Aron Pizman’s father Isaac Pizman

This is my father Isaac Pizman, photographed before leaving his parents' home for Mogilyov-Podolskiy to work there. He also gave his parents a copy of this photo for the memory. This photo was taken in Chernivtsi in 1927.

My father's family lived in Chernivtsi town Vinnitsa region 30 km north from Mogilyov-Podolskiy. My grandfather Leib-Shikes Pizman was born in Chernivtsi in the late 1860s. I don't know my grandmother's name. I can hardly remember my father's parents. I don't know what my grandfather was doing for the living. My grandmother was a housewife, which was quite common for married Jewish women. My grandfather and grandmother were religious like all other Jews in the town. The sons studied in the cheder and had bar mitzvah after turning 13. The family celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays and followed kashrut.

The family was very poor and my father became an apprentice of a shoemaker at 8 and began to work at 10 years of age. Under the influence of his older brothers my father got fond of revolutionary ideas. His older brothers were the first to join the Komsomol in the town, and my father followed into their steps, when he turned 14. Of course, my father and his brothers became atheists. I don't know whether my father's brothers had any education, but my father only finished cheder. He could not read or write in Russian or Ukrainian. My father moved to Mogilyov-Podolskiy at the age of 18, in 1927. He went to work as a shoemaker in a shop. At the beginning he worked in a crew of shoemakers and then got his own booth shop near the fire brigade in the town. My father did well at work. He was hardworking and had fair thinking, but he had no education.