Rachel Averbukh, Solomon Zarkhin, Meer Averbukh, Tsitsilia Averbukh, Eugenia Zarkhina, Larisa Zarkhina, Gennady Zarkhin

This is our entire family:

Daddy sits at the left, Mom is beside him, I am the next, to the right of me is my husband, Solomon.

Our children are standing behind us: Eugenia at the right, Larisa in the center in white, Gennady to the left.

I got married in 1932 to Solomon Zarkhin and took my husband’s surname. I gave birth to my elder daughter Eugenia in 1933. The next year, I fell out with my husband because he was so jealous, and we even got divorced.

I took back my maiden name Averbukh. But after that "divorce" we came home again together that very day, and never parted again for a single day, living together again; it was all like a game.

I was young, only 19, and that divorce didn’t scare me in the least. It is only now that divorces are serious, and back then – it was not so.

Solomon was very jealous by nature. When we walked along the street I was supposed to look either at my feet, or at him. The slightest glance aside was the cause for jealousy. Even if someone would send me a letter congratulating me for something, he became jealous.

We officially registered our marriage for the second time only in 1947, when I was to be assigned a job after graduation from the Medical Institute.

But I preferred to keep my maiden name Averbukh; I didn’t change it anymore. Two of my kids [Larisa and Gennady] were officially born outside wedlock.