Bluma Lepiku and her sister with their parents

This is our first postwar picture. From left to right: my older sister Mena Shumiacher, my mother Luba Shumiacher, nee Gore, me and my father Yakov Shumiacher. This photo was taken in Tallinn in 1945. After returning to Tallinn from evacuation I went to work as a medical nurse in the navy hospital. My sister Mena was a manicurist at a hairdresser's. Our father played the violin in a popular café in Tallinn. Before 1940 it bore the name of Fleishner after its owner, and after the war it was renamed to the Tallinn café. Many people visited the café to listen to my father playing the violin. He played with a small orchestra. People applauded, when he stepped onto the stage. My father liked Russian romances and musical comedies. He put his whole heart into playing the violin. He had four infarctions because of working so hard. When he died, so many people came to his funeral, as if he had been some celebrity. And my father was a celebrity in Tallinn, indeed. When renowned violin players from the USSR or other countries visited Tallinn, they always came to see my father. After returning to Tallinn our family observed Jewish traditions. There was no possible way to follow the kashrut, though. Well, we did not buy any pork or pork sausages, but there was no place selling kosher meat. We bought beef, veal and poultry, then. Actually, we did that, when meat became available in stores some time after the war, of course. We celebrated Jewish holidays at home. My mother made matzah for Pesach. We did what was possible. The synagogue in Tallinn burned down in 1944. My grandmother and mother went to a small prayer house on major Jewish holidays. My sister or I didn't go there.