Bella Bogdanova

This is me at the age of 13. The photo was taken in Liepaja in 1939.

I attended the best private kindergarten in Liepaja and afterwards, the best elementary school. Doctor Hyte was the headmaster of these institutions. I don’t remember his first name. My brother Abrashenka attended a school where they taught only in Hebrew. After Ulmanis became the ruler of Latvia, Yiddish was used as a teaching language. Daddy sent me to the best school to make me the best person I could be. German was the language of instruction there. I had private English lessons for two years. We had two lessons per week on religious history and two on Bible studies. Religious subjects would be taught in Hebrew, of course. And I got straight A's, naturally.

My father spoke Hebrew well. He translated everything for me and helped me; I forgot everything, because I could be rather empty-headed. Our school was shut on Jewish holidays. We liked our homeroom teacher Hanna Hermer very much. She was very nice, but she died at an early age.

I finished only seven grades of school, but the level of education was very high there. It could be compared to eight or ten years at a Soviet school. That was my whole education. Maybe I would have become something worthwhile if the war hadn’t started. I had a good girlfriend. We went to  each other's birthday parties. Beautiful birthday parties used to be arranged in those days.