Elka Roizman's mother Leya Braiman and her daughter Dina Gofman

This is a picutre of my mother, Leya Braiman, and my daughter Dina Gofman. The photo was taken in Chernovtsy in 1959 when my mother visited us. In 1953 I met my future husband Olter Roizman. In 1954 we got married. We didn't have a place to live and settled down in my aunt's kitchen. I couldn't find work. Besides I had health problems. I had miscarriages and the doctors told me that this was due to the years that I spent in the ghetto. My first baby was stillborn. And then, in 1959, I finally had a baby girl. I named her Dina after my beloved grandmother. I had to stay at home to look after the baby. In 1957 my husband received a plot of land in the center of town. It was in the same street where my aunt lived. We bought construction material and built a small house. It took us about two years, but the house was completed before our daughter was born. My husband and I visited my parents in Yedintsy every year. They liked Olter and became his family. My father retired in 1962, and my parents agreed to move in with us. My mother looked after our daughter, and I began to consider getting a job. I found a temporary job at a kindergarten and worked there until I retired. Our son Michael was born in 1966. My husband named him after his grandfather. We spoke Russian and Yiddish at home. My parents always preferred Yiddish and Moldavian to Russian. My children have known Yiddish since their childhood. When they grew up we began to study Hebrew with them. My daughter entered the Chernovtsy Medical School and became a midwife in a polyclinic in Chernovtsy after she finished her studies. She married her fellow student, Semyon Gofman, in 1978. They had a traditional Jewish wedding. We arranged a wedding party in a restaurant and a chuppah at home. A rabbi from the synagogue conducted the wedding ceremony. There were only our closest relatives and the rabbi at the celebration at our home. The rabbi conducted the ceremony under the chuppah, said a prayer, then the bride and bridegroom sipped wine and broke the glass. After that they had a civil ceremony at the registry office and a party at the restaurant. My granddaughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1982. When Elizabeth was 7 my daughter moved to Israel with her. It took her some time and effort to find a job there, but gradually things improved. My granddaughter served her term in the army and now she is a first year student at university. My daughter and son-in-law work. My daughter is a nurse at a maternity home. My father died in 1982 and my mother in 1983. They were both buried according to Jewish traditions in the Jewish cemetery in Chernovtsy. Every year on Rosh Hashanah my husband and I go to the cemetery. My husband recites the Kaddish, and I hope that some time our son will pray for us.