BITTER MEMORY OF WAR

INTERRUPTED SILENCE

TALKS WITH STRONG ISRAEL

IS THERE ANY REASON TO CRY?

Our life is full of paradoxes. Ilf and Petrov wrote in "Golden Calf", "There are Jews in the USSR, but there is no Jewish question". It is a bit different in modern Ukraine: there are no Jewish parties, but there are Jews-deputies! Though there were parties once.

Ivankov... A small town in picturesque Kiev Polesye. Prior to the Great Patriotic War it could be called both a settlement and shtetl. Jews constituted practically half of its population. Ukrainians, Jews, people of other nationalities populated the same streets, were good neighbors, worked together in the fields, shepherded cattle, brought up children and asked God to make their families happy.

May 23 our friend and comrade-in-arms, a wonderful man Anatoly Yakovlevich Gelman was 90 years old - a rather respectable age. This is almost an entire century, just imagine it - the twentieth one... Actually, Anatoly Gelman was not just an observer, but an active participant of the century events. In that uneasy and controversial reality this man, figuratively speaking, never swam against and with the stream. He "swam" in the direction he considered necessary.

Every year best pupil-girls of gymnasium - boarding school #299 are traditionally awarded with trips about memorable places of Jewish history. Our children have already visited Israel, USA, England, Belgium.

A monument to righteous men of peace was opened April 21 in Mogilev-Podolsky, Vinnitsa region. Representatives of public organizations from Vinnitsa, Germanny, USA and city mayor were present at the ceremony. With the help of Jewish community's activists a concert was held near the monument.