This is Yefim (Haim) Korotin, my grandfather. The picture was taken in Nikolaev in 1930, two years before he died.
I remember that he was immobilized after an accident and had to wear a sort of corset. He broke his spine and couldn't move and was confined to his bed in a cast. My grandmother told me that he injured himself when he stumbled and fell once when he was carrying a heavy sack at the mill where he worked. Despite this, he led a full life. He was interested in everything that was happening around him. He read a lot, including Jewish books. Sometimes my grandmother used to read to him. I remember my grandfather's face well: he had a small gray beard and gray moustache.
My grandfather told me that Korotin was their original name, but they had relatives named Gomberg and Verbovetskiy. They came from Bobrinets, a Jewish town in what was the Yelisavetgrad district (now it is the Kirovogradskaya region). There was a large Jewish population before the war, but now no Jews live there. The fascists killed all the Jews in the ghetto in 1941 ? those who survived moved to other cities, or to Israel.
Lidia Korotina's grandfather Yefim Korotin
The Centropa Collection at USHMM
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