This is my grandmother Masha Rabinovich with my father, Isaak Rabinovich. The photo was taken in Kraslava in 1928.
Father's parents, Moisei and Masha, got married under a chuppah, I think. They lived in Kraslava. Father, the first son, was born in 1911. He was named in honor of grandfather's brother.
My father was an activist. From the beginning of the 1930s he worked in the Bund in Riga. He coordinated a successful strike of retail trade workers in 1933 that forced shop owners to increase workers' wages. Father was punished for his activity. During the revolution in Latvia in 1934, he was jailed for about three months. He was released on condition that he sign a statement obliging him to quit public activity.
At the university, where he studied mathematics, my father became friendly with Vladimir Feigman. My mother, Dora Alperovich, and my father met because they were in Feigman's circle. Feigman took a great interest in photography, and his friends helped him develop snapshots. My mother and father became acquainted in a blacked-out room, printing photos, in the fall of 1939.
Masha and Isaak Rabinovich
The Centropa Collection at USHMM
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Please contact collection [at] centropa.org (collection[at]centropa[dot]org).