Jacob Goldenberg

This is my father, Jacob Goldenberg, a lyceum student.

The picture was taken in K.Kniazkov’s studio, Simferopol in 1896.

My father Jacob Goldenberg was born in 1881 in Simferopol. He lived in Simferopol before finishing lyceum in 1899. The same year the widowed grandmother sent my father to Paris to his elder brother Moses (Michel) Malinskiy.

My father studied at Sorbonne university at physics and chemistry department. He graduated in 1900 and entered medical department. He graduated medical department in 1909.

Thus, my father managed to graduate from two universities- scientific and medical. In the period of 1905 - 1909 he specialized in cutaneous diseases and syphilis, cutaneous tuberculosis. He was also involved in science.

In 1909 he went back to Russia. He worked in Saint-Petersburg hospital. In 1911 he took an exam in Kazanskiy university to start practicing medicine. In 1912 and 1913 he worked as a doctor in venereal and urological department of Simferopol ambulatory.

He equipped his office with diagnosis devices at his own cost. Father was not religious. To begin with, the family that brought him up, did not stick to any religious traditions, and cognition of natural sciences did not bring him to religious self-consciousness.

Father was loved by everybody from his surroundings.
He was strict and exigent to me, but still he loved me very much. Father had wonderful sense of humor, he gave everybody nicknames. He called me jokingly a fool. We had an elderly house-keeper.
He called her a hex. Some of our relatives were a little bit hoity-toity, and he called her an empress. He was smart , benevolent and willing to help.

I do not know how my parents met. I think, it was a prearranged marriage, though a love wedlock. They got married in 1914. My mother's parents were religious, and I think their wedding was in accordance with all Jewish rites. They both were very successful and educated young people.

Parents recently came back from Europe. Father was in France, then went to Kazan. He also worked in Saint-Petersburg. Mother studied in Germany. The honey-mooners went to Paris to father's uncle Michel. Father was to improve his knowledge in medicine in France. But his plan remained unrealized as the first world war was unleashed.

Parents came back to Simferopol. He was in the army in Caucasus military field and in 1915 the 10th army. He was demobilized in 1916, and in Batoumi [about 1600 km to the south from Moscow], he got ill. He had a problem with his legs, and there he was treated with therapeutic mud.

Only in 1917 father came back home and my parents could feel themselves a family. They settled in Sevastopol. Father began to work in the venereal department of the hospital. Then he established a hospital for treatment of venereal diseases. He did a lot in that field and also worked as a advisor for the institute of physical therapy.

Father was a remarkable expert in that field. There was also a school by his department. A lot of qualified experts came from that school.
Father was highly appreciated and loved. Many times he was selected as a chairman of burlaw court, [In the USSR there were comrade's courts, consisting of the most respectable members of the team.

Those courts were meant for minor delinquencies and violations of certain order or standards by the employees of the enterprise.
The could make an administrative penalty: deprive of bonus, make a reprimand etc.] and a deputy in the municipal authorities.