Dina Kuremaa and her classmates of the Jewish lyceum in Tallinn

These are the students of my class, in the last year of the existence of our Jewish lyceum, before the Soviet regime came to power in Estonia. From left to right: Bella Rosenfeld, Ruth, Samuel Gourin, the headmaster of the lyceum, Reiza and I. Buckie and Boris Rubinstein are standing. The picture was taken in Tallinn in 1940. 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.