Frieda Portnaya's children: Tatiana Portnaya and Efim Portnoy

These are my children: Tatiana Portnaya and Efim Portnoy. The photo was taken in Kiev some time in 1957. Tatiana was born in 1949, and Efim in 1956. My children knew well what anti-Semitism was like. One day when my son was eight or ten years old he came home from school in tears asking me why the other children called him 'zhyd'. When he was in the army he was also taunted for being a Jew. Once he lost control and beat the guy who was baiting him. His commanding officer was Georgian. He called my son and asked him why he had beaten that guy. My son answered 'He called me a zhyd.' Then his commander said to him 'You should have beaten him more.' After the army my son graduated from a construction technical school and went to work in Kiev. He moved to Israel in 1990, as soon as it became possible. He lives there now with his wife and his sons Oleg and Anatoliy and works for construction companies as an engineer. My daughter Tatiana worked in a department store for many years and was Head of the Komsomol unit there, but for several years in a row she was denied entrance into the Commerce and Economy Institute. She also was recommended to be elected to the local council. Of course, she didn't get enough votes, but an acquaintance told her, 'Tania, why are you doing this? You won?t be accepted.' She asked 'Why?'and he said 'Have you forgotten your item (item 5 in the Soviet passport ? nationality)?' Tania married a Jew ? Alexandr Zeltser. They have two sons, Mikhail, born in 1969 and Victor, born in 1978