Dina Kuremaa and her classmates of the 4th grade of the Jewish lyceum in Tallinn

This is the 4th grade of the Jewish lyceum in Tallinn during a walk along the seashore. Our picture was taken by the sculpture of the mermaid, in front of the park Kadriorg. The chazzan of Tallinn choral synagogue, Gourevich, who taught music and Jewish history in the lyceum, is in the front. I?m the 4th to the left in the 1st row. From left to right, in the 1st row: Reiza (I do not remember her last name), Bella Rosenfeld, Ruth (I do not remember her last name), to my right is Annie (I do not remember her last name), then a boy who was called Buckie and Boris Rubinstein. The 2nd row, the 1st to the left is Mariasha Wasserman. I do not remember the rest. The picture was taken in Tallinn in 1938. I went to the first class of the Ivrit lyceum when I was seven. I cannot say that I was a very good student, maybe I was a mediocre one. I wasn't good at mathematics. Sometimes I got bad marks. Usually I got good marks and rarely excellent marks. From the 1st till the 6th grade I studied in the lyceum free of charge, and from the 7th grade my parents had to pay tuition. When I went to lyceum, uniforms were introduced. The everyday uniform consisted of a navy blue dress with a white collar and cuffs and a navy blue cap with a white rim. There was also a festive uniform: a navy blue skirt and white blouse. We wore it on Jewish holidays and Estonian state holidays. We studied two foreign languages at the lyceum - German and Russian. My father spoke broken Russian, Mother spoke no Russian. I spoke pretty good German, but Russian was hard for me. Many students in our lyceum were the members of children's Zionist organizations. There were three of them in Tallinn: Betar, Hashomer Hatzair and Maccabi. My elder sisters were members of Maccabi. I didn't join any Zionist organization. I don't even remember why.