My grandmother, Esther Iosifovna Papish. The photo was made in 1911 in Zhitomir.
Grandmother's family came from West Europe. They came to Ukraine when the Jews were moved to Volyn. They came to Zhitomir area. That's where my parents - mother and father - met each other. My mother's parents certainly came from a more well-to-do family with a higher cultural level, with the knowledge of languages, with great love to music. They had special musical evenings at home. When guests came over, they always played music together.
Grandmother was an educated woman. She finished high school. At the graduation ceremony she wore the costume she sewed herself - you can see it at the picture. And for this dress she was awarded with a prize at graduation ceremony at a Russian school. She was an educated person, read a lot, and tried to understand things around her. When she was young, Zionism was born, and the advanced Jewish youth got involved in this new movement. And certainly when we look at a picture and see a woman wearing a homemade Zionist dress with a six-point star with photos of outstanding figures of Zionism, we certainly can understand that she was also interested in these issues. But grandmother was not religious. It was a family of Russian intellectuals of Jewish origin. She did not go to the synagogue.
Grandmother died in 1940, right before the war.
