Zoya Lerman and her father Naum Lerman

My father,Naum Lerman ,with me, Zoya Lerman, in a photo taken in Kiev in 1938. I was four years old. My father was born in 1910. I have no information about his place of birth. I don't know how or where my parents met. They married in 1932 in a civil registration ceremony. They settled in the apartment at Mikhailovskaya Street. Soon after their wedding, my father was summoned to serve in the army. I believe he served in Petersburg. My mother went there on the weekends because she missed him so much. This is what my mother told me. My father wrote poems and dedicated them to my mother. He also painted very well when he was young. I remember that our apartment was beautiful before the war. My father liked beautiful antiques. He decorated a very beautiful Christmas tree when I was small. It might have been a real Christmas tree, or a pine tree, whatever was available at the market. The Christmas tree was decorated to celebrate New Year's Eve. I also had beautiful toys. We had a beautiful screen in our big room. My little bed was behind it. My father and mother slept on the sofa. I still have our table that we had before the war. I remember the beginning of the Great Patriotic War well. It started at night. My parents woke me up. I saw my father sitting on the sofa ready to put on his high boots. I asked him 'Papa, where are you going?' but he smiled and didn't say a word. He only said 'You will be taken to the basement.' In the next building the basements were very deep and Uncle Syoma carried me there. My father had already left. At the beginning of the war my mother received a notification stating that my father was missing. My mother tore up this paper and said, 'He is alive! I don't believe this! He is alive!' And she was right, he returned after all.