In early May of 1980, our family began the long emigration journey to the USA, filled with many risks and unknowns. That process took us to Warsaw, Vienna, and Rome and, finally, on June 28th, we arrived in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
America greeted us with bright sunshine, high blue skies, cleanliness everywhere that we had never seen before, and warm, friendly people. I won’t go into details about the invaluable help provided to us by the Jewish organizations in Minneapolis, without which it would have been much harder for us to adapt to life in this wonderful country – the USA. For a long time, we couldn’t get used to the abundance and variety of things we had never even dreamed of in the Soviet Union.
Our eldest daughter, Fieena, started working as a programmer at West Publishing Company on September 1. Our younger daughter started the 8th grade, and my wife and I studied English at the “Talmud Torah Academy” in St. Louis Park.
Gradually, we began to settle down: in November of the same year, Fieena got married, and my wife and I began working. As our English improved and with many continued education classes, my wife began working as a software development engineer, and I, as a quality assurance engineer.
Our younger daughter, Irene, graduated from the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota and married in 1988.
Before emigration, I dreamed of living in America for at least ten years. Reality turned out to be much kinder to us. We were able to not only raise our children but are seeing our three grandchildren grow up into accomplished adults building their futures and blessing us with two great grandchildren as well. We have been living in this country now for almost forty-five years and are looking forward to our forty-fifth spring and summer of 2025.
When we retired, I began to write. For the last twenty-plus years, I have written eight books and several short stories. Amazon will soon publish my second book, “Evil Time.” I think and hope I am right, but looking back, I cannot explain many situations that happened to my family and me personally without God’s help.
Back in the Soviet Union, nobody could predict what would happen to the family who applied for emigration. But, regardless of the dangers, I was fighting with my family for emigration.
I wasn’t silly to not understand what would happen to our family if we received a refusal, but I felt some courage if somebody or something was telling me that everything would be OK.
When we came to America, we were lucky to meet very nice people who helped us to adapt significantly to a new life, culture, and everyday behavior
Obviously, we worked very hard to learn English, adapt to new engineering positions, and give our daughters a good education, but without friends’ help, our lives would be much harder.
In 1994, we relocated to Milwaukee, where we had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Stanley Teplin, one of the nicest people we had ever met.
Our life became significantly better when we were introduced to the Comprehensive Dental office in Mequon, WI.
We are so obliged to Dr. Stanley Teplin, Dr. Marc Jacobson, Dr. David Teplin. Dr. Stanley Teplin also connected us to the hearted people Dr. Alan Kimmel with “Oral Surgery Associates”, Dr. Tim Gainey with “WI Endodontic Group”, and Dr. Brian Watkins.
While being in Florida, I had a teeth pain, and Dr. Stanley Teplin recommended me to the Dr. Sherri Bluth in Davie, FL.
We are very grateful to these wonderful people, great specialists, who brought the kindness of their hearts to help the Holocaust survivors.
What causes are most important to your family?
My family cares deeply about Israel and its safety. Especially following October 7th, we contributed to several organizations who are helping Israel in general and the IDF in particular. We also care about the Jewish community in Milwaukee. My children support various Jewish organizations and my wife, and I contribute as much as we can to the Chabad of Brookfield. As I said, we left the Soviet Union mainly because of antisemitism. We know how terrible it is, and with great sadness, we are looking at how antisemitism grows in the whole World and, unfortunately, in the USA, too. We hope very much that with God’s help, we will defeat these fascists sprouts.
What is the legacy that you would like The Drubinsky Family to be remembered for?
Our hope is that, first and foremost, we will be remembered as caring, loving and intelligent people. We also would like to be remembered as determined and courageous. Moving to the United States at the age of 45 with two children and ailing, older parents was risky and scary, but we were determined to give our children a better future and so we persevered. Looking at our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, we believe we accomplished our goals. Finally, we would like to be remembered as very proud citizens of this wonderful country. For nearly 20 years, we worked tirelessly in different jobs and roles and thus hope that we, in some part, contributed to our country’s success.
What is your hope for the future of the Jewish Community?
We have been very saddened, disheartened and worried about seeing antisemitism increase to the levels that we hadn’t seen in decades. Our hope is that people will not allow history to repeat itself and that the division and hate we are now seeing in our society, as well as in other parts of the world, will subside and, ideally, disappear.