Tag #155731 - Interview #103724 (Faina Saushkina Biography)

My father was a religious man – and I guess, his parents raised him religious. They observed all Jewish traditions, but I don’t know how deeply religious they were since my father didn’t tell me about them. My father got primary Jewish education. He studied at cheder. He began to help his father when he was in his teens and learned his father’s profession. During one of his trips to Warsaw where he took shoes to sell at the market he met my mother’s father Isaac that was interested in buying the remains of leather. On his next trip he came to see Isaac at his home and met my mother. This happened in 1913. My mother used to joke that it was her father Isaac’s plot to arrange for her to meet my father. However, David and Sophia fell in love. Their parents on both sides were happy that the bride and bridegroom belonged to the same layer of society. Grandfather Moisey was particularly happy- he felt ill and didn’t think he had much time left for him to live. He was happy that his son was going to have a family of his own. My parents got married shortly before WWI in 1914. They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a huppah and many guests that were their relatives and friends.
When WWI War began in 1914 my parents moved in the eastern direction to Ukraine. Many Jewish families were moving to Ukraine from Poland at that time trying to escape from the war.
Somehow my parents happened to move to a southern resort town of Simferopol in Crimea, [1200 km from Warsaw]. In 1915 they had a girl born, but she didn’t live long – in few months she got some infection and died in 1916.