Frieda Belakhova - My Past Life: The Soviet Experience

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in 1939 in Odessa in the Soviet Union, Frieda Belakhova was eighteen months old when the Great Patriotic War (called the Second World War in the West) broke out in 1941. Her father Meir, driven by the propaganda of Soviet patriotism, joined the army as a volunteer in the first days of the war. As a journalist, he was appointed as a war correspondent and dispatched to the army headquarters in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in the Crimea.

With the advance of German troops, the Soviet Army retreated, leaving the doomed volunteers to cover their withdrawal by sea. The last postcard from her father was written in the catacombs where he and the volunteers hid before they broke out in a last desperate attempt to avoid German capture. He was shot dead as he tried to escape.

Friedas mother was evacuated with her baby daughter from Odessa to Soviet Middle Asia to escape being killed by the German fascists for being Jewish.

Friedas early life was full of sickness, deprivation and hardship in both Uzbekistan, and later, after the war, when she and her mother returned to Odessa when it was liberated from fascist occupation.

In her book, she describes her childhood and youth when she studied at school and university, and her life as an English teacher. She was a witness to many historical events such as Stalins death as they unfolded in the Soviet Union.

She got married and gave birth to her son but her marriage eventually broke down and, when the possibility presented itself, she managed to leave the Soviet Union, after suffering many setbacks, with her ten-year-old son and very sick mother.

As refugees, she and her family were kindly and generously accepted by the Australian government and this helped to turn her life around. Though her mother lived only for a year and a half after they arrived in Sydney, she and her son made Australia their final and happy home.

Frieda worked as an ESL teacher for twenty-five years at a Sydney high school. She was sometimes invited by History teachers to speak to their classes as an eyewitness to historical events. Very memorable was a lesson for a class of Year 11 students, whose teacher was an American lady the same age as Frieda. Frieda told the class of how she fainted from grief when Stalin died at the same time as the History teacher was celebrating his demise with students in the USA. They were both thirteen at the time.

After retiring, Frieda developed another career as a Buteyko Breathing Technique practitioner, giving both adults and children the gift of healthy life.

She lives in Sydney and has two lovely granddaughters Sarah and Nina.

Dedicated to my mother Esther

My Past Life: the Soviet Experience

Frieda Belakhova

Published by JoJo Publishing

First published 2011

This edition 2015

'Yarra's Edge'

2203/80 Lorimer Street

Docklands VIC 3008

Australia

Email:

2010 Frieda Belakhova

Manuscript editor: Irina Dunn

Designer / typesetter: Chameleon Print Design

ISBN: 9780994256423 (eBook)

All rights reserved. No part of this printed or video publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author: Belakhova, Frieda.

Title: My past life: the soviet experience / Frieda Belakhova;

Editor, Orme Harris.

Edition: eBook.

ISBN: 9780994256423

pbk.

Other Authors/Contributors:

Harris, Orme.

Subjects: Belakhova, Frieda.

Jewish women--Soviet

Union--Biography.

Dewey Number: 305.48924

To obtain further copies of this book, write to Frieda Belakhova: bbh@tpg.com.au

Digital edition distributed by

Port Campbell Press

www.portcampbellpress.com.au

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FOREWORD

There are plenty of memoirs by prominent political and state personalities, military leaders, scientists, sports and arts stars, but of greater interest now are the writings of so-called ordinary people, in particular those ordinary Soviet people who lived in the communal flats and Khrushchev slums and did not stand out in any way in their country or even in their town.

And here you can ask the question: if they were so ordinary and inconspicuous, then what makes their memoirs interesting? First of all, it is the fact that their memories, which are sometimes funny and heart-warming, are mostly disquieting, difficult and at times tragic, and are told by people from the grass-roots.

It is very important to have as many of such books of memories as possible because only through these will our children and grandchildren, and future generations of researchers of our time, be able to truly understand the substance and core of the Communist regime which was the backbone of the Soviet Union, now passed into oblivion.

The essence of this knowledge is how the Soviet people managed to survive physically and spiritually, having been driven into Stalins kolkhoz and communal living, and having withstood the brutality of the totalitarian regime that dominated the country for some seventy years.

Frieda Belakhovas book is the story of her life, family, friends and neighbours told in an unhurried, detailed letter addressed to her son, but I would not consider it a family saga even though as such it presents a certain socio-historical interest too.

The value of Frieda Belakhovas narrative lies in her ability to notice the most characteristic features of people of that time, be it their appearance or inner world, the details of their social and national mould, and the motives for their behaviour within their family and society as a whole.

As her memories cover the period from her early post-war childhood until her departure from the Soviet Union in the mid-seventies of the 20th century, we become witnesses of her gradual psychological maturing with age. This gives us an understanding of the ways that Soviet society functioned and what conditions the majority of the citizens of the USSR found themselves living in.

The particular predicament of Jews in that society and country is starkly presented, and Frieda shows that being Jewish meant to belong to a separate nationality which was discriminated against in many ways. This was the reality of life that Frieda Belakhova and all her generation suffered.

I am sure this book will find its appreciative and interested readers. For people of the same generation as the author, the book will be a nostalgic reminder of their own life, and their personal joys and sufferings.

For younger generations and people unfamiliar with dictatorial regimes, it will be an eye-opening revelation that will allow them to comprehend what made so many Soviet citizens quit their native land to look for a brighter future for themselves and their children in other countries and continents.

As time goes by the value of such confessions and personal testimonies can only increase.