Kharkov, Ukraine
Moved in 1994
Moved in 1994
At the factory, they called me Sanya. So everyone knew me as Sanya then they called me Alexander Abramovich. Samson Abramovich in a Soviet passport. And in the current US passport - in the American way - Samson.
I was born in the city of Kharkov. When I was nine, the war had already started. On June 22, 1941, German troops invaded the territory of the Soviet Union.
My Mom worked as a surgical nurse literally from the first day. She was standing and helping the surgeon as a senior nurse, handing in all the instruments. And they were standing like that for days. Mom was injecting something through the surgeon's pants so that he would not fall during surgery.
I was born in the city of Kharkov. When I was nine, the war had already started. On June 22, 1941, German troops invaded the territory of the Soviet Union.
My Mom worked as a surgical nurse literally from the first day. She was standing and helping the surgeon as a senior nurse, handing in all the instruments. And they were standing like that for days. Mom was injecting something through the surgeon's pants so that he would not fall during surgery.
Phone call with Samson in Russian
Please find the English transcript below
Please find the English transcript below
Translation of a phone call with Samson
In 1994 we were leaving Boryspil. We flew. From Boryspol, we flew to Warsaw. In Warsaw, we transferred and flew directly to Chicago. And in Chicago, my eldest daughter met me. November 16, 1994. The fact is that my daughter who arrived before me, and while all this registration was going on... It was a long registration. And at that time we were allowed sixty kilograms per person, two trunks per person, I think.
Yes, together with Nadia. We had four trunks of things. And we had forks, spoons, I still have them, but at the airport custom rooms, they (Soviet border patrol) were checking when they were made. Oh. No, it wasn't hard to leave home.
My English was zero. In early 1995 I went to Truman College and had to buy a computer that had a program that taught me how to work on it. So I didn't sink low. My English still leaves much to be desired, but, in any case, I talk to people eye-to-eye normally.
What did you take with you as a keepsake?
Books mostly. Family photographs, books. Well, Pushkin, Simonov, Yesenin. This sort of books. Well, and one English textbook. Here, I'm looking at it right now.
A volume of Simonov, even two, although he was not a very good person in relation to us Jews. Yes...
We sent some books by mail here in advance, we knew that we were going here, so we sent them by mail.
Photos, books, old documents. I, for example, have a certificate of commendation for the first grade, where Lenin is on the right and Stalin on the left. Such documents. There are my report cards from the 1941 and 1943 school years in Krasnoyarsk in the school №47. This served as proof that I was in evacuation. Well, Mom kept them.
When I was little, I had to chop wood. I had to breathe normally, so I had to say:
He walks - walks through the trees,
Knocks on frozen water.
And the bright sun is playing
In his shaggy beard.
This is Nekrasov. Therefore, I remember a lot by heart . I can recite verses to you for about three hours. When I was visiting a garden here at Lincoln 6700, I sometimes recalled Simonov there:
It's like looking through reversed binoculars -
All that's left behind is smaller
At the station, covered by a blizzard,
Somewhere a tired woman cries.
A snow lump turned into a pea -
Her grief is invisible from here;
Like all of us, not asked by the war,
I was given a cruel vision.
Due to the fact that I know a lot of poetry, I have memory, memory itself. It helped me to some extent. I am not capable of languages, because of the evacuation. But thanks to the fact that I know a lot of poems by heart and my memory is trained, I can easily memorize new things. Despite the fact that I am 88 years old. Even 88 and a half already.
Yes, together with Nadia. We had four trunks of things. And we had forks, spoons, I still have them, but at the airport custom rooms, they (Soviet border patrol) were checking when they were made. Oh. No, it wasn't hard to leave home.
My English was zero. In early 1995 I went to Truman College and had to buy a computer that had a program that taught me how to work on it. So I didn't sink low. My English still leaves much to be desired, but, in any case, I talk to people eye-to-eye normally.
What did you take with you as a keepsake?
Books mostly. Family photographs, books. Well, Pushkin, Simonov, Yesenin. This sort of books. Well, and one English textbook. Here, I'm looking at it right now.
A volume of Simonov, even two, although he was not a very good person in relation to us Jews. Yes...
We sent some books by mail here in advance, we knew that we were going here, so we sent them by mail.
Photos, books, old documents. I, for example, have a certificate of commendation for the first grade, where Lenin is on the right and Stalin on the left. Such documents. There are my report cards from the 1941 and 1943 school years in Krasnoyarsk in the school №47. This served as proof that I was in evacuation. Well, Mom kept them.
When I was little, I had to chop wood. I had to breathe normally, so I had to say:
He walks - walks through the trees,
Knocks on frozen water.
And the bright sun is playing
In his shaggy beard.
This is Nekrasov. Therefore, I remember a lot by heart . I can recite verses to you for about three hours. When I was visiting a garden here at Lincoln 6700, I sometimes recalled Simonov there:
It's like looking through reversed binoculars -
All that's left behind is smaller
At the station, covered by a blizzard,
Somewhere a tired woman cries.
A snow lump turned into a pea -
Her grief is invisible from here;
Like all of us, not asked by the war,
I was given a cruel vision.
Due to the fact that I know a lot of poetry, I have memory, memory itself. It helped me to some extent. I am not capable of languages, because of the evacuation. But thanks to the fact that I know a lot of poems by heart and my memory is trained, I can easily memorize new things. Despite the fact that I am 88 years old. Even 88 and a half already.
Books brought by Samson
1941My father worked in the special construction-assemblage unit number 26. And we were entrained and taken to the east. And it was a secret, we were not told where they were taking us. And then we passed Ufa, Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk... Crossed the bridge across the Yenisei. And in a field one may see a forest far away, I remember, a forest, withered grass... And we have a command: detrain!
We detained. When our train left, another one arrived and the machines were brought. And they put the machines on those foundations that were made by our workers who were traveling with us and immediately began to work in the open air. And at the same time, they were building a factory workshop and a fence. It was a gunpowder factory.
Then, 1941, 1942, 1943… And the new 1944 we celebrated in Kharkov. I worked in Kharkov at a plant, which is now called Plinfa. And when I started there, I was nineteen years old.
