Tag #152813 - Interview #78127 (Makhlia Khalzova)

When my father was 22 he went to the small town of Bobrka on business. Ant there he met this 17-year old Jewish girl who worked as a nanny for a wealthy Ukrainian family: my mother. She was very pretty and my father liked her a lot. My father knew that his mother would never give her consent to this marriage since the girl came from a poor family and had no dowry. My father kept visiting her in secret. He arranged for a wedding to be conducted by a local rabbi. He needed money for the wedding, which he took from his mother without telling her. My parents had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah. When my father brought his wife home his mother just said, 'You've married her - now live with her where you want and how you want'. She disinherited her son and never again took any interest in him and his family. My grandmother was the head of the family and grandfather didn't have a say.