Michael Litvinovsky
Engineer, Economist
Please tell us a little about your career.
My profession is an engineer-economist in heavy industry. I graduated from the Tashkent Aviation College, and studied at the Polytechnic Institute. At first I worked as an engineer-economist, worked my way up, and moved to work in the Ministry of Construction, and later then in the State Committee on Prices. In Israel, I worked for six years at a factory as a simple worker. I then he left everything and decided to work for myself, first as the owner of a grocery store, and later in transportation and worked for twenty-eight years as a driver, including in the field of tourism. I moved to Canada in 2020.
Where does your family come from?
As far as I remember from the stories of my parents, my father’s roots come from Germany. My great-grandfather had a kosher slaughterhouse in Germany. My father told me that during the First World War, my great-grandfather's slaughterhouse in Germany was bombed, and he and his whole family moved to Belarus. His son (my grandfather Moishe, who I was named after) continued his father's work in Belarus in the town of Grozovo, in the Gomel region. My grandfather Moishe's two older sisters left for America. At the very beginning of the war, on June 28, 1941, the Germans occupied Minsk. The whole family wanted to leave, but my grandfather said that his father worked well with the Germans in Germany, and he would also be able to negotiate with them. Ultimately, the Germans shot almost the entire family — both parents and nine out of eleven children. Only two survived — my father and his older sister. And that's because they were forced to evacuate along with the organizations where they worked.
On my mother's side, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother are from Poland. My mother’s parents ended up in Ukraine and lived in Bila Tserkva, not far from Kiev. During the war, they were also evacuated to Uzbekistan. That's why I was born in Tashkent. My mother's father was a synagogue gabay (an official in the Jewish community or synagogue in charge of organizational and financial affairs), and we observed all the main Jewish holidays in our home.
My wife comes from a Romanian-Moldovan Jewish family, the same background as the famous Israeli violinist Sanya Kroiter. During the war, my wife's grandfather , Abram, was sent to the front, and her grandmother, Leah, died during a bombing while being evacuated. The children were taken to an orphanage and brought to Uzbekistan. There they were found by their father after the war. His daughter is my wife's mother. By the time my wife and I got married, my grandparents had already died, and on Jewish holidays we went to grandfather Abram. My wife's uncle and brother-in-law (her older sister's husband) were big sponsors of the central synagogue of Tashkent, located on Sapernaya Street.
What do you do in your free time?
Do you have any hobbies? In my free time I study English. I really want to better understand what is happening around. At one time I was engaged in collecting small cars. It’s not so simple, there is a whole science to it. I used to buy model cars and glue them together myself. I had about seventy such home-made cars. But now there is not enough time for this hobby, since my wife and I are grandparents to four small grandchildren under the age of four who we help take care of.
If you had the opportunity to meet any person in history, who would you choose, and why?
I have never met or communicated with any of the celebrities, but if I had such an opportunity, I would be very happy to talk with the great Arkady Raikin. I am sure that everyone knows about him — he is an unsurpassed artist and the greatest comedian of the last century. He always carried his Jewishness with pride. Once, on tour in Kiev, a very unpleasant incident happened to him. He performed a monologue in which there were such words: “Ask me:“ Who are you? - I will answer: "Ba-la-laykin!" But after the words "Who are you?" loudly shouted from the hall: “You are a Jew!” There was deathly silence. Raikin began to clarify: “Who said this?”, But no one answered. Then he shouted right from the stage: “Comrades, I ask you, please return the money for the tickets to the audience! I will set foot in this anti-Semitic city again!” And he kept his word. Even when the Minister of Culture of the USSR, Ekaterina Furtseva, insisted on a tour in Kiev, Raikin did not concede.
What are your plans for the future?
In Canada, we are almost newcomers — we’ve been here for only a year and a half. My plans are to learn English and be able to get a decent job. At the same time, we need to devote time to our grandchildren, always be with our family, and not fall down in life. And if you do fall, then you need to get up and keep moving forward.
