Engelina Goldentracht with her brother Julen Zorin

My brother Julen and I in Dnepropetrovsk in 1929. The photo was taken on my 5th birthday. In 1924 my parents left for Berdiansk on one of their party assignments to organize a commune in a village. I was born in this commune on 18th December 1924. I was named Engelsina after Frederic Engels. Later, after the war, I changed my name to Engelina. Shortly after I was born my mother's father Aron visited the commune. He insisted that my parents moved to Dnepropetrovsk. In the middle of January 1925 we returned to my grandfather Aron's house. My father got a job at the NKVD office, and my mother was secretary of the party unit at a factory. I stayed at home with my grandmother Matlia and my grandfather Aron. He called me ?my pet?. I was their first granddaughter - they only had grandsons before. My grandfather told me fairy tales and stories, both Russian and Jewish tales. In the morning my grandfather prayed, and I often helped him to put on his talit and tefillin. My grandfather attended the synagogue. Once he took me to the synagogue, which made my mother very angry. She forbade him to tell me any religious stories or take me to the synagogue or speak Yiddish in my presence. In 1929 my brother was born. He was named Julen [Junior Leninets]. There was a portrait of Lenin over his bed and a portrait of Engels over my bed. Julen later became a builder. He graduated from Kiev Engineering Construction Institute. His first wife Lida and his daughter Valeria moved to the US in 1978. In the early 1990s Julen went to Israel. I visited him in Ashdod in 1999. Julen died shortly after my visit.