Faina Gheller’s aunt Chava Gaitner, her husband Michael Gaitner and their daughter Tatiana

My aunt Chava Gaitner (nee Weisman), my mother's sister, her husband Michael Gaitner and their daughter Tatiana Lanzman (nee Gaitner).

My maternal grandparents had eight children. One of them, born in 1916, died in infancy. Their children were raised in the religious environment and were taught to observe all Jewish traditions and rules.

Their mother tongue was Yiddish. All boys were circumcised and went to cheder. Girls also studied at cheder for girls. When they grew up and received secular education, and also, considering that they lived in the socialist countries, my mother's brothers and sisters, like the majority of Jews of their generation in the USSR gave up observing Jewish traditions. Their families did not celebrate Jewish holidays and none of them went to the synagogue.

My mother's sister Chava was born in 1904. She married Michael Gaitner, an Austrian Jew that sell things at the market. They lived in Kuibyshev. Chava was a housewife. They had two children: their first daughter Tatiana Lanzman (nee Gaitner) was a dentist, her husband Michael Lanzman - was a foreman at the bearing plant in Samara, they have a daughter named Evgenia Baskina (nee Lanzman); second daughter Manya (nee Gaitner), husband Kim, daughter Lilia, I don't remember the surname.