Introduction
The period, that this book cover, begins with the first post-war years in the Soviet Union and finishes in the present day in the independent Belarus. The book tells about participation of Mogilev Jews in reconstruction of the national economy of the soviet country in in post-war times; about the influence on Mogilev inhabitants’ destinies of tragic evens during Stalinist struggle against «homeless cosmopolites», «doctors-killers» and «international zionism»; about secret religious life of Mogilev Jewry in 40-50s years of the 20th century in our city; about attempts of the renewal of traditions that existed in Jewish everyday life in the post-peresroika period.
You will be able to get to know about the input from Mogilev Jews into economics, military affairs and science; about achievements of Mogilev citizens in medicine, sport and art; about well-known people from Mogilev land, who have got their just deserts and whose contribution to the national economy, science, art or sport has already been estimated or, hopefully, will be estimated in the future. As in previous editions, in this book there will be many illustrations as well.
We describe the first post-war years according to archive documents and witnesses’ memories while that’s the participants of those events themselves who tell us stories about the following times. Mogilev citizens tell about themselves, their family and freands, relatives and acquaintances, about everything that happened in the last decades and that we were already able to witness ourselves. Their memories are full of feelings and emotions. This evidence is certainly subjective. Though one day those evens that are happening at the moment will become history, and in order to value them more or less impartially we’ll need some kind of time detachment. Some day in the future professional historians will be able to distinguish between facts and fantasies after careful analysis of all the memories and comparison of them with documents. Now it is important for us to collect and preserve all the evidence of active and actual participants of renewal of Jewish everyday life. Memories were being collected during the last ten years; unfortunately many of our respondents will not have time to see their stories printed, but we are happy with the fact that those stories are maintained and their children and grandchildren will be able to read them.
