Eugene Feldman - July 15, 1991
Life Under Soviets
So how else did life change besides they had to treat you a little...
Didn't change much of anything, really. Just we had a little bit extra land to work, my dad. Otherwise everything was continue the same way. And they uh, they had to be a little more careful. They couldn't just go up to the Jews and you know, insult them so, as much as they did with the Polish. They were more open with the Polish. See, the Communist dogma is everybody's equal. That's why it was--now with Poland the anti-Semitism is open now. Before it wasn't because the Russians would crack down on that. So it's sort of--I, I liked it, as much as I knew about it, and I'm sure my parents did because they never criticized it. They liked it. We had no use for the Polish. We had no use, no Jew had any use for the Polocks.
Do you remember where you were when uh, the Germans invaded?
Right in the village.
In 1941.
To me...
When you found out.
To me the, the, the Germans didn't invade anybody. As far as I know, I, I never knew anything about the war. To me, I know the Russians came in. Why they came, what they came in, I don't know.
But...
There.
in 1941 when the Germans then...
Right. Oh, oh in '41.
Yeah.
Okay, I do remember that. I guess I was old enough to know. Like I says, we were talking about why they were there. I remember one episode that's really stayed in my mind. There, there was an army going through. A German army was going through, right through the village. Well, maybe not an army. Maybe I would say a hundred soldiers maybe you know. Not a whole army. And, on horse and buggy and dragging it behind them I think artillery and all that. And they were talking Germans. So I look at my dad and I says eh, "They're talking Jewish. Why, why do you say they would, they would kill Jews? They are Je...they talk Jewish. How can they hate Jews?" That's the only thing I remember about it. Which it couldn't ma...didn't make sense to me that you know, they would kill Jews. Of course they didn't bother anybody. They just went through right there.
So your father must have said something then about the Germans were killing Jews, there were all these rumors. If you said that to him...
Yeah.
it must have been...
What, that they were killing, that they were going to kill us. To, to me I never saw a German. I never saw a German, even when uh, the Germans went through. The only Germans I saw is the army, going through, that's it. The ones that really were the rough ones is the, the Polocks themselves.
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