Tag #120580 - Interview #89576 (Tobijas Jafetas)

We left in a car and later we took a train to Berlin. My cousin sister Anna Kapiskene, Aunt Masha’s daughter, went with us. Anna, born in 1920, was a quite a grown-up young lady by then. In England my father took my brother and me to the college in Brighton on the southern coast, near the English Channel between England and Europe. Then he went to a resort in France. He suffered from stomach ulcer. Mama and Anna decided to travel in England and then join my father in France. My brother and I spent six weeks in college. It was a Jewish educational institution. There were many Jews living in Brighton. We lived in bedrooms, had meals in the canteen and read books in the library. We were bored, I was missing my parents and my brother was trying to entertain me. On holidays we visited Esther, my father’s distant relative. She had a traditional Jewish home, and there was gefilte fish, tsimes and other dishes on the Saturday table. This food was very much like my mother would have made it. The international situation in Europe was aggravating. Mama decided she had to take her niece to her parents in Lithuania. Besides, she had more extensive plans to sell the houses in Kaunas and ultimately move to the West. I don’t know whether Mama discussed this with Father or she took this decision by herself, but I really don’t know why she decided to leave my older brother in England. One way or another, six weeks after we came to this college Mama came to pick me from there. Mama, Anna and I left.