Anna Ulik’s grandmother, Esther Papish, with her daughter Lyuba

My grandmother, Esther Iosifovna Papish, with her younger daughter Lyuba. The photo was made on October 9, 1926, in Kiev.

Then Lev, Lelya, her brother, was born in 1898; he is my uncle. Mother's younger sister Lubov Zakharyevna was born in 1911. Mother's mother, Esther Iosifovna, had five children. I know from stories that when she went to the United States in 1905 (she was sent there to study the education system of the US), her eldest son died. My mother said he was the most talented of her children. When his mother returned home he was already dead.

Aunt Lyuba, my mother's youngest sister, whom I and my sister remember very well because she visited us often and helped raise us when she was young; I remember that she married George Baklanovsky. They had a son, Valya. When the war broke out, he turned a year and a half. George, Lyuba's husband, was killed on the first day of the war. She and her son evacuated separately from us. She found herself in Rostov that was occupied by the Germans. A local family rescued her. Her life was very hard as we learned later from her stories. Some people betrayed her, but that local family told the Germans that she was Armenian in order to save her life. Finally, Lyuba and Valya came to Kiev. She had no profession, so she worked at a factory and was in great need. Our life was not very good either, but we did our best to help them. She died in 1978.