Len's uncle
Judah is Drafted into the Russian Army
I mentioned before that I worked for the people from Goredicha. I lived with them a couple of months, and then I came home. Then I was called to the Army. There were many draftees, Jewish draftees that year, but very few privileged draftees.. A privileged draftee was the one who was either the only son of a father and mother or the oldest son of a widow, who was considered to be the sole support of the family. Also, if the family was doing quite well, and the father was maintaining the family, the oldest son had the second privilege. In ordinary times, when life was normal, and the Jewish people lived more or less a quiet, ordinary life, the second privileged son was never called to the Army, was never taken. There was also a third. If there was a distance of 40 years between the second and the third, then the third one was not taken to the Army.
In my days when I was drafted, many Jews already had left for America or elsewhere, many foreign countries, Canada, or South Africa, or Argentina. They wanted to escape the draft. And the Russian government decided to separate the number of Jews from those of non-Jews. In other words, they put a certain quota on Jews, that they had to draft that year 2000 Jews or 10,000 throughout Russia. So, a certain quota was placed on my home town. Jew only, not taking into consideration how many non-Jews were drafted. That was not important.
So, therefore, since there were not enough Jews to be drafted into the Army, the second privileged became non-privileged. And very often, the first privileged were drafted to fill in the space of those that had left, that had run away or gone away.
So, well, I was completely unprivileged, because my brother was considered first privileged. He was recorded as 4 years older than myself and the sole support of my mother, who was a widow. So, therefore, he was drafted because there weren’t enough draftees at the time. But we got him out when he was already in the Army, when he was already inducted into service, and he [one word inaudible] in Riga, through the effort of a cousin of mine, Michael, may he rest in peace, who lived in Riga, and some other friends whom he knew, who were close to the Army officials. And it took several hundred rubles, and my brother was [one word inaudible] and came home.
But when my turn came to report, I knew that I would be drafted, because my health was all right, even though I could have gotten out. Many Jewish young men of my age in the same condition of being drafted had made certain blemishes on their body. Some of them had the toe of their foot made grown over the other toes, and that was a blemish. Some of them pierced their ears inside eardrums and they became deaf, and they couldn’t hear. They were not taken into the Army. Some of them did even as much as chopping off a finger of their right hand, so they couldn’t use a gun. [Long pause on tape] blemishes and so forth.
I reported, of course, at the headquarters of the so-called Voynsky Nacharnik, the master or the head of the Army affairs. There happened to be one of these offices in my home town, and it was in charge of the entire district of Gomel, which was very, very large. It took in probably, oh, half a million people, maybe more.
Well, I reported for an examination as a draftee, and there was a group of doctors that were examining the people, and all the draftees appeared nude, standing there, hundreds of them. And my turn came. I was called up to the platform where the doctors and some other officers were sitting, and I was examined thoroughly, and they all, almost in one voice, yelled out, “Gojian.” Gojian means proper, fit, fitting properly. It means I am all right. And I walked out.
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