha has very few teeth left. He is very grateful for the help he gets from America through the Joint and Adopt-a-Bubbe.
We saw copies of the Holocaust pictures at the Shofar Club which were left by a Danish film crew which filmed in Lubni in June, 2002. No one in Lubni has ever seen the film and they would like very much to have a copy of it. The photos are a collection of 34 pictures of the roundup and killing of Jews taken by a professional German photographer. The pictures are striking and show many close ups of people – both the victims and the local police who took part. People are clothed in many layers and carry bundles of belongings. The director of the film is Ove Hugholm.
The killing place is called Solinitzi. There is a memorial there, which we drove to before leaving Lubni. The first memorial was a stela put up in 1950 which was replaced in 2001 with a distinctive cement edifice with a Magen David and candelabra. There are plaques on the monument which briefly tell what happened there. All the Jews were gathered at Market Square on ul. Ivano Frankovsk and walked to this site – some 4,000 people. There is a large mound which is part of the original pit where the Jews were shot and buried. The original mound was much longer that what remains today. Also, many bones were dug up and re-buried, because the weather kept washing up skeletons. Jews were marched for 3 ½ km to this place. The sick and elderly were carried there by their families – no one was left behind. People were stripped to their underwear and eyewitnesses talk about the long white line going to their death. Small groups were taken to be shot.
We were late getting to Poltava, and drove to Faina Teplitskaya’s apartment in the old section. Faina and her son, Leonya are coordinators for our Adopt-a-Bubbe program. Faina served us a sumptuous dinner before we visited Polina Lapkina, a woman we had requested to see because her photograph showed a rather destitute situation.
Our first visit was with Rabbi Iosif Segal at the new Or Avner Jewish Day School which he just opened this September. Parts of the building are still unfinished, but the sections we saw were very attractive. The school has 22 students, with five in grade one. There are 10 children in the lower level and twelve in the upper level. There are plans for a nursery school and kindergarten for four to six-year-olds, but that is not finished yet. The building has the capacity to hold 150 students, so there is plenty of space to grow. They have a splendid glatt kosher kitchen. We met the principal, Olga Alexeiovna Obogrelova. She is very proud of their new beginning. They would like to have books donated for a library – in English, Hebrew or Russian. There is no library yet. The address of the school is ul. G. Khomkebura 9, Poltava 36040, Ukraine.
We visited with Polina Lapkina and her daughter Irina. Polina was born on December 18, 1935, and is 68 years old. Polina was lying in bed fully clothed with her head wrapped in a couple of scarves. This was not unusual, since the weather was turning cold and there was no heat yet. However, the condition of the room was terrible. The first thing which hit us was the odor, which never diminished. Her bedding and the room in general were filthy with several bugs crawling around the pillow. Polina and her daughter took no note of any of this. We had been warned by Faina and Leonya that she was “meshuganah.” They suspect both her and the daughter of some kind of mental illness. However, Polina was quite lucid and talked with us, answered questions, etc. She complained of something being wrong with her legs, so she does little walking. She also has “chondrosis” (whatever that may be), and problems with her kidney, stomach, and a goiter. She said that she wanted to move more than she does, but she gets “spasms” in her legs when she tries. A patronnage person from Chesed comes to help three times a week for a couple of hours, and I really feel sorry for the situation she must deal with.
The daughter, Irina, is about 30 years old and also has health problems. She has been an epileptic since age nine, and has never worked. Sometimes she goes to the hospital for her epilepsy and they give her medicine, but she still has attacks. She looked fine when we saw her and also spoke with us and answered questions. Galina gave Irina some hand cream.
Polina worked for 36 years as an accountant for a construction company doing the payroll and ordering. Her pension is the new amount every pensioner is receiving – 284 gr. ($54) / month. It used to be 69 gr. ($13) / month. Since Irina is an invalid, she also receives a pension. Polina reads newspapers and listens to the radio. Their TV is broken. The windows in the apartment are sealed with heavy fabric, so no light enters the room. They wanted to put in a second front door to seal themselves from the cold, but it is too expensive - $350. Galina asked whether they ever open a window to get some fresh air. Polina began to get annoyed with the question and brushed it off saying they do that in the summer. It’s a very sad situation, but I don’t know what can be done to help any more than we are already doing – providing them with food. Leonya delivered a large bag of fruit, chicken, butter and a few other items.
We drove back to Dnipropetrovsk in the dark and even had a flat tire just as we entered the city. We stopped to pick up our baggage at the Golden Rose Synagogue, which had been late getting to us, and then headed to Hotel Dnipropetrovsk. It was good to be back in a heated place with hot water, plenty of toilet paper, etc. The hotel is filled with some kind of security conference, but we managed to be on the same floor – just not next to one another. For our next trip, we will leave all the baggage in one room, so we don’t have to schlep everything up and down the elevator.
IV. Wednesday, October 13, Kirovograd & Krivoy Rog
1. I met Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki in the vestibule of the Golden Rose Synagogue. He looks good and said that everyone is healthy. His two older daughters had gone to New York with a group of 20 children who had studied hard and passed an exam to qualify for the trip. They arrived home with some relatives who are visiting from New York. On the way home from their flight to Kiev, one of the two cars had an accident, but the children are O.K. The adults had a couple of broken bones, but are not too badly off. It’s a very long trip from Kiev by car – about seven hours. It must have been a harrowing time because they didn’t get in until 2:00 A.M. One car arrived and no one knew where the other car was.
2. We traveled west this morning to Kirovograd, where we spent the day. It’s about a four-hour drive from Dnipropetrovsk. Kirovograd has about 2,000 Jews out of a population of 250,000. Three old synagogues are being used as bakeries now. They do have a large synagogue building that was given to the Jewish community. We saw it last year and it needs a lot of repair.
Our first stop was at the Or Avner Jewish Day School which is run by Rabbi Dan Zakuta, a former student of Rabbi Kaminezki. Our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator, Sasha (Alexander) Slobodanik, met us near the entrance to the city and showed us the way. The school has 40 children in grades one through seven, although only two children are in grade one. Tatyana Koval is the principal of the Jewish Day School. Rabbi Zakuta’s wife teaches the Jewish subjects in the school. At present, she is taking a two-week course at Beit Hana, the teachers’ college in Dnipropetrovsk, on how to teach Hebrew. She will have a Master’s Degree when she finishes. They have two boys – a. four-year-old and a one-year-old.
Their gan/ kindergarten will be in another building, which we didn’t see. Rabbi Zakuta is still negotiating the final paper work for it, but 15 children are already signed up. They hope to open the gan around Purim, after some repairs are completed. Rabbi Zakuta seemed much more sure of himself on this visit as he works his way into the Jewish community.
We have been sending clothing and vitamins to this community. Sasha told us that one of the most important things we can send them are vitamins. This area used to have uranium mines and the cancer rates are higher than that of any other part of Ukraine. The residue from the mining was used as an underbed for road building, so the whole city is contaminated. “The anti-oxidants in the vitamins are the best ingredient.” They would like to have children’s vitamins, but really want them to be kosher. They would also like to have children’s clothing. When we asked whether the children are healthy, they said that they are not, but nothing specific came to mind, other than a lot of runny noses, which others have as well. Their poor health was blamed on the bad government kindergarten system and bad food.
We discussed economic issues. As we have already heard, pensioners now receive 284 gr./month (about $54). Bread prices went down 10%, but everything else is up. Workers were also hit hard by inflation. The average salary of a teacher is around 400 gr./ month ($75). People manage on two salaries, but there is no saving. They can get credit from a bank for a loan, but the interest rate runs from 15% to 20%. Shtutman, whom we met last year, bought a factory recently which makes parts for agricultural equipment. The rabbi hopes he does well because I believe that he supports some of the Jewish community needs. There aren’t many well off Jewish businessmen in this city.
Sasha gave me two photos of Alec Groshenkar from Bobrinitz, who had written a nice note to us, but without a picture. He also handed in his report and a small photo album of the people we are helping in Kirovograd. We discussed getting out to the smaller communities around Kirovograd, something the last coordinator was doing before she emigrated. Sasha said that the problem was transportation. Otherwise, he is willing. We had a further discussion of this with Rabbi Zakuta, and they may be able to work something out because he travels on occasion to a few other communities as part of his work – Oleksandra, Iznamenka and Guyvoran. The rabbi has a few volunteers in these places, but they work, so are not available during the day. Perhaps Sasha can speak with them by phone and tell them about our program and see what the interest level is. Rabbi Zakuta said that only Kirovograd and Oleksandra have any industry. The rest are agricultural communities, and they have been suffering from a depression for quite a while. Two sugar beet plants have closed, but another has been modernized and seems to be operating well. There is a car connected to the Jewish Day School and Rabbi Zakuta has already planned a visit to Guyvoran.
There are 107 clients in Kirovograd in our Adopt-a-Bubbe program. Sasha receives $200 usually every month. He sees the pensioners once every three months, but a few are seen more often if they are more needy. For instance, some have been given funds for special care after surgery. Sasha is very diligent and the program works well here. The woman whom we saw last year with the broken hip (Margulies) receives an extra 10 gr. ($2) / month to help her out. This is in addition to the $200 Sasha receives for the rest of his clients. Sasha also received an extra 87 gr. ($16) this month for expenses – mostly for photography.
3. We made two home visits in Kirovograd – the first with Sophie Abramovna Shakadun, who was born in 1910. She looks much younger than her 94 years and is very spry. She told us that she doesn’t like to sit still. Sophie was charming and we had a good conversation with her. She was born in Kirovograd, and her parents were very Jewish. Her father was a chazzan or cantor. She quickly told us that Sasha, her Adopt-a-Bubbe contact, is a very good person. Sophie worked in a sewing factory before WWII stitching blankets. She was evacuated with her factory to Kokand in Uzbekistan. She has two sons. One is a pensioner and lives in Kirovograd and has a son in Israel. She showed us a picture of her Israeli grandson. Another grandson is in Germany. The other son has no job, and is not well, but he also lives in Kirovograd. She has a large picture of her husband, who fought to the end of the war and stayed in the military another year before returning home. They obtained the present apartment in 1974. He was a driver and died in 1992, so she has been a widow for a long time. When we asked about Sophie’s health, the only thing she has is high blood pressure – 270/140. However, she is on medication and seems fine, so we think this must have been corrected. She also takes vitamins, but not much else. She doesn’t go out much now because it is too cold. She doesn’t use a cane. A patronnage person comes three times a week for two hours to shop, cook, clean and bathe her. She gets food from the “supermarket” plan of Chesed. Three times a month, she can shop for food for around 25 – 30 gr. ($5) each time. Her eyes are good and she likes to read the paper. Her hearing is also good. All in all, she is a remarkable woman.
4. We next visited a couple – Aaron Isaakovich Shatz and Raisa Mikhailovna Shatz. Both were born in 1928. Aaron was born in the village of Dobravillagekovka in the Kirovograd oblast and Raisa was born in Kirovograd. Aaron worked as a machinist for the railroad for 40 years. Raisa worked at different factory jobs for 36 years. They both receive the pension of 284 gr. ($54) / month. They have a son and daughter and granddaughter who live five bus stops away.
Aaron’s parents died of starvation in 1933, and he was raised in an orphanage in the village. During the war, he was evacuated with the whole orphanage to the Caucasus in Stavropolsky Krai. Raisa was evacuated with her mother, grandmother and aunt to the north Caucasus and worked for a factory in a Kolholz or collective farm. She went to school there.
They receive food on the “supermarket” plan by Chesed. Once a month they receive a food package from Odessa which contains a kilo of sugar, two pounds of pasta, a bottle of oil, raisins and some other things. They have some problems with their apartment because tenants caused a flood and their ceiling and wall are soaked and need repair. Also, their stove is not working well and can’t be fixed. It is supposed to be dangerous to use, but they have no choice.
5. It is about a 2 ½ -hour drive to Krivoy Rog from Kirovograd. It is very cold out and we were afraid that there would be no heat in the hotel. However, we are in luxury accommodations with heat and the most gorgeous bathroom we have ever had. Yan said that this hotel is used by the big politicians. They only had room for two of us, but showed us a room with a couch, so we can all stay together. It’s a suite! Yan and the driver are staying with Yura and Inna Shifrin at their apartment. Inna is one of our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinators here. We will all have breakfast together here in the morning
V. Thursday, October 14, Krivoy Rog & Zhovty Vody
It’s morning and there was a hard frost last night. We’re so glad we have heat! The breakfast room is a winter garden with palm trees, hyacinth, cacti and a yellow parakeet. Right across the street and set back is an abandoned coal or uranium mine with slag heaps all around – just to remind us we are still in the former Soviet Union.
Yura Shifrin shared some information with us over breakfast. There are 1,984 Jews on the Chesed lists. Around 300 receive meals on wheels twice a week with three meals delivered each time. Another 300 eat in a dining room. 370 receive food parcels once a month. An additional 220 receive parcels every 10 days. The rest receive small food parcels twice a year – for Rosh Hashanah and Pesach with 1 kilo of buckwheat, a bottle of vegetable oil, a can of sardines and a box of matzah. Adopt-a-Bubbe takes care of 89 pensioners. Some are part of Chesed, but they make certain they don’t receive double meals. Some situations are not so simple. For instance, Manya Rausberg lives in a wreck of a house without a decent roof – you can see the sky in some places. However, the help she receives is really wasted because she has mental problems in addition to physical health problems, the latest of which is hepatitis. There are members of the Jewish community who are well off, and they do not receive help from Adopt-a-Bubbe. However, Chesed calculates who is eligible by the size of their pension minus the cost of utilities, even though they have rich children who are building large churches. Yura gave us an address to send packages. He said that they could use clothing and vitamins. They especially would like children’s shoes – something everyone seems to be asking for. Packages should be sent to Inna Shifrin, Gorodskaya Evreiskaya Obshina, ul. Balakina 41 a, Krivoy Rog, Dniepropetrovsk oblast, Ukraine. Inna was working today, so Yura took us on our home visits. By the way, Yura and Inna’s daughter is getting married in December to a wonderful Jewish man who works at a technology company in Kiev. Apparently he has a very good position there, and they will be living there after the wedding. Yura’s eyes lit up with the news. They are all very pleased.
Our first home visit in Krivoy Rog was with Liza (Leah) Dukova, who is 83 years old and her sister-in-law, Sarah Abramovna, who is 85. I have seen these two women several times over the years, but their situation is really deteriorating. Leah had a leg amputated well above the knee two months ago. She is understandably rather depressed, but carried on a good conversation with us. Sarah also seems more frail and has to be careful how she walks. They live on the top floor (the 5th) of a walk-up apartment building. While we were there a technician came to take a blood sample from Leah’s finger. Leah is a diabetic, which most likely explains the amputation. A representative from Chesed, Svetlana, who happens to be the head of the patronnage service and actually trains them, also came to deliver medicine for Leah. This person is overworked and should not be delivering medicine. They had to pay 20 gr. ($4) toward the cost of the medicine before it could be left. This is a lot for them, but they manage to scrape it together.
Leah has been given a wheelchair to use, but she complained that it was too wide to fit through the doorway inside the apartment. Yan tried it out, and it went through the living room door, but was a tight squeeze in the hallway because they have an empty unused refrigerator right next to the living room door. Also, the kitchen door made it difficult to wheel it in there, but if the door were removed, it would most likely fit O.K. It is too small for the bathroom door, but Leah has a commode to use. Eventually, she should be on crutches, but they said it was too soon for that. She probably could use a walker, which Chesed usually has. Leah said that Chesed promised to change the wheelchair, but they haven’t done anything about it yet. They do not have a patronnage person to help them right now, although there was someone there to help right after Leah came out of the hospital. Svetlana, the Chesed person explained to us that they are very short of patronnage workers. It is very hard work and they pay is very low – 300 gr./month. The pensioners receive a pension of 284 gr./month, so it hardly pays. A few years ago they used to have 45 patronnage workers, but now there are only 25. Many people have a caseload of 10 clients, which is a lot. They used to serve four or five. Svetlana said that they have trouble with patronnage workers getting better paying jobs or going on vacation without much notice. There is no one to cover. She said that she knew she has no one to help Leah, who is in better care because she has Sarah to assist her with food, etc. Meanwhile, Sarah has heart problems and is rather frail herself. There is no easy answer. Barbara gave them some artificial sweetener, artificially sweetened cocoa and a packet of Cup-of-Soup. We also had some packets of toiletries for them with soap, shampoo, hand cream, etc.
The second home visit was with Zelda Grigorievna Berezovskaya, who was born in 1921 and is 84 years old. It was quite a long drive between visits because Krivoy Rog is very long and narrow, so the distances between different parts of the city are great. Zelda was evacuated to the Rostov oblast. She was not married at the time. She was with a group of young people, including a twin sister, who walked to Stalingrad from the end of the line. The whole group was very tired and hungry and couldn’t move any further. Her mother, younger sister and grandparents left at the same time, but when they came to a river, they were unable to jump on a raft and were captured by the Germans and taken to a concentration camp. An uncle died at the front. Her mother’s brother was a well-known intelligence officer who was the first person to tell Stalin about the German plans. He and his wife also were overtaken. They lived in Stalindorf, a Jewish agricultural settlement. Her parents were very devout and celebrated all the holidays, whether they were allowed to or not. The camp they were taken to was in Sofietsky rayon and was called Lyubimovska. Another relative had a baby and was pregnant with a second. She went to live with her parents in Dnipropetrovsk. They were all killed at Zlatouskovoka, somewhere between Dnipropetrovsk and Krivoy Rog, near a ravine. They were gathered on the route of a new road being built by prisoners for the Germans.
Zelda went to school through grade seven in Kamenka, a Jewish agricultural colony, where she was taught in Yiddish. She worked for 52 years. In the early years as a pharmacist and when she retired in 1967, she studied accounting by a correspondence course and then worked in that field. She married and has a daughter. A son died at age 2 ½ in 1953. She couldn’t get pregnant for a long time, but then had a daughter. The daughter is 40 years old, divorced with no children. Zelda’s husband died 12 years ago, in 1992. He went through the whole war at the front. He volunteered at age 17. He was wounded, but survived. Two years before he died, he was called by the government authorities to receive a medal. He went and slipped and fell, breaking his hip. For two years he was bedridden before he died.
Zelda told us an interesting story about her efforts to put up two monuments to the children orphaned by the war. About 50 years ago, she helped to organize this and is very proud of her effort. A large number of adults gathered and collected funds from one another for this project. There are two monuments – one at Lyubimovska and another at Zlatoustovoka. It was a Jewish project and involved Jews from all over the former Soviet Union. In fact, some inscriptions had to be translated because they were in different languages. On May 9th, they gather at these monuments for a commemorative ceremony. Yura and Inna Shifrin help them to hire a bus to make the trip. Most of the orphaned “children” are elderly now, so the group is getting smaller and smaller. If the orphans are unable to come, sometimes their children and grandchildren come in their place.
Zelda is grateful for all the programs which the Jewish community provides. It is only due to their efforts that she is still alive. They provided her with a new TV, she participates in the “supermarket” program and gets food parcels three times a month. She pays 4 gr. for that (less than $1). She pays 20% of the cost of her medicine. She has arteriosclerosis, arthritis, colon cancer (she wears a drainage bag), diabetes, and has had small strokes, and cataracts. Two years ago she was operated on for colon cancer. She is very grateful to President Kuchma for enabling her to be Jewish again. Her husband had to change his patronymic from Abramovich to Adreevich when he entered the army.
We drove for about two hours to Zhovty Vody to meet with the “Teplo Dom” or Warm House whom I have seen on almost every visit. They are a wonderful group, but they are also showing their age with several serious medical problems. When we asked how many Jews are in Zhovty Vody, they were unable to come up with a figure. Ten or 15 years ago the official number was 200 out of a total population of 40,000. There are more than 100 on the Chesed list.
Clavdia Ochinchenko, who used to do wonderful embroidery, fell a month ago and broke her hip and is totally bedridden and hardly conscious. She is 94 years old. Her femur sticks out through her skin. Her daughter, Josepha Yaroukha, takes care of her, which I’m sure is rather difficult. The only medicine she receives is sleeping pills, and they are just waiting for the end. Josepha’s granddaughter is in Dnipropetrovsk. She had emergency surgery for an ovarian cyst in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. They were fortunate to call Yan and find his daughter Valeriya at home, who is a gynecologist. She arranged for the ambulance and hospital admittance. Josepha is very grateful that we were able to give them 300 gr. ($57) towards this medical treatment. They needed 700 gr. ($132) and had to raise the rest. Budrianovich (probably a wealthy businessman) came up with the remainder. Fortunately, they operated from above, so she can still bear children. This all happened in June, 2002.
Naum Verbitsky has been diagnosed with dementia, and has trouble remembering, although he visited with us (we were at his and Avgusta’s apartment this time) and he accompanied us on the home visits. There was no heat in the apartment. They receive a package from Chesed every 10 days. This comes through Menachem Lepkivker, the head of Chesed in the region, who has an office in Dnipropetrovsk. Depending upon their income, they pay 30% of the cost of the package. There was an article in the local paper about this. The article calls it an individual approach. People here have a higher pension because they have been exposed to uranium – they receive 500 gr./month/person ($100). Three times a year Naum needs medicine administered by injection, which costs 1,000 gr. ($200). Avgusta said that the medicine is very expensive, but it has really helped Naum.
Naum Verbitsky and Avgusta Nilolaevna Malesheva have two sons in Israel. The oldest is a chemical engineer and works for a private company purifying substances for industrial applications. He is in the army now and has already been punished for falling asleep at the wrong time. They have a family of four. One grandson came back to Zhovty Vody because the wife is unable to find work and it is very difficult to support the whole family on one salary. They emigrated seven years ago. The younger son is a biologist, who left for Israel 10 years ago. He works at the Technion in Haifa in sports medicine on a Shapiro Scholarship. He was accepted on the staff of this department, but his pay is also very low. He trains a swimming group, but does not actually lecture.
Our first home visit in Zhovty Vody was with Moise Abelovich Hanin, who was born in 1920 and is 85 years old. He was born in Odessa, and his parents were also born there. Moise commanded a tank in the war and walked from Stalingrad to Konigsburg. He was very brave and was recently given a medal from the government for his bravery. He tried on his jacket with all his medals, which completely cover one side of the front. Moise returned from the war in 1946. He said that he worked after the war just as competently as he did in the army. He was in an automobile factory and was a highly qualified worker. His mother died before the war began. His father was in the army and died at the front. Moise was sent to Krasnodar when he same back from the army and worked on road construction there.
Since April, 2002, he has had three heart attacks. He went to the kitchen to open the refrigerator and fell – that was the first heart attack. A woman, Olga Semionova, who is a friend, came to visit while we were there. He also has a son and daughter-in-law nearby who help him. He likes the food parcels from Adopt-a-Bubbe.
Our second visit was with Anna Davidovna Koloshina. Her maiden name is Tsipkina, and she was born in 1931 in Piatihatki, a nearby town. Her Russian husband is Leonya Koloshin, who was born in 1929 in Krasnoyarsky Kray in Siberia. Anna understands Yiddish. Leonya is ill with a breathing problem. They also live on the top floor of their walk-up apartment building. He is looking for an inhaler and Yan said that he would look into what he has on hand. Leonya may have bronchitis from his former factory work. Anna said that they always avoid giving a work-related diagnosis. “Other than that, I’m as strong as a bull!” He can go up and down the stairs and goes to the park.
Anna’s father fought at the front. She was evacuated to Nalchuk in the Caucasus. A younger sister was born in 1941 during the journey. There were five children in the family – two more sisters and a brother who died of a heart attack. Another sister was born in 1945. One year later, her father died. Her mother passed away in 1970. Anna worked as a hairdresser for 15 years. Her sister was a laboratory director at one of the research institutes and gave her a job winding cable on bobbins. She later transferred to the Xerox department where she worked for 25 years before retiring.
Leonya worked for 25 years in a factory as an electrician. Their daughter, Daniella, who is studying at Beit Hana, was married in February in Dnipropetrovsk to a chasid. They plan to move to Israel, where the husband will enter the army. The daughter will stay with her mother-in-law there. They showed us some of the wedding pictures. The wedding took place at the Beit Baruch Assisted Living Center. The couple was visiting and wanted to see us, but left just before we arrived.
Anna has had a preliminary heart attack and just came out of the hospital. She has hypertension. Her heart medication is very expensive – Preductal MR, made by the French company Servier. As an evacuee, she receives a special discount of 50%. She also takes something for her high blood pressure – Klophilin biostimulator, Netrasorbid (a Russian medication), Captopres-Darnitsa (hydrochlorothiazide). She spends 400 – 500 gr. on medicine. “If not for Chesed, they wouldn’t be alive.”
We drove back to Dnipropetrovsk via the Golden Rose Synagogue where Yan picked up some materials, and we checked back into the Hotel Dnipropetrovsk, which now has heat in the rooms!
VI. Friday, October 15, Pavlograd & Novomoskovsk
We arrived in Pavlograd around 1:00 P.M. and were met by Natasha Serdukhovsky and Nella Zats, our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator. Pavlograd has a total population of 120,000 and the surrounding region of mining communities brings it to 500,000. According to Yad V’ Shem, only 148 people admit they are Jews. Ten years ago 400 left for Israel, but only 240 recognized themselves as Jews (i.e., the numbers are highly inaccurate). Leonid Serdukhovsky feels that the low number identifying as Jews is tied to the major military installations and factories in the area, so Jews hid their background to obtain jobs. He has had people call him for a place in a Jewish cemetery who never identified as being Jewish.
The first visit was with Sima Lvovna Sigorskaya, who was born in 1912, and is 92 years old. She lives with her daughter, Valentina Petrovna, born in 1937, and Valentina’s husband in a 5th floor walk-up apartment. Also visiting from St. Petersburg was a step-daughter from a second marriage, Olga Borisovna, born in 1924.
Sima is remarkable for her age. She likes to keep busy and dusts the apartment every day. She was born in Chernogovskaya oblast in a village called Simonovska, which is near Chernogov. Sima was evacuated during the war to Tyumen oblast in Siberia, where she worked as a newspaper editor. Her husband was an invalid, so the whole family went – husband, wife and two children. Her husband was in charge of a distribution center for agricultural products. In 1943, her husband was called back to Kiev as deputy minister of the meat and dairy industry. He was killed in 1943 by a bomb as he was traveling from Kharkov to Kiev. In 1946, the rest of the family moved back to Pavlograd. Sima married a second time, and her new husband had a son and a daughter. The daughter, Olga, who was visiting from St. Petersburg, is very close to the family and comes for a visit every year.
Sima worked in the town accounting office. The second husband died in 1975. Valentina’s brother was killed in an industrial accident at work in 1985 in Kremenchug. In 1946, Olga married and went to Leningrad where she worked as an actor for 19 years, and later became a hotel administrator until she retired in 1968. Now she does volunteer work with amateur theatre groups. Valentina went to an electrical mechanical technical school and later to the Metallurgical Institute, where she studied economics. She only worked for four years in that field, and then began a teaching career in drawing and fine arts for the next 20 years. Her grandson has been accepted at the finest college in Moscow – Bowman College. Olga’s daughter is a military doctor in St. Petersburg and she has twin grandsons. Each step-sister has a son who is a Lieutenant Colonel. Olga’s pension in Russia is 2,600 rubles ($85), which is low for St. Petersburg. She lives with her daughter’s family and they are wonderful. Valentina’s pension used to be 190 gr. ($37) and her mother’s was 143 gr. ($28), but now both receive 284 gr. ($54). They consider this an election gimmick and expect it to be rolled back after the elections.
Sima takes very little medicine. She does take charcoal every day. They make it themselves by burning trees at their dacha to get the ash. Then they purify it by covering the ash with water to wash out the solubles. She also takes herbal oil and dill seeds. Sima did have a tumor on her colon, which was removed, but she wasn’t told anything about it. She takes nothing for hypertension, but said it used to be unstable, but seems O.K. now. She has had a problem with her pancreas and liver and had some medicine for that, but she feels fine now. She can even bend down and touch her toes. Olga does calisthenics every day so Sima saw her and joined right in. Nella once came when Sima was washing the floor with a mop. She doesn’t go outside any more, but just uses the balcony. She has had cataract surgery, but now the second eye is developing a cataract. For her 90th birthday, her children and grandchildren gave her a new TV. That same year Valentina and her husband turned 65 and celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. Valentina’s husband works as a mechanical designer. Olga received a present from Chesed when she turned 80, which was the first time she knew that Chesed existed. Survivors of the concentration camps get packages once a month. The rest get a package every three months.
Both Sima and Valentina receive a food package from Chesed twice a month. They used to get meals on wheels, but now they just get packages. They pay 60 gr. ($11) /month for the packages. They started paying for the packages a couple of months ago. It contains 1 kilo of noodles, 1 k of sugar, 1.4 k of chicken legs, 10 eggs, 2 half liters of yogurt, 0.2 k of farmer’s cheese, loose tea, 3 k of potatoes, 1 k onions, 1 k bananas, 2 lemons, and a package of cookies.
Our second visit in Pavlograd was with Evgenia Simonovna Speizer, who was born in 1927 and is 77 years old. She was born in the village of Yurievka in the Pavlograd region. The name Speizer was given to her father when he was in the Tzar’s cavalry. She worked as an accountant on a collective farm, but it was not a Kolholz. Evgenia still does not have heat. Evgenia was married twice and both husbands died. She has no children.
Evgenia’s father worked on a Jewish Kolholz called “Freiheit” or Freedom. The entire collective was evacuated to the Stavropol region, just on the border of the Stalingrad region. They stayed there one year in a small town. It had one very long street. A year later her brother became ill and her mother walked to the other end of town to obtain medicine. On her way she met a veterinarian, but no one else was around. He told her that everyone had been evacuated a week ago. By the time she walked back to her home only her family and one other was left in the village. The local factory was willing to give them a cart and a horse, if they promised only to allow the sick child ride in the cart. Her father had been in the Tzar’s cavalry, so he knew how to manage a horse. They set out walking south towards the Caucasus. The two men fought all the time over how fast to go, how to treat the horse, etc. On the way they picked up a flock of 50 sheep abandoned in a field. A cossack showed up and asked about the sheep. The cossack took Evgenia’s family to Grozny and the other family was taken to the train station. They were in a Russian settlement named Mikhailovskaya near the Chechen border. They stayed a week and then continued on until they reached Mahatchkala in Dagestan and stayed there until 1944.
Evgenia gets two food packages a month from Chesed and pays about 15 gr./ month. She pays 10% of the cost of medicine through Chesed. The more you apply for medicine, the higher the percentage you pay and it can go to 20% and higher. If the family is extremely poor, they can get medicine without paying. Last year her teeth were fixed with crowns at no charge. This is because she is considered a Holocaust survivor. If she has more work done this year, she will have to pay. The government is working on a law to create another group for benefits – children of the war who were born between 1927 and 1945. They don’t know what benefits, if any, they have in mind. Evgenia’s blood pressure is normal. Last year she received a hearing aid from social services. This year Chesed will help with a 30% co-pay. The cost of a hearing aid is 570 gr. ($110). She hopes it will be a little easier now that the pension is higher.
We stopped for lunch at a restaurant with Natasha and Leonid Serduhovsky and Nella Zats. This restaurant is used by the progressive congregation for a Shabbat dinner. The Joint helps them with funding.
Leonid told me about a mother and son who were sitting in the next room waiting to see me – Elana Rishova Landau and Igor Landau, who is 44 years old. Igor was falsely arrested 15 years ago for rape. There were six other suspects and all of them confessed to the crime. The six were let out of prison, but Igor got the death sentence. They appealed to the woman astronaut, who had the sentence commuted to 20 years to life. It was appealed again and Igor was released after 9 ½ years in prison and exonerated. While he was in prison, the rapes continued, but the family was never told about this. Although Igor has been pardoned, he has not been officially “rehabilitated,” because then the government would have to pay a lot of money to him. As a result, he has been rejected from applying to emigrate to Israel, which he badly wants. Leonid gave me a letter in Russian which I will have to have translated and asked if there was anything I could do. I went to meet the mother and son, and I will speak with people in Dnipropetrovsk the next chance I get. The family is not looking for money – they just want to leave for Israel. Apparently Rabinovich is involved and is willing to pay for a lawyer for him.
We traveled to Novomoskovsk, a short distance from Pavlograd. There are 140 Jews in Novomoskovsk and 90 are elderly. Also, Nina Kaufman, the severe diabetic we had seen in the past, has died. They held a lottery to see who would get her wheelchair – there is a shortage.
We picked up Igor Darievsky, our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator, who took us to our first home visit with Mikhail Iosifovich Slutsky and his wife, Fira Abramovna Slutskaya. Mikhail is very ill with diabetes, which he has had for 30 years. He was born in Dnipropetrovsk on November 21, 1921 and is 84 years old. Fira was born on June 5, 1924, and is 80 years old. Mikhail had a problem with a blocked ureter and has been catheterized for the last three years. He does not have a kit to test blood sugar, and Igor said that he would like at least five of them for other clients as well. He injects insulin twice a day. Mikhail had a heart attack in 1996, and has been hospitalized several times since then. He takes half of a 325 mg. aspirin everyday. He said that he broke his hip a year ago August. A doctor came to see him and told him that it was broken. He cannot walk, but that is due to a foot injury during the war. He is an invalid first class. He has been told that the hip is not operable because of his diabetes.
Fira is also a diabetic, but she can manage it with pills. Fira also has hypertension, has had her gall bladder removed, has pancreatic dysfunction and sciatica. Mikhail used to be a lawyer. Fira went on geophysical expeditions and was a cartographer. Mikhail showed us a medal he recently received from Israel for Jewish fighters against Nazis.
He said the Igor Darievsky has a “good Jewish soul.” Igor’s parents were both well-known and respected physicians and were very friendly with the Slutsky family. Igor’s father was a deputy physician for the city. Igor complained that they used to have three types of food programs from the Joint, but the community is falling apart and the kitchen dining area for hot meals has been closed. People were switched to delivery of hot meals. Mikhail and Fira get hot meals delivered on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with enough for double meals. They pay 51 gr./month ($10) for two people.
Food from Adopt-a-Bubbe is delivered about once every three months to Igor’s list of clients. He asked for artificial sweetener, blood sugar kits and a blood pressure kit, Hytrin (prostate), Avandia (diabetes), and Lotrel (hypertension). Igor said that he has a good physician who prescribes. He wants to have enough medicine so the clients can stay on it and not just a little of this or a little of that. He has tried unsuccessfully to contact Dr. Cherkasskaya in Dnipropetrovsk, but she is never available. Igor is overwhelmed with the work. He feels that Chesed is not paying attention to their small city, and he cannot find any other volunteers to help him out. The health problems of the elderly don’t just come and go – they are present all the time. The Chesed list of pensioners dropped from 100 to 85, so now it is administered in Dnipropetrovsk, which is a distinct disadvantage. They only kept the food program in Novomoskovsk. They have a very small program for supplying medicine, which is hardly worth mentioning.
Our second visit in Novomoskovsk was with Lev Mikhailovich Eovzon and his wife, Nina Nikolaevna Eovzon. Lev was born in 1926 and Nina in 1928. It was a very hard visit because Lev is very ill. He sat on a bed and didn’t communicate. His hands were shaking badly and he cried as we were leaving. They have a son and daughter who live locally, but they are pretty much on their own in a private house with a garden. Nina gave us some apples and grapes to take home. Nina worked in a factory for enamel cook ware packing them in boxes. Lev was a plumber in a housing development for 52 years. None of the medical problems Lev has really explained his sad condition. He has benign prostate hyperplasia and had surgery for that and for a hernia last May. He has very bad migraine headaches and hypertension. They said that Lev needs a thorough medical checkup in a hospital, but that would be too expensive – 250 – 300 gr. (~$50). I wondered whether that would really help him or just make him sicker. Nina complained about her legs hurting and her heart is not good. Both move with canes. Lev really needs a wheelchair and they have asked Chesed in Dnipropetrovsk for one, but they don’t respond.
Our last visit in Novomoskovsk was with the progressive Kabbalat Shabbat. It was not in the chess club this time, but in a cultural building which was much more suitable. They have 50 active members now, and have been in existence for six years. Yury Medvedovsky is in charge. They have a director of the Children’s Club, Alona Shehovsova. She gave me an e-mail address and her home address. Since Chesed is no longer based in Novomoskovsk, there are no other activities for children or adults. They also have a computer club, and have discussion classes for women. They held a computer class for women and gave out certificates of completion at the end. Their Sunday School has 50-60 children. They would like to be linked to a progressive Jewish school in America, and gave me some drawings to exchange there. The group assembled for services was a mixture of ages. I met Yury’s children, Alexander who is 14 and Anna, who is 9. They both are learning English and we spoke a little. Alexander is very interested in exploring Jewish culture, but he did not care for an orthodox summer camp he attended. He much prefers the progressive movement, which he finds more fun and more relaxed. Yury’s mother asked me to get in touch with her relative in Brookline.
VII. Shabbat in Dnipropetrovsk and Drive to Odessa (about 7 hours from Dnipropetrovsk)
We went to services and then joined the Kaminezki family for Shabbat dinner. This was the first time we had seen their new home. Last year they were in a borrowed apartment, but they have added on to their old house, so only the front wall was left standing. The new dining room seats almost 40 people. The larger quarters were badly needed for their seven children and many guests. Everyone is well and we enjoyed meeting with them once again.
We arrived in Odessa late at night, getting to bed around 2:00 A.M.
VIII. Sunday, October 17, Odessa & Drive to Melitopol (about 6 hours from Odessa)
Julia Grishenko, the para-rabbi, met us with another member of the progressive congregative who speaks some English and Hebrew, and directed the van to their three rooms which serve as an office and meeting space. It is small, and there was much discussion about the possible purchase of a former restaurant with the help of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ). Julia is a para-rabbi who trained through Machor. She has been the leader of this congregation for four years. Her mother’s name is Speilberg.
I sat and talked with the new president of the congregation, Vladimir Yerov, who was born in 1939. The former president, Boris Makovsky, has been ill and is no longer very active. Vladimir is an engineer. Also taking part in the discussion was Olga Sarieova, born in 1931 and trained as an economist. Julia said that Vladimir likes to be among young people and that gives him energy. They have a board or committee in charge of the congregation and Olga is very active on that board.
The progressive congregation has about 200 members now. One third are 55 or older. Another third are young – up to age 17 – and the final third are in the 17 to 32 age group. This group makes up the Club Netzer. The younger children are in a children’s section of Netzer. There are about 80 members in Netzer, but this number has only been active for the last year and a half. Adults between the ages of 32 and 55 are poorly represented. The youngsters are largely single, and they don’t seem to attract married adults. Julia said that the congregation has a wide range of ages and interests, which makes it diverse and rich (not in monetary terms, though).
Vladimir receives a pension of 284 gr. ($54) / month, similar to what all pensioners are now receiving in Ukraine. He lives with his mother, who is 86 years old and participated in the war, so they receive a 50% discount for utilities, which usually cost 60 gr. ($11) / month this time of year. In the winter time, they pay for their heat separately, so utilities are usually 80 gr.($15) / month. People who do not receive any discount usually hold jobs to make ends meet. The elderly who are unable to work are helped by Chesed, and they receive substantial help. The progressive congregation wants to join with Chesed in helping by providing cultural and spiritual programs for the Warm House program where the elderly gather in apartments for a warm meal and discussion. They sent a letter with this intent to the head of Chesed Emanuel, a man named Patlazhan. Chesed has not cut back on its funding of programs, but actually increased their funding two or three months ago. Anna Rozen is the curator for Chesed.
There are about 13,000 Jews in the Odessa oblast area. The total population of Odessa is 1 million. It is hard to determine the exact number of Jews because many Jews leave. There are 9,000 clients on the Chesed list for the Odessa oblast. Mothers get hot meals from Chesed. They deliver double meals every other day. Every month they receive medicine. Chesed provides 30 gr.($6) / month for medicine. There is no co-pay for meals or for medicine. Every month and a half, Chesed will do heavy laundry for their clients. There are also free haircuts, shoe repair and extensive dental work done through Chesed. This year Chesed received additional funds from Switzerland – the compensation for savings of Jews lost in the Holocaust.
Igor Yazdan is head of the youth group, Netzer, which has 80 members. He is 23 years old, has finished school and is a lawyer specializing in the criminal aspects of tax law. He works for the government. He said that eight members of Netzer are very active. They plan trips, special productions for the holidays, have a dance group, etc. The schedule for the week was posted on the wall. On Tuesday the dance group rehearses. On Wednesday they have a question and answer session on the Tenach. On Thursday they rehearse for Shabbat and prepare for the party which follows on Saturday night (not just an oneg, but a real party). On Sunday the Sunday School meets, as well as the kindergarten. Also on Sunday, they have a club called “Not So Long Ago,” where they take a particular year in the life of Israel or pre-Israel and cover it historically. They obtain material from the Internet. There is also a good Jewish library in Odessa sponsored the Joint and “Moriya.” Moriya is a center for Jewish education and gets its funds from chabad. There is no conflict so far – it is unbiased. Netzer also shows movies – documentaries and fictional. They purchase cassettes. The two latest purchases are the life of Jonas Korchak, a Holocaust hero who went with his class of children to his death, and a film, “Fanatic” about a Jewish boy who becomes a skinhead.
Genya Pierce, who is 16 years old, teaches Jewish tradition to the young children. He is a young activist and the gabbai of the community. He is also responsible for Tzedakah collections and handles money for the congregation. Victoria Krotova is 18 years old, and is the singer of the congregation. While we were there, she was teaching youngsters to sing using Hebrew transliterated into Russian. They would like to record some of her songs and create a CD, but that would take $1,000 - $2,000. Victoria also works with the teachers at the Sunday School. She began in September of this year. They have six subjects – dancing, the weekly parashah, Hebrew, traditions, and music and theatre. There are six teachers at their school who had some training in Kiev through Rabbi Dukhovny’s office. The teachers range in age from 16 to 23 years old. They hold seminars on various topics for three to four days each. This Rosh Hashanah they recited poetry in English. Their children perform in other communities, too. All together, there are about 20 children, ages five through 13 years old, in Sunday School each week. They are all in one class. For Sukkot they took the children to a park near the coast and built a Sukkah and set up a camp. Twenty-five children went.
They have a big problem with their present building. People want to come, but there is no space. When they dance, the neighbors complain, and the complaining is even worse when the teenagers are dancing. They have enough children to separate into different classes, but not enough room. When the weather allows, they take the children outside. Attendance is somewhat better in bad weather with the children, but some older adults stay at home.
The funds left last year by Action for Post-Soviet Jewry were spent on costumes for the dance team.
Costya (Constantine) Blakarev explained a new club which was just formed one month ago. They train with a man, Igor Yefimovich Avrortinsky, who teaches self-defense. He is a former intelligence officer for the military. They learn pain points, Judo, work with German Shepherds, practice shooting and do exercises to prepare them for the army. Both boys and girls are in the group. Avrortinsky is a successful businessman and also works as a dentist for Sochnut and the Joint. He is wealthy and Julia hopes that at some point he will contribute to this congregation. They plan to include others in this club in the future, such as members of Maccabi. Avrortinsky is also the chief judge for dog competitions. He keeps a kennel and raises them from pups. He has 10 to 15 dogs at his home and others in kennels. Natasha, who was sitting next to Costya, is part of this class. They meet on Sunday mornings at 9:00 A.M. Avrortinsky is well known in the Jewish community and in the larger community as a businessman. He attended Rosh Hashanah services with them. This is their only connection to a wealthy person who may be able to help them.
Rabbi David Wilfond was here for Simchat Torah and they loved having him. We know him from his time as a progressive rabbi at the Kiev congregation and also as assistant rabbi at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley. It is through Rabbi Wilfond that the temple began their association with this Odessa congregation. Also present was Rabbi Michael Farbman from St. Petersburg. The congregation has its own torah, which was a gift from a San Jose congregation, who also gave them a new Hewlett Packard lap top computer, printer and digital camera, and hooked them up to the Internet. All of these items were badly needed and much appreciated. While we were there, they downloaded Yan’s photos from his disk to their computer.
Temple Beth Elohim had given them $3,000 in September, which went to the WUPJ to be paid out to them in installments. They haven’t seen a penny yet. The money goes from Beth Elohim in Wellesley to WUPJ in New York, to their office in Jerusalem, to their office in Moscow, to Dukhovny’s office in Kiev, and hopefully to them. Along the way, they all earn interest from it and perhaps take off something for their service. Beth Elohim has insisted that all of it go to this congregation, but time will tell. I think it will be spent on rent, gathered from conversations between Barbara Karchmer and someone at WUPJ – 12 payments of $250. They have been told about the funds.
There was considerable discussion about their desire to purchase a particular building, which would give them more space and give them some equity in property instead of paying $600/month on rent. They feel that they are wasting $25,000 a year where they are. However, it’s a complicated problem. The building they have in mind in a former bar/restaurant in a so-so section of the city, and is not centrally located, although it is on a bus line. The owner is willing to sell, but doesn’t have title to the land it is on, because the government owns the land and leases it. There are no ownership laws in Ukraine for land use, but they may be passing some this next year, but who knows. It is presently on a 10-year lease with about eight years remaining in it. They want to increase the lease to 50 years, but this takes paperwork and money. They have consulted with a real estate lawyer at the Joint, and all of this is quite possible. The bar/restaurant has been out of business for some time and the owner is eager to sell. Here’s the financial picture: it will take $5,000 to expand the lease to 50 years, another $7,000 for paperwork, and $50,000 to purchase the building. WUPJ has verbally promised them a loan of $100,000, hoping to collect funds from American congregations like Beth Elohim, San Jose, etc. In general, property in Odessa is paid for in cash up front – not by a bank mortgage. They need to pay 10% down and the rest within one month. Bank loans have to be secured and the usual interest rate is 15% – 17%. By themselves, they have no resources to put into this and no collateral. In theory, WUPJ would issue a check, and they would need a rich businessman to assume title for the property, and he or she would transfer the title to the congregation for an unlimited number of years. The whole process sounded Byzantine to us. We later went to see the building, and it is not large – a long narrow space, but it has a kitchen and bathroom and good floors and walls, so could be used right away with a little cleaning. They can have the furniture if they want – some tables and benches from the restaurant area. They like the idea that it is a single building, not attached to anything else, although it is right next to a large apartment house. They told us that real estate goes up in Odessa 3% a month, so perhaps they could purchase this building and then sell it in five years and get another in a better location. However, it is in a business section of the city with many empty buildings, not centrally located like their present rooms, and not particularly safe. They would have to hire security for this building and immediately put up a fence. We couldn’t see any industrial buildings from where we looked – just apartment buildings and a major raised highway used for traffic from shipping companies at the port. If they want to get a better location, they know they would have to pay around $180,000 - $200,000. They have another actual property in mind, but feel it is probably out of the question because they can’t control the finances. The first floor of this building has been remodeled and is fine, but the 2nd floor is in bad repair, but they could rent to someone who agrees to update it in place of rental money. We didn’t see this building. For this building they would have to act quickly (perhaps someone else is interested in it). It seems they are in a catch-22 with no great options open to them. On top of this is the fact that Julia may be leaving for rabbinic school in Germany next year, and it is not clear who would take over leadership of the congregation. They had a young woman who was sent to Machon, the training program in Moscow, but she left and never came back! Also, Machon is not prestigious enough to attract people. If Julia goes, and she really should resume her training, she will be gone for six years. She has already passed the interview process, and has been told that when her daughter, Isolde, turns three, she will be welcome in the kindergarten in Germany. That’s why she is waiting and hasn’t already begun the program. Isolde turns three next October. We asked whether Rabbi Wilfond might help with the building process – the decision making and getting funds from WUPJ, but he is in a program run by Hebrew Union College to work with Russian-speaking Jews, and it is very separate from obtaining a building. No one from WUPJ in Moscow has been to Odessa and they are disappointed in that. Perhaps Yuri Regev, the executive director of WUPJ will make a visit? Barbara and Judy had just met with him before this trip when he came to Temple Beth Elohim to discuss the Odessa congregation and suggested a fund raising effort. Rabbi Wilfond has promised to come to Odessa every other month.
At one point there were 29 synagogues in Odessa. When perestroika came about, this congregation was not in existence. Most of the synagogues went into private hands for a song. There is one building which was originally a progressive temple, which is owned by the State. It is used for the state archives, but it is in such poor condition that no one really wants it. We stopped to see it on the outside and it is a magnificent edifice – much too large for their needs even it were in good shape. Theoretically, if they figure out where the archives could go, they could have the building, but it has cracks as big as your arm. Both the chabad and orthodox movements have their own synagogue and Jewish Day Schools. That is what this congregation dreams of as well.
We arrived late at night – around 11:30 P.M. to Vladimir and Ceilia Bogomolny’s new home in Melitopol. It was very foggy on the way, and not easy on the two-lane roads with many large trucks. They had a full table of food for us. Sveta (don’t know her last name) and Anna Nelkina were also there to meet us. The three women stayed here to sleep and Yan and Nickolai, our driver, went home with Sveta to sleep. Vladimir or Volodya Bogomolny is the president of the Jewish community, and his wife Ceilia is head of Chesed. Ceilia left early the next morning for her job at Chesed, where we later met her. Volodya took us on our visits with the Adopt-a-Bubbe program, including visits to villages outside the city of Melitopol.
IX. Melitopol
Before WWII, 80% of Melitopol was Jewish, and the general population was 60,000 – 80,000. After the Russian Revolution, there were five Jewish schools, a large Talmud Torah, and two synagogues. The large Choral Synagogue for the rich Jews was destroyed, but the smaller one for the poorer Jews remains and has been given back to the Jewish community. It needs a great deal of repair and remodeling, but the outer wall still stands. The inside was divided into many rooms to accommodate a factory. Now there are probably 200,000 people in Melitopol and the population is falling due to a low birthrate, a high death rate and emigration. In all of Ukraine they have lost at least 4 million people from the general population. There are around 1,500 Jews in Melitopol. Six hundred are on the Chesed list. Those in age 65 – 70, stop working and are often depressed. Many younger people die. On the other hand, they have some very old members of the Jewish community. One man 100 years old emigrated to Germany and lived to 103 before he passed away. Right now the oldest Jew in town was a blacksmith and a war veteran who is 95 years old. He remembers going to the Talmud Torah school for four years.
Volodya Bogomolny told us something about his own life. He was born in the Crimea and at age nine moved to Birobijhan in 1947. This is the Jewish community Stalin established in the far east. His family was all Jewish with no intermarriage. They lived on a collective farm in Birobijhan which was almost entirely Jewish. After the war, there were only 10 Jewish families left, and in 1966 their family left, mostly due to the harsh conditions and difficult climate. They originally went there because of the great famine in Ukraine. The first family member went and others followed – they were not forced to go there. The relatives there said that they had flour and potatoes. However, by 1965, life there was very difficult. One uncle went to Tashkent, Uzbekestan, another uncle went to Lugansk, Ukraine. Volodya’s mother chose Melitopol. He remembers his grandparents making matzah and celebrating holidays. He began a Jewish community here in Melitopol because he had fond memories of his own childhood. Most of his family is now in Israel. In fact, he went with his wife and children for two years, but came back. His sister in Israel asked before she died that Volodya bring her family back to Melitopol. Their older daughter married a Moroccan and stayed in Israel. Their younger daughter finishes her teaching course at Beit Hana in Dnipropetrovsk, and will marry in December and live in Israel. Ceilia showed Galina the wedding dress they will bring to Israel. The three nieces of his deceased sister went back to Israel because life was too difficult here. The sister’s husband began to drink after his wife passed away, so Volodya became the substitute father. Another sister and her family are in Israel and they took in the nieces when they were ages 12, 17 and 22. The older girl married a Romanian Jew and they live in Tel Aviv. The middle sister married a South African who converted to Judaism. His mother was from England and his father from France. They have two children and both boys had a Bris, they celebrate Shabbat and live in a Jewish section of Tel Aviv. He manages a 911 emergency service. She took her younger sister in to live with them and the husband is paying for her higher education. She is preparing to enter the university. Volodya has a brother in Kiryat Shmona. He has two daughters who are out of school. Another brother is a machinist for the railroad. A sister lives in Kfar Geladi in the north, which is very beautiful. Volodya’s mother died in Israel at age 92 about one year ago. It is easy to travel to Israel. He has dual citizenship and goes back and forth often.
Anna Nelkina, who joined us for breakfast, is a member of the Board of the Jewish community. She volunteers and manages the food program for Chesed.
Four months ago, the Joint ordered that their clients pay some percentage for any service they receive. The percentage varies from 10% to 60%, depending upon their pension and other expenses for utilities. The Melitopol Jewish community Board decided that no one would pay more than 40%. The decision to charge for services was made before the pensioners had a raise in pension level tied to the upcoming election. People were totally shocked. They began to tell their Chesed representative that they no longer needed their services. They had to figure out how to manage their pensions and see whether they had enough left over. The percentage covers all kinds of help – food, medicine, the food packages and patronnage service. One hour of a patronnage worker costs 4 gr. 30 kopeks, which is about 90 cents. Most patronnage workers stay for two hours two or three times per week. Most decided they could no longer afford a massage. People who formerly had patronnage service three times per week, only get it once a week. Later today we will visit a woman who is blind and who can only afford the patronnage service once a week. Our Adopt-a-Bubbe program helps to fill in the gap for food and medicine. They asked whether we could help with payment for patronnage service. It is a catch-22 because the more we help, the more the Joint will get away with this plan. This directive for a co-pay system was devised by Menachem Lepkivker, who is in charge of the Joint for several regions in eastern Ukraine, including the oblasts of Donetsk, Lugansk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporozhe. Melitopol is in the Zaporozhe oblast. For instance, Odessa is not in Menachem’s territory, so they do not have to pay for their Joint or Chesed services. It seems especially mean spirited for the Joint to be charged with keeping the pensioners in the former Soviet Union, rather than allowing them to emigrate, and then squeezing them more and more. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to meet with Menachem Lepkivker because he is in Poland now.
They all say that the funds they receive from Boston are invaluable for them, and they are very proud to be working with Boston. In addition to what they provide in actual goods, they also provide moral support. Many elderly people are desperate and in dire straits and they need all the help they can get. Anna said that it is a pleasure to see their eyes light up when they receive a gift from Boston. The funds from Boston are often their emergency fund. They told of a man who had an accident with a saw at work and lost part of his hand. The family paid for medicine with all the money they had and he still needed more. They were able to use their Adopt-a-Bubbe funds to purchase antibiotics for him, which probably saved his life. They were able to help him when it was critical and they didn’t have to jump through hoops to get permission. They can act when it is needed. They usually receive a grant of $150 every three months.
One of our greatest pleasures in going to Melitopol this trip was to see the car for which a colleague in Boston had donated funds. They purchased a used 1991 Opel and had it serviced. They have only had the car for two months. Volodya is driving it, and he took us to several home visits. It actually has seat belts and rides very nicely – much more cushioned than the van we have been riding in. It is already making a huge difference in their work. They are now able to take people to the doctor and they have been making monthly trips to out-lying villages to contact the Jews who tend to be poorer and more isolated there. They can use the car to carry the food they purchase and help to deliver it, and now the Chesed food packages are delivered on time. Most food packages are rather heavy with fresh fruit and milk. Once they have the permanent license plates, they will apply to the Joint to share expenses for gas. They said that they have just begun to work with the car because the Jewish holidays have taken so much time out of their work schedule. They took a doctor with the car to see clients in Akimaka, which is on the Sea of Azov. All kinds of things are possible now. Although Chesed has a van, it is very busy, and they are unable to send the van to the villages even once a month. Volodya has a sewing machine in his trunk, which he took from an elderly woman who was crying that it was broken. Volodya is good at fixing things and is sure he can put it in working order again. He can do this only because he has the use of a car.
Victims of the Holocaust are allowed to purchase additional benefits, like a washing machine. They already had checked on who was needy and who needed what. Now they have a list for Holocaust victims. There are already 151 clients on this list and the list is growing fast. Almost anyone who was alive during the war qualifies. If it is not clear that they qualify, they ask for a Red Cross document.
There was a long discussion about setting up a progressive congregation in Melitopol. Volodya Bogomolny is beginning to organize it. They have been having a terrible experience with a chabad rabbi who came to Melitopol two years ago. He is Rabbi Eliahu Kramer, who is 29 years old and the son of the late Rebbe Schneerson’s secretary, a very important man in the movement. Kramer has been nothing but trouble as far as Volodya is concerned. He is insisting that only halachic Jews be allowed to pray and told men with last names of Koifman and Shteinfeld to leave the services and never return. In all, six people were thrown out. These people had Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers and always considered themselves Jewish. Shteinfeld served through the entire war as a Jew. Some of them lost many family members in the Holocaust as Jews. It has caused a lot of commotion in the community, and is breaking it apart. A Joint representative came to Rabbi Kramer to ask that the men be reinstated. Some men had very pious fathers and wanted to follow in their footsteps. People are asking why they can’t pray with other Jews. At this point Rabbi Kramer has a minyan of twelve men, which he holds in his own home, and no more. He pays the men two gr. to come every day and they have a modest repast afterwards. Most who want to associate with the synagogue and Volodya stay away from the rabbi. They have been told that Rabbi Kramer is from too important a family and cannot be dismissed.
The leader of the progressive group in Zaporozhe, Vladimir Levi, came to Melitopol to meet with them. Levi is a native of Zaporozhe. He is actually not a rabbi (Volodya called him rabbi), but a graduate of the seminars, which Rabbi Dukhovny holds in Kiev to train people in the progressive movement. He and a woman called Nina both took the training seminar in Kiev. Nina acts as a shamas. She is teaching Sveta. They want to celebrate Shabbat the way Levi did. They now have some progressive prayer books and an audio tape of the service, which has the melodies and prayers. Volodya and Sveta sat through the entire service and participated in a discussion of the parashah or Torah portion of the week. Every Friday, 32 people fill the room at Chesed for Shabbat services. Volodya says that they really need a larger space to meet. Some people use a room in the old synagogue, but it badly needs repairing and has no heat. They estimate that the repairs will take $30,000 - $40,000. Joint said that they could come up with $10,000, but that is an old promise and might not hold now. The synagogue belongs to the Jewish community, which is led by Volodya. The Jewish religious community was officially registered in 1995, before chabad had come to Melitopol. Ceilia showed us their official certificate. Volodya wants to organize here what he saw in Zaporozhe. The head of the congregation in Zaporozhe gave then 250 gr. ($47) to use for Kabbalat Shabbat. Now he gets 50 gr.($9) every week for Shabbat. Volodya and Sveta lead the service. They use a newspaper called, “Century,” which has the weekly Torah portion. They do whatever they can to lead the service. A wealthy man gave them $100 for the Kabbalat Shabbat. That has since run out and they try to finance it themselves. We left $300 to use for the progressive congregation. Volodya leaves in a few days for Kiev to meet with the deputy minister in charge of the cultural affairs of minorities. He will represent the Jewish community and others will represent the Greeks, Tartars, etc. He is not sure what will be discussed.
They have received some boxes of clothing and vitamins from us. All of it is very useful. They also would like ulcer medication and Immodium. They would be happy to have the Tylenol Arthritis which we have back home in huge quantities. Their nurse does not care about the expiration date.
The Jewish community has several buildings located roughly in a square. The old synagogue, which was built in 1896, is on the street side. Elena Nudelman’s father works as security for the synagogue. The Chesed building is in the back. Next to the synagogue is a former mikvah which now houses a laundry and barber shop. To one side is a building used by the youth groups for dancing and other activities.
Our first home visit was with Bluma Isaakovna Serduk, who was born in 1922. In December, she will be 82 years old. She wasn’t feeling well today and was lying in bed. She said that it was a bad asthma day. Bluma was born in Kremenchug, in Poltava oblast. She graduated from the technium and became a librarian. She was evacuated to Beslan in northern Ossetia at age 19, and worked for a war plant as a janitor. Later she worked at a military plant and in a shop where they made ammunition. Bluma was married for 52 years and her husband passed away seven months ago. They had two sons, both of whom live in Melitopol. She has five grandchildren and two great granddaughters. She said that she has good support from her family. Someone comes in and checks on her every day.
The patronnage person arrived while we were there. Bluma said she is very good. She cleans, does laundry, and shops for food. She comes twice a week and Bluma pays her 20% or 13 gr./ month ($5.50). She receives hot meals from Chesed and asthma medicine. She pays 20% for the meals and medicine. Once every month or month and a half, a large load of laundry is done. For this she will pay 2 to 3 gr. for 5 kilos or about 10 pounds of laundry (sheets, towels, etc.) Bluma is blind. She takes heart medication – Cardalol, which is a barbituate, and Volidal, a tablet which goes under the tongue. These are local medications which calm a person down. She does not have hypertension. She is able to wash and take care of herself.
Adopt-a-Bubbe gave her fruit, milk, butter, jarred chicken, cheese, cookies and a chocolate bar. They had also given her bed linens recently.
The second visit was with Feodor Abramovich Tsypkin, who was born on May 9, 1929. Feodor was bedridden and had been that way since he had a stroke in 1981. It affected his left side. His speech was normal. He lives with his wife, Raisa Feodorovna, born in 1925. Feodor was born in a small village- Romanovka in Nikolaiev oblast. Raisa was born in Melitopol. Feodor is painfully thin and incontinent. He said that his legs don’t work. Raisa said that he has a good appetite, but she doesn’t always have enough to satisfy him. He reads and watches TV. He has no teeth. He has developed bed sores. Raisa said that he can’t sit because of the bed sores and because his spine hurts him. They seemed ignorant of what to do for such medical problems. When asked why she didn’t get the special mattress from Chesed, she said that it didn’t work. She didn’t have any special cream for the sores, either. Their apartment has no bathing facilities. Their kitchen has a line up of a refrigerator, stove, bathroom sink and toilet against one wall. Raisa said that the roof leaks. Feodor has given up and is waiting to die. He said that he needed an injection – of cyanide. It was a sad visit. Adopt-a-Bubbe delivered a food package of fruit, jarred chicken, milk, butter, cheese, and cookies.
We had lunch in a restaurant where 60 people used to come for a hot meal. Now 12 people come. Twenty-three get meals on wheels or packages. When they began to have to pay for services, many chose to receive a package of food rather than eat at the restaurant. There are two Warm Houses, where the elderly in a particular neighborhood gather. They do not pay for this. They have been organized for three or four years now.
There is a large hospital in Melitopol. They do not do bypass surgery there. A brother heads the cardiology department. A man was brought in with a heart attack. He was stabilized with a package of standard medicines. When the relative walked in, they were given a list of drugs and asked to have them there by noon. People either supply the necessary medical supplies or the patient is sent home.
Our next visit was to the town of Mirne outside of Melitopol. They visit here twice a month now. Before they had a car, they hardly came one time a month. We saw Sarah Lvovna Shargarodskaya, who was born in 1919 in Melitopol. She has very poor eyesight and no teeth. Her right eye was almost shut. She doesn’t have a phone, so didn’t expect us. Sarah worked as a midwife for 36 years. Before WWII, she was sick with malaria, so her doctor told her to leave Melitopol and go to another climate. She went to Karelia on the Finnish border in 1940, and her malaria did stop. This area was not under the German occupation, so she receives no special benefits. When war broke out she was assigned to a bomber group. For the first three months the army was retreating. She almost lost her life then. She ended up in Vologorsk, north of Moscow. She was married for a short time, but had no children. Now she is lonely. She takes medicine for hardening of the arteries of the brain. Her arm and shoulder hurt. Sarah has a sister who had two boys. The older one drank a lot and became an alcoholic and died. The younger one was well liked and founded the first cooperative free enterprise business. Someone borrowed money from him and then murdered him. They spread his body parts all over the village. Sarah is very grateful to friends in Boston who help. Last winter Chesed gave Sarah a warm blanket. She turned on the electric heater for her arm and burned her blanket and part of her bedding. She was all right, but very frightened. She needed another blanket and Chesed could not help her. Adopt-a-Bubbe funds paid for a blanket. Sarah pays 20% for Chesed services.
Next we visited with Lyubov Vladimirovna Giladi, born in 1916,also in Mirne. She was born in Bortiva, a Bulgarian village. Lyubov was missing her front teeth, both up and down. She worked as a teacher. When her mother became ill, her mother had atrophy of her toes and required constant care. During the war she was evacuated to Nizhny Tagil in the Urals. She found a family there and joined them. She stopped teaching and became a superintendent of a building. She never had children. She has a niece in Germany. The son of another niece comes to visit her sometimes. Today she said she was fine. She has a stomach and duodenal ulcer. To bathe, Lyubov fills a bucket with cold water and pours it over her while standing inside the bathtub. Her apartment was in a very old, rather primitive building with two floors. She shares a communal toilet and kitchen with seven other apartments. She said that the toilet is awful. Her room was very cold – there is no heat yet. She does have running water. She sometimes gets dizzy. She would like to go into the elderly housing in Dnipropetrovsk – Beit Baruch, but feels that if she becomes ill, Volodya will have to come and get her. That didn’t sound right to us. As far as we know, no one leaves there for health reasons unless they need hospitalization.
Our final visit was with a young man who lives in a group home in Pokaznoyete for invalids and the mentally retarded. His name is Costya Galak and he is 19 years old. His story is quite remarkable. He was born disabled, and his parents were told he would not survive so they should give him up. Costya was raised in orphanages, and was in three different institutions before the age of three. His legs and feet are malformed, but he is exceptionally bright and very good natured. He decided to improve his muscle tone and began lifting weights and exercising. He brought his arms and hands back to normal use, but still walks with his feet bent sideways. He keeps himself clean, and does his own laundry. He is incontinent and one of the things Volodya brought to him were several packages of adult diapers. He also brought him a new pair of sneakers because he wears them out every four months. In addition he was given a large food package with fruit, candy, and other items. When he was young, he was diagnosed as retarded and so was poorly educated. About a year and a half ago, it was determined that he could attend a regular school and should begin at grade seven. Two months later he was moved to grade eight and that summer he passed the test for grade nine. Joint had come to see him and promised to take him to Israel for treatment of his legs and incontinence, but they haven’t been back. He knows that he is Jewish and he is grateful that a Jewish organization cares about him. He now has a friend since a girl was recently brought to this home with deformed legs, but normal intelligence. Most of the other residents are older and retarded or severe alcoholics. He would like to learn to use a computer, but can’t afford one. The staff at the home treat him very well and seem to take good care of everyone. The building was spare, but spotless. He wrote a letter to a TV program which tries to find missing family members. He wants to see his parents, who probably don’t even know he is alive. He doesn’t want anything from them – just wants to meet them. When he turned 18, he was transferred to this home. He is very likeable and good tempered. He does crafts, and likes to listen to music. He has little feeling in his feet and cannot tell when he steps on a rock. He goes to a personal trainer and works out with him once a week. Nothing has been done for his legs surgically or with braces. He receives a pension and 75% goes to the institution he lives in and 25% is his to spend. While he was in the orphanage, he rarely spent anything, so he has a little money to fall back on, but he is very careful with money. He talked about a man, Losha Zhurofka, who also grew up in his orphanage who is now very successful in business employing handicapped people. We urged him to write to this Losha, who runs a bakery, a bar and a discothèque. He was urged to take a more active role in his life and try to reach outside the home he is in. Costya would like more education, but there is nothing near this village. The closest technical school is 100 km. away. Losha’s business opportunities are 300 to 400 km away. Where would he live? How can he afford to move? We all came away thoroughly charmed by him and wanted to do something to help him.
We drove back to Dnipropetrovsk and our hotel in a little over two hours – nothing compared to what we had driven in the last two days. It doesn’t seem possible that our stay in Ukraine is almost over. The weather has been rather warm and we are out and about without coats. Even a suit jacket is too heavy.
X. Tuesday, October 19, Dnipropetrovsk
This morning we slept a little later (not late enough for us) and had a leisurely breakfast. They are finally serving us real breakfast food instead of morning dinners – kasha, omelet in blini, salad, bread, tea, coffee. Volodya is our driver, whom we knew from a trip two years ago. He owns and trains pit bulls. Volodya gave us a little insight into how pensions work (or don’t work) in Ukraine. His mother was told that her pension was 349 gr.($66)/ month. However, the government didn’t have the money to pay that, so she received 149 gr.($28)/ month. Now all the pensioners are receiving 284 gr. ($54)/ month, but it won’t last long. The government did it just before the elections, which come at the end of this month - October. They still don’t have the money for it, so the government took out a loan. People are right when they are skeptical and say it probably won’t last long.
We tried to phone Dr. Evgenia Cherkasskaya, but she was not home and not working today. Apparently, she is not feeling well.
Yan’s Beit Baruch Choir sang for us in the Golden Rose Synagogue. They are always a wonderful group, although many members have either died or emigrated. There are far fewer men now than in the past. There is apparently some dissension over having men sing along side the women, so it is harder to recruit the male voices. Those who participate thoroughly enjoy their music and they sound more professional each time we hear them.
We drove to Beit Baruch Assisted Living Center, where 60 pensioners are living. We were met by the head nurse, Viktoria, Dr. Lew Lifsits from Boston, who is spending three months here, and his translator, Katya. Lew is a gerontologist who practices at the Hebrew Rehab and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and he is taking a sabbatical here. His wife, Louise, is an educator and works with handicapped children. We’ll meet with her later in the day at the new nursery school.
We had a long conversation with Alexandra, who has a Master’s Degree and studied as an M.D. at a medical lab. In 1994, her family went to Israel where she took a course in social work, and worked in that field at an Israeli nursing home for two to three years. She came back to Dnipropetrovsk with her two sons, and her husband remains in Israel. We asked her what the criteria are for being a patient at Beit Baruch. The person must be Jewish, living alone or in a situation where their lives are in constant conflict with other family members (such as alcoholics or drug victims in the family), be 70 years old or older. Each potential client fills out a questionnaire about their family status, education, and pension. There is also a visit to their home. They cannot have cancer, tuberculosis or mental problems. If their children live far away or in the same town, but are unable to help them, that is considered. Alexandra said that Beit Baruch is well known.
The apartments of the clients are not taken. Most apartments are owned by the people themselves, and other family members “climb out of the woodwork” to take them over.
We asked about the routine for obtaining medicine or medical supplies. It was a long answer, but interesting. A staff nurse works around the clock and she is qualified for emergencies. If she cannot deal with it, she calls an ambulance. If it is a cardiac problem, a special cardiac ambulance will be sent. If they determine there was a heart attack, the patient has to be taken to the hospital. The Beit Baruch patients are assigned a doctor from a local polyclinic, the same as anyone else in the area. The physician at the polyclinic is paid more and comes to Beit Baruch for an extra three hours. The polyclinic is equipped for regular lab tests and x-rays. There are also some specialists available at this polyclinic and Beit Baruch hires them as consultants when needed. One resident developed a tumor and Beit Baruch paid for his entire treatment and hospital stay, including surgery. They usually do whatever the doctor prescribes. If a prescription is needed, it is provided by the physician and they go to a special drug store or warehouse where they get the medicine at a discount. It is not connected to Chesed at all.
Pampers are very much in demand, but they are very expensive. The best they can do is a 5% discount. The same is true for waterproof plastic bed pads. As a result, they use very few. A package of 30 pampers costs 79.3 gr. ($15). A package of 30 bed pads costs 39.3 gr. ($7). They are interested in adult plastic pants, which could be used over a cloth diaper. Dr. Benjamin Sacks gave them blood sugar testing equipment. Bob and Doris Gordon donated an EKG machine to monitor heart activity. They obtain antibiotics from Yan, and also medicine for hypertension, for which they are very grateful. This medicine comes from Boston and is free, and they are very grateful for the help we provide.
Pensions are transferred here to the residents, and Beit Baruch does not touch them. The have a board of residents. Each person puts a small amount into an emergency fund and the board decides what to do with it – use it for a birthday present, loan the money or give a one-time grant. Birthdays are usually celebrated once a month for everyone with a birthday during that month. This is common in the U.S. at nursing homes as well. They have their own garden and have harvested two crops of cucumbers and tomatoes. The large room on the third floor is now a synagogue with a mehitsa on one side to separate the women from the men. There is an ark and lectern with donated velvet covers. There is a computer room on the third floor with four computers, a printer and scanner donated by Betsy Gidwitz.
We saw the fitness room on the lower level, which was furnished with the help and the ideas of Francine Godfrey, who works with the elderly in Boston. There are rubber bands for stretching, weights, balls, floor mats, and a number of other items which they use in regular exercise classes. There is another room for larger exercise equipment, but they are still waiting for it to come from the Boston Jewish community. We also saw the laundry area with industrial washing machines, a dryer and ironing facilities.
Our next visit was at the opposite end of the city where the new kindergarten/gan is located. It was formerly a nursery school, but it was completely rebuilt. It was donated by Mrs. Pinchuk, who dedicated it in memory of her grandparents. Both the classrooms and playground are first class with many wonderful materials for the children. There are sleeping rooms for each class which have triple trundle beds to accommodate all the children. They have a separate cheder for very young boys, and Reuben Kaminezki is in one of these classes. The rest of the school mixes boys and girls in each class. There are 89 students in this facility, but no class has more than 20 children. We were there between 5:00 P.M. and 6:00 P.M. and children were still there waiting to be picked up. Their school day begins at 8:00 A.M., so it’s a long day for them. They range in age from two to six. The children are taught Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian and English, among other subjects. There is an area for arithmetic in each classroom. There were a number of children in the playground when we came. They have an equal mix of boys and girls. It is a very impressive school. We saw Louise Lifshits there meeting with one of the staff. She said that they have a lot of the same problems here and at her school in America. We talked for a little while with Louise about the young handicapped boy we saw in a small village outside of Melitopol.
This evening we are having dinner at the Sidelkovsky apartment, and we will see their grandson, Mark, for the first and last time on this trip. Tomorrow afternoon we leave for Vienna, and then for Minsk, Belarus. Yan figured that we have traveled over 3,000 km on our visits!
XI. Wednesday, October 20, Dnipropetrovsk & Vienna
Spent the morning going over our expenses with Yan. We left for the airport around noon and caught the 3:00 P.M. flight to Vienna.
Our heavy luggage was checked through to Minsk and we crossed our fingers that it would actually get there with us. Vienna is an hour behind, so we re-set our watches and enjoyed reading the “International Herald Tribune” for the first time in over a week. Felt like a child devouring the newspaper from end to end. We learned that the Red Sox were in the World Series.
Since our flight to Minsk was at 9:10 P.M. the next day, we had a leisurely breakfast and then made our way to the airport where we checked our luggage and boarded a train to the center of Vienna. Barbara had wanted to see the Gustave Klimpt exhibit at the Belvedere Gallery, so we negotiated two trains and ended up at a very beautiful old baroque building set in formal gardens. We not only enjoyed the Klimpt exhibit, but also paintings by Schiele and Koshkoska among others. It was a real treat to be out walking after so many days of riding in a van and hearing the sad stories of our Bubbes and Zaydes.
One interesting point – we needed to tell the attendant at the Austrian Air check-in counter that we had sent through our luggage to Minsk. She added this information to our computer record, so hopefully some baggage handler will actually look for our luggage and put it on our flight.
I. Friday, October 22, Minsk & Baranovichi
We arrived in Minsk around 12:30 A.M. – in the middle of the night. Miraculously, all of our luggage did too! Of course we had to purchase health insurance for $2.00 per person, and our heavy luggage was put through the x-ray machine one more time. We said we had nothing to declare, and met Frank and Galina Swartz, our driver, Igor, and the Ford van for our ride to the Hotel Arbita. There were fewer forms to fill out at the airport – no customs declaration or grilling on how much money we had. Needless to say, it felt good to finally get into bed.
We had a late wake-up call and breakfast, which is now a buffet with many choices of eggs, cereal, rolls, sausage, cheese, jam, spaghetti, juice, tea, coffee. No more single cup of coffee or tea – you can take as much as you like. Galina met us with the van at 10:30 A.M. and we were off to Baranovichi to see the nurse we hire there, Maria Vasilievna Tomashevskaya.
Galina talked about Zelda on our way there. Zelda, who was born in 1937, lives in the village of Stary Zhurovichi in a shack and we plan to visit her tomorrow. She has fallen since Galina last saw her and she is rather stubborn about the way she lives. As Galina says, she has a stack of new underwear, but she always wears the same clothes day after day. She has a walker which we think was left by the Joint, but we’ll ask her about this. Zelda saves every nickel she has for the day she emigrates to Israel, which is a goal we’re not sure is ever going to happen. Zelda has a brother who emigrated with his second wife and children to Israel and the U.S. A nephew from the brother’s first marriage showed up one day to live with Zelda, but he got into trouble with the police and disappeared. She hasn’t heard from him since. She used to get parcels from the joint, but her pension is too high. However, they did bring her a parcel of food with the walker. Her diet is somewhat strange. She has no refrigerator. She does have an ulcer, which was determined when Galina took her to a hospital to check on her stomach pain. Zelda was convinced that she had cancer, but a gastroenterologist found it to be an ulcer. She should be on a special diet, but Zelda resists this. She has hens, so eats fried eggs. She doesn’t like boiled food and doesn’t like soup. She was given some medicine, but we don’t know whether she took it or not. She buys fresh milk from a neighbor and eats lots of salted meat. She has pain killers. Galina asked whether she needed fuel for the winter, but she had a supply of peat bricks and said she was all set. She cooks on a small gas stove. She grows vegetables in her garden – carrots, cabbage, peas, beans, potatoes – but she probably cannot do that now since she broke some bone in her hip.
Galina said that Frank wanted to look into creating a decent home for the elderly, especially for someone like Zelda who is all alone and living under poor conditions. He thought he might interest the rabbi in Pinsk to take a former Jewish hotel building which was being given back to the Jewish community, remodel it and set up elderly assisted living. However, the rabbi is overloaded now with the Jewish day schools for boys and girls, and he didn’t have any extra funds. Eventually some private individual bought the building for a song and is using it for his business. We all thought of the exquisite Beit Baruch Assisted Living Center in Dnipropetrovsk, which would probably seem like a dream come true, but this is another country with another set of circumstances. Galina gave us two quick examples of pensioners who really need a group home. One was a woman who got into her bathtub and turned on the hot water, scalded herself and died. She was found dead in her bathtub several days later. Another was a man whose wife had died seven years ago, and he had not changed the bed linens in the bed they shared since the day she died in it.
We met the nurse, Maria Vasilievna Tomashevskaya, at her home and she invited us up for tea, which turned out to be a full meal. By then it was lunchtime, so of course we ate again. We pay Maria $30 per month to care for the Jewish community. She has about 20 people whom she visits regularly, according to their needs. Some people just phone her when they need some help. There was some dissension in the Baranovichi Jewish community about Maria this last fall. Someone started to complain that she, as a non-Jew, should not be treating the Jewish community at all. Galina really trusts Maria and her clients praise her to the skies. Galina told them that they should decide whether they want the help Maria provides or not – there is no other option. Needless to say, they wanted Maria to continue. Maria has made 133 visits since January 1st, including repeat visits. She keeps a record in a notebook and notes everyone who has died or moved away. She is now seeing around 20 people. She often counsels her clients to stop taking so many medications and just concentrate on two or three at the most. It is very common for people here to take what their deceased relatives left behind or what a neighbor recommends.
Maria took us to visit some of her clients. The first was Fira or Esfir Isaakovna Ginzburg, born in 1931. Fira’s address is ul. Kirova 52, kv. 34. She is a second degree invalid due to a heart defect, which sounded like mitral valve stenosis, but we were not entirely certain. She also has gall stones, kidney stones and glaucoma, for which she takes some drops. She likes her eye doctor very much. Fira recently had a disastrous experience with a dentist. She went to have some bridgework done. Apparently, the bridge was a poor fit and it caused sores on her gum which are very painful. She went back to the dentist 18 days later, and he made another bridge, but her mouth is so full of pain that she finally yanked out the new bridgework. She complains of severe headaches now, which are affecting her eyesight. It seems as though every bone in her body hurts. The dentist doesn’t want to hear from her anymore. Maria said that Fira is her worst case. Fira even wrote a letter to the local health department to complain about her treatment by this dentist. They wrote back that they consulted with the dentist who said it will get better. The head of the department said that all teachers are a little crazy (Fira used to be a Russian language and literature teacher). His own parents were teachers and they were crazy.
Fira lives by herself. She has a brother in Chernovtsy. Her pension is 160,000 rubles/ month or $72. As a 2nd degree invalid, she gets a 50% discount on her utilities and rent. This winter it will probably be 25,000 rubles/ month or $11- $12. She is afraid that the discounts will be discontinued because Russia has recently done this. She pays 10,000 rubles/ month or $5 for a security service because she lives alone in a bad area. They monitor the apartments in her building. Three times a month she receives a food package from the Joint with fresh fish or chicken, potatoes, carrots, etc. They no longer send tinned fish, which many people used to complain about. Fira used to do beautiful embroidery work, and there were several examples in the apartment – a tablecloth, shelf cover. She likes to read. She did not appear to own a TV.
I asked Galina whether Fira could be taken to a dentist in Minsk whom they trust for re-evaluation and treatment. She may have a raging infection and should not be in such pain. Galina said that this was probably possible. If so, I hope to leave funds for this.
Our second visit was with Yaakov Pavlovich Melnik, born in 1929 in Slutsk, another Belorussian city. He used to work for an automobile service center and was director of maintenance there. His pension is 173,000 rubles/ month or $85. His rent and utilities are around 20,000 rubles/ month or $40. Yaakov had recently lost his wife when she was run over by a car, but he didn’t want to dwell on this so we never mentioned it. He receives a package of food from the Joint two or three times a month with sugar, flour, chicken, fish, jam, juice, cottage cheese. He doesn’t want potatoes or cabbage. While we were there, he was making some pea soup. He said that his mother taught him how to cook and he was quite proficient. His apartment was spotless.
We asked about his health. Yaakov said that when nothing hurts, he doesn’t take anything. He calls his own doctor – Maria, who gives him injections which re-invigorate him. He refuses to deal with Chesed for medicine because it is too cumbersome a process. He would rather just go and pay a little bit more at the local pharmacy when he needs something. He has problems with his neck and joints. When his wife was alive, she was also a patient of Maria.
Yaakov has a son in Pinsk and a granddaughter, Julia, who is 21 years old. He sees them about once a month. Not long ago the granddaughter went to the U.S. for three months. She studies English and German at the Linguistic University. His late wife was also a linguist. The granddaughter was in New Hampshire working. There are aunts in New York who wanted her to stay there and get a job, but she had worked at this place before on a previous trip and wanted to return there. The work is in a photo shop, and she earned $4,500 in three months working two jobs. The last time she earned $2,400. Julia graduates from the institute this year, and will stay in Belarus. Her grandmother and other siblings live in the U.S., but this family does not want to emigrate. Yaakov said that it has been a difficult year because his mother-in-law, brother-in-law and wife all died. Yaakov was very upbeat and didn’t look his age. He was a pleasure to visit with.
Our last visit was with Philip Grigorievich Doroshov, the son of Grigory Doroshov, who had died so suddenly last fall just before our visit. Philip was born in 1948 in Vinnitsa, Ukraine. When we last saw Philip, he was still in shock. This visit was much more relaxed and enjoyable. Philip showed us a medal he had recently accepted on behalf of his father, which commemorated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus. He showed us a photo of him with the mayor of Baranovichi, the Ukrainian ambassador to Belarus and a few other individuals. His father was a wonderful person, and Philip is very proud of him. Galina told us that Philip is an excellent high school math teacher and highly respected. His sister is visiting from Israel for the Yahrzeit of Grigory’s death, but she was out shopping, so we didn’t meet her. She had been unable to attend the funeral last year. Philip served us tea with a large cake his wife had made (she was still at work) with many layers. He talked about “marrying the tea” – pouring it back and forth between the pot and a cup to get a better mix and steeping.
We talked about many topics. Belarus has a total population of nine million and several hundred thousand. As recently as 1996, the population was 10 million, so you can see they are losing ground. About 30% of the population are pensioners. The population is definitely aging. The Jewish population is dying out. In October, there were two deaths in this community. Frank says there are 100,000 Jews in Belarus, but the “official” figure is 28,000.
Belarus has no natural resources other than some potassium and phosphates which are not very valuable. However, the Russian oil pipeline goes through Belarus near Grodno on its way to Poland and Germany. They are able to use oil and gas at the same prices Russians pay – not at inflated foreign prices. Putin has been re-distributing resources from Yeltsin’s supporters to his own. Gas shares from Gazprom were given to Ukraine, Belarus and mostly to Russia. Putin decided he wanted the shares back, but Lukashenko refused to negotiate. For three days, Russia shut off the oil and gas supply. Germany and Poland complained, and Lukashenko remained tough. Lukashenko asked the people whether he should use their pension money and other benefits to pay Russia or hang tough. Of course, they agreed with his tactics. At the end of three days, the supply was turned on again and no more was said. The Belorussians admire Lukashenko for his toughness and standing up to the giant Russia.
Philip has a very nice apartment in an old building with high ceilings. They own it and pay $45/month for utilities. The average pension is $75/ month, but both he and his wife still work. Medicine is very expensive and is usually what eats up the pension. The Russian law was changed so they now pay more for importing medicine from Russia. Prices have doubled and tripled. Borisov in Belarus manufactures some medicine, but not a lot of different types. Philip is a diabetic and receives injections which cost $100 for a series of 10 and the I.V. tubing to go with it. He takes insulin. Once every six months, Philip enters a hospital for a course of treatment. He does not have a glucometer which measures his blood sugar. Galina said that they receive thousands of requests for glucometers from many Jewish communities, but the strips they require are very expensive. Glucometers which are produced in Belarus can be purchased for $25. The strips are made here, but they do not match the types used by foreign glucometers. It is a very big problem.
There is a large grocery store next to the hotel, so we picked up some food for a light supper and came back for an early evening. Frank and Galina are going to a UN function this evening where they hope to meet many of the individuals who may be helpful for their many humanitarian aid projects.
II. Saturday, October 23, Bobruisk & Stary Zhirovichi (Zelda)
Bobruisk is a poor community, and the Jewish community reflects this. The city used to have a population which was 98% Jewish, but there are not many Jews left. They do not have much money, and many struggle to put food on the table. Decent jobs seemed scarce, and we were told about several people who had a good education, but couldn’t find work. Pensioners often provide the most stable income within a family.
We drove about two and a half hours to Bobruisk to the rooms which the orthodox congregation are renting. They are in a government building, which is very nice, but they have been told that they will have to vacate by January 10, when their lease is up and the government wants the space back. They are not certain what they will do. They rent this space for 61 euros a month, which is provided by Yuri Dorn’s Union of Religious Jewish Communities. According to Frank, Yuri has not been paying the Bobruisk government, which is why the community is losing its lease.
Many of these people worked very hard to obtain a synagogue which was given back to the Jewish community about two years ago. However, a chabad rabbi from outside stepped in and claimed the synagogue, but has done nothing to repair it, so it sits empty and falling apart. Apparently when the women’s clothing factory moved out of the building, they ripped out radiators and the electrical wiring. Without repairs, the whole building is falling apart. When they first obtained this building, there was an agreement that everyone would share the space, but chabad refused. The chabad rabbi has been invited to several meetings to discuss this, but he never shows up. Chabad has a minyan on Shabbat, but that is all. They use kerosene lanterns and ignore the second floor where part of the roof is caving in. There is also a progressive congregation in Bobruisk which rents space in a school.
We met the congregation, which stayed after services to see us. The men were seated in the main room and the women were separated by a curtain in a room at right angles, seated around a long table. There were 16 men and 15 women. The leader of the congregation, Viktor Blagutin, spoke. He has been the leader for about five years. Faina Polei, whom we know, is the leader of this Jewish community, but I’m not certain of her title. She was one of the first organizers in Bobruisk, and began her activity 15 years ago. They have activities five days a week – not just on Shabbat. There is not much cultural life left in Bobruisk, so they depend upon the synagogue. They receive real aid here – books, discussion groups, and communication with one another. They celebrate the holidays together and sing together. During the High Holidays they usually have guests from abroad. They try to provide moral assistance for one another, if nothing else.
According to Faina Polei, there used to be 10 buildings in the city which were synagogues. She was willing to take us on an excursion of the city and show us the buildings, but we were too pressed for time. Actually, I think we saw many of them on our previous trip last year. They prepared a letter which they plan to present to Yuri Dorn who they hope will take it to the Ministry for Nationalities and Religion. They used to have a physician and a room at a local hospital to serve the Jewish community, but don’t any more.
They need warm clothing and shoes for the winter.
They receive assistance from the Joint, but it is not adequate. They help mainly the pensioners and there are many middle-aged people who are unemployed or underemployed, who receive no assistance. It is almost impossible for women over the age of 30 to find a job. Many members of this congregation have grown children who are unable to find work. One man spoke of a son who had two higher degrees, but was working as a janitor and earning about $70 per month. Those who receive social assistance get “peanuts.” One wife was registered as unemployed and received $10 - $12 per month for unemployment benefits. Their rent is $67 per month. It is an impossible situation. Often those with pensions support the family. Fifty percent of those present have family members who have emigrated. They used to have a very sympathetic head of the Chesed in Bobruisk – a man named Abramson. He really tried to help the people. They feel that other more recent leaders think only of themselves. If you complain, you don’t get anything. They introduced a young man, Sasha Orlov, to us who is unable to find work. He teaches at their Sunday School. He has a mother and a twelve-year-old sister who need support. Sasha is 25 years old. He tried to go to Moscow to find work, but was unable to. Galina said that apartments are too expensive in Moscow for someone like Sasha. The same is true for Minsk. Sasha graduated from a technical school in radio work. He remembers his grandmother very well.
People with high pensions don’t receive help from Joint. For instance, war veterans receive a higher pension than most. He can receive 310,000 rubles/month or $140. They don’t even want to go to Chesed because it is too humiliating to be turned down. Another man participated in the Chernobyl catastrophe and his family moved to Bobruisk. His pension is 210,000 rubles or $95/ month. He doesn’t receive any food parcels. However, the deputy at a big tire factory gets a package. This man’s daughter just left on a program in Israel to earn money. A grandchild has scoliosis and cannot find a job. A woman complained that she had just buried her brother a short time ago and needed help with a vehicle to move her brother’s books to her apartment, but no one pays attention to her. They met people from Orsha who receive more food from their Chesed. This kind of discussion went on for a short time until someone suggested that they change the subject and talk about what they do as a congregation. However, they really needed to vent their frustration.
They have a Kabbalat Shabbat on Fridays. Shimon chairs the religious services. He can read the prayers in Hebrew. He also knows Yiddish. They discuss the Torah portion. Shimon was born in 1946, so he doesn’t receive a pension. However, he does obtain food from Chesed. When we met him a couple of years ago, he had been refused food there. Sometimes they distribute humanitarian aid here, but they haven’t received anything since last spring. Frank and Galina’s group, Voluntas, occasionally provides them with aid when it is available. They have a Sunday School with 70 children, which meets in a rented school building. They start at age 4 with a preschool and have four groups through age 18. In the spring, Rabbi Benjamin came for a month. They receive help from a Rabbi Taub in Israel, who organizes camps for the children, which they attend without charge. Lech Lecha, a New York student group from Yeshivas and universities, also organizes camps for children. They are used to having guests. “All Jews are relatives and our relatives do not forget about us.” Not long ago, Bobruisk Jews who live in the U.S. sent money for sweets for Rosh Hashanah and they gave them souvenirs in return. A friend in St. Louis sent them $200 for sweets. They gave us lovely hand made clay pendants with Jewish themes. There is a Jewish artist here who makes them on order. Faina participated in the Kesher meetings and took 12 of these pendants with her.
There was a discussion about why President Bush dislikes Belarus so much. Why don’t American presidents like us? We don’t have Russian ration cards in our stores. We are not that bad. They are upset over the recent Democracy Act which President Bush signed. Belarus is not Iraq.
A young woman, Berta Glushetz, who has no family thanked us for coming. It is like a big holiday for them. She attended a Moscow seminar for three weeks and studied Torah and the blessings. She chose the Hebrew name, Barucha, for herself. They said that she is a big help in their Jewish community because she knows who needs assistance. She is not very healthy and has asthma.
After the congregation left, a few of them remained to serve us tea and candy and sit a round the table and talk. We discussed sending packages from Boston. Used clothing would be very useful. If it is new, take off the tags and call it used. Otherwise, they will have to pay customs duty. Medicine is O.K., but it must be at least six months before the expiration date, and it is better to have a year of shelf life left. Medical equipment cannot be older than five years, and it has to have instructions and a certificate that it is in working order. Some people have sent medical equipment with inflated values, which works against the institution receiving them. There is a letter to stipulate that the clothing has been fumigated or dry cleaned. Galina will show me the form to use. We can send boxes to Faina. They will distribute whatever we send. Many people come and take their addresses, but they never hear from them again. We left $500 with Faina.
Students who try to enter the work program in the U.S. have a very difficult time obtaining visas. Only a third seem to get them. It is very difficult for Belarus. Often the American Embassy staff are not at all helpful. The present ambassador seems to be somewhat better, though.
There was a general consensus that they like President Lukashenko. Yes, they know he is autocratic and not perfect, but they live safe and quiet lives with a minimum of crime and corruption. Galina said that she and Frank had driven to Ukraine recently. They had Belorussian license plates and were frequently stopped by the police for bribes, which ranged from $30 to $90. If they protest, the police will tow their vehicle and they will have to pay an exorbitant price for that and lose their car. That could not happen in Belarus. If they complain about a policeman here, he can be dismissed. They talked about the corruption in Ukraine and Lithuania which supposedly have democracy with dirty streets and high prices. They admire Lukashenko for taking another path. Gradually the factories are beginning to work and the gross national product is rising. Agriculture is also improving. The so-called opposition to Lukashenko consists of former people in high places who are miffed that they are not in the government. They don’t represent anyone and most get their funding from overseas. They don’t represent anyone but themselves.
Last year they had a problem finding a place to meet. Yuri Dorn appealed to the government Committee on Nationalities. Within a month they had an answer. Yuri Dorn is coming to meet with them tomorrow to help them settle their current problem with a place to meet. They hope he will take their letter to the Minister. Lukashenko had a meeting with the head of the Catholic Church. He is open to all religions. There are antisemites here, but it is not government sponsored. One man said that he had fought against the Communists all his life, but now he has nothing to fight against.
We left Bobruisk for Stary Zhurovichi, which is north of Rugachev, and around 60 km. from Bobruisk. We are visiting Zelda, the last Jew in her village. She was discovered by Galina and Ellie Kellman, who teaches Yiddish at Brandeis University. Ellie’s mother came from this village, and she had given us some gifts for Zelda – a warm coat and jacket, a letter in Russian and some money. We had a small zippered bag of toiletries for her and a metal cane. Zelda was born in 1937. We stopped first at the local hospital which no longer has live-in patients, but acts as a walk-in clinic. Their doctor graduated from Vitebsk Medical School, which Galina says is a good one. He is getting a wing of this hospital ready for an assisted living center for the elderly. They expect to eventually house 18 people there. If it really comes about, it might be a good solution for Zelda, who has broken her hip.
She fell on March 10th last year, when she went to the post office wearing slippery shoes. She broke her hip and spent time in the hospital in Dolsk, but did not have surgery. She did have x-rays. She asked to be allowed to go home rather than go to a nursing home. They are supposedly awful places. The doctor eventually gave in and gave Zelda some painkillers and sent her home. She takes the pain medication sparingly, but the prescription has been refilled. Zelda has a walker from Chesed in Gomel, and she receives a food package every month from them. She is able to put some weight on her bad side and moves about her home, which is a small wooden shack, slowly, but O.K. She is able to sit and cross her leg. She knows she has lost muscle mass in the bad leg. When she came home from the hospital, she had a plaster cast on her foot for 47 days to keep her from turning the leg. Of course the hip still hurts her, but she was in much better shape than we expected. Her coloring is good and her cheeks are rosy. When we left, she came outside to say goodbye.
Her house does not have running water and there is no bathroom. She has a furnace which burns peat bricks. She cooks on an electric hot plate. Lighting comes from a single bare bulb which hangs from the ceiling. Neighbors give her a hand hauling water and preparing food. Galina purchased some soup noodles, which can be eaten after adding hot water, and some fruit. Ellie has contacted Larisa, who heads the progressive congregation in Mogilev, to keep an eye on Zelda from time to time, but it is a long distance to travel. Larisa brought her an electric heater, but Zelda scoffs at it – “What do I need that for?” Zelda definitely has a mind of her own. She is used to being independent and active, and she chafes at her lack of mobility. She was unable to plant her garden this summer. However, she gave us a bag of dried beans and pumpkin seeds for Ellie. Although our visit began with Zelda in tears, she soon began talking and really enjoyed our company. We were there quite a while. Zelda has pictures of Lenin and Stalin on her wall – her heroes. Her shack is ancient and looks as though it can’t possibly last much longer, but she likes it. She is trying to go to Israel to join her sister-in-law. Her brother passed away. Sochnut is helping her, but it is going slowly. There was a mix up with her sending money to obtain a traveling passport, but she seems to be straightening that out. It remains to be seen whether her emigration actually takes place. Her doctor originally told her that she would never stand or walk again, but she is slowly improving and can certainly stand and put weight on her bad leg. She could use some therapy to help the healing process. Galina said that she would speak to the doctor by phone and see what could be arranged. She has a social worker assigned by the State, but she seems to alternate between having the worker help her and telling her to go home.
We stopped on the way back to Minsk for dinner at a cafe in Rogachev, the closest larger town. The food was excellent and we were hungry after a long day of visits.
III. Sunday, October 24, Ashmiany
Barbara and Judy are going with Galina Swartz to the town where Barbara’s grandmother and great-grandmother came from - Ashmiany. It is a one and a half hour drive from here. Galina Zilberstein will spend the day with good friends who live in Minsk. This is our last full day before we head to Frankfurt and home. Galina Swartz does many “roots” trips with people who come to Belarus to see where their families came from and if there is any trace of them there. She gets referrals from the Jewish Genealogical Society in the U.S. and also has another employee who does research within Belarus.
Ashmiany is a small town, but hardly a village. The old town square has a large Catholic Church and a slightly smaller Russian Orthodox Church on two sides of the square. Across the street and behind another modern building is the former synagogue, a rather large red brick building which is falling apart. The front had a large round window over the entrance which may have had stained glass, but it is all but covered with metal and the doors and windows are also solid metal with large locks. A number of windows are bricked up, but it is the typical brick building material used by the Jews. At one time Ashmiany was largely Jewish, but we don’t know if any Jews are left. There are also a number of typical Jewish homes in the area – one-story red brick buildings with decorative brick work over the windows. Many homes on the main street probably once combined business and living quarters. For instance, the two windows to the right of the front door were where the family lived. The single window to the left of the door was where business was conducted. The family entered the home from the rear, away from the business entrance.
Galina located the local museum, a two-story building which used to be an optician’s shop with living quarters on the second level, also a former Jewish building. Now it has a WWII display, local stuffed animals and a library and office in back. The person who tends the museum showed Galina the “Pamyat” or “Memory Book” with information about Ashmiany beginning in the 18th century. We then walked to a local bookstore to purchase two copies of this book – one for Barbara and one for Galina. Later in the day, Galina sat with Barbara and translated some of the information from Belorussian and marked the pages with sticky bookmarks. Jewish names were mentioned often. Many were merchants in the town and others were among the notable citizens. Barbara’s family name is Baksht, and they found a nearby smaller town of that name. At some point in time, the Tsar made everyone take on a family name and many chose the name of the town they lived in or came from. Others chose their profession. Barbara’s family probably moved from Baksht to the larger community of Ashmiany. Later they moved on to Vilnius, which is not far from here and which used to be in the same country – Poland.
We also drove to the old Jewish cemetery on a hill on the edge of the town. There are many old tombstones there with Hebrew inscriptions, but it was difficult to read them. Many were worn and covered with moss. Most of the cemetery was just a grassy hill, but areas still had recognizable rows of stones, some of which were rather nicely carved, indicating a flourishing Jewish community. Needless to say, we couldn’t find any with the name Baksht on them. Apparently the archival records are in Vilnius, so Barbara may try going there some time to further research her family origins. It was an interesting trip, which both of us thoroughly enjoyed.
We drove back to Galina’s apartment, which is not far from our hotel. Galina’s mother, Maya, made us a delicious meal with soup, rolls stuffed with cabbage, and an apple dessert. It was nice to come inside on such a rainy day and have a hot meal. We also saw Frank there, as well as Galina’s children, Sasha and Paul. Sasha is in her third year of graduate school studying linguistic. Paul is at the Institute, too. I made one last stab at sending e-mail home to let them know we are still alive and well. Galina Zilberstein was going to send a message from her friend’s home, but I thought I would send one, too. It’s been a long stretch between computers.
Frank helped me with several pieces of information. I now have the form for sending used clothing to Belarus which is “disinfected,” and I have information on possible sources of help for Costya Galak, the disabled young man we had seen in a town outside of Melitopol. Frank gave me the e-mail address of a friend in Kiev who runs a program for the disabled, and someone else in Moscow who is actively involved with the disabled. We’ll have to pursue this when we get home and see if anything worthwhile turns up. We are looking for a sheltered residential program in which Costya could continue his education and make some friends. He certainly should be able to work in the real world.
IV. Monday, October 25, Minsk & Frankfurt
We have plans to visit a project of Galina’s this morning called “Portage.” It’s a program to train people to work with the handicapped children and their parents where they live, and also to offer respite care for parents who want to go on vacation or just have a break. Frank said that it was adapted from an American program which was successfully used in England. It combines physical therapy with practical advice. One three-year-old who has been helped by the program has begun to walk for the first time. They are beginning to see dramatic results. The Belorussian government is trying to institute it country-wide, but there is not much money for this. Galina has been involved with training the people who actually make the home visits and also discussing the program to generate interest. Our flight is at 1:55 P.M., so we have several hours to spend here in Minsk.