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Kim Gershon
Saga of Braina
The Tale of the Experience
Israel 2010 — Toronto 2017
Editor: Semyon Gabay
Cover design by Alyona Yagudayeva
First Edition: Kim Gershon. Saga of Braina.
The Tale of the Experience.
Star Ark Publishing House. Israel, 2010.
Second Edition: Toronto, Canada, 2017
Editor: Tatiana Yasinskaya
Second Edition English Translation:
Toronto, Canada and Providence, RI USA, 2023
Editors: Ariel Borisovich Gershon
Marsha (Mariya Borisovna) Gershon
Hipolito Aguilera
With thanks to Jane Gershon, Alya Gershon, and Yonatan Gershon
© Kim Gershon. Saga of Braina.
The Tale of the Experience.
© All rights belong to the author.
Dedicated to the unforgettable memory of my parents and sister.
It is impossible, to remain without a trace…
M. Petrovykh
FROM THE AUTHOR:
In the 1960s, a coincidence brought me together in Malakhovka near Moscow with the Jewish writer and poet Samuel Galkin. He was interested in the history of our family and recommended that I write a story about it, which, in his opinion, could be not just interesting to my contemporaries, but also useful to future generations if they wish to learn about the life of their ancestors.
And now, finally, the time has come to put this advice into practice.
Note that the narrative in question, although based on real events and the memories of eyewitnesses, still does not reproduce these events and even the names of individual participants with absolute documentary accuracy.
It is well known that the victims of mass political repression in the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1955 were millions of honest people of different ages, social status, professions, and nationalities. However, not only they, but the families of all those labeled as “enemies of the people” were also subject to “uprooting” — right down to their young children.
This book is about the tragic fate of one such Jewish family, which could have been happy, but was ruined and almost completely wiped out as a result of Stalinist repression.
Chapter 1
In Belarus, not far from Mogilev on the Berezina River, which flows into the Dnieper, there is the town of Bobruisk. It was first mentioned in historical documents in the twentieth century, and in our time has become a modern promising comfortable city with a developed industry, a network of secondary schools, specialized educational institutions, cultural and recreational facilities. The city has more than 200 thousand people, it is an important railway hub with two passenger stations and a river cargo and passenger port.
And at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was an ordinary provincial town in the so-called “Pale of Settlement” of the Russian Empire. This was the name given to the territories where Jews were allowed to settle. In Bobruisk they were the overwhelming majority of the population.
It was a town of shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths, and shopkeepers. Plenty of people worked as loaders on the railroad or at the river port. Among the various small workshops, a furniture factory and a bristle factory, which produced brushes, stood out for their size. Several dozen Jewish workers were employed in these enterprises.
One of the main streets of the city was called Romanovskaya Street. At its very beginning, there was a block of two and three-story houses with front gardens and orchards. It was home to affluent, or at least prosperous, Jewish families. And at the end of the same street, closer to the bank of the Berezina, lived the poor. This place was called the Sands. Here, surrounded by primitive vegetable gardens, were the squalid dwellings of those who could not be called prosperous. However, regardless of their financial situation, all Jewish families, with a few exceptions, strictly followed Jewish religious rituals and household traditions.
The synagogue had a four-year cheder school where children were taught the Hebrew language, the history of the Jewish people according to the scriptures of the Torah, as well as the basics of mathematics. The education of the children of poor families was often limited to this, and the children of wealthy families could continue their education in private Russian schools and gymnasiums, where, even though tuition was paid, the admission of Jewish children was limited to a strict percentage.
In the Sands, in a small old wooden house, lived the family of the loader-worker Chaim Gershon. He had two children: a daughter Ida, born in 1896, and a son Joseph, three years younger than his sister. Chaim’s wife died of illness when Joseph was only 5 years old.
They lived a hard life. Malnutrition, poverty, and taxing work constantly accompanied the Gershons’ existence. Chaim worked hard to provide the essentials: food and clothing for his children. Ida and Joseph did all the housework and chores. They cleaned the house, cooked food, fetched water from the well, prepared firewood for the winter, took care of the vegetable garden, made salted cucumbers and sauerkraut, helped their father repair the roof and floors in the house, and kept clothes and shoes in good order.
Chaim knew how to read Hebrew and Russian and loved it. He was religious, but he treated religion, as well as life in general, with a certain amount of humor. It was the humor and optimism of the head of the family that brightened up their difficult life and gave them hope for a change for the better. “Cheer up, children, there will be a celebration even on our street!” Chaim often encouraged his children.
On Saturdays, in Hebrew, he would tell the children episodes from the history of their people: about their struggle against their enemies, about the heroes Maccabees, Bar Kokhba, King David… On weekdays, he would read to Ida and Joseph stories by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Sholom Aleichem, and Korolenko in Russian, and when he got tired of reading and speaking, he would start singing Jewish songs.
Chaim Gershon. Bobruisk, 1928.
Joseph loved these get-togethers with his father and sister. He listened attentively to Chaim’s stories and willingly sang with him both in Hebrew and in Russian.
Ida grew up modest, silent, withdrawn, but very hard-working and dutiful. She did not go to school, could not read, had no friends, and devoted all her energy, effort, and skills to household chores, faithfully serving her father and brother, diligently preparing food for them, washing, cleaning, and became the indispensable mistress of their poor house.
Joseph was radically different from his sister. He had red curly hair, was a physically developed, sociable, and cheerful boy, as well as hardworking and kind. The conditions of a harsh life shaped his character and fostered independence, ingenuity, agility, and courage. All his free time Joseph spent with his peers in the streets. Together with a group of boys and girls, he ran along the river bank, hiding in the ruins of an ancient fortress, climbing trees.
He was not an aggressive brawler, but he could stand up for himself and his friends if it was needed. His innate sense of justice prevented him from watching weak people get hurt, and he usually bravely stood up for them, often getting into serious scuffles. And many of the boys saw Joseph as their protector, recognized his leadership, and rallied around him.
Occasionally, Russian and Belarusian boys, encouraged by the adults, would raid poor Jewish neighborhoods. Shouting “Beat the Jews!”, young anti-Semites would suddenly appear in the Sands, beating children and adults, throwing rocks through the windows of houses, shouting, whistling…
The reaction of the Sands was unchanged: with a battle cry of “Our people are being beaten!” the braver Jewish boys and girls immediately ran to the scene, and soon the pogromists were scurrying away in shame. Joseph was invariably at the forefront of the defense of his neighborhood and never doubted that this was the way to deal with the insolent scums. But very early on he began to think about the root causes of conflicts between different nations.
His father made it clear to his son that antisemitic pogromists, like crooks and thugs of all types, not only do not represent the Russian and Belarusian people but are themselves the scums of society. “The majority of the people of any nationality are poor people, workers, and peasants, and they all have a common interest and that is the struggle for a better life,” Chaim instructed.
Joseph learned these early lessons of internationalism firmly. But, alas, he did not have to study in earnest as a child. At the age of seven, the boy began attending cheder, but the Hebrew language, prayers, and psalms of the Torah, explanations and interpretations of Jewish household rituals were of little interest to him, leaving a faint trace in his memory. When Joseph was 9, he was enrolled in a free school for the poor, where during the course of four years he learned to read and write Russian and also acquired elementary mathematical knowledge. At the age of 13, Joseph enrolled as an apprentice laborer in a bristle factory that belonged to a wealthy Jewish family from Minsk. For religious reasons, the owners preferred to hire only Jews, so the factory gradually formed a close-knit collective that united against the antisemitic antics of the Black Hundreds and became known in the city as a Jewish self-defense squad.
At the age of 13, Joseph enrolled as an apprentice laborer in a bristle factory that belonged to a wealthy Jewish family from Minsk. For religious reasons, the owners preferred to hire only Jews, so the factory gradually formed a close-knit collective that united against the antisemitic antics of the Black Hundreds and became known in the city as a Jewish self-defense squad.
Working conditions at the factory were very difficult: labor-intensive production operations were accompanied by the formation of harmful hair dust with high humidity and unpleasant odors. Joseph bore these difficulties firmly, did not whine, did not complain, closely watching the work of experienced craftsmen who did not refuse to share advice with the inquisitive boy. After two years, he already was able to work on his own, and his earnings gradually exceeded his father’s.
The workers treated Joseph in a friendly way, as an equal, reliable, and trouble-free comrade. Joseph never refused to help those in need. Indifference was completely alien to him — that was the character that fate had bestowed upon him. He had strong, skillful hands and a kind soul. He helped many fellow workers to repair roofs and wells, prepare firewood, dig vegetable gardens, bury the departed to another world…
While working, Joseph often sang Jewish songs. And this did not go unnoticed — he was often asked to sing in suitable situations and, as a rule, he did it without the slightest affectation of shyness. So gradually at the mention of his name, people began to add invariably: “That’s the Joshka who sings!”
One day the manager of the factory decided to lower the rates of production operations under the pretext of the financial difficulties experienced by the company, which threatened a significant reduction in the wages of the workers.
This is how Joseph first learned what a strike was and immediately took an active part in it.
The manager threatened to fire the strikers. Some of them hesitated: they were the main breadwinners for their families. But Joseph so fervently convinced everyone not to retreat that they believed him — no one went back to work. The owners of the factory intervened and, to everyone’s surprise, resolved the conflict in favor of the workers, and the manager had to resign. After this incident, Joseph’s authority grew considerably. Despite his young age, he gradually became the leader of the work collective. The bearded Jews listened to his words with respect and often only nodded approvingly in response.
And the times were becoming turbulent. The tsarist government was trying unsuccessfully to quell the growing revolutionary tensions especially evident in the cities. Revolutionaries from various parties organized riots, strikes, attempts on ministers, officials, and even the tsar himself. In response, the monarchists and the Black Hundreds carried out cruel Jewish pogroms under the slogan: “Beat the Jews, save Russia!”
In 1913 a scandalous trial was held in Kiev on the slanderous accusation of a Jew named Beilis of the ritual murder of a Russian boy. This process shook the liberal part of society, not only in Russia but throughout Europe. Although a jury of ordinary peasants acquitted Beilis completely, antisemites and pogromists continued to blame Jews for all the misfortunes of the Russian people.
Jewish youth had their own revolutionary ideas. Two mutually exclusive theories were most popular. The first argued that Jews should fight for the establishment of their own Jewish “home” in Palestine, that is, a sovereign national democratic state. The second theory stated that the Jews would find happiness only in an equal family of Russian people and called for a struggle to overthrow the autocracy and build a socialist society without the rich and the poor.
The leaders of Zionism — such as Jabotinsky — urged the Jewish youth to deal only with the immediate problems of their people and to leave the Russian revolutionary movement behind. While the Jewish Communists, followers of Plekhanov, Martov, Lenin, and Trotsky, urged Jewish young men and women not to believe the Zionists — that it is not in Palestine, but socialist Russia that Jews will find true freedom and happiness. Fraternity, friendship, equality, internationalism, general welfare — all these romantic slogans were spinning the heads of most Jewish young people, especially those from poor families.
A factory worker named Kashinsky occasionally spoke to fifteen-year-old Joseph about these subjects, and once invited him to a meeting of the illegal Marxist club. The meeting was held under the guise of celebrating Kashinsky’s birthday. That evening Joseph heard for the first time that the working class was the gravedigger of tsarism and capitalism and that history itself had destined him to change the existing order: “he who was nothing, will become everyone!”
Such appeals, backed up by historical justifications, were very close to the young fighter for justice’s worldview. Joseph began to constantly attend the club of the Marxist Kashinsky, where the works of Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Kautsky, and Lenin were discussed in a popular, rather superficial, and tendentious way.
Purposeful propaganda gradually did its work. With all his inexperienced and trusting being, Joseph was imbued with the ideas and slogans of Bolshevism, sincerely believing in their justice and lofty goals. And the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine, the Jewish way of life, religion, and Zionism seemed to him now not only petty and unfaithful but even harmful and alien to ordinary working people.
Gradually Joseph became a conscious, unselfishly devoted ideological supporter and follower of the Communist-Bolsheviks, confident that only these people could truly create the most humane modern society. The young man sincerely wanted to devote his whole life to the fight for this society and the happiness of all people!…
At that time, in another section of Romanovskaya Street, far from the Sands, the family of Baruch Shvedik, a small merchant, lived in their own solid two-story house. His parents were religious people and raised their only son accordingly. Daily prayers, the sanctity of the Sabbath, careful observance of kashrut, synagogue attendance, Jewish holidays — all these and other rituals and customs were strictly observed in the Shvedik home.
The house with the semi-basement and cellar was built by Baruch’s grandfather and was inherited from him.
In charge of family affairs was Baruch’s mother — a despotic, intelligent, energetic woman, who did not allow children’s pranks or family scandals and kept the house strictly in order. Baruch loved, respected, and feared his mother, followed her advice and instructions in everything, and grew up to be an honest, kind, but at the same time lazy, inert, and also an illiterate man.
He was married to an almost unknown, beautiful, sad, and withdrawn girl whom his mother had found somewhere in Vitebsk province. In 1898 they had a daughter, Braina.
Baruch Shvedik and his partner owned a grocery store. They set up a small sausage shop in the basement of the Shvediks’ house, for which they bought raw materials at the market and from the surrounding farmers. But neither Baruch nor his companion knew how to manage a successful trade, and the shop often brought them only losses. So they each took some of the sausages from their shop home, hoping that their companion would not notice.
The semi-basement was rented to a tailor’s family. The tenant was not always able to pay the rent on time, nevertheless, the Shvedik family was considered prosperous and well-to-do in Bobruisk. For eight years Braina was her parents’ only child, followed by sons Solomon and Chaim, daughter Ghenya, and another son Gennady.
Braina grew up an emotional, impressionable, and observant girl. Her mother, father, and grandparents loved and pampered her very much, but she treated them differently. She often took offense at her mother for her coldness and alienation toward her father, whom Braina loved very much for his kindness, cordiality, and readiness to give in and forgive everything. She was afraid of her grandmother and avoided her whenever possible. The grandfather seemed strange and incomprehensible to Braina because he did nothing at home, only prayed or read, but demanded that the rest of the family not bother him at the same time.
From the age of five, Braina began to attend cheder, where the melamed (teacher) taught her Hebrew, and the teacher’s daughter also, between tasks, taught her Russian as well. At the age of eight, Braina was admitted to the preparatory class of the Bobruisk Private Russian Gymnasium of M. N. Ilyinsky. A serious, versatile seven-year study began.
Braina was distinguished by a responsible attitude towards all school assignments, and teachers noted her abilities in math, languages, and history. She went from class to class with certificates of merit, and before her graduation exams, she was considered an undisputed candidate for the silver medal. But the “Jewish way of life” played a cruel joke on her.
The national written exam in Russian language and literature was scheduled for the Sabbath. And Braina refused to take it because on the Sabbath all Jews are supposed to do nothing but rest and pray. The liberal gymnasium director allowed the Jewish students not to attend classes on Saturdays, but it was out of his hands to move the exam to another day — the chairman of the examination committee was an important official from Minsk. It was he who insisted that Braina Shvedik receive a lowered final grade on her diploma, depriving her of a medal.
Comforting the offended girl, her grandfather used to say, “Don’t get upset, Braina: they can’t take knowledge away from you, and that’s much more important than a diploma!”
In the wisdom of these words, Braina was later convinced more than once in life. She studied in the Russian gymnasium and at the same time continued to study Hebrew culture and language. She was especially fascinated by the sermons of the Jewish prophets against evil and injustice; excited and encouraged by the simple, clear, and full of worldly wisdom: “Do not kill!”, “Do not steal!”, “Love your neighbor as yourself!”
In the early morning, sitting with a book in hand on a bench in the front garden outside her house, Braina often watched a thin, pale, poorly dressed young man walk hurriedly across the yard. This guy was the tailor’s apprentice and was heading toward the entrance to the semi-basement room.
Passing by, he cast a glance at the pretty girl with long, thick braids and disappeared into the house. Braina did not doubt that the young man was unhappy and hungry and condemned her for the fact that she can afford to read while he is forced to only work. She felt some sort of guilt towards him for the obvious injustice in their situation. Is there any way to help him? She was ready to do everything in her power to do so.
The tailor’s wife appeared in the courtyard, a haggard, thin woman with an unbrushed gray head. She asks Braina’s mother for some mustard pads for her husband, who is having a sciatica attack. Braina knows that the tailor’s entire family — himself, his wife, and their young son — are sick. The doctors advise them, first of all, to change their climate and improve their diet, otherwise, their condition will only worsen. And everyone understands the doom of these unfortunate people because this family simply has no real opportunities to improve their lives.
Such cases — and there were many — caused Braina to think hard and raise questions that no one around her could answer clearly and convincingly. Why is the world so arranged that some people live richly — in nice houses, beautifully dressed, riding in carriages, eating delicious and nourishing food, studying in gymnasiums and universities, attending theaters, museums, balls, are treated in expensive clinics and at fashionable resorts, while others, physiologically exactly the same people but born poor, are destined to be slaves of labor, hunger, poverty, illiteracy, disease, begging or even theft and then prison, premature aging, and death?
Many other “why?” and “what for?” questions kept young Braina occupied. Russian literature, which opened to her a wonderful world of new vivid impressions, helped her to understand, realize, and appreciate a lot of things. In the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Nekrasov, Korolenko, Gorky, she deeply admired the nobility, loyalty, honesty, and courage of some characters and deeply revolted the insidiousness, cruelty, and betrayal of others. In books, she found instructive role models for herself to follow, studied to understand the complex and intricate human relationships, to understand why love and hate, friendship and betrayal, nobility and meanness are often so close.
But the true reasons why the human community allows so much evil to be committed between human beings were still unknown. For example, why is there widespread oppression and humiliation of Jews, or endless wars, big or small, where thousands of strangers kill and maim each other without even understanding the reason for it?
In reflecting on this, Braina became increasingly convinced that ignorance was one of the reasons. Culture depends a great deal on upbringing. And if you instill in people from childhood the conviction that it is necessary to do good, to help the poor and the weak, to act fairly, to be tolerant, to try to understand each other, then soon life on Earth may change for the better.
Having come to this conclusion, Braina made a firm decision to devote herself to the education of children, to become a teacher. And soon she enrolled in a special class in the gymnasium, where teachers of preschool children were trained.
Among the gymnasium students Braina had no close friends — Russian and Belarusian girls shunned Jewish girls. Her best friend during this period was her cousin Berl, her aunt’s son. He was two years older than Braina and went to a private boys’ gymnasium. It was interesting to discuss works of Jewish and Russian writers with him, he knew many poems and recited them with great feeling.
Gradually, a small club of like-minded people formed around Berl. They met in one or the other’s house, read a lot, recited, discussed topical articles of the time: “The Hero and the Crowd,” “What is Progress” by journalist Mikhailovsky, sang Jewish songs, joked, played — in short, spent their leisure time on useful and fun things. In the spring and summer, they often visited a birch grove on the bank of the Berezina River, adjacent to an old abandoned fortress, the ruins of which were covered with a bright carpet of herbs and flowers. It was a favorite place for city youth to meet and walk. Braina liked to sit in that grove, too, reading a book. Taking a break from reading, she listened to the gentle murmur of the birch leaves, birdsong, watched the clouds running across the sky through the branches of the trees. Joy and calm were in the soul of the girl in this wonderful corner of nature.
Company of Jewish youth. Bobruisk, 1915.
Braina is in a white blouse in the foreground on the right.
One day, Braina’s friend Hannah brought a handsome Jewish guy named Mark to their circle. He was the eldest in the group, and after looking around and getting the hang of it, he declared himself a Zionist and soon captivated the youth with the idea of immigrating to Palestine to rebuild the Jewish state. Mark introduced the club members to Theodor Herzl’s1 articles and persuaded them to study the problems of agriculture in Palestine, which he believed the Jewish immigrants should have done in the first place.
In the winter the young people studied the flora of Palestine, cultivation techniques, and the latest agricultural production technologies, and in the spring they began practical training. On the deserted bank of the Berezina River, they fenced in a plot of land of about 300 square meters, dug up and fertilized the land, sowed barley, planted potatoes, cucumbers, and tomatoes. On dry days, they watered the plot of land with water from the Berezina River. The plants grew vigorously, but Braina soon lost interest in this endeavor, as Mark began to rudely and cynically seek her closeness. This frightened and angered her, she broke off all relations with him, and then she left the club as well, especially since actually moving to Palestine seemed to be a questionable and ambiguous matter to her.
As of that time, since in the Shvedik family after a long suspension there again began appearing children, Braina more and more had to help her mother take care of them. This brought them closer together, and gradually the relationship between her parents opened up in a different light. Realizing that her mother had never loved her estranged husband, a stranger to her soul, and imagining herself in her place, Braina realized what severe mental anguish her poor mother must have constantly endured, seeing for herself no other way but patience. The girl felt deep sympathy and respect for her mother, but she could no longer revive that inexplicable, natural filial love, which occurs only in childhood.
And her former love for her father, her admiration for his honesty, simplicity, and kindness began to be replaced by fits of irritation at his formal, endless performance of religious rituals and his complete indifference to everything that went on outside the walls of the house.
Such an environment was becoming more and more burdensome for Braina, and she decided that it was time for her to start working. It was the summer of 1915. World War I was going on, there were many refugees in Bobruisk, additional kindergartens and summer playgrounds were opening. At one of them, Braina was offered a position as a teacher’s assistant, and she happily accepted.
A few months of interesting and successful work strengthened her confidence that working with children was the right choice in life and she should not hesitate to continue her education as a teacher.
Upon the council of the family, it was decided that Braina would go to Kyiv and try to enter the well-known pedagogical Froebel Institute. In September 1915, she successfully passed their certification test and was enrolled as a student of preschool education. Three years of study were ahead of her, and Braina was looking forward to interesting lectures by famous professors, independent work in libraries, socializing with young peers, and a long-awaited, completely independent life in a private rented apartment. Thusly it all happened, but it didn’t last three years, but only a little over a year, after which Braina’s studies were unexpectedly interrupted. Revolutionary sentiments among students at the time were rampant. Circles and cells of various parties and movements spontaneously arose. Now and then in the classrooms, in the corridors, on the street, and in the dormitories, political arguments and debates spontaneously boiled over among the young people. It was certainly a distraction from her studies, but this kind of life seemed excitingly interesting to Braina.
The Socialist-Revolutionaries, or SRs for short, were particularly fervent and persistent in their propaganda. They urged students to immediately “go to the people,” to educate the peasant masses, to prepare them for the coming revolution and a new life in a democracy.
Naive, emotional, and romantic, Braina was mesmerized by the venturesome speeches of party agitators, and when in a one-on-one conversation she was offered to join the Social Revolutionary Party, she quickly agreed. The result of this decision soon negatively affected her studies.
In September 1916, after summer vacation, she began her second year of studies. And in November she was summoned to the party committee who announced a serious assignment: to leave her studies at the Institute for a year and go to the village of Pochaevskaya Lavra near the town of Kremenets as a teacher in the local school. The plan was that in a year she would be replaced there by another teacher sent by the party, and she could return to Kyiv to continue her studies. At that moment, the party comrade David Shulman was in the Pochaev Lavra, who was supposed to help Braina at the beginning. Three days were given to think about this decision.
Only three months ago Braina turned 18, but morally she was already ready to make sacrifices for the sake of humanity. Therefore, she perceived the party assignment as important and honorable and, despite the categorical objections of her parents, she agreed to carry it out. The Party allocated her a small sum of money and provided her with an identity document. In Kyiv, Braina bought a large stack of pencils, found some textbooks, and boarded the train for Kremenets with only one half-empty suitcase.
From Pochaev Lavra to the station it was necessary to get there on foot, and it was a good thing the way wasn’t too long. But what Braina saw, in the end, did not meet her expectations at all. The road led her to the gate of a high fence that surrounded a fairly large plot. Upon it rose a church, and gloomy monastery buildings and outbuildings could be seen. This was the male monastery of Pochaev Lavra.
Opposite the gate was a long, shabby two-story government building, and behind it in two rows were several village houses with front gardens, orchards, and vegetable gardens.
David Shulman turned out to be a junior officer of a military unit located in the village, where barracks occupied the first and partially the second floor of the aforementioned government building. David told Braina that on behalf of his party he had carried out propaganda work among the inhabitants of the village, and people insistently asked for help in finding an elementary school teacher, which was much needed because since the beginning of the war the school had not operated and many children grew up illiterate. David asked the party center to send a male teacher because living and working conditions in the village were difficult. And suddenly a young girl was sent from Kyiv…
David immediately agreed with Braina that he would introduce her to everyone as his cousin, which would make it easier for him to provide her with patronage and protect her when necessary. The office of the local government was on the second floor of the barracks building, and next to the office two rooms were intended for the school: a large room served as a classroom, the other small one was the teacher’s living quarters. With David’s help, the paperwork formalities were quickly taken care of, and David introduced Braina to the unit commander, who graciously allowed her to eat in the soldier’s hall for a small fee, and ordered a set of bedding, a blanket, a pillow, and a kettle. The next day the school was cleaned up, tables and benches were washed and repaired, and the residents were told that the school was starting to operate.
School textbooks, notebooks, and writing materials were indeed completely absent. And no wonder: Russia was in its third year of participation in the World War on the side of the Entente, and the country’s economy, except the military industry, was in deep decline.
There was a shortage of food and manufactured goods everywhere, and there were no school supplies in the stores or warehouses at all. David promised to look for something suitable among the army supplies, and soon he brought unused forms and papers, scraps of wallpaper, paints, feathers, and glue. Braina took the pencils she bought in Kyiv out of her suitcase – with these it was now possible to meet the pupils. And they appeared, 27 boys and girls between the ages of seven and thirteen.
Some did not know any letters at all, while others could already read, write, and count. The older kids, who had attended school before, brought textbooks, notebooks, pens, and pencils. The children were in a good mood; they were very eager to learn, and Braina got to work enthusiastically. She formed three groups according to their readiness to learn, made curricula and assignments, and took turns with each group.
The children proved to be disciplined, almost all were diligent in completing their assignments, and their studies were progressing well. The parents, satisfied with this and the overall environment of the school, getting to know Braina better and the conditions of her life, agreed amongst themselves to supply the teacher with food from their farms. And one cold December evening she unexpectedly received warm boots, a good quality fur coat, and a fur hat – all not new, but clean and in good condition. For Braina these things were very useful, but she agreed to take them only temporarily, for the cold season.
Teaching a heterogeneous group of children was difficult and tedious, and although the attitude of the students and their parents helped Braina in her work, she knew that such primitive classes were of little use. The educational authorities did not help at all. Only once an inspector came from Kremenets, asked Braina a few questions, talked to the students, praised the teacher for her dedication, and, wishing everyone to wait for better times, drove off in a horse-drawn carriage back to the town.
In the evenings, Braina would lock herself in her room to prepare for lessons or read books, but often she would be overwhelmed by sadness and regret for the life she had sacrificed for the notorious “service of the people”. She doubted more and more about the usefulness of such a service, which she, an untrained student, could bring to the people. With these unhappy thoughts, Braina would go to sleep, but in the morning she would get back to work, comforting herself with the fact that time flies quickly, and the day will surely come when she will return to the institute.
But that day never came. And she was not destined to return to Kyiv. At the end of February 1917, there was a revolution in St. Petersburg. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne, the Provisional Government was established, and a troubled time of change ensued. There was confusion among the authorities, various councils and committees appeared and disappeared without end, soldiers deserted en masse from the front, creating groups and gangs, which, under the slogan of Ukrainian independence, often robbed and terrorized the local population.
In Pochaev Lavra, the soldiers also reacted violently to the onset of change. Command was transferred to the Soldiers’ Committee, which ignored the instructions of its former superiors. Soldiers ceased to observe military discipline, drunkenness, fights, beatings of officers, and desertion became more frequent.
Braina was already afraid to spend the nights in her room, and after school hours she would go to one or another of her students’ families and would stay there until morning. Soon the students began to skip classes, too, as their parents feared that the children might be hurt by the disbanded soldiers.
On the whole, however, the school year ended quite successfully. The older children mastered the basics of arithmetic, learned to solve problems, and the younger pupils were already able to read and write whole sentences.
In the summer Braina went door-to-door and tutored underachieving students individually. People welcomed her, and often started conversations about political issues, but Braina did not think it possible to convince them of what she was not sure of, repeating: “I am only a teacher”.
In September, less than half of the children returned to classes, but Braina continued to work. She felt obligated to keep her promise to work for a year and wait for a replacement. The year was ending in October. At the beginning of that month, Braina sent a letter to Kyiv, where she wrote about the end of her term, but the reply was not awaited.
On October 25 (in the old style) a Bolshevik coup took place in St. Petersburg. The Provisional Government was arrested, and the new revolutionary government announced that Russia was withdrawing from the war. German troops occupied without resistance vast areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltics. In Kyiv, the Central Rada (Ukrainian parliament) proclaimed the independent Ukrainian National Republic and announced its separation from Russia.
In January 1918, David informed Braina that the Froebel Institute was closed, so no one was likely to be sent to replace her. However, she honestly and completely fulfilled the task she was given, which would be mentioned in the official certificate. He urged her to go home to her parents immediately and decide there on what to do next. Braina did exactly that.
The railroads were in disarray. There were no train schedules, trains ran sporadically, and their exact direction was often unknown. The journey from Kremenets to Bobruisk, which normally took little more than two days, took Braina three times as long this time. And when, at last, the conductor said that the next station was Berezina (that was the name of one of the two stations in Bobruisk), Braina could not hold back tears of joy.
It was the beginning of 1918. As she stepped out of the train car, Braina saw military men in some unusual uniforms on the platform. There was a German patrol; a German military unit was stationed in Bobruisk. Martial law was imposed in the city, a curfew was in effect, and it was forbidden to go out into the streets after 9 p.m. without a pass.
Family, relatives, and acquaintances were tremendously happy to have Braina back. Everyone wondered how she had managed to get out of a very difficult situation at such a dangerous time, healthy and unharmed. Her parents asked Braina to stay home for a few months, to rest, to help her mother take care of her brothers and sister until the situation in the country calms down or if not at least clears up.
Braina agreed, she wanted to rest from her experiences, to read, to communicate with relatives and friends, and her mother needed help: it is not easy to manage a house with four children, the oldest of whom, Solomon, was 12 years old at that time, and the youngest, Gennady, was only four years old.
Her father was no longer engaged in trade, as there was nothing to trade with, he now served in the forest office, and his earnings were not enough to support the family. Food was sent from Vitebsk by her mother’s parents.
Her mother was very happy that Braina agreed to help, and asked her to give more attention to the older children, Solomon and Chaim.
The boys differed sharply from each other in appearance and personality. Solomon, a kind, outgoing, cheerful, carefree lout with a big head with curls and slightly bulging brown eyes, had an excellent memory and a good voice. He loved to sing and present all kinds of funny skits and poses, which both children and adults laughed at. His studies were easy for him, but he was too lazy to study seriously. Chaim, a silent, skinny, reserved nine-year-old boy, did not like noisy games, but he followed requests and instructions without extra words, asked many questions, and then pondered the answers for a long time. Both brothers were glad to communicate with Braina, they were interested in being with her.
Drawing on her experience with children, Braina got both boys interested in entertaining arithmetic problems, riddles, puzzles, fascinating stories, and physical movement games. Until now, no one had indulged them with such attention, so they adored their older sister, not leaving her a single minute of free time. And after a few months, it all began to bore Braina. She wanted to be on her own again, and living under one roof with her parents did not suit her in any way.
Children of the Shvedik family. Bobruisk, 1915.
Braina and Chaim are standing. Sitting (from left to right) are Solomon, Gennady, and Genya. The fate of all these children is difficult and tragic. The artist Solomon’s traces were lost in the war. Jewish poet Gennady died in the battle near Smolensk in 1942. Chaim was killed by bandits at a construction site in Birobidzhan in the early 1930s. Braina lost her beloved husband during the Stalinist repressions and spent six years in a concentration camp. Genya’s husband, the Jewish poet Chaim Maltinsky, who returned from the war disabled, was repressed on false charges in 1948, and Genya and her three children had to endure much grief.
1 Benjamin Ze’ev (Theodore) Herzl (1860-1904) was a Jewish politician and public figure, lawyer, writer, journalist, founder of Zionism.