These are my mother Pesya Shapochnik and father Joseph Shapochnik. To the left is their friend Izrael. He died during the war in France. I don’t know his family name. The picture was taken in Paris, on 15th July 1932.
My parents fell in love at once. In 1929 they got married. They had a wedding in Kishinev. The newly-weds were rather modern and unreligious, but in spite of that they went under a chuppah, in the central synagogue. There was a posh wedding with music and many guests from Leovo and other cities. My mother wore a gorgeous dress. It wasn't snow white, but pinkish. When I was a child I often asked her to show me her wedding gown and imagined myself in it.
When the feast was over, my parents had quite a lot of things to do. My father was to finish the last course of the institute. That year the tuition in Prague had increased and my father transferred to the French town Cannes, in the south of France. My mother went with him. After some time they rented an apartment in Paris. They were so indigent that they didn't have money to attend the renowned museums and palaces and it was a pity. They weren't entitled to work as it was written in their documents: 'Not permitted to work.' Their main food was rice porridge without meat. They were lucky if they could add some chocolate to it.
In 1931 my father graduated from the institute and obtained a diploma of electric engineering. They returned to Bessarabia. They moved in with my mother's parents in Kishinev. It was hard for my father to find a job, as Bessarabia wasn't an area where industry was developed. He was jobless for a few months and then was employed by a power station in Bucharest. My parents moved there.
