A person who was late a second time would automatically receive a prison sentence of 3 to 6 months. The decree resulted in total desecration of the Sabbath and holidays, because 90% of the Jews worked in state undertakingsand were absolutely compelled to desecrate the Sabbath.
Religious Jews would go to synagogue at dawn to pray quickly with a minyan, listen to the Torah reading, and then leave on time for the factory or plant and work like everyone else.
On the Day of Atonement 1940,431 all the Jews left before dawn for the synagogues, prayer and study houses. They recited the morning service, heard the Torah reading, recited the additional service, and then all left for the factories. They all fasted, [49a] but they were compelled to work.
After work, all the Jews returned to the synagogues and prayer and study houses and finished praying. They even blew tekiyah432 and shouted “Next year in Jerusalem”. Only when it was quite dark did they go home to breakthe fast.
On the subject of the Sabbath, it should be mentioned that the custom of lighting Sabbath candles had ceased completely. The Soviets tolerated rab-bis and did not persecute them, so a rabbi could either be maintained by his children or could become a caretaker in a factory. In that way he was able to avoid desecrating the Sabbath.
Synagogues and prayer and study houses remained open. Jews sat and studied in almost all the prayer and study houses. When they returned from work in the factories, religious Jews would go there for the afternoon and evening services. Between services, they studied the Talmud. The synagoguesand prayer and study houses had to pay heavy taxes.
[50] Jewish ritual slaughter was permitted, but the slaughterers had to pay enormous taxes. Kosher meat was thus hugely expensive, and in small shtetls where there weren’t many customers, ritual slaughter was abandoned.
Weddings were held in the ZAGS, but no one was prevented from putting up a wedding canopy and getting married according to Jewish law in a rabbi’s home. A tremendous epidemic of mixed marriages broke out. Jewish girls from respectable and even learned homes threw themselves at the Russian commanders in the Red Army. For their part, the commanders were happy
