This is my grandmother Ita Markovna Goz (nee Faibusovich).
This snapshot was taken in the mid-1930s, shortly before her death, in Bryansk, in the house of her elder son Semen, with whom she lived after arriving from Mglin, Chernigov province. At the time of the photo she was about 74-75 years old.
My maternal grandfather, Moisei Goz, came from Radul, near Kiev. He was a pharmacist and died under unknown circumstances in 1918. The history of his death was always concealed in our family.
His wife, my grandmother Ita Markovna Goz, was born in 1861 in Radul, Kiev province, and after the death of her husband was compelled to flee with her four children from Radul to escape from Galaka's gang to the district center of Mglin in Chernigov province, nowadays Bryansk district.
Later she moved from Mglin to Bryansk, and in her last years lived in the house of her elder son Semen. I often disputed the existence of God with her. Being a young pioneer I was telling her - a religious woman - that actually God didn't exist, and she was nervous and tried to prove the opposite.
Grandmother had an old prayer book that she used for praying every day. When I think of her, I imagine her portrait from the photo I have: an old woman in a dress that she seemed to have been wearing forever.
Ita Markovna died in Bryansk in 1937 at the age of 76.
