Lubov Rozenfeld’s father Mikhail Rozenfeld

Lubov Rozenfeld’s father Mikhail Rozenfeld

My father Mikhail Rozenfeld. He is 19 in this photo, he worked in the radio committee in Kiev. Signed on the backside in my mother's handwriting: 'Misha Rozenfeld. 1924.' Kiev, 1924. My father must have given my mother this photo before their wedding. She kept it her whole life.

My grandmother Gitia was born in 1885. She married Peisia Rozenfeld who wads a baker, in the early 1900s.They lived in Kiev. My grandmother and grandfather had seven children: my father Mikhail Rozenfeld was the oldest. He was born on 11 February 1905. All boys went to cheder and then - to the Jewish elementary school.
The Rozenfeld family observed Jewish traditions, went to the synagogue on holidays, celebrated Jewish holidays, and on Friday evenings my grandmother lit candles. They spoke Yiddish at home. In 1915 my grandfather Peisia died from typhoid, when he was quite young. Grandmother Gitia was to raise seven children alone. She had to send my father to a children's home to save her other children and his life, at least, he was given food there. In the ch8ildren's home my father learned the profession of a mechanic and supported the family working. He was very talented: besides working as a mechanic he wrote for a radio agency and later worked for the RATAU [Radiotelegraph agency of Ukraine], as a censor in the Department for Literature.

My mother worked as chief editor of music radio programs at the radio committee where she met my future father Mikhail Rozenfeld. They registered their marriage at a registry office in 1935. They were atheists and didn't have a Jewish wedding. My mother didn't want to change her surname from Rozenstein to Rozenfeld: 'Why trade bad for worse?' My father felt hurt…

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