The Farbirovich family

This is my family in 1933 in Roslavl. From left to right: me, Chaya Sakhartova, 12 years old; my younger sister Milya Farbirovich, three years old; my mother Libe Farbirovich, 36 years old; my elder sister Divora Farbirovich, 20 years old; my father Girsha Farbirovich, 48 years old. The picture was taken on the occasion of Divora's arrival from Leningrad, where she worked as a lab assistant at the Public Institute of Industrial Chemistry. She was planning to enter the First Medical Institute in Leningrad.

In 1912 my father married my mother. My parents had three children of their own: Divora, Milya and Chaya, that is me, born in 1921. Mother had two adopted children as well. One of her sisters died of galloping consumption and her daughter Sonya, who was several months old at the time, was left alone. And my mother’s other sister simply gave my mother her son, Vladimir, to bring up. I can’t remember why it happened. Thus my parents had five children.

In 1933, when the photo was taken, my elder sister Divora already lived in Leningrad, where she worked as a lab assistant at the Public Institute of Industrial Chemistry, planning to enter the First Medical Institute in Leningrad. Later she graduated from there with the diploma of a gynecologist. In the 1930s Divora married a Jew, Abram Marshak. They lived in Petrogradsky district in Leningrad. Later I lived with their family during the siege. We were evacuated together to Vyatka afterwards. After the war Divora gave birth to son Lev in 1946 and in 1953 her son Mikhail was born. She worked all her life in an antenatal clinic in Leningrad. She died in 1984, several months after the death of her husband. Divora has always been a very close friend of mine.