As I previously wrote, a Jewish school was organized in Kopaigorod in 1921 called the Kopaigorod Jewish Labor School. It began as a four year school and was later reorganized as a seven year Jewish school. One-hundred-thirty-four students attended in 1932 and twenty students graduated in the same year. The school was dissolved in 1939 and merged with the Ukrainian secondary school. The director of the Jewish school in the 1930's was J. Kramer. He graduated from the Jewish Faculty of the Pedagogical Institute in Odessa, after which he was sent to head the school in Kopaigorod. Kramer knew Yiddish, Hebrew, German and French. After the Jewish school closed he worked in a Ukrainian school.

The first library opened in Kopaigorod in the 1930's. For some time Yosyp Yakovych Kramer was the director of the library where his wife also worked. Yosyp was a creative person who also played the violin. When he retired in the 1950's, Yosyp instructed Jewish children, in their homes, how to play musical instruments (guitar, mandolin, etc.). My sister Galya learned to play the guitar from him. I was not interested in music lessons. Music was not my passion.

Reference to the number of students of the Jewish school in 1932

I am sending the information about the number of Jewish seven year old pupils and teenagers that are finishing the 7 year school this year in Kopaigorod district.

name of the district	region	number of seven year old pupils	name of schools	address	total number of teens	number of those who are finishing school in 1932
Kopaigorod district	Vinnytsia	2	Snitkiv Kopaigorod	Snitkiv Kopaigorod	134	20
The head of the educational department Fishchuk

Fifteen out of the twenty-five children in my class were Jewish. Their names are: Fira Gelin, Yana Hetsilevich, Xunya Zubok, Sunya Vinokur, Misha Kuperstein, Izya Rosenblit, Izya Tkach, Olena Lyahotsk, Sofa Libman, Zina Shusterman, Genya Friedman, Lyuda Goldman, Lonya Sheinerman, Mila Pudel, and Sunya Zhivylko who left the class after second grade. After eighth grade concluded there were only a few Jewish students who continued their studies into the ninth grade: Z. Vinokur, I. Rosenblit, I. Tkach, L. Lyahotska, H. Friedman and myself.

School years flew by quickly. We all had a thirst for learning. Those were the times when government personnel decided everything and the country needed young and educated people who would be able to develop the country in all spheres of life. We read a lot, held various debates and tried to understand everything and learn everything. Such were the realities of that time.

The first grade class in the 1954/55 academic year. Half of the students in the class are Jewish.

My fourth grade class with our teacher Polina Borysivna in the center, 1959. We were already seniors in the school.

September 1, 1963, the first day of school. My brother Yukhym (fourth from the left) began first grade. The teacher of his class was O. Petryk.

My classmates L. Lyahotska (left), L. Ivaskova and V. Kozachenko with the school's red flag, 1965

Jewish teachers in the post-war period at the Kopaigorod school. The director of the school was A.S. Knihina. Top row from left to right: R.G. Gorodetskaya, M.D. Grinman, A.S. Knigina, I. Ya. Kreymer, D.A. Moreynko, and K.V. Bekerman Middle row: S.G. Bilokoniy, S.B. Rabinovich, G.S. Pogorelov, Ye.M. Spektor, I.D. Tarigovskaiya, and A.I. Farber Bottom: Shteynman

One day each week was set aside for study. We often conducted practical classes on the tractors of the state farm in the village. I can say that the learning process was well organized. Classes were conducted by our teacher A.S. Sporty. The classes were interesting and useful and so we always tried not to miss them. The ability to drive a car or other agricultural machinery could be useful in life. Yet, in practice, the connection between the school and real life was poorly implemented. The mass transition of schools to industrial training did not take place due to the lack of jobs for school children. Only a small number of graduates actually worked in the profession for which they were trained in school. Therefore, the school again became a ten year school. There was one more graduation after our year, and then the school experiment was over. I finished the 11th grade in 1965.

At that time, no one had a TV yet, and only a few had heard about it. The first television set in Kopaigorod was a small Record TV that appeared at Zyuna Vynokur's house when we were in the tenth grade. It was an extraordinary event! We tried in any way to get to his house in order to watch something, but it was not appropriate to visit every day. However, we had a radio, like every other house. The radio broadcasts began at six in the morning and lasted until twelve at night. The radio was turned on at the radio station at the post office, and at home you could turn on the “dish” (the radio had the shape of a plate) or turn it off as you wanted. In addition, a large loudspeaker was installed on a pole in the center of the village, near the cultural center. When football matches were broadcasted we gathered around the speaker to listen to them. Alik Avis was the biggest football fan. When we listened to the broadcast of the football matches together with friends, it was exciting. It was not interesting to listen to it at home. We also listened to interesting programs on various topics on the radio and expressed our immediate reactions. .

And who wasn't sitting by the radio at eight o'clock in the evening to listen to the Yiddish radio station, Kol Israel? We closed the doors tightly, and closed the curtains that were hung over the windows. One of us was sent out to the street to make sure that strangers would not suddenly come upon our gathering. Sometimes we met at someone's house because not everyone had a good radio receiver. Despite the fact that the authorities tried to suppress this “wave”, everything was still heard. After the broadcast, everyone discussed what they had heard for a long time. After a broadcast, those sitting on the benches got up and went from house to house to find out the latest news. We also listened to the broadcasts of the Voice of America, Svoboda, and German Wave radio stations in Russian. These shows were a breath of fresh air at the time. We also heard news from the Voice of Israel radio station. When people discussed the news from Israel they lowered their voices, quietly turning to whispers. Almost every conversation started with the phrase: “Yesterday they jammed the radio a little less, it was possible to at least catch a few words” or “Yesterday it was terrible. They jammed it so hard that not a word was heard.” News from Israel was of special importance to many Jews. They were physically far away, but their hearts were in Israel. They took everything that happened in the Jewish state to heart. But one fact remained absolutely indisputable. After what these people had gone through, it was extremely comforting for them to know that in this big world there was one small place where Jewish blood was not spilled at will, where Jews were unafraid and could defend themselves. At the same time, they expressed their feelings with the following phrases: “Let the world know that the games with the Jews are over forever…” or “Arabs are scaring the bugs again…”, or “Let the Arabs not throw stones, then they won't have to break bones…”, or “ Nothing, our Golda knows what to do.” Of course, it was all expressed in Yiddish.

We often went to the cinema. We liked to suck lollipops or swap seeds in a dark movie theater. But there were guys in our company who took doughnuts with peas or liver with them and ate them during the film and we followed their example. We ate doughnuts in the dark and felt their power over us. In some strange way, the doughnuts enhanced our perception of the film. It was bliss. I still remember going to the movies as a child. It was hardly a matter of doughnuts and candies, although they were also a symbol of a delicious, happy event.

In the 50s, everyone became interested in photography. Simple Smena and Smena-2 cameras were released in the country. They were cheap and easy to use. My parents bought one for me and my friends also had these cameras. The school had a photo club led by the teacher V. Belov. Some of the black-and-white photos presented in this book, placed to enhance our story, were taken with this camera. In the late 1920's, a Jewish photographer from Chernivtsi, traveling around to various cities and villages in search of income, including Kopaigorod, where he offered to take photographs of local residents to have as a souvenir. He was a master of his craft and a real artist who didn't just shoot, but created his own photos. He knew exactly how to choose a place for filming. Then he placed his old camera on a high tripod which had served him faithfully for many years. He took some photos of his subjects standing, and for other pictures, he posed them this way and that, and told them how to tilt or turn their head and fold their hands correctly in front of the lens. After a while the photographer returned to Kopaigorod to distribute the developed pictures. People carefully kept these photos. They were not just photos, but fashionable photo postcards. The reverse side was divided in two: on the left half you could write a text, and on the right side you could indicate the address of the recipient and the sender. Such a photo postcard could be sent by mail without an envelope.

The time of family photos and albums is irretrievably passing. I belong to the generation of those who, when guests arrived in the house, along with treats that were served, the family album was opened and the owners showed the guests the pages of yellowed photos. At each visit the family members again examined old family photos and remembered the roots of the family. A family album is a family chronicle. Happiness and pain, tears and despair, weddings and wakes, and school years are close by in the pictures. All of it was our life. Although the photos were so simple, everybody was young and eternally alive in them. It's a pity that this tradition and family album disappeared, like the entire last century. It makes me sad to think that the new generation will not know the thrill of touching yellowed family photos, because they no longer exist.

We gathered at the club during summer evenings. There was a volleyball court there built in the early 1950's and typical for that time. Older student boys came back to town for the vacations, and local people gathered at the court as everyone loved to play and watch volleyball. We liked to watch the seniors play in the volleyball competitions that were held, and we were also taught to play. The director of the club, Vasyl Yatskov, and Adolf Lischuk, who was a volleyball coach, were in charge. It was said that Vasya “Bulka” (he got the nickname because he was so fat) once played for the Ukrainian volleyball team. He could play alone against the team and win. The town's volleyball and football teams participated in several competitions in Mogilev-Podilskyi and won prizes. Our volleyball tournaments in Kopaigorod were held in honor of our coaches, A. Lischuk and O. Palia, who devoted decades of work as coaches and teachers at the Bar Children's and Youth Sports School. It all started back in 1978 when the volleyball section of the branch of the sports school began in the Kopaigorod school. Over their many years of coaching, they trained hundreds of excellent volleyball players who won numerous victories in sports competitions, thereby defending the honor of the district and region. The first competitions dedicated to the memory of Adolf Lischuk took place in 2005 under the auspices of the sports community of the village. The first volleyball tournament dedicated to the memory of both outstanding coaches took place in Kopaigorod in June 2021. It was attended by Vasyl Tupchiy, a compatriot from Kopaigorod and member of the Ukrainian national volleyball team. Tupchiy played for the adult Kopaigorod team and served as its captain. Six other teams arrived here for the competition: two from Kopaigorod, and from Murovani Kurylivtsi, Khmilnyk, Vendychany and Borivka of the Chernivtsi community. Thus, this competition to remember the volleyball coaches is a page in the history of sports in Kopaigorod.

Forty years after our graduation my classmates met at school in Kopaigorod and agreed to meet here every five years.

My classmates: Z. Vinokur on the left, I. Tkach on the right. M. Moreinis is in the center, in Baltimore, MD. A meeting of friends, the beginning of the 21st century

A class reunion 50 years after graduation. Everyone who was able to come to Kopaigorod for this event in 2015 are in the photo.

As I walk the quiet streets of my childhood, I often stop to recall the stories of that past life. I think about the songs we sang, the games we played. I feel myself in the distant past, smelling the scents that have long since disappeared. I hear the voices that have been silent for a long time. I feel the cobblestones warmed by the sun under my bare feet. Now I see new houses in front of me, unfamiliar children running on the cobblestones, and then I remember narrow streets with the houses tightly pressed together. I seem to see familiar and unfamiliar people. I bow to someone, I smile at someone. I knock at one house, then at another, not modern houses, but those of the past, but no one hears me, no one opens the door for me. Those huts are empty, people have been gone for a long time, but life goes on. Come on, breeze, remember how we grew up, studied, dreamed, and fell in love. Then we parted and we went in different directions when I left my hometown. The graves of our relatives remain, we come to bow to them and leave with an indescribable longing for our native places. When we come to our native Kopaigorod more often, the longing will gradually disappear. Dear breeze, remember us and always greet us with a smile and warmth.

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