Rimma Leibert’s sister Maya Leibert, mother Rosa Leibert and her friend

This is my mother Rosa Leibert holding my sister Maya. My mother's friend is standing. This photo was taken in Tbilisi in 1935, my sister Maya is one year old. My father Boris Leibert finished a political military school and served in Tbilisi, Georgia, where he was chief of political department of the garrison in Tbilisi. In 1932 he went to a military recreation house in Odessa. He met my mother and proposed to her almost two weeks after they met. My mother returned my father's feelings. They went to grandfather Abram in Kerch where they had a small wedding. They registered their marriage in a registry office in Kerch. After the wedding my father and mother went to Tbilisi where my father was on service. They lived in a good two-bedroom apartment in the apartment building for officers near the center of the town. My mother fell in love with Tbilisi, one of the most beautiful towns in the world, a warm hospitable town. My mother didn't have any Jewish acquaintances in Tbilisi. She socialized with other officers' wives and there were no Jewish women among them. My mother took an active part in public activities and was continuously elected to the women's council [editor's note: Women's councils - departments, included in Party organs at the direction of the party Central Committee in 1918. Their members were women activists and their tasks included ideological work with women industrial employees and peasants with the aim of their socialist education. Reorganized in 1929] of the military unit. In 1934 my sister Maya was born named after the 1 May holiday. She likes recalling her childhood in Tbilisi. She had many friends. My parents' friends often got together in our house. They celebrated Soviet holidays - the October Revolution Day 9, 1 May ['International Day of Workers' Solidarity', now Labor Day]. My sister told me that they sang Soviet songs and danced waltz - the room was big enough for them to dance. Since my father was a military and a convinced communist he didn't want a mention of Jewish holidays or traditions. He believed them to be the vestige of the past. My mother also adopted communist ideas and had no urge for Jewish traditions. I was born on 27 October 1939. They named me Rema - an acronym of 'revolution' and 'Marxism'.