The Barvish family at a festive table

This photo from our big family album depicts the Barvish family at a festive table celebrating my mother Evgeniya Borisovna's 60th birthday. Mother and my stepfather Iosif Barvish are at the head of the table. Sitting around them are Iosif Barvish's sons from his first marriage - Chaim, David, Mikhail and Victor - with their wives, and my sister Sonia and me. Friends of the family are present also. The photo was taken in 1939. When Mother got married, Barvish had five rooms in a separate apartment on Znamenskaya Street. Such conditions were perfect at that time. Since Mother married Barvish and they registered the marriage, she became the wife of a proletarian, a worker. She didn't tell anyone that she had been repressed, she held her tongue. She kept the house, fed her new husband's sons. As soon as Mother found out about Barvish's job she started to ask him to bring home some glue. He began to bring back a small bar of joining glue every day. Mother, being a born entrepreneur, sold these bars secretly at the marketplace. In those times there was a shortage of all goods. The well-being of the family grew significantly owing to my mother's underground activity. As a result everything developed rather well. Later when she pegged her place substantially, she told her husband, ?I also have children.? He didn't know anything either about the boy or the girl. First Sonya appeared, as if by chance arrived in Leningrad, without a place to live. She fitted in well, though she was with a ?flaw" a warped face. Barvish had four sons and no daughters. He accepted her and decided to adopt her. She was Plotkina and became Barvish. Since 1929 Sonya lived with our mother. She finished school and graduated from the Timber-Processing Academy in Leningrad. All her life she worked as an economist in the field of wood processing at the A. V. Lunacharsky musical instruments factory. She was considered a good expert. Her work was very hard; she was the head of the Labor and Salary Department of the whole factory. A lot of people in their team hated her. Bonuses and other payments depended on her. There were always those who wished to get a bigger bonus and other perks. But she did everything according to the rules. It was impossible to compel her, she didn't take bribes, she didn't indulge anyone and thus everyone considered her bad. My sister loved me very much. Later, at the end of fall 1929 Mother took me by the hand and brought me to her husband. Here was a son, who appeared ?accidentally.? As if she didn't know that I was brought here. "There's nowhere to place him.? Barvish was a very nice man. Besides, he was very much pleased with the new housewife. I was allowed to stay. Thus, I began to live in my family again. I lived like his legitimate son. Barvish accepted me. But he adopted my sister legally, she became Barvish, and I remained Plotkin. All his four sons lived with us.