This is my wife, Erica Saks photographed in 1950 in Tallinn
I got married in 1948 and moved from the dormitory to my wife's apartment. My wife, Erica, worked as a laboratory assistant in our institute. That's where I met her. Erica was an Estonian. She was 24. She was a very attractive woman. She had been married once, but divorced her husband during the war. She had a small son, Raupo, aged 6. She only had a mother left, who always treated me fairly well. My marriage upset my father quite badly. He wrote me a very harsh letter condemning my marriage. He believed that I shouldn't have married a woman who already had a child, and especially not a non-Jewish person. But I loved Erica so much. My sister Ite always said that father loved me more than her. However, he had forgiven her marrying an Estonian, but he somehow couldn't forgive me.
As for Erica and me, we were a good and amicable family. We loved and respected each other very much. Her father died before the war, and her only surviving relative was her mother, who was very nice to me. My wife's family wasn't religious, so we never celebrated Christian holidays in our home, but we never celebrated Jewish ones, either. We celebrated New Year and birthdays.
My wife and I lived together for 47 years and brought up two sons. Erica died in 1995.
Elkhonen Saks' wife Erica Saks
The Centropa Collection at USHMM
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