Tag #154432 - Interview #97841 (Hertz Rogovoy )

The Knopps had six children. My mother Bella Knopp (Jewish name Beila) was the eldest, she was born in 1891. Then her sister Khasya was born, brothers Boris, Mikhel, Grigoriy, Hersh and the youngest sister Manya. Everybody in the family spoke Yiddish. In Zhitomir even many non-Jewish people were fluent in Yiddish, and Jews in its turn were fluent in Ukrainian and Polish. All children knew how to read and write Yiddish. I do not know what education my mother and her siblings got. I would say it was rudimentary. Anyway, I remember the fact that my mother corresponded with her kin only in Yiddish. Later in the post-war period my mother started writing in Russian.

All mother’s brothers and sisters left paternal home. Mother’s sister Khasya married Grouzer and lived in Kiev. Her husband Motl Grouzer worked as an electrician on the shoe factory. Khasya was a house-wife. They had two children. The daughter Liya was born in 1923 and the son Naum in 1924. Boris lived in Donetsk. He was married and had children. Mikhel lived in Vinnytsia with his family. He had a son Shunya, born at the end of the 1920s. Grigoriy abandoned his father, because grandfather was a private entrepreneur and it would stand in the way of his career. Grigoriy left for Moscow, graduated from Polytechnic institute. He lived in Moscow with his family. Mother’s younger sister Mayna lived in Kiev with her family. Her husband was a professional military. Manya had two sons. Yuri was born in 1934, Yan in 1938.