Roman Barskiy with his mother Bertha Kazakova

My mother Bertha Kazakova holding me at our home in Kiev in 1936.

Ethnicity didn't matter in those days. My parents were young and progressive and didn't celebrate any Jewish holidays that were considered to be vestiges of the past. My father and mother could exchange a couple of words in Yiddish, just because they came up at some point. This was the period of the Soviet power when ethnicity was no more important than the color of hair. My father was not a member of the Communist Party, but like the majority of people he believed that everything in our country was being done as it should have been.