This is a picture of Fira Sirotta, my younger brother Yasha Sirotta's wife, and their children, Larissa and Mirrah Sirotta. The photo was taken in Cheliabinsk in 1944 when they were in evacuation. Fira sent this photo to me and Yasha to show us how much the children had grown.
Yasha, finished a secondary school in Nova-Ushytsya in 1930 and entered the Pedagogical College in Kamenets-Podolsk. Later he worked as a teacher in a village school in Varyninskiy district in the former Kamenets-Podolsk Region. His wife Fira was Jewish. He rarely visited us. In 1933 he joined the Red Army and served in the Pacific Navy. He was even awarded the Red Flag order. Yasha remained in Liepaya, in Latvia, where he had served in the Navy. He was a history teacher at the Pedagogical Institute. In 1963 he lived through a terrible tragedy. Both his daughters studied in Riga. On New Year's Eve they were victims of a plane crash, which occurred when the plane was landing. My nieces died along with many other people. Yasha moved to Israel in 1990. He lived there for four years. He died of a heart disease in 1994. I received a letter, which said that he had been buried in accordance with all Jewish traditions. His son, Misha, who is a colonel and engineer, lives in Israel.
