David Levin’s uncle Haim Levin

This is my uncle Haim Levin. This photo was taken in 1940s in Daugavpils.

Father suffered very strong that he couldn't communicate with his relatives. He had many brothers and one sister. Their names were: Haim, Yacob, Udel, Itsik, and I don't remember the name of his sister. In 1934, when Latvia turned to become fascist, Itsik moved to America.

Meeting with this brother, whom he loved and appreciated, never happened. Haim was considered a wise man, but the cleverest one was Itsik, he even got to know Albert Einstein. Father's brother Jacob was busy in some religious activities at Latvia, in Daugavpils. I think it happened both when Latvia was independent (I mean 1930s) and after it became a part of the USSR (1940s-1950s). He went to the synagogue, to my opinion he even was its senior.

Later, in late 1950s they repatriated for Israel. He had a daughter Esther; we communicated with her in those times and continue to write to her now. Thanks to God, she is still alive. And when we've been to Israel, we've been to her. She lives in outskirts of Tel-Aviv. Haim was a bookkeeper; he was working for some firm or company. But when I first met him, he was retired already. And also I have his photo, maybe, pre-revolution one: he wears a good suit; he sits in a good cabinet. Anyway, he was some kind of economist.

Father's elder brother, whose name I can't recall all those days, (father never forgave him for that story with education, that story, which I told above) lived in Sverdlovsk [big city in Ural, named after soviet Bolshevik, today Yekaterinburg] and died there. I never met him. However, I've got to know his children, and his son Benjamin even followed in my own footsteps, graduated from Military College, and while he studied in Leningrad, he came to visit often. I was an officer and went to the college to meet him. He had a sister, I don't remember her name.

Unfortunately, I can't tell more about my father's siblings because first they lived abroad in another country, then some of them died (for example, Udel and his son were murdered by fascists), and finally I met only a few of them. So I don't have any additional information about my uncles and aunts or their children.