Ida Limonova with her family

Ida Limonova with her family

This is I with my family. In the back are my granddaughter Olia Limonova and Alexandr Sneiderman, my brother Israel's son. In front of them from left to right are my younger son Evgeniy Limonov, I, my grandson Alyosha Limonov and my older son Yuri Shafir. This photo was taken on my 75th birthday in 1989 in my flat in Kiev After the war I met a journalist called Gregory Limonov. We got married in 1950. He was Russian. My parents wanted me to marry a Jewish man, but they didn't have any objections against our marriage. We had a small wedding party at home with close friends, my parents and my older son Yuri. In 1952 my second son, Evgeniy, was born. Regretfully, Gregory and I separated eight years later. Evgeniy has always identified himself as a Jew. He has a Jewish mother that raised him. When the time came for him to receive his passport, he had no doubts about what nationality he was going to have put in there. After finishing school he went to work as a carpenter at a plant. In 1969 he entered the Faculty of Industrial and Civil Construction at Kiev Construction Engineering Institute and graduated in 1974. In 1978 he married his colleague, Ludmila Bogomolova. She's Russian. They have two children: Olga, 22 years old, and Andrei, 16 years old. Ludmila respects my Jewish identity. They visit me at Pesach, Chanukkah and Purim. I cook traditional Jewish food. Evgeniy is head of the Industrial and Civil Construction Department at the Design Institute Dorproject. The institute supplies its developments to Moscow, Leningrad and Kazan. They provide supervision of road, bridge, crossing, and other construction sites in Moscow; and Evgeniy manages quite a few projects. Ludmila is a good engineer. She works at the Road Institute. Olga graduated from the Faculty of History at Kiev University with honors. She married a young Jewish man and gave birth to a boy, Dima, a year ago. Her husband Evgeniy studies at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. Andrei finished school and entered the Kiev Engineering Construction Institute. My older son Yuri married his fellow student, a pretty blonde girl called Julia, in 1957. She came from Melitopol. She had a Jewish mother and a Ukrainian father. They had a wedding in autumn, and in spring they graduated from the Institute and got a job at the Zaporozhye transformer plant. Yuri worked at this plant for 44 years. He designed transformers that were in demand at foreign markets, but he didn't go abroad to advertise his products. He wasn't allowed to because of his nationality. I felt so unhappy about this. Yuri always identified himself as a Jew and has always been interested in Jewish culture and history. I'm happy to have my children living near me. I don't want to move to Israel or Germany. I am very attached to this land. I'm a pensioner. I believe that I achieved much in my life. I'm happy about it. I've lived an interesting life. I had wonderful parents and I'm very proud of my sons. I had an interesting job and met many intelligent and educated people. I worked within the Ukrainian circle of writers, artists and journalists and my nationality wasn't an issue. I have always been respected. I had many Ukrainian and Russian friends throughout the decades.
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