David Golod

My brother David Golod. The photo was taken during his service in the navy in 1940. He is wearing the navy military uniform of that time. He sent this picture to us in Kiev. My brother was born in 1919. After finishing secondary school he became a mechanic at the telephone station. In 1939 my mother died. David served in the Northern Navy, so I was the oldest in the family and felt responsible for my sisters. When I was in college [in 1944] I received a letter from my brother David from hospital. He had lost his leg and arm at the front. He asked me to write a permit for the return of our apartment, as I had been the last one to leave at the beginning of the war. I wrote the document and had it stamped at the headquarters of the division. He got the permit, returned home and married Ida, one of our friends. She and her mother moved into our apartment. David sold fabrics that his wife Ida and her mother brought from Moscow. There were no fabrics sold in stores, and he sold them at a higher price. David didn't like this work, but his wife and her mother insisted that he did it for them. He came home from the market drunk every evening and threw 3 and 5 ruble banknotes onto the sofa. It was hard for me to watch him being so degraded. David died of gangrene in 1950.