In this photograph we see my dad, Ilya Iosifovich Shif, at the age of 9. Next to him sits his sister Eli-Sheva, 11, and behind stands their brother Max .
My father came from a big family. Everybody spoke Yiddish and Russian in his family, and the elder brothers and sisters also had a good command of German and French. All the children were close. The family was a religious one and followed all the traditions.
My father, Ilya Iosifovich Shif, was born in 1904 in Minsk. From 1911 until the Revolution [1917] he studied in a Jewish school in Minsk. From 1920 till 1926 he worked in Minsk as a worker.
His sister Sore-Elka was born in 1888, and after her mother's death she took the place of a mother for the younger children. She studied in Germany like her brother Elkona, and he and she visited Minsk on vacation. Sore-Elka got married to a certain Ura. She died in 1943.
My father's sister Eli-Sheva was born in 1895 and lived with her father and elder sister in Minsk. In the war they were all put in a ghetto and died in 1943.
Inna Rajskaya's father, aunt and uncle: Ilya Iosifovich Shif, Eli-Sheva Shif, and Max Shif.
Centropa Collection acquired by USHMM
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