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The back door in the house led to a big kitchen. There was a big stove in the corner. My mother did the cooking on this stove and it also heated the house. There was one room in the house. I can’t even imagine now how the three of us fit in there. There were three windows in the room and a wardrobe, chest of drawers, two iron beds and a coach. There was a table in the middle of the room and my mother’s sewing machine in the corner. I slept with my sister, another sister slept with mother and our father slept on the coach. My father had religious books in Hebrew that he read. My parents didn’t buy fiction books. Our parents spoke Yiddish at home. My sisters and I spoke Yiddish with our parents and Russian between us.
In summers our father’s sisters and brother visited us. Fruit, vegetables and food products in our town were not as expensive as in Leningrad. When they came they bought fruit and berries and made preserves for the winter. They used to came with their families. Our father installed a tent in the yard where my sisters, our father and I slept at night. Our guests were accommodated in the house.
In 1934 our grandmother Enta, my mother’s mother, came to live with us. She occasionally went to visit her relatives in Sverdlovsk in the Ural Montains. My grandmother wore long black skirts and dark blouses. She always wore a black kerchief. I never saw my grandmother without it and don’t even know what color was her hair. My grandmother was religious. She prayed in the morning and in the evening and read stories from the Torah. Grandmother strictly followed kashrut and made sure that my mother had everything kosher.
In summers our father’s sisters and brother visited us. Fruit, vegetables and food products in our town were not as expensive as in Leningrad. When they came they bought fruit and berries and made preserves for the winter. They used to came with their families. Our father installed a tent in the yard where my sisters, our father and I slept at night. Our guests were accommodated in the house.
In 1934 our grandmother Enta, my mother’s mother, came to live with us. She occasionally went to visit her relatives in Sverdlovsk in the Ural Montains. My grandmother wore long black skirts and dark blouses. She always wore a black kerchief. I never saw my grandmother without it and don’t even know what color was her hair. My grandmother was religious. She prayed in the morning and in the evening and read stories from the Torah. Grandmother strictly followed kashrut and made sure that my mother had everything kosher.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Evgenia Gendler