Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Nathan Weiselman - January 1, 1985

The women fought?

The women, yeah, and we went to their homes and they, they gave us all kinds of food and, and, and warm the place, and they make a kind of a Russian tradition now, vodka, they call it ???, that means they make the wine ???. Make themselves vodka from rice and potatoes and some other thing. And we worked in the farm. And fact is, they were so nice, and, and they were so respectful for men, because they were not so, so many years they, their men were in the front lines and they didn't see any men. They said to us that they would do all the hard work, they would work with the tractors, they will dig the ground, everything, and we going have to do, to watch only, you know, for the, for the sheep and the, the cows, and for the hay, you know, to give them the food. So they consider that we deserve to have the light, the, the most, you know, the easy life and they are, they are used to hard work. And we, so because, because we have to, in Russia, you cannot go around, you not to register, even not for a day, for work. So...

So the government uh, gave you lodgings in private homes?

Eh, actually, they gave us, uh, really tickets that we can go in some villages, in some places, in hotels.

And the village women who were without men wanted uh, uh, the, uh, released prisoners?

Yeah, yeah. They, they were very anxious. So we didn't have...

Just to have a man in the house?

Yeah. So we, we didn't have to go, you know, to use the, the, the tickets to go to the hotels or public places and stay there. So after they find out again that I am, I'm a, a tailor, so actually, I was, being in ???, I really worked for all the, you know, for the collective farms, for the women, and for the, some were some teachers. There were a lot of people like me did some tailoring most of the time but I was registered as working in a collective farm. And after somebody find out that I am really, that I'm very good, really, tailor from Poland, who's Jewish and, and they call me in office and they said I have to resign from the collective farm and to go in an orphanage for-and to be an instructor, to teach the children tailoring. So I did so-I-and I went to the orphanage home, there was quite a few, a few hundred children, and I taught the children the tailoring art. And it's amazing; I will never forget in my lifetime, these children.