Uncompleted interview with Basya Goldmacher

III. Exile to Far North. War. Evacuation.

B. G. My grandfather was the fastest to understand the essence of the new authorities. He was a great master at growing grapes and making wine, he was well respected and authoritative figure in the town. That is why he was summoned, as well as some other individuals, to a ‘brainwashing’ session, to convince him of the advantages of the soviet lifestyle. Grandfather was a wise man, he was not arguing, nodded his head. He was behaving, as he was telling, in a ‘diplomatic’ way. He gathered everyone at the ‘family board’, and whispered, ‘Run at your first opportunity. Naked, barefooted – run… This is not the authority of order and justice – these are thieves and demagogues. I don’t believe them’.

However, there was no place to run to… The communist regime took decisive actions on its new territory: independent Jewish organizations were closed, the number of institutions, where people would speak Yiddish, was reduced to a strict minimum, thousands of political activists were imprisoned or sent to labor camps to the farthest reaches of Russia, Zionist organizations were outlawed. We have even had to hide the fact that we were part of these organizations, that we were ‘Hahshara’ trained, that we were dreaming of going to ‘faraway land’. It was not only discrimination against Jews. They undertook similar actions against other ethnic groups living on the annexed lands. There were talks however that too many Jews were involved in the communist repressions. Quite often, the responsibility for the repressive actions was shifted on the Jews. And though we felt that this is the end, we were 19 and we had to go on with our lives and studying…

Peyrets’ parents were even more scared of the Soviet authorities. After all, they were wealthy people in Romania. Although the Soviets have confiscated their restaurant and homes, they realized from the words of the refugees that Soviets’ confiscation of property was not the worst thing that might come to pass. God knows what else could happen.

During1940-1941, several waves of deportations of the varied local population came about in Bendery. The last one occurred on June 13, 1941. Echelons with those who were expelled by the Soviet government, were headed somewhere to the East. Many representatives of Jewish intellectuals, Zionists, Bund, Orthodox, as well as secured and prosperous Jews, were forcibly, with no fanfare and no luggage, sent to Central Siberia, Kazakhstan, Yakutia, to the North. In this very last portion of deportation of the population of Bendery, Peyrets’ parents were also caught.

N.G. Were you married at that time? How did you get married, and what happened then?
B. G. Our marriage also was a ‘mishap’. We continued our education to become teachers, and our life started to improve.

‘Dizziness of success’ left its ectype on our personal relationship. We were on the rise and decided to take one more fortress. ‘How much longer can we postpone making our relationship official, - said Peyrets – we are mature enough, to act on our own. I cannot imagine my life without you. Who knows how life will be… It is unpredictable… We should be together…’

These were the words, or approximate words, of a ‘very experienced’, 19 year old Peyrets, who was taking me with his iron hand in the direction of registration point of city’s ‘Civil Registry Office’. Frankly speaking, I did not dig in heels. But the employees of the ‘Civil Registry Office’ told us that in order to register a marriage we needed to have a witness and to pay a fee of three rubles. We had neither one nor the other.

However, Peyrets was very determined. He generally likes bringing everything to an end – to the victorious end… Within 10-15 minutes the elder brother Matus, who looked quite formal, was brought as a witness. Sure, he was already 22. With his generous hand, he handed the desired three rubles that were a barrier on the way of our happiness, and nobly said, ‘It is my wedding present. You don’t have to pay it back’.

‘Asenyka, I think – said my stern husband after receiving the ‘document with the stamp’, - we still need to tell our parents’. I agreed. At the beginning, I agreed to everything he would say. I was overwhelmed: my husband is the smartest, the most impartial, the most fundamental and prudent… Moreover, he was a few days older than I was.

We were disappointed by the reaction of our parents… We were ready for everything… But they just did not take our marriage seriously. This was the most painful… It was written with black on white on the document that Basya Kishinevskaya and Peyrets Goldmacher became husband and wife. Yet, the first evening after the registration, when Peyrets, based on his legal rights as a ‘husband’, sit up in his wife’s house, my grandfather transparently hinted that it is time to honor the hosts. The next day we made a try to ‘anchor’ in the husband’s house. Yet, in the evening, Peyrets’ father gently offered walking me home. He told Peyrets, who was just ready to walk his ‘lady’ home: ‘Young man, stay home and study. The exams are at hand.’

Yet, after a week, ‘the ice broke’. Peyrets’ father came to my grandfather and told him: ‘What are we going to do with these kids? They love each other… we should help them. What this piece of paper from the ‘Civil Office’ means to them? We should make everything by our Jewish traditions. The way it supposed to be. They started to think and ponder. It was impossible under the Soviet rule to have a ‘normal’ Jewish wedding to comply with all the traditions and customs. We could have fallen under suspicion. You could always find a bunch of paid and volunteer informers hanging around. ‘The proletarian fight’ on the Jewish street was in high gear in the newly annexed lands.

As always, my wise grandfather found a way out of a dead end situation by suggesting celebrating our wedding on November 7^th, on the ‘calendar red day’. On the day of public holiday, no one would even think to wonder why the house of the Goldmachers is full of music, dances, and laughter. To the contrary, this would once again underscore our love and loyalty to the government. Yet, the number of guests should be drastically reduced. There will be only close relatives, the most intimate. Yet, ten people – adult men for a ‘minyan’ we would find. That was decided. Well, truly, my grandmother was crying. Not of that kind of wedding for her granddaughter, she was dreaming. ‘Not a wedding, but a ‘clandestine diversion’, - she wailed.

Peyrets and I were still happy: young, healthy, full of energy. We were confident that we would be happy, and able to overcome every difficulty and obstacle, and would love each other for the rest of our lives. The most amazing thing is that it all happened...

Now, Peyrets and I are hoping to soon celebrate the 70^th anniversary of our marriage. In the end, despite all the dramatic events, we not only survived, not only were both happy, but I think, I have the right to state that we lived through a decent life, the one that we both understand as being a ‘decent life’.

N. G. Could it be possible that you did not fight even once or you did not have conflicts or misunderstandings?
B. G. Of course, we had… After a few days of the ‘illegal wedding’, I came back home, to my mother…

The matter was like this. Peyrets and I were getting ready for exams and were conscientiously taking math and biology tests. Peyrets set down for math, and I for biology: we had it done by the end of the day. After finishing my work, I carefully started to copy the reference assignment of my mathematics ‘genius’. Imagine my surprise when Peyrets said that he would not let me ‘cheat’; instead he would be ready to explain to me the logic of the problem solving, because otherwise I would not develop my own mathematical thinking.

Shocked by his uncompromising stand, I agreed, and went out to take some air for about an hour. In five minutes, I started to miss him, and decided to come back. I was really surprised and angry to find out that my stern pedant was quietly rewriting my freshly baked biology assignment work.

I grabbed my bag, threw in it my notebooks, books, manuals – it was my main ‘dowry’, and, saying that ‘I was totally disappointed in him and will never come back’, went to my mother.

Fortunately I did not have to walk far, only a block and a half. At home, I did not tell a word, locked myself in the room and started to cry over my broken love and life. In the evening, I heard a voice in the hall. But it wasn’t Peyrets’ voice… I did not think he would come to make up to me. I knew he was proud and would never make the first step. This was the voice of his father. He entered my room, and listened to my confused story about mathematics and biology. The first version of the argument he heard from the ‘abandoned husband’. ‘Basenyka, - asked me my father in law, - did I and my wife upset you with something?’

‘No’, - I said. ‘So what is the deal then’, - he went on suavely, - if we did not hurt you, then come back to us’. ‘What about Peyrets, - I asked’. ‘Peyrets? Somehow the fellow got surprised, - what about Peyrets? Mother cooked such a tasty dinner for you, and sent me for you… The dinner is getting cool. We are waiting for you…’

My tears dried off. With the guard of honor, escorted by my father-in-law, who was carrying my impossibly heavy bag, staffed with books, I walked into my husband’s life. It was all true; they were waiting for me… The whole family was sitting around the table, waiting for me to start the dinner. The entire evening, Peyrets, with an ashamed face, was all around me and tried to flatter me in all possible ways. ‘I came to mama and papa, not to you’, - I did not fail to clarify myself. It seemed to me, he did not really believe it, but the same evening we made up.

Today, when I hear definite statements, that parents should not interfere in the lives of their children, I remember this 68 year old case. Sometimes an intelligent and delicate intervention of wise adults can play a positive role.

N. G. Did you ever fight again?
B. G. Events began to develop with such speed and in such an insidious manner, that we started to ‘grow up’ fast, as in a fairy tale: by leaps and bounds… We, literally, grew up in one day, in the day when we understood that the Goldmacher family is on the list of people to be deported to Siberia.

That is the case – the man plans and God, in the meanwhile, laughs. We wanted to go to the South, but went the North. We wanted to go on a ship, but went on a train instead, in a ‘port cabin’. We wanted to get a professional degree – did not work out… We always wanted to be together. Not likely… Fate got in the middle.

They were sending to Siberia only Peyrets, his parents, and brother. I was not on the list. When they were making the list, we were not husband and wife yet. When Peyrets was courting me, envious neighbors were always telling my mother: ‘Oh, your daughter is dating a ‘millionaire’. By ‘Bendery standards’, the Goldmacher family looked fairly affluent. To such remarks, my mother would answer: ‘My daughter is marrying a good young man.’ Peyrets’ parents were always told that Basya Kishinevskaya is a banker’s granddaughter. ‘Peyrets wants to marry a very good girl, - they were answering. She is decent, kind, intelligent. Oh, you should hear how she sings…’

But the neighbors weren’t calming down. We looked too much of a wealthy couple: a son of millionaire and a granddaughter of a banker. After the Soviets came, the discussions on ‘expropriation of expropriators’ stopped naturally. There was nothing to discuss about. About dowerless Basya and former rich heritor Peyrets… Money went away, but we stayed. And the good girl Basya Kishinevskaya went to Siberia after the good boy Peyrets Goldmacher.

The road to Siberia, to my husband, had been trodden yet by the Decembrists. Many still remember the poem of N. Nekrasov ‘Russian women’. I would like to say that Jewish women are not worse than that. Moreover, it is not only about me…

However, all of this happened later on. Other dramatic events happened in our lives in the meanwhile.

N. G. Basya, we touched a subject, that our ‘Soviet people’ were not really informed about. Tell us from the beginning, how this process of deporting of the Goldmacher family and people like them really unfolded.
B. G. It happened on the night of June 12^th to 13^th. The graduating exams started at our pedagogical institute at that time, in the beginning of June. Of course, those were the ‘hottest days’ for Peyrets and me, when we were staying late at nights to prepare for the exams. Actually, both of us passed the exams very successfully, as well as the majority of other students.

We just went to bed, when at 2 o’clock in the morning someone heavily knocked on our door; three men entered our apartment. One of them was wearing a KGB uniform, the second – an armed soldier with a rifle, and the third – a civilian. As we were explained later, the last one was an ‘attesting witness’ of this crew.

They ordered everyone to ‘get out of bed’, stand by the wall with our hands up. Everything was so scary and tragic, but I almost laughed out loud, when the KGB man started prowling my father-in-law, who was usually sleeping in his underwear (‘matskes’). He also began to frisk Peyrets and his elder brother, Matus, for guns. Then, for almost 15 minutes, they were reading us the long ‘Resolution of the Supreme Soviet of the Moldovan SSR’ on the fact that the entire family was decided to be ‘sent into the depth of the country’ as exiles. The destination was not defined. No question was allowed to be asked. They gave the family half an hour for packing - one suitcase per person.

Since I was not on the list, I was told to stay home. The parents, Matus, and Peyrets were put in the back of the trunk of a truck, covered with a tarpaulin, together with other families.

I was amazed by the endurance of Peyrets’ parents. They did not cry nor complain. May be they assumed that something like this might happen. After all, they were more informed of the methods of the Soviet power. Maybe, they knew about the possible exile way earlier than the others. The only one who was crying was me. However, I allowed myself this weakness only after Peyrets and his family were taken out of the house…
N. G. Unfortunately, these nightly ‘visiting methods’ by KGB are well known for me since the Kyiv times. To tell the truth, people were taken away by ‘black passenger cars’ and not by trucks. Probably it happened so because it was about ‘individual visits’, and not mass deporting.

So, what happened then?
B. G. In the morning the city was ‘boiling’ from this overwhelming news. They began to deport to ‘far away lands’ the majority of the population of the city: wealthy people, former ‘political’ and ‘religious’ figures, and God know who else. Yet, what was the most important for me, they were all sent in box-wagons, which were standing on the sidetrack of the Bendery freight railway station.

Naturally, I immediately ran to this station, and I saw a long echelon of box-wagons for cattle, full of people… I found the wagon with Peyrets and his family. I was talking to them through the window of the box-wagon. First off all, I asked what they want me to bring them from home. Mother told me that Peyrets’ father was not with them. They had him in a different wagon ‘for men’ – heads of the family. And she did not like this at all. She took her diamond ring out of her finger, and told me to take it to the manager of our restaurant, EPD (Employee Provisioning Department) worker. She told me to ask him to use his contacts at KGB, and do all the possible and the impossible in exchange of that valuable ring to bring father to their car. Afterwards, he also took care of their other needs: buy 3-4 loafs of bread, sausages, and other products and bringing three small pillows and other little, stuff. The manager took care of everything indeed. On the second day, Peyrets’ father was transferred to their wagon.

N. G. What an amazing story! Tell me, why was it so important to transfer him into their wagon? Maybe there was a concept to separate men and women?
B. G. Imagine, that by reacting so quickly, she saved Peyrets’ father’s life. As it turned out, women and children were sent to settlements in different parts of Siberia, and men – sent to concentration camps. There, they had to work under very difficult conditions of life, half-starved… Many of them could not stand the hard labor and camp environment and died.
N. G. For how long did you manage to provide them the ‘first aid’, i.e. for how long were they kept in Bendery in those box-wagons?
B. G. I was running to the freight railway station from morning till evening. I saw how trucks covered with tarpaulin were coming by all the time, bringing new families. Apparently they were bringing them from the regions close to our city.

On the fourth day, June 17, 1941, the freight railway station was empty. The train with the people went ‘into the unknown’, at least in my understanding. Then, again, I allowed myself the weakness and burst into real tears.

N. G. Still, it looks like it was not yet the worst period of those terrible times. I remember that Peyrets gave this event even a positive evaluation in one of his interviews: The Soviets wanted to make these ‘unreliable elements’ even worse, but probably this saved Peyrets and his family from the following Holocaust, which did not omit Bendery.
B. G. You are probably right. However, I was not aware of this back then. We agreed with Peyrets that the moment they reach the destination he will write to me right away, and tell me what our next steps shall be. Both of us did not hit upon the idea that I could bring stamped envelopes along, so that he could write me on the way and send me letters.
N. G. Were they able to get out of their wagons to ‘drop off letters’ in mailboxes, or give them to the guards?
B. G. Certainly not. The military guards did not allow them to get out of the wagons. They did not take any letters from them. On the way, as Peyrets told me later, when the echelons were kept for a longer time on sidetracks in the stations, local people approached them. Once they found out that people are sent to exile, they were even bringing some food. People from the train could certainly relay on the locals, and hand them over the letters for sending.
N. G. Of course local people were feeling sorry for the exiled. At that time you could very seldom find a Soviet family, which did not suffer from the permanent terror of the Soviet power.
B. G. Further was even worse. After several days, on the night of June 22^, 1941, Germans started to bomb Bendery. The National Socialist Germany attacked its ‘ally’ – the Soviet Union. It started from bombing the escape routes of the Red Army. Indeed, Bendery was a very important strategic point. It was the only place to have a bridge with rail road branch over Nistru (Dnestrt) River. First thing they bombed the station and the territory around that bridge. Our relatives and friends that lived close to those points had to hide in places closer to the center of the city. During the second night of the war, I had ‘guests’ – Peyrets’ relatives, and some of our friends from ‘Hashomer Hatsair’, who lived in the most dangerous regions. All these events were distracting me in a way from sad thoughts. The exams at the pedagogical institute were interrupted.

Each and every day I was waiting for ‘mail’ to come. Long after this, I found out that they traveled in cattle wagons more than three weeks, before they reached the deep of Siberia, at Omsk.

Only at this point, they started settling families to different evacuation points. Some were sent to closest regions of Omsk, some were sent much further. The Goldmacher family and three-fourth of other families from Bendery were directed to further regions of Omsk- Hanta- Mansysk, the capital of the north nomads, people of Hanta and Mansa, region of Arctic Circle. It means that they were traveling by ship three more weeks to get there. There were no railroads at that time that could take them to their final destination.
N. G. Finally, you got letters from Peyrets, did you?
B. G. Unfortunately, no. On the fifth day of the war, my brother Grisha ran to us and announced that the last train from Bendery departs the next day and that we all had to evacuate. The German troops were approaching, and nothing good should be expected.

The thing is that, during the Soviet times Grisha worked as a train operator. The whole Ministry of Railroads was ‘recruited’. The workers of the railroads were considered ‘mobilized’ and they were asked to evacuate together with the Red Army. They were allowed to take their families along. That is why Grisha hurried to warn us that in three hours we had to be ready to leave.

I didn’t want to leave without receiving a note from Peyrets, but when Grisha saw that I wasn’t packing he yield at me: ‘What are you waiting for, the Nazis? After the train will cross the bridge it will be destroyed.’

It wasn’t just Grisha to warn me, but also the leader of the local Komsomol party of Bendery. He was a young Jewish man from Tiraspol who said: ‘Basya, evacuate together with your family, the further the better. Difficult times await us.’

N. G. Basya, how come the Secretary of Komsomol organization knew you? Did you join the Komsomol during your studies at the pedagogical college?
B. G. No, of course not. This young man came to our college. Most of the students were Jewish boys and girls from Bendery and surrounding areas. I was well known, because I was the best shooter between boys and girls at the sports lessons. This young leader liked to interact with youth. That is how Peyrets and I got to know him. He, apparently, knew more things about the situation on the front line. He also had a better understanding of the current military situation of the Red Army during the first days of the war. But he was afraid to freely discuss it with us. The only thing he would say was: ‘Get away as far as possible.’
N. G. What followed? How did you decide to evacuate in the end?
B. G. Well, Grisha hassled not only me but my mother as well. She wasn’t willing to evacuate, taking into account that my grandmother and grandfather, her parents, were strongly against leaving their home. They kept saying,’ We are old people; we don’t want to become refugees. You are young, and that is a totally different story. We were always good friends with Germans, speak German fluently, we hope we will find common language with them. As for you, you better evacuate.’ My mother, even in tears and pain, took the decision to evacuate together with Grisha and me. It was then that she told me, ‘Get ready immediately, there is no other way; I hope we won’t be gone for long. I think in 2-3 weeks the situation will calm down. And we will return home.’ At that point I made up my mind. And as soon as our train took off and crossed the bridge, it was bombed in order to hurdle the German troops.
N. G. What happened with your grandparents?
B. G. Unfortunately, the worst that could happen. Neither their knowledge of German language nor my grandfather’s ability to connect with people helped. They burned in the flames of Holocaust. After the war, I came to visit Grisha and his family, who returned to Bendery after evacuation. My old acquaintances, locals, told me that, when the Nazi troops came to Bendery, all Jewish families from Bendery and surrounding areas were taken to a concentration camp near the fortress and were all shot to death.
N. G. How tragic! Fearful destiny of Jewish people on the German occupied territory. My grand grandparents were shot in Kiev in ‘Babye Yar’. My mother told me that they also didn’t want to evacuate, naively believing that Nazis would not touch the elderly.
B. G. Unfortunately, there were more stages of evacuation. And with every stage, our situation got worse. At the beginning, we got into a ‘kolkhoz’ in Ukraine, in a Cossack region. The local authorities appointed us to different villages and kolkhozes. It was the first time that some of the villagers saw real ‘Jews’. Some would even touch our heads to see if the ‘Jews have horns’ for real.