This is a photograph of when the members of the Starodub Jewish agricultural commune, Unity,
gathered for the celebration of the third anniversary of the founding of the commune in the spring of 1921.
Among the organizers was my mother's brother Zinovi Levitin.
The whole Levitin family joined the commune.
The commune spread across the farmstead
Belovshchina in the Starodub region.
Every summer my mother Estra worked in the fields there.
In this photograph she is sitting with the commune members.
The summer of 1924, when this photograph was taken,
was the last summer before my mother left to Leningrad.
In the Spring of 1934, the commune was relocated to the Crimea.
The Levitin family stayed in Starodub.
In 1941 the Germans occupied Starodub and in the place of the collective farm,
a ghetto-camp was built, to which all the Jews of Starodub were sent.
After three days there, all the men were shot.
The women and children were shot in the spring of 1942.
