Emilia Kushnir’s father , Yosif Leibman, with his brother Wolf Leibman and sister Klara Leibman

My father, Yosif Leibman (center) with his brother Wolf and sister Klara.

The photo was taken in Warsaw around 1910 at the "Renardi" studio.

My father was born in 1884 in the town of Radomyshl, in the Zhitomir region. I know practically nothing about his parents. I only know that my grandfather's name was Khaim Leibman and my grandmother's name was Surah-Milka. I don't know her maiden name. 

I remember the names of my father's sisters and brothers, and I have some information about them. Father's eldest brother, Moisey Leibman, was a bookkeeper. Until the Revolution he lived in Warsaw, and then he worked at a brewery in Kiev. He died in 1941 in Babiy Yar in Kiev.  (Editor's Note: Babiy Yar was the location of the first mass shooting of the Jewish population carried out openly by the Fascists on September 29-30, 1941, in Kiev. After the war, people spoke in whispers about Jewish murders, because according to the official version of the Soviet government, the German Nazis killed Soviet people of different nationalities in equal numbers. Whoever expressed another opinion risked being thrown into prison.)

My father had two sisters named Leah and Esfir who died in Moscow in the early 1930's. I know nothing more about them. Then my father was born and after him his sister Klara and brother Wolf. The three of them came to Warsaw to live with their brother Moisey around 1910. They stayed there; the brothers were working in commerce.  In general, Moisey was very smart, and he tried to teach his relatives accountancy. Then Klara and her husband, as well as Wolf, moved to the United States, where they died in the 1940's. The youngest sibling was father's sister Manya, who died in Kiev early in the 1950's, and his brother Tevye, who lived in Zhitomir and then until his death, in Moscow.