Iosif Rapoport

This is my father Iosif Rapoport. The picture was taken for his ID in Tallinn in 1924. There is hardly anything I know about my parents' families. My father, Iosif Rapoport, was born in a small Lithuanian town called Kedaineai in 1887. I don't know anything about my paternal grandparents. All I know about my father's family is that he had a brother, David, who immigrated to South Africa with his family either in 1928 or in 1929. They lived in Johannesburg. David had several children. I don't know their names. My parents corresponded with him before the outbreak of World War II. Then correspondence was disrupted. At that time we were citizens of the USSR, and the regime disapproved of those whose relatives were residing abroad, and even stronger disapproved of those who kept in touch with them. Thus, we didn't get in touch with that family any more. Father had a younger sister called Vera. She was single. When my parents got married she lived with them for a while. In the late 1930s she left for Riga. Vera perished when Latvia was occupied by Hitler's troops. She was shot by Germans just like many other Jews. I don't know much about my father's childhood. As far as I know, he went to cheder. When he was a grown-up, he was rather knowledgeable about religious issues. I don't know if Father got a secular education. He was involved in timbering and did well. Unfortunately, my recollections about Father are scarce and fragmental: he died in Tallinn in 1930, when I was about five years old. I just remember his image. Father was buried in the Jewish cemetery of Tallinn in accordance with the Jewish rite.