The Jews of the Areas Annexed to the USSR in World War II

Ms. Mendelsohn spent 3 months on Hachshara in Yasi and people there had no idea that the Russian army was about to enter Bessarabia. She went home to Hutin. Head of the town, a Jew named Telpus, had once been a member of Hashomer Hatzair and his sister was the instructor of those on Hachshara. He arranged for them to receive Soviet passports. Interrogations started. Jews who received money from relatives abroad had their dollars forcibly changed into lei. Many Jews, mainly the elderly, were taken from their homes. Some were allowed to take with them some of their belongings. Ms. Mendelsohn worked for a tailor, privately, and two of her brothers were taken by the authorities as tailors. After the Russian invasion there was nothing to eat. Salaries were too low to allow the purchase of food. People queued up for kerosene from 3 a.m., and also for bread. Jews were admitted to the Communist party and some of them held important posts. Ms. Mendelsohn went to evening classes which taught in Russian. There were no Yiddish schools. "Tarbut" worked in Hebrew and Roumanian. There were theatre performances in Yiddish. Her mother had brothers and sisters in America, but they did not tell the authorities to avoid having this fact written down in their passports. With the Russian invasion, all correspondence between the siblings ended. As to the religious life, Cerna's father was already dead, and her brothers did not go to synagogue, but they prayed at home and her mother gave them breakfast only after they had put on tefilin. Later she stopped this habit, because the boys had to be on time at work. They had to work even on shabbath. Before the German invasion, relations between Jews and Moldavians were correct. It was forbidden to call a Jew Yid - a Jew was now a Hebrew. But later the situation became catastrophic, especially in Transnistria where Cerna was living. ; She remembers how everybody went to the National Theatre, from where a telegram was sent to Stalin. At that time young Jews, unemployed, were enrolled for work in Donabas, from where they later tried to flee. Many of them were caught in Kaminist Podolski. The Government allowed refugees to cross the Dniester river at Otek and at Kaminist Podolski.