Jewish Identity, War, Relationship

“My grandmother would light the candles every Friday and say a prayer. She’d never switch on the light during this time, during the Sabbath. No way. She never washed the dishes. I did that for her! And when I asked her, ‘Grandma, are your really believing in God?’ She said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ I said, ‘Is it really there or not there?’ She said, ‘I cannot tell you. If you trust, it’s there. If you don’t trust,it’s not there.’

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My father was in the army and my mother worked in telegraph. We spent our time with my grandmother. I remember one time the German planes were above, in our sky, and my grandmother just said, ‘Oh, children, go into the ditches, get cover in the ditches.’ I remember lots of wounded soldiers went through our city. The kindergarten children gave them a concert in the hospitals. I was among them. We sang, danced for them. After the blockade was broken in Leningrad in 1944, I returned to Leningrad with my mother and my brother. We found an apartment. It was not really an apartment, it was only one room. Then somebody stole our things and took the room. So we went to live with my uncle.”