Return to Lithuania and the Further Fate of the Author and His Family

My father and I lived in Lithuania in several different places while we searched for a permanent lodging. We had to obtain all of the necessary documents and a residence permit with a special notation in our passports from the local authority. My father asked our relatives and friends to take me to live with them while he was away. In Kaunas I lodged with Dvoira Levitan and her niece Rachel Shlimovich, who are relatives on my mother’s side. Later, I stayed at the apartment of a former teacher of Ukmerge Jewish Elementary Secular School, Shifra Morgenshtern, who survived by running deep into the Soviet Union territory with her family, sister Khava, and their friend Riva. In Vilnius I lodged with other friends of my father.

After some time, we settled in Vilnius. My father remarried at the beginning of 1948. His new wife Ida Sokratis had lived in the shtetl of Kupishkis in Lithuania during prewar period. On the first day of the war she had time to escape deep into the Soviet Union by freight and passenger trains. (Fortunately, a railroad station was next to her shtetl.)

Tsemakh and Ida both worked. My father became an excellent glazier, using the skills which he had learned from his grandfather Noah, also a glazier. Moishe Rykliansky (Tsemakh’s brother) and his family from Canada supplied my father with a set of glaziers’ diamonds for glass-cutting and other necessary hand tools. Outstanding skills and the great set of tools helped my father become a well-known specialist in Vilnius. Since he had excellent tools, he could turn out high quality workmanship while the others could not. I kept studying. Our life was becoming more stable. We received parcels from our relatives in Canada and France, some of which we would sell to improve our financial situation.

In the beginning of 1949, the MGB (the Ministry of State Security) agent visited us and demanded an explanation as to why we had returned from Siberia and settled in the Lithuanian capital. He came to us one more time a while later. Then, we learned that some of the former prisoners of Stalin’s camps and special settlers who had come back without permission from the authorities were deported back to Siberia. We decided to leave Lithuania and get lost among the many millions of the Soviet people and not talk to anybody about our past. The known facts of mass participation of the Lithuanians in executing the Jews had an influence on our decision to leave as well. We did not want to live with possible killers of our family and friends.

We went to the capital of Kyrgyzstan Frunze (now Bishkek) where some of my father’s friends lived.

My relationship with my stepmother had deteriorated due to her difficult personality, and I left for Alma-Ata (now Almaty, Kazakhstan) to study.

Time has passed. I became a railroad specialist graduating from the Alma-Ata Technical School of Railroad Transport in 1953. I was supposed to receive a diploma with honors, but… I did not get it, because the technical school officials referred to unimportant far-fetched reasons and I was refused an opportunity to continue my education at the Leningrad Military Academy of Rear Services and Transport at the Department of Military Communication where I had originally been assigned. I would like to remind my readers that this was during the time when periodic anti-Semitic hysteria began in the Soviet Union, and stirred up new waves of hatred toward the Jews. Later it became known that Stalin planned a mass deportation of the Soviet Jews to Siberia. Thankfully, we were saved from that fate by his death in March 1953.

I was then reassigned to work at the technical office of the Krasnovodsk (now Turkmenbashi) station of Ashkhabad Railroad in Turkmenistan. Soon thereafter, I was transferred to the Commercial Inspector position at the Mary branch of the Ashkhabad Railroad. I worked on the section of railroad that included Kushka station (Turkmenistan) at the southernmost point of the USSR.

I was drafted into the Soviet Army in September 1954. I served as a radio technician at mobile high-powered radio stations in the Army Signal Corps until my demobilization from the army service in January 1958.

I went to work in the coal miner’s town of Tash-Kumyr (Kyrgyzstan) in the transport department of "Kyrgyzcoal" after my service in the military.

I then married my old friend Dobah Barats who had been visiting my father and stepmother in Frunze in April 1959. Our marriage was registered at one of the district ZAGSs (the state civil registry office) of the city of Frunze. We left for Tash-Kumyr after a modest wedding. Dobah was a pharmacist and at our new place she took up the Hospital Pharmacy Manager position. One day, after eight months of our life together, suddenly she felt a pang. Premature birth had begun. Dobah was taken to the hospital, but the doctors could not save her life and the life of our stillborn daughter. An autopsy determined that Dobah had only one kidney from the day she was born. Her body could not cope with the pregnancy. Nobody knew about it, including Dobah.

May the memory of Dobah and our stillborn daughter never be forgotten!

I kept living in Tash-Kumyr.

I remarried on August 6, 1960. I had been introduced to my future wife Musia Geimanson by a relative of her aunt Khaya, whose family Musia was visiting in Frunze from Ukraine. At the same time I was visiting my father and stepmother in Frunze. I knew Aunt Khaya’s relative very well because he was a neighbor of my father. By a lucky chance, I happened to meet him near home. He asked if I would like to make the acquaintance of a nice young woman from Kremenchug and I agreed. After I met Musia, we dated for only a few days when we realized we liked each other.

However… each of us had to leave to go to different regions of the huge country, and it was uncertain whether we would ever meet again. We decided not to take a chance by tempting fate, or to procrastinate, but rather to get married right away. However, to register a marriage was not an easy task for us because there was a rule that at least one of the applicants had to have a local residence permit. Neither Musia nor I had one. Musia’s cousin Lyuba managed to get a temporary residence permit for Musia at the House of Collective Farmers (local hotel) and the problem was solved. The next day, after the wedding and small reception that was organized by Aunt Khaya, we left for Tash-Kumyr where I had a job and an apartment.

Musia was a teacher of mathematics. She graduated from Nikolayev Pedagogical Institute and worked as a teacher in Odessa Province. When we came to Tash-Kumyr she got a job right away as a teacher of mathematics in a Russian school. Thus our life together had begun.

I was invited to work at the Fergana branch of the Central Asian Railroad in the city of Kokand (Uzbekistan) in 1965. There I held the Senior Engineer position for 28 years until my retirement. I was responsible for maintenance of spur-tracks of enterprises and organizations in six provinces of the Central Asian republics in Fergana Valley; defined standards of interrelations between main and industrial railroad transport; and developed common technological processes of work for railroad stations with transport shops of large industrial enterprises. Besides my official duties, I often wrote different kinds reports and speeches for the management of the Fergana branch of the Central Asian Railroad.

I also graduated from an accelerated training course for engineers at the Tashkent Institute of Railroad Engineers in 1968.

My work at the Fergana branch of the Central Asian Railroad was interesting and gave me a feeling of personal accomplishment and satisfaction. I had become familiar with technological processes of many enterprises and organizations of different branches of the economy; oil-producing and oil-refining industry, power engineering, coal industry, chemical industry, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, machine-building industry, building materials industry, flour-milling industry, food processing industry, cotton-cleaning plants, and many others. I had to prepare claims and file suits for the State Arbitration where I was successful in defending the interests of the Central Asian Railroad.

I was well acquainted with the management of many warehouses that used access railways. It gave me a chance to buy necessary goods for our family without overpayment, especially during conditions of general shortfall in the Soviet Union.

I gained prestige with the managers of the Fergana branch of the Central Asian Railroad and managers of the organizations which had spur-tracks. I was a participant in many All-Union conferences for specialists from different parts of the country who performed similar jobs as me. Those conferences were conducted in different cities across the country. Their agenda also included cultural activities. I became acquainted with different regions of the Soviet Union; and gained new experiences and knowledge there. My work in Kokand at the Fergana branch of the Central Asian Railroad gave me extensive professional and life experience.

Musia worked in Kokand as a mathematics teacher in senior classes of a Russian school of general education. That school belonged to the system of educational institutions of the Central Asian Railroad.

My father made an appeal to the State Office of Public Prosecutor of Lithuanian SSR against his sentence at his friends’ advice at the beginning of the 1960s. By decision of the Supreme Court of Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, on October 3, 1963, the decree of the "Special Conference" of the NKVD USSR, on January 13, 1943, declaring Tsemakh Rykliansky a "socially dangerous element" was rescinded; he was rehabilitated; and his case was dismissed for the absence of any crime. However, nobody even apologized for the death of his wife in the Siberian exile at that time; for the expropriation of his property, including the store and assets; for the lost years; for the humiliation and suffering. The benefit which resulted was that the time he was detained in the camps of Kraslag was added to his seniority which allowed him to take full pension benefits at retirement.

My father kept working as a glazier in Frunze and was considered an authority on matters of his work in his new place too. We kept receiving parcels from overseas relatives and later his brother Moishe from Montreal bought him one-bedroom apartment, refrigerator, and other domestic electric appliances through the Bank for Foreign Trade.

Musia and I have two children. Our son Leonid was born in 1961 and daughter Ella was born in 1969. They both were great students and winners of many mathematics competitions, including the Mathematics Olympiad of Uzbekistan. Ella was a participant in the All-Union Mathematics Olympiad in the city of Ulyanovsk in 1986. Musia, who was one of the best mathematics teachers of Kokand, prepared plenty of students for those competitions. Ella, Leonid, and our daughter-in-law Yana graduated from high schools with gold medals. Ella and Leonid also graduated from seven-year music school (piano program).

Leonid graduated from the Moscow Institute of Railroad Engineers (now university) with a Diploma with Honors in 1983, and was assigned to work at the Central Asian branch of the All-Union Project Technology Institute of Transport Construction in Tashkent. He married Yana on September 11, 1993, in Tashkent. Yana is an economist who graduated from the Tashkent Institute of National Economy (now university). Yana and Leonid have two children, daughter Carolina and son Sam.

Ella was accepted in Moscow State Pedagogical University, Department of Mathematics in 1986, prevailing in a fierce competition for limited number of openings for non-resident entrants. She became a teacher of mathematics and information science, after graduating from the university in 1991. (She converted her Graduate Diploma to a Master’s degree in the USA.) Ella was assigned to teach at one of the Tashkent schools where she worked only for one school year.

Leonid and Ella are great friends. While Leonid worked at the Central Asian branch of the All-Union Project Technology Institute of Transport Construction in Tashkent, he had to go on business trips to many cities of the Soviet Union. Ella was studying in Moscow at that time. And every time, he made his way back to Tashkent flying via Moscow, even from Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Orenburg, or other places, Leonid intentionally made a big detour just to see his sister Ella. When Ella came to Tashkent to work, she lived at her brother’s apartment. And their warm friendship lasts until now. The children of both families (my grandchildren) are very close friends too.

When Ella studied in Moscow she met her future husband Leonid (in the USA Lawrence) Kulinsky from Kiev, a student of physics at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys (now university).

Leonid was drafted into the Soviet Army a short time after he entered the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. And after his demobilization from the army (by the time of his acquaintance with Ella) Leonid returned to Moscow to resume his education. Leonid’s parents Ilya and Alexandra Kulinsky were so-called "Refuseniks" (the Jews whom the Soviet authorities denied permission to leave the country) for a long time. However, while Leonid was in military service his parents nevertheless got permission to leave the "Evil Empire." They came to the United States (San Francisco) via Italy. After some time, Leonid and his grandfather Boris Kanevsky received permission to reunite with the family and they emigrated to San Francisco, California. Soon after that, at Lawrence’s wish his parents sent Ella an official invitation to visit them in the United States. Ella came to the United States with a guest visa to see her fiancée and they married on August 29, 1992. Now Lawrence and Ella have two daughters Ellen and Mia. Lawrence defended a thesis on biomedical technologies and received his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1998 in Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering. He worked in his "alma mater" for some time doing research work. After that, he spent five years working as a Senior Designer developing new types of semiconductors. Since 2005 he has been working at the University of California, Irvine leading a research team in the areas of biosensors and drug delivery. He also gives lectures at that university. Lawrence is an author of several patents and many scientific articles. Ella works in a big company where she puts into practice her knowledge and skills in applied mathematics and statistics. Lawrence, Ella and their daughters now live in Los Angeles, California.

Let us go back to the Central Asia.

On February 1, 1981, my stepmother Ida Sokratis passed away at the age of 76. Musia and I came to Frunze to support my father morally and help him conduct a funeral.

We were confronted with big difficulties there. The director of the municipal undertaker’s office (by the way, he was a Jew) demanded that we provide his office with a truck and gas to conduct the funeral. There was a huge shortage at that time. And for us, as visitors, it was an almost insolvable problem. Our pleas had no effect on that stubborn director. Nevertheless the problem was resolved by Musia’s cousin Fira Dubinovsky. The City Administration for Consumer Services where she was a chief engineer gave her a truck and gas to hold the funeral. After a year, Musia’s cousins Fira and Lyuba helped place a tombstone on the grave of Ida Sokratis. Our family is infinitely grateful to them for their help.

We brought my father to live with us in Kokand after Ida’s funeral. He felt comfortable in our home. I remember how Ella took care of her grandfather with a sincere heart and love. On November 2, 1981, Tsemakh Rykliansky passed away at the age of 86. He was buried in the Kokand Jewish Cemetery. Stalin’s camps of Kraslag had undermined his health. He could not withstand a simple appendicitis surgery. The local anesthesia was not sufficient to numb the pain, and then my father received a general anesthetic that hastened his death. While he lay dying, Musia and I were with him in the hospital.

May the memory of my father, Tsemakh Rykliansky, and his wife, Ida Sokratis, be blessed and last forever!

"An unbreakable Union of free republics," "the united, mighty Soviet Union" finally collapsed in 1991. The representatives of the old Soviet Nomenclature, administrative and political officials, quickly changed their "color" and became new "democratic" politicians and enterprising businessmen, introducing into the new independent states their old criminal methods of management and interrelations. And, of course, the crimes of the communist Soviet government against the people of the former USSR remained unpunished. The new independent states were overwhelmed by bureaucratic inefficiency, unbelievable corruption, fraud, theft, outrageous lies, and banditry. Without well-functioning market relations there was chaos, lawlessness, regionalism giving priority to local interests, and barter. Fanatical militant nationalism, chauvinism, and hatred against the Jews and other "aliens" flourished everywhere. The civil rights of national minorities were ignored.

The supporters of a feudal order were striving to take power in Uzbekistan and other states of Central Asia. Ideas of aggressive radical Islamic fundamentalism of the Wahhabit interpretation, the hatred of infidels in general and of Jews in particular as well as nationalistic extremism were widely disseminated among the local population.

We felt it all around. The internal situation in the state became worse by the day. Musia, our son Leonid and daughter-in-law Yana, their children three-year-old Carolina, nine-month old Sam, and I emigrated to the United States in January 1998. Ella and her family were waiting for us. Here we found, at last, a chance to live freely and have a good life.

Musia and I shared an apartment with the family of our son when we came to the United States. Leonid and Yana started to learn English in adult school right away. They took driving classes with an instructor, various computer and programming courses, and made their living by cleaning homes, cooking meals, washing and ironing clothes. They were busy from early morning until late at night. Musia and I took care of the three little grandchildren (two of them were less than one year old at the time of our arrival), and did housekeeping. About a year later, Leonid and Yana got good positions in big companies in San Francisco. (Nowadays Leonid is still working at the same software company as a Senior Manager leading a group of quality assurance engineers, and Yana works at another big company as Senior Business Analyst developing management and ad hoc reports.) After that, we were able to move into separate apartments. (Now all the children have their own beautiful homes by taking long-term loans from banks.) We (later also Yana’s mother Riva) kept taking care of our grandchildren.

Time kept flying by. The grandchildren grew older and Carolina is an eighth grade student in middle school. Ellen and Sam both are fifth grade students in elementary school. All of them are talented children; their parents help them to get an all-round education and cultural development. Grandmother Riva (former high school math teacher) teaches math to Sam and Carolina (in addition to their regular school assignments) to expand their knowledge in the subject. My grandchildren are always busy even during their school vacations. They read a lot (in English and Russian). Carolina and Ellen both performed in live children’s theatre productions. Ellen is studying to play the violin; and Sam started to play the guitar and the clarinet. Carolina plays piano very well and successfully took part in various piano competitions. She is good at drawing and dancing. Carolina takes jazz and ballet classes. Our grandchildren do sports: swimming and riding bicycles, karate (Sam), gymnastics (Ellen), and synchronized swimming (Carolina). Little Mia when her parents were at work was taken care of by a marvelous babysitter. Now Mia goes to pre-school. All the relatives are happy with her progress. We hope that our grandchildren will grow up to be good decent people.

On November 18, 2002, a tragedy happened in our family – my wife Musia Rykliansky suddenly passed away. She was ill, but nobody expected her death. I have lost a wonderful wife and a kind, clever, sincere, faithful, caring and reliable friend and soulmate, with whom I lived happily together for more than 42 years. The children and grandchildren have lost their amazing, devoted mother and grandmother.

I am now left alone in a subsidized rental apartment. I do not pay much for rent and utilities. All the children treat me with kindness and respect, but I feel very lonely. I am convinced that loneliness, especially at elderly age, is a horrible state which negatively affects the mood and undermines my health. I have lost my interest in everything. I have no shoulder to cry on, no friends to talk to, nobody to share my worries and joy with. To live a lonely life is not natural and painful. That is why sometimes when the night comes it is hard to fall asleep though I am trying to stay busy during the day. I have noticed that it is much harder to bear my loneliness nowadays than the same feeling that I had experienced in my childhood when my mother died in exile and I was left alone.