Tag #119639 - Interview #78219 (Bluma Lepiku)

My mother hardly told me anything about her childhood. I don't know how they managed without their breadwinner, but my grandmother managed to raise her children all right. They managed to get some education. At least, my mother, her sister and brothers could read and write. My mother's older brother Solomon was a sales agent. He supplied popular Czech imitation jewelry to local stores. My mother's older sister Fanny moved to America at 17. My mother attended hat making trainings and one year later she became a skilled hat maker. All I know about my mother's bother Lev is that he was regimented to the army at the beginning of World War I and disappeared at the front. His family kept hoping that he was captured or wounded and was in hospital, but he never came back.

My mother's family was religious. My grandmother was a believer. She observed Jewish traditions and raised her children to respect them. The whole family went to the synagogue [4] in Tartu on Jewish holidays. They also celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays at home and followed the kashrut. Each family member spoke fluent Russian since they had arrived in Estonia from Russia. However, the language they spoke at home was Yiddish. In Estonia all of them learned Estonian, including my grandmother. Though Russian was an official language in Estonia like everywhere else in the Russian Empire, the majority spoke Estonian, their mother tongue.