Movsha Zheleznyak, Emma Nikonova's grandfather

This is my grandfather - Movsha Zheleznyak - in the beginning of the 1950s years in Drogobych (Ukraine). Working as a house-painter, he achieved significant results with his team. Having won the socialist competition, he and his colleagues have received an honorary red banner, as was customary in those years, and were photographed with it here. My mother's father, Movsha Yankelevich Zheleznyak was born in Vitebsk in 1885. I do not remember his date of birth; after 1942 up until his death he celebrated it on May 20, because it was this exactly on this May Day in 1942 that the partisans rescued grandfather from the occupation of Vitebsk. I remember when I was little, the family could not sit down at the dinner table until Grandfather returned home from work, even if we were very hungry. We had to wait for him. The best piece of meat, even if the only one, would necessarily go to his plate. And everybody agreed with that. He was always the first one to be served. That was our family's way to pay tribute to our bread-winner.