Leonid Karlinsky's father Meyer Karlinsky and his sisters: Hina, and Margola

My father, Meyer Karlinsky (center), with his sisters, Hina, (right), and Margola (left). The photo was taken in Poltava in 1912. For several years after their marriage, my grandparents had no children. Then, following an ancient Jewish tradition, they adopted Hina, a girl from the family of their poor relatives from Ekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk). Hina was born around 1899. After she was adopted, my grandmother Riva got pregnant, and in 1901 gave birth to Aron, my father's older brother. Their second son, my father, Meyer Karlinsky,was born in 1904, and their daughter Margola followed in 1908. My grandfather used to say that their children were a gift from the Lord because they adopted a girl from a poor family. When Hina grew up she went back to Dnepropetrovsk, her birthplace. She married Anatoliy Krugliak, a Russian who was the director of a plant. In 1937 Anatoliy was arrested, and disappeared. We believe that he must have been imprisoned, because there was no information about him. During the war Hina and her two children, Victor, born in 1933, and Tolik, born in 1938, joined us in Ashgabad. My father, Meyer Karlinsky, was born in 1904, and studied at the cheder like any other Jewish boy, then completed three years of primary school. Sometime in 1921-22 my father enrolled in the shoe manufacturing school in Rostov. He graduated and got a job assignment in Kharkov at the shoe factory. He was an active Komsomol member, and was very enthusiastic about the Revolution of 1917. He believed that it would improve the lives of many people and give them the opportunity to study. He joined the proletariat, which wanted to build a fair society. He participated in meetings at factories and plants, speaking on behalf of Soviet power and fighting against those who did not like the power of the proletariat. At one of the meetings, he met my mother, Bertha Tomchinskaya. My father's younger sister Margola married Golubev, a Russian man. He was a high official in the Ministry of Agriculture. They lived in a building specifically designed for state officials in Kiev. They didn't have any children of their own, but adopted Hina's son, Tolik, after Hina died. Margola died in about 2000.