Malka Kloz and Joha Kloz

Malka Kloz and Joha Kloz

My mother's sisters: Malka Kloz, on the left, and Joha Kloz. The photo was taken in Jonava, in the 1920s. My mother's sister Malka was born in 1908. She married Shulem Brezin, a timber rafter. He was a young and healthy man, and Malka was happy with him for several years. She had two daughters: Hanna, born in 1933, and Luba, born in 1934. This was all the luck she had in life. In 1937 Shulem caught a cold during timber rafting on the Neris River and died. Malka was to take care of herself alone. Girsh helped her to start a small business: she opened a small food store where Pesia was helping her. Malka and her daughters were in evacuation with us. After the war they moved to Kaunas. Her older daughter Hanna got married, and the younger one never married. In the 1970s Hanna and her family, Malka and Luba moved to Israel. Luba died in the early 1980s. Hanna and her family live in Israel. Malka is 97 years old now, as far as I know. Joha, who came next after Malka, was born in 1910. She married Meishe Steingoff. Meishe was a cabman. He courted Joha for quite some time. She told him she only wanted to marry a cabinet maker. So, he had to learn this profession, and Joha gave her consent to stand under the chuppah with him. During evacuation they got lost, but shortly after we arrived at our destination my father found Joha, and she moved in with us. Joha was a skilled dressmaker. She worked in the evacuation. Her husband served in the Lithuanian division, came back from the front and found Joha. After the war they settled down in Vilnius. They had no children. She didn't live a long life and died in the 1970s.
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