This is my father Grigoriy Slopak. The photo made in Odessa in the 1920s.
My father was born in 1905. He was a very handsome educated man. But he had a very hard character. Probably the hardships of his life made such an impact on his character. He studied at grammar school before 1917. He was very successful with his studies. He played the piano very well and had private music classes in his childhood. His parents died when he was 13 and he was sent to a children's home. After the children's home he worked at a printing house and learned the profession of printer. My mother said that he changed many jobs. My parents got married in 1929. They had a civil ceremony that was customary during the Soviet period. They lived together for 5 years and separated in 1934 two years after I was born. I don't know why they divorced, because my mother didn't discuss this subject with me. My aunts joked about it saying that my father simply escaped from our mispokhe (Editor's note: family in Yiddish). I never met him again. We had no contact, although he was living in Odessa. I only know that he had another wife. He perished at the front in 1942.
