Abram and Iakov Meyerovich with their wives

This photo from the big family album depicts Iakov and Ida Meyerovich - Marianna Meyerovich's uncle and aunt - to the left, and Abram and Miriam Meyerovich to the right. They are playing croquet. The picture was taken in Leningrad in 1924. The Meyerovich family came from Pochep, located on the border of Russia and Ukraine. Their ancestors owned a private printing-house in Pochep. They printed books and magazines. All their sons and their whole family worked in that printing-house. They were considered a wealthy and prosperous family, middle-class for those times. They were someone who is called ?ikes? in boroughs, which means cultured respectable people with a developed dignity. My father-in-law, Abram Semyonovich Meyerovich, was the elder son of Simcha, Kusiel's elder son. In 1923 he married his distant relative, Miriam Yudovna Medvedeva. In 1924 their only daughter Marianna, my wife-to-be, was born. Before the Revolution, Abram Meyerovich finished a vocational school, obtained engineering education in the 1920s and worked at a bread-baking plant. He was arrested in 1932 in connection with a slanderous denunciation, accused of participation in a Zionist organization; they tried to get a testimony from him against the bread-baking plant general manager, a Jew. He was a courageous and physically strong man, so he passed the ordeal. He didn't slander anyone and didn't sign anything. Meanwhile his relatives found some acquaintances who managed to get a release for him. During the war, Abram Meyerovich was in technical units of the Baltic Navy aviation, took part in the defense of Leningrad, liberation of the Baltic countries and the seizure of Koenigsberg. His wife and daughter were in evacuation in Omsk at that time and worked at an aircraft plant. A lot of their relatives starved to death in besieged Leningrad. In 1947 Abram Meyerovich was demobilized and the family was re-united in Leningrad. After the war he worked at the ?Krasnaya Zaria? plant, specialized in production of communication means, until he retired. Maria Yuryevna graduated from the Library Institute and worked in a library at the Kulakov plant. They lived at Petrogradskaya Storona in two rooms in an apartment, which they inherited from their parents. This four-room apartment completely belonged to the Meyeroviches before, but after the war a lot of locals had to make room for others. There was not enough space for everyone to live.