Memories by Rabbi Zalman Sudakevich

00:00 I want to tell you what happened. In this part of the picture, I’m standing there receiving the eggs. It was in ’53 or ’54, I don’t remember. In Moscow, at the Kremlin, there were shops and everything. The international cooperative—that was what it was called. And there was a pavilion, one pavilion, and that’s where this scene took place: I’m receiving the eggs, and my sister is handing them over. All right, she arrived there. Then two Jews came in. The director of Hamashbir Hamerkazi was standing in the pavilion. Two Jews came in, one tall and heavyset, and the other rather short and thin. One said, “There’s Zalman. Look, that’s Zalman!” The other said, “Which Zalman?” “Come on, don’t you know Zalman? He ran the... the... the factory Stalin set up to provide work and a livelihood for the widows of the non-Jewish officers killed in the war.” There were six hundred widows. I would receive the material for knitting stockings and distribute it to them, and pay them for the tights they made. When he came closer, he said to the other man—to his colleague; they had studied together one summer. Come on, his name will come back to me in a moment. So he said, “Zalman, we’re waiting for you. Come see us.” He meant the director of Hamashbir. I went to see him, and he said, “Do you know what an honor you brought the State of Israel? They recognized you.” To get into the Kremlin, you had to be someone important in the Russian government. “And they recognized you there with such acclaim, with such praise. You brought honor to our pavilion.” That’s that. But there’s something to add. After that meeting, he opened all the doors for me. When I needed to collect goods to distribute through the cooperative store, I had to go to the treasury, pay for the previous shipment, and get a permit. So he opened the doors for me, and I could receive the goods without anyone checking the outstanding balances. That’s that.