This is me with my second wife Ema P. and my children. The photo was taken in 1955.
My wife and I met in Moscow. As a student she occasionally helped out at the radio station. She was a friend of my first wife. My second wife is also a Jewess. But to be honest, that wasn't at all why I married her. We had a civil wedding. My wife and I didn't observe any religious rules at home, and neither did we observe holidays. I only go to synagogue during the High Holidays. One daughter came of our marriage.
I'd like to tell one story, perhaps an educational one, but in those days certainly not an unusual one. I didn't tell my son that I was a Jew. When he was 14 or 15 years old, we were on vacation by the Cerveny Kamen castle. There was a well-preserved Jewish cemetery. My son and I sat down and I began to read the writing on the tombstones. My son said: "You can read it?" To which I replied: "Yes, I'm a Jew." At that point I told him everything, that his mother had also been, and so was he. He began shaking and said: "Why didn't you tell me? Why?" After this experience we decided it would be better to tell our daughter everything right away.
