Tag #152499 - Interview #97160 (Esphir Kalantyrskaya)

In Kiev my father rented an apartment in Podol, a Jewish neighborhood. We lived in Konstantinovskaya street, not far from my grandparents.  In 1922 Sophia gave birth to a boy – Efim and in 1924 her daughter Polia was born. Manya, the youngest, was born in 1933. We lived in a small two-room apartment. My father rented it at first and then he purchased it from the owner. One room served as my father and Sopha’s bedroom and another room was for children. My father took up any job: repairing watches, furniture, doing other repairs in the houses. Later he obtained a patent for manufacture of toys. There were heaps of fabrics, pieces of wood and doll’s heads in our apartment. My father taught us to do small work and we began to help him. Every day we glued, painted things and made doll’s clothes. My father was a very good handicraftsman. He was offered a job at the state factory, but my father refused every time he got an offer. For some reason he thought that those that worked at state enterprises were stealing, while he was an honest man.