Tag #149925 - Interview #90532 (Grigoriy Fihtman)

My father Samuel Fihtman, one of the younger children, was born in Yampol in 1883. I cannot say where he studied besides cheder. He could speak fluent Russian and read in it well. In 1896, at the age of 13 my father went to work in Odessa. There were some distant relatives living in Odessa. I don’t know anything about them. They helped my father to find a job.  My father worked as designer for an owner of a fashionable women’s clothes store in Deribassovskaya Street. According to what my father said this was a big and rich store: there was a big choice of French perfumery and haberdashery from all over Europe. My father designed shop windows. He liked his job and his master valued him high. He even sent him to polish his skills in Kiev.