Interview with Zinaida Z.

     In 2016 I hired the Jewish Heritage Research group to conduct on-site research in Dubrowna and interview local townspeople who might remember the Jewish community there.  Following is the edited interview with Zinaida Leonidovna Z.  She was born in 1925 and was confined to bed at the time of the interview.  Her family requested that no photo be taken.

     “Before the war our family lived on Sovetskaya Street near the central square. My father worked as a glass-cutter his whole life and mother was a cook at the textile factory canteen. There were 4 children in our family. Lots of Jews lived on our street; I had some friends among them.

     “When I was 7 years old, I went to a Belorussian school. The Jews had a school of their own where they were taught in their language. Our schools merged in 1937. The government built a large building; we even had a gym. There were around 40 pupils in my class; half of them were Jews. We had a few Jewish teachers: Abram GOZDANKER, who taught Russian, and Mikhail FISHMAN who taught Physics.

     “Some of my Jewish classmates were Grisha ALTMAN, Polina GOLDNER, Mira FURMAN, Chana GITELEVICH, and Masha LEYKIN.  I visited their families quite often. All of us were equal, there were no distinctions. Some Jewish men and women were married to Belarusians.  Their children were regarded as Belarusians.

     “Many Jews worked as doctors in the Dubrowna hospital. The locals respected them. I remember dentist Efim KAPLAN and his wife Sima who was a doctor as well. I also remember that Belarusians and Jews had separate volleyball teams and I took part in the competitions.

     “Some Jews followed their traditions and some did not.  Elderly Jews tried not to work on Saturdays even in their kitchen gardens. Sometimes they asked my mother to milk their cows on Saturdays and she never refused. There were a lot of young Jews among the Comsomol party members who didn’t want to follow Jewish traditions. They organized anti-religious meetings at the main square next to our house on the days of the Jewish holidays. The Communists forbade everyone to pray. They confiscated the church building and turned it into a foster home for disabled children; the synagogue was used as vegetable storehouse.

      “Before the war lots of Jews left for Moscow, St.Petersburg or Minsk to study. That’s why almost no young Jews were left on our street.

     “The Nazis came to our town in mid-July of 1941. Everyone believed that the Red Army was going to win soon and almost no one left the town. At the beginning of August they took all Jews to the left bank of the river and settled them in the streets where most of the Jews lived before the war. The Nazis led them to work every day and beat them on the way. They were not allowed to go outside the ghetto, which was fenced with barbed wire. People were starving in the ghetto; they had no firewood to heat the houses. Nazi policemen entered the ghetto, robbed the Jews and then sold their things at the market. A few Jews managed to bribe them and escape. When the war was over they came back to Dubrowna.

     “The Nazis wanted to send me to work to Germany in 1942 but my father managed to ransom me--he gave his mother’s golden earrings and a few golden coins to a German officer. My 2 brothers fought in the war.  One died in 1944 and the other in 1945. My little sister died during the war from pneumonia. At that time all the reputable doctors had already left and we could not find any medicine. In December 1941 the Nazis shot the majority of the Jews from the ghetto near the textile factory in Dubrowna; the rest of them were killed about 6 months later. Only about 10 people escaped during the execution; the locals saved a few people and a few others escaped into the forest. After the war about 30 Jewish families lived in Dubrowna, but none of them were locals.

     “I do not know any of Jewish people living in Dubrowna today. The Jewish cemetery was almost destroyed in the mid-1970s. It was announced in the local newspaper that a school was going to be built in its place. Some of the Jews moved their ancestors’ remains to the Jewish cemetery in Orsha.”