Iosif Gurevich with his family

This is a family picture. From left to right, sitting are: my father's second wife, my brother Arkadi Gurevich and my father Samuel Gurevich. Standing are my wife Ludmila Gurevich, nee Volosova, and me. The photo was taken during our vacation in Konotop in 1957. I got a job assignment at an alcohol factory in Lvov region in 1950. I became chief mechanic and then chief engineer at this factory. I met my future wife, Ludmila Volosova, in Lvov. She came to work in Lvov upon her graduation from Odessa Food Industry Technical School. Most of our friends were Jews that came from the USSR. It just happened so. We spent vacations with friends. Sometimes we went to the Crimea or the Carpathian mountains. On every vacation we visited my father, my brother and my wife's parents. My wife and I have lived a good life together. In 2000 we celebrated the 50th anniversary of our wedding. Unfortunately, we have no children. After the war my father and my brother returned to Konotop. My father went to work at the mill. My brother didn't go to school during the war and was too old to do so after the war. He went to study at a vocational school to become a tool joiner. After finishing this school he went to work at the tool shop at the Konotop plant of mining equipment. My brother enjoyed this work. He got more money than the engineers there. My father married an elderly Jewish woman whose husband had perished at the front. My father wasn't religious after the war. He and his wife celebrated Jewish holidays, but only formally. My father died in 1973. My brother and I buried him in the Jewish cemetery in Konotop in accordance with Jewish traditions. His second wife also passed away. My brother married Rosalia, a Jewish girl from Konotop in 1956. They had a common civil ceremony in a registry office and a small wedding party for relatives and close friends in the evening. Their daughter Elizaveta, named after my mother, was born in 1957. Some time afterwards a big plant of electronic microscopes was built in Sumy and the chief engineer of the Konotop plant was appointed director of this plant. He asked my brother to work there. My brother and his family rented an apartment in Sumy and lived there until my brother received an apartment of his own. Their daughter got married and moved to Lvov with her husband. Her daughter Yana, my brother's granddaughter, was born in 1977. Elizaveta died in an accident in 1980. She was 23. She was buried in the cemetery in Konotop. My brother and his wife moved to Konotop and raised their granddaughter. Arkadi, his wife and his granddaughter emigrated to Germany in 1990. They live in Dortmund. Yana got married and works. My brother and his wife are pensioners now. We correspond with them. I'm very concerned about my brother. His wife is very ill and doesn't have much time left. She needs to go to a mental hospital. If my brother loses her his life will be difficult. Apart from losing a close person, he will have language problems because he doesn't know German.