This is my parents' wedding photograph: my mother Hasse Umova and my father Hilel Umov. This photo was taken in Tallinn in 1932.
My mother met my father in Viljandi. Jewish boys and girls got together visiting each other and going out to dance or chat. My father met a guy, who was from this bunch of young Jewish people. He liked joining them on weekends. My mother was at one of the gatherings, and she met my father there. Her close friend Frieda Marjenburger met my father's brother Abram. When my mother moved to Tallinn, my father often met her after work. They went out for walks or to the theater.
They got married in 1932. My mother told me that my father's parents weren't quite happy about this marriage. My father came from a rather wealthy family. He had a good job and earned well, when all of a sudden he found a beggar of a fiancée, who could hardly read or write and was a plain factory worker. Many years afterward Grandfather Haim was kind to my mother, while Grandmother Hel'ke continued disliking my mother. Well, to say the truth, even my father's sisters used to say that Grandmother Hel'ke was a difficult person. My parents had a traditional Jewish wedding in Tallinn. My father's brother Abram and my mother's close friend Frieda Marjenburger also got married at about the same time. It was interesting how two brothers met two close friends and both got married. Abram and Frieda had only one son. His name was Wulf.
