Anna Gandelsman and her brother Yasha Gandelsman

This is a picture of my mother Anna Gandelsman and her brother Yasha Gandelsman, taken in Priluki in 1905. My mother was born into the family of a poor Jewish fiddler in the town of Priluki, Chernigov province, in 1902. Her father Boruh Gandelsman, born in the 1860s, performed at Jewish weddings and parties. His family didn't have a stable income and they were very poor. My grandfather also tried to teach children to play the fiddle, but there were very few parents that could afford to pay for classes and this work didn't produce any profit. My mother went to live with her cousins. There were four sisters, their last name was Tsyfrinovich and my mother was raised by them after her father died. They were her mother's cousins. My grandmother Hana sent my mother to be raised by her cousins because she understood that educated and modern women living in St. Petersburg would be able to give her daughter a lot more than she could. My mother's brother Yasha, born in the 1900s, became an engineer. He was married. His wife's name was Maria. He worked at the military plant. During the war the plant was evacuated to the Ural. He died of ulcer in 1943.