Rosa Freisond’s father Abram Freisond

My father Abram Freisond photographed on his birthday. This photo was taken in Yaryshev in 1920.

My father Abram Freisond, born in Yaryshev, Vinnitsa region in 1876. My father's family was religious like all Jewish families in the town. Before the revolution of 1917 there was a cheder in the town where my father and his brothers studied. My grandmother and grandfather spoke Yiddish at home and Ukrainian to their Ukrainian neighbors. I don't know whether my father studied at school, but he could read and write in Yiddish and Ukrainian. My father and his brothers had to go to work to help the family. My father worked as cattle dealer. He purchased cows and calves from villagers and supplied them to butchers.

My parents got married in the early 1900s. They had a traditional Jewish wedding, of course.  People in Yaryshev were religious and observed all traditions. After the wedding my parents lived in their own house that as my mother's dowry. Her father and brothers gave it to the newly weds. Our family lived in this house before the Great Patriotic War.

My father was a cattle dealer and my mother was a housewife. We were neither wealthier nor poorer than other Jewish families in Yaryshev. We didn't know any other way of life and were content with what we had. There were four of us, kids, in the family. My mother had 11 babies, but the others died in infancy. I don't remember, when my oldest brother Lev, Jewish Leiba, was born. My sister Lubov, Liebe, was born in 1907. Then my sister Lisa, Jewish Leya, was born in 1909. I was born in 1918 and named Rosa, Reizl in Jewish. My parents were religious. My parents followed kashrut strictly. My father went to the synagogue on Sabbath and Jewish holidays. My mother went to the synagogue on Yom Kippur. We celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays. On Friday morning my mother cleaned the house and baked brown bread for a week ahead and two white challah loaves for Sabbath. On Friday morning. My mother made us chicken broth with homemade noodles or gefilte fish. In the evening the family got together. My mother dressed up and lit candles in beautiful bronze candle stands, her dowry. She covered her face and prayed over the candles. Then we took down to dinner. My father didn’t go to work on Saturday. In the morning he went to the synagogue and when he returned, he read us stories from the Bible. We spoke Yiddish at home, and my father usually translated for us from Hebrew so that we could understand the stories.

In 1929 my father fell ill. He was taken to the hospital in Mogilov-Podolski where they identified his terrible diagnosis: liver cancer. He died shortly afterward. My father was just 53 years of age. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in accordance with Jewish traditions.