My father, my sister Eva and I, Frida Veprinskaya.
I am Frida Palanker, nee Veprinskaya. I was born in Kiev on 24 September 1921.
My father Nusim (Naum) Veprinsky was born in Korostyshev, Zhytomir region, in 1895.
In 1915 my father came to Kiev to learn a profession. He became a tailor's apprentice and then developed into a real good tailor for women's gowns. He worked as a cutter at the garment factory before the war. My father was a born tailor. Then my father's brother Yasha came to Kiev and my father taught him the profession of a tailor. Uncle Yasha lived nearby and often visited us. He was a very religious man.
My sister Eva was born in 1924. Genia was born in 1927.
There was a Ukrainian school across the street from our school. I went to school when I was 8. My sisters also went to this school later. Ukrainian was a problem for me at the beginning - I didn't know it, but I was making a good progress in it. About half of the children in my class were Jews. But there was no national issue at that time. There were Jews among teachers as well.
When Eva arrived in Israel she put down our father's name in the Book of memory at the Yad-Vashem museum. When I was visiting Israel at the invitation of my sisters I went to this museum and saw and turned few pages of this huge and heavy book. We put the necessary information about our father into this book and also wrote that he perished in the Babiy Yar. It is the only monument honoring the memory of our father.
