This is our family photograph. Row 1, from left to right: I and my mother Dina Kitt. Row 2: my stepbrother Leo Kitt and my stepfather Benjamin Kitt. This photo was taken in Tallinn in 1964.
My father died in 1941; he served on a Soviet battleship, which sank near the Hanko Peninsula, Finland. In 1947 Mama married a local Jewish man. My stepfather's name was Haim Benjamin Kitt. He was the director of a perfumery store.
In 1949 my stepbrother Leo Kitt was born. Leo was born with a heart disease, which became apparent, when he was a child. However, Leo never gave up. He finished an Estonian general education school in 1967. Leo holds a very important position in a bank. He is a pension division manager. He often travels to Japan where they have an affiliate.
I left school after finishing the 8th grade. I believed it was time for me to go to work and support myself and my family. My friends Pesia and Tsylia also quit school. Pesia went to work as a shop assistant at the perfumery store where my stepfather, Benjamin Kitt, was the director. Tsylia went to work at a plant, and I went to work at the knitwear factory. My mother worked at the HR department at the factory. I was a worker in the knitting room. I was a winder machine apprentice. When my training was over, I started working there.
I met my future husband, Lev Zakh, at work. He was a mechanic at our factory. Lev liked me and asked me to date him. I liked him, too. We kept seeing each other. I was in no hurry to get married. We got married in 1960. We had a common wedding. We registered our marriage, and our mothers made a wedding dinner. After the wedding I moved in with my husband. Our only daughter Ilona was born in 1965.
Masha Zhak and her family
The Centropa Collection at USHMM
The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.
Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC".
Please contact collection [at] centropa.org (collection[at]centropa[dot]org).