Russia: From the USSR

Yury Ermann, as he reflects, sits in his kitchen room table, with his head slightly cocked to one side. Most people do not like to talk about their past, especially if it was a difficult time, but Yury seems eager.  As he and his wife relate his previous life, they both have the eager, animated faces and voices of a great storyteller.  As he speaks, he pauses, as if he is reliving each moment…Uh, we all new that when you grew up you shouldn’t say anything against the government, that’s definitely everybody knows from day they are born. Other than that, you just go to sport activity, you study, play with friends, go to friends house.  I didn’t see any problems.  As for every child, in our country our childhood was happy as a child, because everywhere in the world kids are happy if they have food, parents, toys and friends, right?  But about the system, we used to live in a socialistic system, um; it’s much different system than we have here in United States.  So, every child in school, we had obligation to be in young political groups, starting from the second grade probably, we have to be from the start, we have a symbol, it’s a like a star. So approximately in the third grade, we had to become members of another young political groups, it’s sort of like boy scouts and girl scouts here.

On all levels of education, we had political science subjects, and we had to believe, like we here, we believe in god, we have to believe in our leaders, party leaders, and whatever their idea are. Officially you had to believe, it is not necessary hat you have to believe. Here, you could say about the government, about the system, we complain about the prices, the taxes, everything.  So we apply, and when we want to talk to somebody in our apartment about our paperwork, about stuff, what we have to take, we had even to cover the telephone unit so they wouldn’t listen us, they wouldn’t hear us.  Because every telephone they could hear you, they tapped the phones, everything; they send people to know what you are talking about. So now, you see for us, a little bit different than maybe for some American people when we hear on the radio that Bush, that um, FBI to tape some conversation, which is no problem in our opinion, for us is no problem, because whatever they know for security purpose, for us it was much, much more dangerous.  If they would hear that we are talking about immigration, that we already have some friends or relatives in other countries, we could be in trouble.  They would stop our paperwork process, they could do anything for us, they could put us in jail.

A lot of police brutality too, a lot. On the street, everywhere. If you had been caught by police group, you’d be lucky if your not going to be beaten.  And you will be beaten nicely, s that no, I mean that you cannot complain, that you cannot prove that you have been beaten, because they beat you professionally, in the liver area and the kidney area, so there will be no bruises, but you may not live to long, if you create some resistance.  I used to have a friend; right before we left Russia, it was end of 1978.  The guy was walking on the street, and he celebrate with his co-workers something, he got couple drinks, right? And he had nice clothes, a nice hat, you know, expensive clothes, going home; they stop him, the police, we call it militsa, they stop him, they took him in their headquarter, they beat him, and then they have to transfer him to some other place where they would put him in jail for several days, for nothing.  They try to tell him he was over drunk, he was not over drunk, he just had a couple of drinks, plus in Russia, it was not really a crime you know?  But they could tell you whatever they want to tell you, they would put you in jail for any reason they wanted, and you cannot say that you right.

 No rights for people, no rights. If you had been caught during the year, by police, for whatever, and if you have some like, activity that they register on you, you lose one salary premium at the end of the year when your working, because usually a company at the end of the year give you one more months salary, like a bonus.  And that’s a lot. Those people are not police.  You could bribe them too. Those this guy, my friend, when they transfer him in they vehicle, to some other facility, they were passing his house, and he says, come on guys, I live here, this my house, and you know I’m not a drunk, I’m a good citizen, I’m good person, so I will give you, like, some kind of money, just let me go, let me go home. And they let him go.  He paid them money. And the bribery didn’t stop there. The police stop you and they want to give you a ticket, for example, for speed, you just give them some money, and you can go away, and then they let you go with no ticket.  Plus, there is no record for speed ticket that would be punishing you, because you didn’t have insurance like here, at that time, it was not necessary.  But they made their own money that way. 

And our reason was to leave the country, and we were lucky that we could do it, because as I said it we were Jewish people, and anti-Semitism especially in our city, was very high.  And it was not only from some individuals, you know like good people here, good people there, everywhere good and bad people. But the problem was anti-Semitism was coming form the government. For example, I wanted to be a teacher, mathematics teacher,; and because I’m Jewish and when we go to somebody hire us for work, and we want to apply for colleges, schools, we had to show our passport, our documents, and we had over there nationality. Over here, all of us are American people; they just separate us by religion, some people, some Christian, some Catholic, some Jewish religion.  Over there we were categorized by nationality, and we have to show on our documents, which is for example passport. So when they open the passport, they see Jew and they say oh no, we don’t have the opening for you.

And a lot of people who were talking freely, they have to go to concentration camps in Russia, they have to go to prison, only because they speak freely. And, if you go to prison, you are not allowed to leave country after the prison probably for another five years.  Maybe some people more.  Some people, who have clearance, like working in military instillation, not instillation, even company who makes car, and car has been used in military is a said a security clearance, enough that you have to quit this company and for ten years, you do not have, you are not allowed to leave the country.  Most people. The security, is different, even if it’s in our opinion, they create problems for people.

I was a child when he (Stalin) died.  I was seeing people crying when they stated on the radio, that he died. When Stalin died, I was in friends house, and everybody start crying. They believed in Stalin.  They were brain washed.  People in our country, even after Stalin, even the time when we were leaving country, even some people now, here, they brainwashed that much, they couldn’t believe that it would be something different. So its actually was brainwash, whole country.  I do remember when I was five or six years old when Stalin passed away, and I remember my mother, my grandmother, and my father was at work, they were crying and they were saying, oh, our father died, so how much they were brainwashed.  Then on my mother’s side, I have an uncle who spent many years in concentration camp, he came, thank god, alive from concentration camp, and anyway, he didn’t believe that it was Stalin’s fault.  They accuse everybody else, but not him. He was like a god for people. People were brainwashed, brainwashed from the day you’re born.  After he passed away, when it was Khrushchev in Power, well, then they start to uncover some truth about Stalin, and then you start to know even more and more and more.  But even today I know some people who honestly believe Stalin was ideal. He was the perfect person, almost like a god, even today.  Most of their politics were concentrated of brainwash people. It’s happened in the world here, there, somewhere.

So that’s why as soon as we got the opportunity to leave the country, we took our son and we came here, because we wanted him to live in freedom, in freedom of speech, in freedom of person, he is what he is, people recognize him by his personality, his talent, his mind whatever. But nobody recognize him by his religion, and by his nationality. This is what’s great about this country, all people they come from all over the world, and they are the same, they are all American.  We recognize person by personality.