Tag #135220 - Interview #77995 (Liana Degtiar)

Soroki was a Jewish town, but there were also Russian, Moldovan and Ukrainian inhabitants. They got along well and had no conflicts. My grandfather was a very decent man and was well respected by all in the town. I stayed with my grandparents in Soroki when I was seven years old, but I can't remember what my grandfather was like. I think he was tall. My aunts have his photos where he has a moustache, but no beard. He had a brick house with a shingle roof, in the center of Soroki. I don't know how many rooms there were in the house, but there were four families living there before the Great Patriotic War [2]. It was a long house with a porch on each side. There was a smaller house in the yard. There was a square verandah in the center of the yard with grape vines twining around it. There was also a deep cellar under the verandah where my grandparents kept their food stocks in summer. My grandfather's store was somewhere else. However, my grandfather proved to be a poor businessman. He used to sell fabric on trust. Some customers never paid back their debts and my grandfather went bankrupt. Then he had to sell half of the house to a doctor or a lawyer. He also sold his little house in the yard.