Dina Milts and Luba Marshak

These are two of my mother's sisters: to the left is Dina Milts (nee Rosenko), and to the right is Luba Marshak (nee Rosenko). The picture was taken in Tartu in 1922. Grandmother gave birth to five children, four daughters and a son. The eldest was Sarah, born in 1880, the second Dina, born in 1882. My mother Rosa, the third daughter, was born in 1884. Another daughter Luba - Jewish name Liebe - was born two years after Mother, and then, finally, the long-awaited son, German, came into the world. His Jewish name was Solomon. All children were raised Jewish. Only Yiddish was spoken at home. Of course, the grandparents and their children also knew Estonian and German which was common in Estonia. Sabbath and all Jewish holidays were marked at home; kashrut was observed as it was holy. The five children got good education. All studied at a lyceum. I am not sure if it was a Jewish lyceum. Sarah was the only of my mother's sisters who stayed in Estonia. Her sister Dina, a blue-eyed blond, married an Estonian German man, who was from Tartu. His name was Milts. He taught geography at lyceum. Shortly after the wedding, Dina and her husband left for Germany and settled in Bremen. Her three daughters - Gertrude, Krista and Inge - are elder than me. The third sister Luba married a Jew from Tartu, a tailor called Meer Marshak. His brother, also a tailor, rented the second floor in the house, where we rented the first floor. In general, the family was big and all were tailors. All of them, including Luba and Meer, left for England, Liverpool, in 1921. When I was a child, I knew Luba only from pictures. I met her when she came to the wedding of my sister Masha. Luba did not have children. When Father died she assisted us with money a lot. Gertrude, Dina's elder daughter, said that she helped them as well when life was hard in Germany after the war.