Avraam Paskevich and his brothers
My father Avraam Paskevich (upper row, on the left) and his brothers that came on a visit from the USA. All his brothers were musicians. This photo was taken in Kiev in 1932.
In 1914 my grandfather and his two older sons – I don’t remember their names –moved to America. My grandmother stayed with their five younger children. My grandfather and his sons were planning to get employed in the US and take the rest of their family there. However, World War I and the following revolution destroyed their plans. As it turned out, the family was separated for good. They were to learn to survive.
Miron, the oldest of the brothers, was eleven when his father left them. Miron was born in 1903. Faina, born in 1901, was the oldest, then came Lev, born in 1905, my father Avraam, born in 1906 and the youngest among them – Sonia, born in 1907. Miron, being the oldest son, became a craftsman to earn money for the family and later my father joined him to support the family.
My father began to play the violin when he was about five years old. He played at cinema-theaters. He began to work when he was eleven. He worked so for quite a long time. He supported his sisters until they got married. Then his older brother Lyova, the pianist, got employed. Lyova played at the ‘Continental,’ an expensive restaurant, where he was given good tips. By the way, in the late 1930s his brothers sent Lyova an expensive ‘Steinway’ concert piano from America. It was a brand new piano and Lyova finally got it through the customs.
The older brothers that moved to America became musicians, too. One played the violoncello and another played the violin. They visited Kiev in 1932. My father never spoke about the life of his brothers in the US. I even don’t know in what town they lived. The only thing I know is that they were happy to be living in the US. They made an impression of well-to-do people. I never asked about any details of their life. My grandfather died in the US in 1925. After the war my parents wrote them every now and then, but my mother was a Communist Party member and she was afraid that this correspondence might be harmful for our family. And they stopped writing letters. The son of one of the brothers was a colonel in the US Army and took part in World War II. He survived, but I don’t have any information about what happened to them afterwards.