Tag #120567 - Interview #89576 (Tobijas Jafetas)

The furniture was plain, while in the other rooms it was luxurious. My father ordered it in Berlin. It was shipped in two freight cars to our town. It was made from mahogany, which was very popular at the time. The beds were huge and had beautiful lace curtains. There was also a four-door mirror wardrobe, full of my parents’ clothes. Mama also had her desk with a marble top in the bedroom. Mama did her housekeeping calculations, wrote letters and read books sitting at this desk. There were two huge handmade cupboards in the dining room. Mama told me that when they were delivered, they had to break the wall to take them in. When I was a child, I liked touching the carved cupboard doors ornamented with little birds, flowers and angels. They were made in the rococo style, popular at the start of the 20th century. There was also a smaller cupboard, a table and chairs and a big mirror made in this same fashion. There was a small round table with a silver candle stand on it in the corner of the room. Mama lit candles on Sabbath. In my father’s room there was his desk, bookcases and a floor clock where I liked to hide, when a child. There was the marble bust of Mercury, the God of Commerce, on a high narrow table, our only belonging that survived the Great Patriotic War. It decorates my living room now.