Tag #117271 - Interview #78260 (Liya Kaplan)

I don't know where my parents lived after getting married. When their store became profitable, my father purchased a house for our family. I was born in that house. It was a two-story wooden house in the center of Tallinn. The house was big. There were nine rooms and a large kitchen on the ground floor. There were rooms on the second floor as well. There was a huge, gorgeous orchard by the house. There were apple trees, plum trees, berry bushes and wonderful flowers. My father liked flowers a lot. He ordered buds of some special tulips in Holland. Those tulips grew in our garden. On 8th March 1944, there was a horrible bombing. Soviet aircrafts bombed Tallinn and our house burned down as a bomb fell right onto it.

Jews were not separate in Estonia; Jewish houses were mixed with Estonians. It depended on the income of the house as not everybody could afford to own a house in certain districts. The land was more expensive in the downtown area and much cheaper on the outskirts. We were friendly with our neighbors.