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My father Moisey Mazor photographed for the Board of Honor of Public Education Department in Berdichev in 1938. My father was one of the best lecturers propagation for scientific and technical progress.
My father was Misha at home. He was born in 1905. Like his other brothers my father went to cheder. My father was raised to observe all Jewish traditions and celebrate Jewish holidays. My father's mother tongue was Yiddish. He was eager to study and went to a Russian primary school when he turned 5 years of age. His parents had no objections to his urge for education. They wanted their children to have a better life than they had. Only during the Soviet time my father realized that he couldn't afford to study and had to go to work. He worked as a shop assistant at a haberdashery store. In the evening my father studied at a rabfak school and then attended a preparatory course to the only institute in our town - Pedagogical Institute. My father was good at physics and mathematic and he specialized in these subjects. My father was a reserved, just and calm man. He wouldn't have involved himself in any Party activities if he hadn't met my mother, a devoted communist.
My mother went to various organizations in town to explain the policy of the Party and the Soviet government. Somewhere at the crossroads of her activities my mother met my father who was a student of the Pedagogical Institute. He fell in love with her. In their relationships my mother always played the leading role - my father did what she wanted. My father was devoted to my mother and did what she told him. My father wasn't a member of the Communist Party. Firstly, he wasn't as active as my mother, and secondly he was a son of a slaughterer - servant to religion and such people were not admitted to the Party, but my father wasn't really willing.
When they decided to get married at the beginning of 1930 any talks about religious wedding were out of the question. There wasn't even a wedding party. My parents got married at the town registration office.
My father worked at a Ukrainian school upon graduation. He was a teacher of physics and mathematic and deputy director for the school curriculum. My mother also involved him in lecturing, but he lectured on scientific and technical innovations.
In July 1941 my father received a subpoena from the military registry office- they recruited him to the front. He went to Kazakhstan where he was trained to operate with Morse alphabet. After finishing the course he went to the front as a radio operator. He was a private, but served in a special communications battalion. We received letters from him until February 1942. My mother wrote to commanding officer of the regiment where he served requesting him to give her information about her husband. He replied: 'Your husband left for a military mission on 13-14 February and never returned. He is missing. [During the years of the war this response was worse than death notification since such people might be suspected of treason.] But my father vanished and whatever effort we took after the war to find out what happened to him we couldn't get any information in this regard. There were only his letters left full of love towards me and my mother. He adored my mother. My father was a very nice man. His colleagues and students liked him a lot. My mother was a nervous woman and often lost her temper, but my father was very kind. He knew how to deal with her and forgive her.
