Esphir Kalantyrskaya’s sister Luba Persova

This is my sister Luba, photographed in Pochep in 1929. She signed the photo: "To my darlings Grisha, Esther and Clara. May this picture bring you live memories".  

After their wedding my parents lived in my grandfather's house. In 1908 their first baby was born - my sister Luba. My father bought a part of a house for his family not far from his father's house.  

The children were born almost every year. Ania was born in 1911, Grigory was born in 1912 and I was born in 1913. Clara was born in 1914. My younger sister Fania was born in 1917 and my brother Iosif was born in 1918. My father earned well and we were a wealthy family.  In due time he purchased the remaining part of the house for his family.

My sisters studied at school and later they graduated from the Pedagogical Institute in Briansk. 

My older sister Luba worked as the Russian language and literature schoolteacher in Pochep. Later she became director of this school. She married Mikhail Shatukha, a Russian man. After his service in the army Mikhail got a job assignment in Nevel of Leningrad region. Luba followed him. Mikhail Shatukha became secretary of the Nevel Town Party Committee.  In 1937 he was called to Moscow and arrested. He didn't stay under arrest long. Luba said that it was Lazar Kaganovich , one of the Soviet leaders that contributed to his liberation. During the war Mikhail and few other members of the Town party Committee stayed in town to organize underground movement in the rear of the enemy. One of his co-workers turned out to be a traitor. He told Mikhail that he had been ordered to escort him to the partisan unit in the woods. He shot Mikhail in the outskirts of the town. In the morning collective farmers found Mikhail's body and buried him in secret from Germans. Luba buried her husband at the town cemetery after she returned from the evacuation. After the war the monument to Mikhail Shatukha and other comrades that had perished after the war in Nevel.  Luba died in 1962. Her son Arnold lives in St.-Petersburg.