Ronia Finkelshtein's aunt Nyura Gershinovich

My mother's sister Nyura Gershinovich [nee Izrailevich] photographed on her 20th birthday. Nyura married a Jewish man, Ilia Gershinovich. Their son Volodia was born in 1926. In the 1930s the Gershinovich family moved to Moscow. During the Great Patriotic War Aunt Nyura and Volodia were in evacuation in Leninabad, Middle Asia, and after the war they returned to Moscow. Volodia finished a military school there and married a Jewish woman. They had two children: Galia and Alik. Their family often moved from one place to another because Volodia was a military man. Aunt Nyura lived in Poltava. My grandmother wanted to raise us religiously. Aunt Nyura lived in our neighborhood, so my cousin Volodia and I were growing up together. I remember him often saying to my grandmother, 'There is no God!'. I begged him to say to her, 'Yes, there is a God' because I saw how hurt she felt hearing this heresy. But he was stubborn and kept saying, 'There is no God and that's it!' This was the period of the official struggle against religion, and Volodia and I were growing up under the influence of this propaganda of atheism.