Zoya Mesh Interviewed by Carol Zuckert June 17, 2000 View an image of Zoya and her family CZ:  June 17th, 2000. I'm here, Carol Zuckert, recording the story of Zoya Mesh in Tucson, Arizona. Zoya, tell me something about your family background. Where your mother was from. Where your father was from. What you know of your grandparents. ZM:  My parents were born in Ukraine and my mother lived in Odessa. CZ:  Odessa? ZM:  Yes, Odessa. It's a big harbor on the Black sea coast, that is very famous in the country as a resort and because of its own culture and history. My mother was born and grew up there. My grandparents had three daughters. My grandmother, my mom's mother, her name was Dvoira Shapsis, my grandfather's name was Sanya Yakover. I would spell it Yakover but in my mother's documents is Iokover. She had two sisters. Her oldest sister, Esther, was four years older than my mother and her younger sister, Rakhil is six years younger than my mom. My grandfather had two brothers. Odessa back then was highly populated by Jews so they had a lot of friends and relatives. My mother's father was a salesman, a commercial type of person. He had his own small fabric store in the early 20s and maybe before that. I don't know when he started his business. My grandmother was taking care of the children, of course. My parents met, after war happened. They met in the late 40s. CZ:  Where were they? ZM:  In Odessa. They married in 1950. And I was born in 1954. CZ:  Now when was your mother born? ZM:  My mother was born in 1923. She graduated from high school in Odessa. Exactly that date when she had graduation the World War II had begun. Many of boys from her class, almost all of them, had been killed during World War II. That's what she told me. She went through the horrible part of her life during World War II because her family did not evacuate before troops went through the city. CZ:  Nazis? German troops? ZM:  Yes, German troops. The Russian troops, they were telling the population that they were not going to give up the city and we but protect it, so people can stay. But one day, troops from the former Soviet Union, the Russian troops, were gone and the Nazis came through. So they put all Jewish people who did not leave to jail first. Then they send them to the countryside; they marched them to ghettos. Part of people died and they were burned in some places on their way to the rural area, rest of them went to the provinces not far away from Nikolaev city which is another harbor city on Black Sea shore. And that was kind of fate, that my mother and her younger sister survived. CZ:  Both of them? ZM:  Yes. Their parents died. They got very sick and they died from typhoid on their children's hands and they just went through this horrible part of their lives. I think watching their parents die from terrible disease, they were suffering from cold winters without warm clothes, they were hungry and they were working very hard on the field all year around. CZ:  Where were they at this point? ZM:  It was the outskirts of Nikolaev City. I don't know how many kilometers it was away from Odessa. They were sent over there by foot. CZ:  They were marched? ZM:  Yes, they were marched there. CZ:  Was this a ghetto or concentration camp? ZM:  Yes, it was a ghetto. They lived in barracks, cold place in the wintertime. They had no clothes. They were making everything themselves and they were working on farm fields, picking the vegetables, growing vegetables. They didn't have any tools for whatever they were doing there. Once their barracks burn down it was such a hard part of my mother's life. It was so hard for her to tell me about it. I was gathering this information little by little. Sometimes she told me a story about one situation or another, or my aunt did. My mother left Odessa after she got married. She and Rakhil, younger sister, lived apart. Rakhil was finishing her education and then she found a job on the other side of country. So I really didn't have much time to spend with my aunt together, and so I didn't hear the other end of the story from her at all. CZ:  About when are we talking about? This is much later? ZM:  That was much later. When I was in school and teachers told us a lot about history of World War II, but I really didn't know the details how my mother lived through that difficult time of her life. CZ:  That's too bad and she really doesn't want to talk about it. ZM:  Not really. Lately, actually the first time in my life, I read her story, when she was trying to find the support from a group here in United States for Holocaust survivors, she described and the mailed her story to New York-or Washington?-and I haven't happened to read that completely. CZ:  You didn't read it? ZM:  No, and she didn't ask me to and I couldn't make her to suffer, asking questions, let me. I didn't feel like I could because she was...every time, she was so tense and nervous talking about those things so I didn't want her to suffer. To me it seemed like a torture for her so I couldn't do that to her. CZ:  Terrible imposition. Is it still available, the written story? ZM:  I don't think so. I think she mailed it when she was trying to... CZ:  ...get reparations? ZM:  Yes and then she actually got it. CZ:  The other sister, you said you couldn't get information from one sister who lived far away. What about the other sister? ZM:  Another thing why I couldn't ask what my mother went through, because when the World War II ended, the people who were prisoners of war or who were in ghettos or territory that was occupied by Nazi troops, they were under the big suspicion, what kind of people they are. Can we rely on them or trust them? Are they politically right people? The people who had that experience kept everything to themselves because they could be pointed by anybody, like, this person looks very suspicious to me so we better investigate, where that person had been in that time. Maybe they served the Nazis. Maybe that person, did something bad to our country or whatever. So many people, when World War II was over, many people expected a whole new life because they suffered so much and won the war, who were in the Army or worked hard to support and supply the enemy, they all straggled and won. Each family lost their loved ones, like there were families who survived without any losses. CZ:  Everybody had losses? ZM:  Each family back then had lost their loved ones. People had hoped they will see the light and bright light will come with peace and they will be building new life again and they were ready for peace. But people who were prisoners of war, some of them were sent to the other camps or jails because they were not trusted. They were ideological enemies all of a sudden because they were under somewhat German control. You need to prove yourself, somehow have witnesses or if nobody knows where you've been and whom you've dealt with you could not be trusted. So people really didn't share, even in their own families not everyone shared information. CZ:  Even within their families? ZM:  Yes, even within their families. So, I was a child and I really didn't know the details but I've seen many people were really self-contained. They didn't really spill the beans and really didn't share many things. CZ:  Because they were afraid. ZM:  Yes. There were cases when husbands had been put in jail by wives or even such a thing, or neighbors were jealous because you have a better apartment and they just wonder, they were dark times, it was just...hard to imagine but I read later on and I heard many stories. CZ:  About what period are we talking about? ZM:  That was until Stalin died. It was 1953 when he died. It was the same kind of atmosphere like before in the 30s and people were even going to war, they were volunteering, they were not really under the draft. They wanted to escape that horrible atmosphere before war, that threat of everything because people were cheating on each other, were reporting on each other. Those kind of things. And many people were sent to camps and jails because of fear of each other. You could never imagine. CZ:  Because of false testimony. ZM:  Yes. Many people just left to escape those things. But there was a continuation of that in the army too. Depends on who you're dealing with. Lots of facts and stories are published recently. When I was in school everything about Stalin's time was covered, was no publications or articles in newspapers, the stories at the end of the 90s or beginning of 90s when perestroika began. How we, my generation, started knowing about those things more and more. Back then, when my mother got back to Odessa with her little sister she didn't have anything left what was in that place. There was no place to go. CZ:  What happened to the third sister? ZM:  The oldest sister, when World War II started she was working on her Ph.D. at the university. She was a pharmaceutical chemist. The university research groups had been evacuated to Uzbekistan, Tashkent and she had gone with the university, leaving her family behind. At that moment, she was working on some research at explosives and she got burns on both her hand after synthesizing explosives. She was an experienced chemist but it could happen. So she was leaving town with injuries. It was not that bad, she recovered, but even she had a feeling and she was trying to convince her dad, this is the time to leave the city, it's not a good time especially for Jewish people to stay in Odessa. The relatives, there was a huge family to begin with. CZ:  On your mother's side? ZM:  Yes, on my mother's side. They had three brothers in my grandfather's family, he had many cousins, my grandmother had lots of cousins also. Who had an opportunity to leave the city like my grandmother's sister with her daughters, they left probably with the last ship. CZ:  To where? ZM:  They went to Caucas and then to Azerbaijan. It's in Caucus Mountains. They travel by train, by foot and came to a small village where people didn't speak Russian but let them stay there. Actually when I talk to my mom's cousin, she shared even more about her life. She is younger. She was a little girl back then. With me she shared some facts and how they lived there and how nice they've been treated by people in the village where they lived. They shared food and they invited them to live in their house and they were treated very well. Those people never heard of Jews. CZ:  It's my impression that the people that went to the eastern part of the former Soviet Union were much better treated, much less anti-Semitism? Is that your impression? ZM:  True, when you go far to the rural area. CZ:  It's more the fact of being rural than eastern? ZM:  People were not really familiar and they didn't know who Jews were. It really didn't matter. And my mom said that when they stopped in small village in Ukraine, in Ukraine lots of Jews live; there was a small village and she talked to someone and that person wasn't kidding, she said "I was sure Jews had horns." So even, they've been told such a thing, they've never seen Jews before. CZ:  Well Ukrainians were known, anyway, to be very, very, anti-Semitic. ZM:  Yes, but it really depends on the personality. Because even in that tough time there were people who were "human" and were not afraid to help others whose lives were in great danger. My mom told me, when they were hiding in the basement of some house, just, not to be killed, the woman from Ukranian village came at night to their window, she knew there was some Jews hiding in the basement. That woman knock on the window. She asked, "Are you still alive? Here's some potatoes for you to eat." So she was Ukranian and it really depends on the person. CZ:  I should always be careful to make too many generalizations. We're back to your mom and sister when they returned to Odessa. ZM:  They came back to Odessa and the apartment where they lived had been taken by somebody else. Because the city, was bombed, destroyed and there were not that many places to stay. They were not able to find anyplace to live. They didn't find any of their things that they left when they were sent out of town. They were begging people who lived in their building to let them in and find place to stay. So they found tiny little one-it's not a one bedroom, it's like a studio-ini that building where they moved in. I don't know how my mom saved few pieces of family possessions, just a little silver cup and little tiny silver lemon fork, that only left from her family. There were no photographs, no nothing. The only photographs survived were her older sister took with her when she was evacuated. Rakhil and my mother started over from scratch. And my mom, she had difficulty to find a job. CZ:  Well, how old was she at this time? ZM:  She was, when she graduated and the war started she was 18 and I was like 4 years after. In 1944 they got back, in the spring when the city was free, the troops moved farther west. She was 22 and my aunt 16. So she was trying to find a job but Jews were not trusted. Not only the Jews but I believe many people couldn't find a job back then. In the beginning there was lots of construction type of work, cleaning, stuff like that, in the city. I really didn't ask what she was doing the first months she got back. But they needed something to eat and sleep on. Eventually she got the job at the library of Navy school in town. But she could not support herself and her the sister on such a small money. For her it was such a heartbreaking thing, she had to put her sister in an orphanage. Just to have her to be fed. When she told me that-I didn't know anything about it for long time-it was so hard for her to tell me that. She said, there was a woman who worked at the orphanage and she actually pushed her to do that. She said, "you cannot feed her on such an income that you have. This is the place where I am working and at least there she will be warm and fed." And that's how it happened. I know, my mother feels guilty even now about it. She applied to university to become a chemist or teacher. After two years of school she could not continue because she couldn't take classes during the daytime, she was working full time, and university canceled the night class there. She quit her schooling at the university and started over again with another school, the Institute of Canning Technology? So she became a canning engineer, after she graduated from it. In the meantime, her little sister graduated from high school and she was a very good student. All three sisters were gifted and had highest GPA. Rakhil graduated, as people used to say, "with golden diploma" and applied to university too and that was early 50s when anti-Semitism was rising again. She'd been told by University Chancellor who looked through her papers, "I cannot admit you to our school. We don't need people of Ukranian nationality in our school so you go somewhere else." She was not admitted to the university. There was a rule or law, if you graduated with a high scores, high GPA like she did, you really didn't need to pass the admittance test or exam to be admitted. She could pick anyplace to go. And she just went to another engineering school and graduated from there. After she graduated from university, Rakhil went to Tashkent where her older sister lived with her family. Esther got married and had kids so she didn't move back to Odessa when war was over. CZ:  She stayed in Tashkent? ZM:  She stayed in Tashkent and she had her children and family there. My mom, by that time, left Odessa with her husband. CZ:  So, the youngest aunt is in Tashkent? ZM:  Yes, she was in Tashkent, started her work there. CZ:  And she's living with her sister? ZM:  Yes. She found a place for herself. So all sisters were gone from Odessa. In the mid 50s. CZ:  So your mom...? ZM:  My mom got married and because her husband should go to Leningrad-his job took him there. CZ:  Your father? ZM:  My father. My mom also went with him in 1951. They moved to Leningrad. CZ:  And he was, what did he do? ZM:  He, they actually met in that Navy school where my mom worked and he was a student there. So that was his field. It was like a trade school. CZ:  The navy school? ZM:  Yes, it was not a military school but there were a lot of navy civilian specialties. He was working in the harbor in Leningrad after he graduated. My mom found a job in huge bakery plant in Leningrad and she had difficult time after she moved out from Odessa because Odessa is a southern city, it's a different climate, different people. Like for many people it's hard to adjust to new place and this was really cold northern place for her. She used to say that the sky was always gray and the water was gray and it's always rainy and very depressing to live in Leningrad, and no friends or relatives. My parents split up when I was 3, my father lost his job, couldn't find anything there, and he left town looking for a job. My mom didn't follow him, and they actually divorced. I really didn't spend much time with my dad. I really don't know him at all. CZ:  You're not in contact with him at all. ZM:  No, I am not.. CZ:  Do you know if he's still alive? ZM:  I don't know. When we were leaving the country he was alive but I don't know now what happened then. I found out, you know, when I was grown up, many years later, that know some people and places you can contact, he got back to Odessa and lived with his mother until she died. He was staying there but really we didn't contact. [interrupted by phone ringing] ZM:  My mother was working in big baking plant, it was producing 400 tons of bread a day. That was a lot. In my country people eat a lot of bread. Like they do everywhere but this is the main part of their meal, doesn't matter how many times a day they have meal they always have bread on the table. So there's not such a great variety like in here. Because everything that has nuts or honey or something sweet in it they call cake. So the bread itself is very plain, and just white bread or rye bread is good. Such a bread should be fresh and the freshly baked bread from the bakery is always good, always tasty. Mom worked in that very same plant for 40 years, maybe more than that. I was in school in Leningrad, graduated from high school in 1971 and was admitted to technological institute and I met there my husband and we got married in 1977. CZ:  Was he a student at the same time? ZM:  Yes he was a student. We graduated with the same specialty. CZ:  And that is? ZM:  We were working on our diploma when we met. Chemical engineering of plastics and polymers so that is our specialty. School years were fun no matter what. I was lucky because my mother supported me. I was attending the day school and I was working only on vacation time and when I was in graduate school. The education was free but when you finish school engineer's salary was miserable. I lived with my mom until I got married.. CZ:  And she earned enough to support both of you? ZM:  Yes, it was like we lived from paycheck to paycheck. She never borrowed money. She never borrowed money. Nobody you couldn't get a loan for your education for example either but even you don't pay for education but you needed to support yourself. CZ:  Buy your books? Do they pay for the books too? ZM:  We didn't pay for books. We had to get a set of used books when I was in school, from the library. For each year. Because education was free it was very tight. If you are doing poorly you just got kicked out of school because you didn't get the passing grade. You cannot take your class over, unless you are admitted over again, take the test, then start from scratch. Because government pays for your education nobody was interested in keeping you in school longer than the period of time you're supposed to be graduated. So I had five and a half years in school for my degree and I was able to work during my school, for my school, when I was 4th and 5th year in my school. So when I was doing my research for my diploma, and I worked extra time for other researchers there. So I been paid for job in the lab working after school and that was a little bit of help then. Of course you can work at night if you can find a place to work for, but school was pretty intense. We had six days a week of school. At least 6 or 8 hours every day. There was lots of material to cover and study so it wasn't really much time to work or play. So I'm really grateful my mother was able to help me through. CZ:  And your husband? ZM:  My husband he lived with his family. The interesting thing was, in daytime school, all kids were mostly just right after the high school. We just graduated from high school, passed the admission test and got to the university or institute. And we, almost, all of us, were the same age. And another thing is you really need to choose your specialty or find your major in the very first year of school when you just been admitted. There was no game playing like OK, I decided to switch my major. Nobody would let you to do that. That was my situation my husband was facing, because in the second year of school he decided to change his major. He was really persistent in pursuing that he went through many trials. I never saw any other student to succeed in such a thing. CZ:  Persistence is a strength. ZM:  It is! CZ:  So that would put him a year behind you? ZM:  No, it didn't. Really in our school in the first two, even three years all future chemists were taking the same courses for different specialties. There was a large group of students who was studying the same subjects. CZ:  Preparation. ZM:  Exactly. Because our school, our institute as it was called, was majoring in chemical technology so there were all kinds of chemical engineers graduating form and have been employed by chemical companies. So you get really basic knowledge through first three years of school, in general, for many specialities. So we were all together, we met our friends and we took the same classes and spent lots of time together studying and playing. But I met my husband in the very end of schooling. When we were finishing graduate school he was one year younger than me and stayed another year after I graduated. So we met when we were working on our diplomas in the same department. We experienced a sad thing during my school years. At that time (mid 70s) when many people, Jewish people, were trying to get connections with their roots, religious and historical roots of Jews. They were trying to find connections with Israel and found new groups, study groups, and a religious and united into the national movement. So it wasn't really politically correct in my country because nobody who was religious was in favor with the government. You would have a very miserable life if you would try to continue your historical religious traditions openly. CZ:  It doesn't matter if you were Jewish, Russian Orthodox...? ZM:  No, it doesn't matter. Because there were more Russian Orthodox to begin with, historically it was Russia, so there were more people who were trying to continue their religious tradition as Russian Orthodox. But it was mostly old people, seniors, who really didn't depend on anyone. They were not working, they were not really involved in any political activities or career. Nobody really dealt with those people because they didn't really influence anything and there wasn't a big number of them. Who cares if you were like in your 70s and go to church for services every day? But if you're young, if you're in school and go to temple, everybody would know that and everybody would just point a finger at you, you're religious and that's bad, that's against everything about "our ideology, philosophy, everything," so you better forget about such a background, or publicly reject it to prove that you're a good citizen. And in the 70s there were new waves that was very unusual, looked suspicious, and threatening to the social system. A couple of facts from my childhood, for example. I'm kind of taking you back. When my mother moved from Odessa to Leningrad, she hasn't met many Jewish people there. In the area where we lived with mostly working class, Jewish faces were not common. When we visited my mom's cousins in Odessa, first time in my life I heard Yiddish on the street, old ladies were talking. . I thought "What? What is that? How come people can speak Yiddish so openly?" First time I heard Yiddish in my family when my aunt came to visit us and I was shocked. My mother was speaking some kind of language similar to German? And I said "Mom, what language do you speak?" I was, I was probably 6 or so and I was very surprised. But my mom, we shared our apartment with two other Russian families, very unintelligent (low class) families. We didn't have a choice where to live. Nothing was available for anybody. CZ:  Unintelligent? Uneducated. ZM:  Yes, uneducated. So she couldn't even talk to me about anything related to Jewish life. They were using the same kitchen, the same bathroom, the same hallway as common places. We lived side by side, in the same place. She couldn't think about teaching me Yiddish. I believe many other families who lived in the same situation where the grandparents used to speak, kept it as a secret. My mom was trying to protect her little family: myself, herself, and me. Going back to events of the 70s. In our institute and n other schools in Leningrad, young Jews grouped together in the main university. Traditionally, in our country Communists wanted to build a strong industry and open many technical schools throughout the country. We call university the place where people graduate with general degree, in literature, law school, or pure sciences like chemistry, physics, those kind of things. But if you're going to engineering school that would be institute. So we called university only one school in town where the people were getting degree in pure science or pure language. CZ:  There wasn't an institute to do that in? Everything was the university? Is that true? ZM:  No, everything was mostly institute for technical school. We had like 20 schools in town. CZ:  If you wanted to be a French literature major... ZM:  Yeah, that would be university. CZ:  So you couldn't go to an institute to do that. ZM:  No, couldn't. If you wanted to be a French teacher you go to a school of teachers. But the literature major, like to be a writer or to be a, I don't know, but that's historically what happened. And university was always the top, the finest group of people who were highly intelligent, "the cream of the society." They couldn't like say something bad about the rest of the schools but university was best school in town. But not many Jews were admitted there but they were in that school. CZ:  In Leningrad the university after World War II? ZM:  Yes. CZ:  Oh, that wasn't the impression I had. ZM:  It was kind of tough but the best, like my husband's best friend, he graduated from university as a physicist, and they also accepted half-breed people, like I am, who had Russian last names and had in their passports Russian nationality. There were some exceptions. You know how it happens. So in the university there was a group of Jewish young people which was very strong in trying to get back to the historical religious roots and other schools too. The political circles, administration of our city which was very anti-Semitic back then, they are trying to get these people and punish them and they threw them out of school and the same thing happened in my school where administration decided to expel, get rid of those students. CZ:  What were they doing? ZM:  They were getting together, learning Torah, writing letters to Israelis. CZ:  They were actively practicing their Judaism? ZM:  They were actively practicing, they were trying to get in touch with Israel, they were trying to do those kind of things. ZM:  OK, to continue the story about my school, and what happened with those students. I wasn't taking the same classes with students who were kicked out of my school but it didn't matter back then. Each group of students in our institute ought to get together and vote to expel those students, to dismiss the group of those students. CZ:  You voted? ZM:  I was taking classes with group of students where there were two other Jews and we did not vote for this. But we had to discuss the situation with others. Because everything in our country should be on "the democratic foundation." What a democracy it was! CZ:  It was supposed to be. ZM:  Yes. You have to, society had to decide. So there was a meeting and the group supervisor read the story, it was an article or something or just a paper that was written what happened and we need to point out how it's horrible and terrible against our ideology and those students are not supposed to be in school any longer and they cannot get degrees. CZ:  What would have happened if you hadn't voted? ZM:  I didn't. I withdrew from voting. CZ:  How did you do that? ZM:  I just didn't raise my hand, because I had the right to. Anyway, it was a majority who agreed, people were agreed. CZ:  And who voted? Who were the people that had the opportunity to vote? Were they all Jewish people? No, you said there were these Jews. ZM:  Yes. All of us, we had an opportunity to vote and it was a group of students, all of us, there was 23 students in our group. CZ:  And who were they? ZM:  They were mostly Russians. CZ:  There were only twenty-three students in your class? ZM:  Twenty-three students in my class, but it was each group who did the same thing, my school was a few thousand students and each group ought to. So, that was a decision of the School Administration dictated by the city government. So, it was very nasty feeling back then. And they were expelled and it was a decision of the head of, chancellor of course, of administration. But it was a great support from students, the majority. So and even people were disagree in some ways they play inside of their souls they would because they used to [unclear sentence]. They did that throughout their life, they not go against that. So that's what happened. And another thing what happened, I really was not able to go to synagogue or service or anything because of the same thing. My mother didn't even try to practice Judaism at home, again, because she couldn't really. And when I was at school I met my friend, a Jewish girl and I don't know why but I think I do know because my mother's roots were Jewish and I kind of, I don't know, I was interested in the history and who Jewish people were, are, or whatever, because the history of any religion had roots coming from Jewish history. CZ:  So tell me a little bit about what you thought you were at this point. Did you think of yourself as Jewish? ZM:  I was thinking about myself as Jewish because I'd been raised by a Jewish mother who really didn't teach me to be a Jew, but I was called Jew and I feel that's who I am. But she told me a little bit of history of religion, that she learned as a little girl, about her because her family was very religious. My grandmother was very religious person. My grandfather had his own seat in synagogue. He was one of the board members. He was in leading group, in synagogue he was involved in all activities. CZ:  Leadership. ZM:  Yes. And she was telling me a little bit. She didn't really tell me much. She didn't learn Hebrew in school back then. She wasn't able to and government dismiss the schools for Jews when she was attending school, but the family was following all traditions and celebrate all holidays. CZ:  But you weren't involved? ZM:  But my mother was. I wasn't involved at all. The first time even when I ate matzoh, when I met my friend at university at my school that was my first time and I was probably 17 or 18. She just introduced me to some traditions. My friends were not really religious people again like my grandparents but at least they had matzoh at Passover time. My closest friend, Tanya, she lives in Israel with her family now. She knew some history of Israel. She told me that and when her grandfather came to visit from Latvia she admired her grandparents. Jewish people lived in different side of country. That historically happened, lived in Belorussia, Latvia, Ukraine mostly. Historically the populated area was away from big cities. CZ:  My maternal grandparents are from Kiev. ZM:  They really didn't move to capitals, big cities before Revolution in 1917 because, they were not allowed to do so So my friend's roots were in Latvia and her grandparents lived in Rega, which is a beautiful city on the Baltic seashore. Her grandfather was a very educated man and he sometimes came to Leningrad to visit his children's family. He had six children, big family. With that friend, first time in my life I went to synagogue. CZ:  The one synagogue in Leningrad? ZM:  Yes only on. That was very politically incorrect for former Soviet Union policy at that time, tools such a thing. That synagogue was only temple for Jews to meet and celebrate and follow what their ancestors did. So, it was very crowded, it was Simchas, Torah holiday and people, I have never been the services before. It was very impressive. But the horrible thing was, after service was finished and the street was flooded with people who was leaving synagogue, I saw police on the streets all over the area, like surrounding the area and I couldn't understand what that means. I was suspicious and later, I heard that they arrested a group of young people who were at the services and reported them to their schools, universities and just simply the same thing that happened with other students what I just told before. But there were stories. CZ:  They found that they had been to religious services and they went to their schools? ZM:  And they send the reports from the police officers and that was very bad for your record. The city's government and mayor especially wanted to take action to these Jews. They could be kicked out if they have any other records or if they would have other records in the future. So it was very nasty things at that time. It was scary, yes it was scary. CZ:  How brave can you be? ZM:  When you're young you don't think really about consequences what you're doing but that was what people were dealing with. CZ:  But did you feel an attachment? How did you feel going to those services. Impressive, you liked it, you felt some connection? ZM:  Yes I did. I wanted to know more. I wanted to learn more and what I learned from my friend wasn't enough. We met with group of Jewish young people but they didn't know more than we did. People had a fear of sharing something illegal. CZ:  Where would they be able to learn? ZM:  From their families who really followed or tried to, like later on I met people who were a little bit older than I and their entire family followed the traditions, and when grandparents were alive, they spoke Yiddish at home. They used to practice if they could. CZ:  In secret? ZM:  Yes, kind of. CZ:  What about your family? ZM:  Yes. My mother's generation did not practice at all, I can assure you, and especially in our hometown. CZ:  Your mother's generation is equivalent to Vera's? ZM:  Exactly. So those people who were old, and authorities didn't really pay much attention to what that old generation was doing, but they kept an eye on the younger generations. In Vera's family, as my mother, they really didn't do much, they didn't go to synagogue because she was a lawyer, so if she would attend synagogue and people would find out she would lose her job immediately. They used to go to synagogue for some very important family events, or they used to go to get matzoh on Passover. CZ:  It was very important, the matzoh, it was a symbol of your Judaism and your freedom, and this is the bread of affliction. ZM:  That's right. CZ:  You met your husband when you were at the institute? ZM:  Yes I did. Then I graduated and started working. CZ:  You were graduated as an engineer? ZM:  Yes, as chemical engineer. CZ:  What kind of a job did you have? ZM:  It was at a research institute of electronics and I was dealing with plastics for electronic applications. CZ:  It was research what you're doing? ZM:  Research and development of technological procedures of polymer applications. CZ:  Oh, I see. ZM:  First of all, I wasn't a straight A student, my GPA wasn't that high. I was at a very competitive school and I think because I was from Jewish family and my mother was Jewish and it was in my application, so why bother? And my husband either. He didn't even try to get good grades. The best friend of my husband, that's just only because he was a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant Jewish guy. He was just one from the 800 or whatever, that's why he was admitted to the University because of his greatest achievement. They were in high school, the best high school in town that they graduated from. When Jakob, my husband's friend, submitted his papers to the University where he was admitted later. CZ:  Family? ZM:  Not family. Just through the school itself. Because what we used to say, some universities they monitor high school to get the best students, to draw the best students so that school they had some curriculum with university and kids were attending, like math classes for U, and they knew the best students, so that's how it happened. CZ:  Where is that man now? ZM:  He's still in St. Petersburg. He works for the biggest company, optical company there. He would find his place here right away. He had some connections with one of the Boston companies selling his instruments, this guy has developed. But later on I don't know what happened. CZ:  He didn't want to come to the United States? ZM:  He can't because of his family, his wife's family, they don't want to move, so it's kind of complicated, so he is there. He came once to Boston and we met. It was 2 years ago, he came for a visit. CZ:  Now where is your friend, your friend that was so influential in helping you understand Judaism. ZM:  She's in Israel with her family, with her parents. She moved to Israel the year before we moved to the United States. CZ:  How long were you working in your job? ZM:  I worked, for one company 7 years, another company 6 years. CZ:  When did you come to the States? ZM:  It was in 1993. I just simply submitted the application. I should have done it earlier but it is easy to say than done. I submitted an application for immigration and year after I got the positive response. CZ:  And that was the same thing with your mother-in-law and father-in-law? ZM:  I actually put everybody's name on the list of my application. CZ:  But Michael Mesh was here already? ZM:  Yes, Misha. My brother-in-law, was here in Tucson. The interesting fact was, he submitted the affidavit and I submitted an application almost at the same time. When we got to Moscow for the interview there was an affidavit from my brother-in-law there in the office and reply for my application where we submitted all documents. What a coincidence! So we went to Moscow for an interview. CZ:  Who? ZM:  The entire family of my in-laws and my mother. CZ:  Just for the visit, for the application interview. Is that true? ZM:  We'd been interviewed, all of us, in the office in embassy buildling. CZ:  This is 1992. ZM:  That is correct. Spring 1992, May. We took our son with us. He wasn't interviewed of course. CZ:  He must have been very young at that time. We'll go back to that because we skipped the wedding. I don't want to skip it. ZM:  We got married in 1977. September 10th, in our hometown. Our son was born in 1986. Mostly I was working part time and staying with him at home. My mother helped, and I didn't want to put him in child care or anything because he is precious one. I'm sure he will never hear this though, so I can say that, for the record. CZ:  He might. ZM:  When he was 6 we moved to United States and it was very hard for him especially. Adults were prepared somehow to this move, they made a decision, they knew or they can expect some difficulties and hard times. But for a child, it's especially tough because he's faced with different things in his life that he did not expect. CZ:  And he didn't speak English yet? ZM:  No. I put him in a small children's club when he was 3 years old. Kids were doing some activities there. There were art classes and English. They were doing some plays, learning poetry and songs, and vocabulary words. But, of course, it was nothing close to the spoken language. So when he got to the United States, and all kids spoke language that he couldn't understand, he told me "you know mom, those kids, they should learn how to speak Russian. They don't know Russian at all." And I said, "No, they don't." So that was hard for our son. But of course he learned the language much quicker. CZ:  Well, you're at very different life stages. You speak very well. ZM:  Thanks. Now Eugene has difficulty with Russian because his Russian is not current at all, unfortunately, and I also see that it's my fault that I speak Russian with him but I really have a difficult time to have him sit down and study. CZ:  Anything? ZM:  Anything! CZ:  Not just Russian? ZM:  Yeah. CZ:  Can we back up just a little, we'll catch up. You were married... ZM:  I was married in 1977. CZ:  How long did you court? How long did you go together? ZM:  It was 18 months probably? CZ:  Is that typical of what happened...? ZM:  Um, not necessarily, sometimes happens faster. In my school, one of our professors told us, "Girls, you're here to get married. You will get diploma anyway." We took it as a joke. But this is exactly what many students've done to stay in big city after graduation. CZ:  Well, your mother had to work so hard. ZM:  Everybody did. But the interesting thing was it's kind of common for my country because of poor economics many students came to school to the big city, to get a degree and settle. Because of convenience of living you cannot, like here, make the choice and move or find the place to work by yourself. They choose you. If you don't have a residence permit in a city like Moscow or St. Petersburg (Leningrad) the only legal way to stay there was to get married to somebody who has it. If you live or stay in a small town it was difficult to survive, literally. There was no groceries in the stores, no clothes. If you don't have own garden you need to go somewhere and hunt for food and people they were calling trains going to Moscow on the weekend "sausage train." People from outskirts or small towns were going there to get groceries. CZ:  This is particularly during the 90s when the economic times were bad? ZM:  No, it was from 60s, 70s, all those years. Only Moscow, Leningrad were getting good supplies because the agriculture was almost destroyed. All quality goods were imported and distributed to large cities mostly. And what we used to have throughout my school experience, my school life, and later on when I was employed in a company, in the fall time when time come to get a crop, all big company employees would send in outskirts and villages to help peasants on the fields because there was just few peasants to do that and they all were drunk. So it was so hard, it was very tough work, everywhere, to work on farm, on the land. People had no interest to work on the land. CZ:  Did you say peasants? ZM:  Yeah, just like peasants. I'm sorry. Because peasants is not really a modern word. CZ:  No it is. It describes it perfectly. ZM:  Because we don't have farmers everything belongs to everybody. That means belongs to nobody. So why do I care about that field which belongs to government and this my little tiny garden I can feed my family and the rest could be, I don't know, you need to feed the rest of the world, you don't really care about. So everything was kind of neglected mostly because it was not much machinery out there, and if there was machinery it was very poorly managed. So we went to pick up that wonderful potatoes and the cabbage in the field in the fall. In the southern part of the country, like my cousin's family lived with my old aunt in Tashkent, the entire population who were not working for industries were in the agricultural field, in the fall, beginning August through September-October, everybody went to pick up cotton. So they, as far as I remember, they were telling "oh we're gonna spend another month picking the cotton on the fields." So everybody was working. So there were sausage trains and it was a privilege to live in Moscow or St. Petersburg. First of all, because there were lots of opportunities to find jobs and have more interesting life there and to live in a big city, so young people were interested. When they got degree there they were interested in getting married before they graduated from the school and settle because if you don't have a living permit or how you call it, you cannot move to any big town or any place in former Soviet Union unless you have a residence permit to live there. Russian word is "propiska." There was no private houses to rent. CZ:  I see. ZM:  So if I would come and stay with my relatives in Leningrad, like I wouldn't have a permit to live there, official administrative permit, they will kick me out from that place. I can visit as a guest, like stay a month or so but I cannot permanently live unless, if I'm attending school, for example, I have to have my school notice: this person for such and such period of time, admitted to school and could stay in her relative's house for that time if relatives agree to have me there. I could not rent a place because it wasn't officially allowed to because you don't have your own place to begin with, it belongs to government. You kind of rent it from them. So if you rent it to someone else you're doing something against the law. You cannot have any income from anything like that. That was illegal. CZ:  But if you went to school and you had a relative, you could live with them, and you married, did you get an occupation certificate? ZM:  Yes, you get occupation certificate. You can live with your family, with your husband, that's OK. But if you're just on your own and company who hired you did not get that residence permit for you, you would think you have place to stay because of your employment. No way, you just go back to where you came from. So that was the situation. And that's why our professor said "You're here to get married." There were a lot of students from all over the country living in my dorm. Then it was many marriages between young students that later fell apart. Later on in your life, you're getting older, getting smarter and you're looking at many qualities of the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. It's hard to make such a decision to get married to someone. So when you're young and stupid mistakes are happening. CZ:  You're impulsive? ZM:  Right, exactly. When we got married and we didn't really have our own place to live. So again, without parent's support, we were not able to move to any place. Because on our small salary we could not rent anything, even illegally, you can, to rent something we didn't have money to pay for it. CZ:  So you stayed with... ZM:  We first, we stayed with my mom for awhile. Then we found a place to rent illegally. It was a studio, not far away from our working place, and we moved in. We lived there until we build our own apartment. CZ:  Build? ZM:  Yeah, that's how we called it. Not build ourselves but we had share in cooperative. CZ:  It was brand new? ZM:  It was brand new. It was a huge apartment building, 1000 or so condos. CZ:  Paid for by your employer? Or built by your employer? ZM:  No. My mother was on the waiting list since we got married. Her employer had a share through the city's industries and employee paid the share to become a cooperative member. CZ:  But that wasn't true for you? ZM:  It was for us and my mother, in 70s, there were lots of places like that and people were able to improve their places to live, it's not that easy again. It was through my mother's job. I couldn't do that myself because I was too new as employee. I was too recent employee. That's the exact word I would use. She submitted the paperwork. We got money for share because the first amount of money was a lot of money, so our parents put their money together to pay for us. My mother and my in-laws, because we didn't have anything in savings. CZ:  How much are we talking about? ZM:  We're talking about 2700 rubles. Two my mother's annual salaries. CZ:  And that's about how much US dollars? ZM:  Back then it was like equivalency. CZ:  About twenty-seven hundred, $3,000? ZM:  Yes. The rest of it we're supposed to pay ourselves. CZ:  On a monthly basis. ZM:  On a monthly basis. It was higher than the rate of the average apartment that people rent from government that didn't belong to them. But because we were co-owners our monthly rent was much higher. CZ:  May I ask, how much were you earning? ZM:  That was, first my salary was 110 rubles per month. CZ:  A month? ZM:  A month. My husband's the same monthly salary as an engineer. My mother earned 240 so even after her 30 years of employment she couldn't jump higher than that. CZ:  And how much did Vera earn? ZM:  Vera earned maybe more, she earned a little bit more than my mother, not just because from her employer but she also had a side job. She was teaching part-time. So she was earning more, I don't know, maybe over 300? CZ:  And your father-in- law? ZM:  My father-in-law, maybe same thing, like Vera. Maybe a little bit less by them because he was close to retirement. And she was very high paid. CZ:  Well, she was the head of a whole commercial law department. ZM:  Yeah, it wasn't really big department, it was like 3 people in there, but she was working the huge plant. She was dealing with many issues and she was highly professional. She was one of the best lawyers in town, specializing in industrial law. CZ:  So you were earning $100 and your husband was earning about $100 a month and your rent then, after you paid your down payment, if I can think in American terms, how much was your rent then every month? Your cooperative payment? ZM:  It was half of my salary. CZ:  Of both salaries? ZM:  No. My salary plus electrical bill and other utility bills, so it was, yeah, more than half of my monthly salary. And we lived on my husband's salary. We couldn't really save much. You have other expenses too to deal with. Food was not expensive but it wasn't really food to begin with! But you spend quality of time to find decent groceries and goods. Standing in long lines. CZ:  Did you feel like you were comfortable enough? Did you feel like that 200 rubles a month gave you enough even though you had to struggle? Were you able to make ends meet? ZM:  Well, you know, it was not comfortable. Of course you want to earn more and you feel like having a degree and working full time your experience you would deserve a little bit better. No one, like all my friends and people in the same field or similar, all engineers been paid the same low salary in the beginning of their careers. Upper level administration who earned more had access to better goods. To get there you need to be a communist party member and I didn't really desire to be one of them. That never attracted me and my husband or anyone in our families. Somehow, save something and you can afford, like car of course was a luxury. And we bought our car, of course with our parents' help, when my son was born. And we had a little summer house on the outskirts of Leningrad. To get there without the car it was a real struggle. If you don't have a car you take the bus and you take the subway or whatever, you take the suburban kind of bus to get there and you need to bring all supplies on your back. You cannot shop. Everything you need to bring with you. CZ:  Dacha, is that what you call it? ZM:  Dacha, yes. That's what they call it. CZ:  And whose was this? Was this your in-laws' home? ZM:  Yes, this was my in-laws, my father-in-law's because, again, it wasn't that easy to get place like that and he built it from scratch. He got tiny piece of land in late 60s when he was chief engineer of his company. Because he had top engineering position he had that opportunity. In later years it was a little bit easier for people to get such a thing but it wasn't that easy in beginning. All of a sudden there was a decision of city government to let people to use some kind of neglected poor lands, like swamps, to build on their own their little summer cottages, something, because many people had a desire to spend their weekends doing something for their families and some activities outside of industrial crowded city. People couldn't travel much. They didn't have their own transportation. It was expensive. It was difficult, they did travel to visit their relatives somewhere but not as much as here. Like a bird, you can fly wherever you want for holidays or vacation. It wasn't easy at all to build something on it, like a little house or something because materials and supplies were not available in the stores. They need to find somebody who will steal for you or get some leftovers, old fences, etc. and you can pay to that person, or somehow to get around...I would not be able to do that on my own. My mother wouldn't. CZ:  No, not on 200 rubles a month. ZM:  And not only money but the physical labor, you cannot hire anybody legally or find people who do work on the side. CZ:  But your father-in-law was able to do that. ZM:  He really had a desire, he grew up in the countryside. His parents they were real farmers. He grew up on a farm. He also came from Ukraine and he told my son the stories about his childhood. He was the youngest son, youngest child in the family of six children and his father had cows and the garden. He used to farm. He knew how to so he really just had a desire to build his little house and a garden. CZ:  Where was the dacha? How far outside town? ZM:  It was 45 kilometers (30 miles) away from Leningrad. CZ:  And was it on some water, some body of water? ZM:  It was on a river Neva. Actually the river goes through town, the town was built on. The river goes from Ladozskoe Lake from north, runs to Gulf of Finland. So the city was built on the gulf shore where the river comes to the gulf and this particular area where the little garden was built was north of town. There were different areas in suburbs of Leningrad where city government allowed people to have that. First places were built on Finnish, we used to call it Finnish isthmus, close to the border with Finland. But that was historical resorts and places where even people of, in 20s they had their summer cottages built like artists and writers, and it's beautiful luxury places on the Gulf of Finland shore. People were not allowed to build something for their own. That area mostly was resorts and beaches for people to spend weekends or vacation time. CZ:  Was there a problem being Jewish doing that? Prejudice against...? ZM:  I really didn't ask him. There were mostly Russian people and few Jewish families who had their little summer cottages in the area. He was highly respected then. CZ:  How often did you go out? How little were these places? ZM:  They were really small. The lot was like 100 meters by 100 meters. CZ:  300 feet by 300 feet, plus or minus. ZM:  And they were small summer house with two bedrooms and tiny little bedroom upstairs we really didn't use. And we also built, we called it like kitchen, it was a little kitchen and a little room attached to it. And we had a little shed. CZ:  And who went out there, everybody every weekend? ZM:  Almost in the summer, yes. And I spent even summer with my son when he was born. CZ:  Was it cooler because you were on the water? ZM:  It wasn't really cooler but the city was crowded and mostly asphalt there. We didn't really have much trees, gardens in the area where we lived. Huge industrial places so people were running away on weekends and vacation time. Downtown was beautiful and architecturally incredible and attracted lost of tourists. CZ:  You were very fortunate, really, weren't you? ZM:  Yes, I could say. My husband really liked to runaway from city and because of his childhood memories he used to spend many summers there as a boy. [End of Tape 1] CZ:  This is tape two of the interview with Zoya Mesh on the 17th day of June, the year 2000. And we are going to talk a bit about Zoya's experience of coming to the United States. Why don't we start with that, what happened after your interview in Moscow. And we just had lunch so we're both quite full and I hope alert enough! ZM:  I doubt it! OK, it was a tough decision to emigrate. Even many of our friends were leaving the country. Like right now we have, from my side, one cousin's family living in Moscow and on my husband's side, his cousin lives in Moscow too. All our friends, almost, moved out. Some of them emigrated to Israel. Some of them are here in U.S. but they are all spread out. Anyway, it was hard to make a decision to leave the country but my brother-in-law he was brave enough, or smart enough, and he was the first one. He said I'm not gonna stay here, I'm leaving no matter what. He left in 1991. It was spring. He came to Tucson. He was on his own. It was hard for him because he used to be close to his family. Now he was lonely, asking every time when we called him, "Are you gonna come or not? Where are you? Did you pack your stuff yet?" Of course my mother-in-law, she was heartbroken and missing her son a lot. But that's not what was on the case why we left. It was about time. Things were not going well for anybody even times were not like in the past, when people had really big problems and they were emigrating. It was a horrible situation and I bet everybody heard how they called and treated dissidents, how they'd been labeled those people and there were trials and people were kicked out of country almost naked and were separated. CZ:  What was a dissident? ZM:  Literally, maverick. Dissident was a person-my understanding-it was a person who was brave enough to speak up to show up and talk about things that are wrong in politics, regarding culture, religion ideology. There were people who were trying to fix things or bring to everybody's attention...it was not only Jewish people who were trying to escape the country to find the connections and leave the country because they disagreed with politics and ideology. Between them were people like Shiransky or Brodski or other people, the writers, intellectuals and artists. That was the late 60s. Everything was done by government and KGB to threaten and suppress this movement. In late 80s everything was much different and easier to live in former Soviet Union. When we had an opportunity and we applied and were interviewed in Spring of 1992 in Moscow. W got back home to pack our stuff. We had things to sell at least to collect some money together to begin with us, when we moved out from the country. CZ:  Did they give you any idea how long it would take for your application to be approved? ZM:  No, we didn't know how long does it take but we asked around, talking to people, whose papers through when I mailed the application it was almost like nobody to ask about details and I mail it from St. Petersburg (from Leningrad). I asked, just learning from other people how and who did what and how long did it take and I was really surprised it happened that soon. I would say the 12th month is very fast. I got an application through and our interview through. We got back home and started getting ready. It took us awhile because we needed to have all paperwork done and all our certificates and passports ready to go. So it took us almost 12 months to get ready and leave the country. Everything mostly been done by husband and me for the rest of the family. CZ:  The family you're talking about, are you and your son and your husband, and your mother-in-law, father-in-law and your mother. ZM:  Yes, my husband's parents and my mother. Even some documents for Misha, my brother- in-law, he wanted to have something done there for him. And also some relatives in town. On April 23, 1993 we left Russia and we arrived to Tucson. It was a long journey. It was almost 24 hours trip, flight from St. Petersburg to New York. CZ:  Direct flight from St. Petersburg to New York? ZM:  We landed in Dublin. CZ:  Change planes? ZM:  It was a Russian plane we took from St. Petersburg to New York. Then we flew to Dallas, Phoenix and then Tucson, as I remember. We were falling asleep when the airport electric car was taking us from one gate to another in Dallas Airport. To me it was a real long way from one terminal to another. We were falling asleep on the car and opening my eyes and looked at lights around and we're still on our ride on that little car. That's a huge airport there too. I felt like I was just in some kind of underground dream. And when we got to Tucson airport it was really late at night. It was after 11 p.m. And there was crowds meeting us at airport. It was my brother-in-law, of course, and his girlfriend and some American people. There and Fred Klein (then of Jewish Family and Children's Service), first of all, with his camera. And he was taking pictures and welcoming us and it was very nice. It was very warming, very touching. They took us to our apartment where we were supposed to live. CZ:  And where was there? ZM:  It was Edison Street, on Craycroft and Grant, behind Safeway supermarket. The refrigerator was full of groceries with lots of food and fruit in it. Amazing. All kinds of food I'd never seen back in my hometown. There were beds for everybody and good furniture. We did not expect anything like that, surprising. We just drop our luggage and fell asleep right after people left. But that was a great welcome. Fred was very caring and very helpful throughout our first steps and later on, any time when I needed his help or advice he was there, not only for our family but for many others, and that was very nice and very kind of him. CZ:  What month was this? ZM:  That was April, end of April of 1993, and it was pretty warm already. We wore boots, warm coats and sweaters when we first stepped off of the plane. It was kind of funny because the people who met us were in shorts and tee shirts. There we met our future friends. We didn't know them of course. CZ:  And who are they? ZM:  Sandra Chiason and her family: two children, Amy and Andy and Rob Nyberg. Then we became very close friends and they're still our friends. CZ:  So you settled in and you found, you weren't working? ZM:  No. We didn't work in the beginning. First I went, my husband didn't, to take English as a Second Language classes at the Adult Education School. Then I took some classes at Pima College. CZ:  How come your husband didn't go? ZM:  He decided that he will learn better on his own. That would be easier for him to learn that way. CZ:  Did he learn pretty well? ZM:  He was doing pretty well. He was using tape recorder and listening tapes and doing exercises from the books. So he was working hard until he found the job. CZ:  And your son came in April and he didn't start to school right away. ZM:  No he didn't. We have tried to put him to the Hebrew Academy of Tucson. But then only one month left until the school year. We've been told to wait until next school year. CZ:  So you went to school to learn English, ESL, for awhile. ZM:  Yes, we did. To help our son to adopt the language faster, we put him to summer camp in JCC. It was available for all immigrant children for free, along with membership for one year. CZ:  How did he do? ZM:  It was very difficult for him. It was hard. There was only one child who spoke Russian. His family came like us, but two years before we did. That boy was our son's age, and he spoke Russian and it was kind of a connection for Jenya. But, you know children, as a 6 year old he was not interested to speak Russian with one boy only, when the rest of kids are speaking English. He was interested in playing with other kids. So, it was a rough time for our son. He felt isolated. But he coped. CZ:  He started in school in September at Tucson Hebrew Academy? ZM:  Yes, he was there for three years. First grade he started at Anshai Israel, the school was located there first. Then new building for THA was built on River Road. Jenya started his second grade there. And he stayed there second and third year and then we put him in public school. CZ:  And you found a job? ZM:  Yes, I found a job. First I working part time at Pima Community College. Then I was hired for full time and I'm still working there now. CZ:  And your job is...? ZM:  I'm a laboratory specialist. I'm working for the science department for environmental technology and chemistry. So I'm helping instructors, assist instructors and students during class time, taking care of fine instruments and I'm working dealing with chemicals and all other things that requires at the job. CZ:  And your husband, when did he find a job? ZM:  Gena, my husband, found his job six months after we came here. That was his first interview and first job he got here in Tucson and the U.S. It was a plastic production company. He was working there for quite a long time, five years. CZ:  He was an engineer, a chemist? ZM:  Yes, he was in research and development department working as a research chemist there. Meanwhile my brother-in-law found a job in Detroit area because it was difficult for him to find anything close to his specialty here so he got a job offer and started working for Chrysler and moved out from Tucson with his family. He's still working there but for GM now. He is a good mechanical engineer. CZ:  And your husband's been in northern Virginia for the last year? ZM:  Yes, he moved to Virginia because he found a job my son and I are going to follow him, moving from Tucson, unfortunately. We love Tucson but that's how it goes. CZ:  Interesting how somebody from St. Petersburg can get used to this heat. ZM:  That's very interesting, yes, that's true. I would never even dream it in my life about such a place I could live in. I wouldn't believe if somebody tells me that I will be residing in desert. CZ:  But you're happy and unfortunately you're leaving. Is there anything that I haven't covered that you can think of? Or that you haven't covered? ZM:  Actually I didn't mention that two years ago my aunt came from Uzbekistan, my mom's younger sister. She lives here in same common house where my mom lives. And my cousin, my mom's older sister's daughter, with her family, moved here and she is here too. What is interesting, that they won green card through the lottery. We mailed them an application, they submitted it, they mailed it in and they won green card. CZ:  What's their field? ZM:  Actually she is a cotton processing technology engineer and material science. CZ:  Is she from...? ZM:  Yes, she's from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Asian part of former Soviet Union, cotton country. She couldn't find anything close to her specialty here. CZ:  Lucky, because of all the growth of cotton, all the cotton that grows around here. So she didn't find anything? ZM:  No, she didn't. They don't process cotton here. They just ship it somewhere. So she's professional, she knows the machinery, she knows how to treat it, how to produce the fabric and other applications for processing. There are not many places in U.S. for such a specialty. CZ:  It's really nice you have family here from former Soviet Union. Well, I'm not sure I mentioned when we first started or any time during the interview the relationship to Vera Kamanyeva. Zoya is Vera Kamanyeva's daughter-in-law and that's how I know Zoya through my friendship and my interviews with Vera. ZM:  I love her very much. CZ:  What a wonderful woman. ZM:  I could say, she is like friend to me. It does not happen often between in-laws. CZ:  Not especially a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. ZM:  She's a very kind and good natured person to begin with. I appreciate the fact she's the mother of my husband. CZ:  Well, thank you very much. ZM:  You are very welcome. I need to say here that you are doing a very fine job, gathering such information, and collecting and putting together bits and pieces of Jewish life. Our family appreciates it very much and I am sure it will pay back. Return to the New Americans Oral Histories homepage