Efim Bezrodniy’s sons: older Yuriy and younger Michail

Efim Bezrodniy’s sons: older Yuriy and younger Michail

My sons: older Yuriy and younger Michail. We have two sons. Yuriy was born in 1950 and Michail - in 1954. In 1966 when Yuriy came of age to receive his passport I decided that he should choose his mother's nationality. It was impossible for a Jew to enter an Institute or get promoted at work. To eliminate any suspicions about the nationality of our son I decided to change my name so that my sons didn't have a typical Jewish patronymic - Froimovich. I might have betrayed my father by changing my name but I was more concerned about our son at that time. I got acquainted with director of the registry office and she agreed to have me change my name, patronymic, last name and nationality. Of course, I had to pay her. I felt ashamed of myself for changing my name given to me by my parents. They suggested that I took the name Fyodor Yakovlevich, Ukrainian. But I changed only my first name to Efim. I did this for the sake of my children. I wanted them to be able to get a higher education. My wife, to her honor, didn't put any pressure on my choice. Yuriy got educated at Kiev radio engineering college. He works as an engineer. He married a Ukrainian girl Nadia and they have a 30 year old son Volodia. Our second son Michail got educated at Kiev engineering and construction institute. He received a red diploma. He speaks fluent English, works on the computer and is an expert in construction materials. He works for a big private company and earns good money. He has three children. His older son is adopted by him. He married a woman with a child. His son Andrei is 12 and his younger son Alyosha was born a month ago, in 2002. Although my sons are married to Ukrainian women and their nationality is written Ukrainian in their passports they sincerely identify themselves as Jews. They don't go to the synagogue or observe any traditions, but they are aware of their origin and feel proud of being Jews. We've never had any discussions about nationality in our family. We get along well and love each other. We watch closely the development of events in the Middle East and we are very concerned about the war imposed on Israel. A few years ago we even considered moving to Israel. But my wife got in a car accident. She was severely injured and became an invalid. We didn't dare to emigrate and the children didn't want to leave us here.
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