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This is my mother's family. This photo was taken in Chernivtsi in 1904. From left to right: my grandmother Tsylia Rahman, my grandfather Isaac Rahman, my mother Dora Rozenberg, my mother's brother (name unknown).
My maternal grandfather, Isaac Rahman, was born in the early 1870s. I don't know where he was born. He was the manager of some land near Yelisavetgrad. Shortly before the October revolution the family moved to Odessa. In the Soviet period my grandfather worked at the ?Krasny profintern? plant in Odessa. I remember that my grandfather looked like a typical Soviet clerk. He didn't have a beard. He wasn?t religious. Sometimes he spoke Yiddish with my grandmother. My grandfather was a very industrious and dedicated professional.
During the Great Patriotic War he refused to evacuate with his family. He only wanted to evacuate with his plant, but it was a small enterprise that failed to evacuate and my grandfather Isaac stayed in occupation in Odessa. To avoid Romanian captivity, my grandfather committed suicide. We didn't have any information about him during the war. When Odessa was liberated we received a letter from our neighbor who wrote that my grandfather had poisoned himself.
My maternal grandmother Tsylia Rahman, whose maiden name I don't know, was born in a town near Chernovtsy in 1875. She graduated from a private Russian grammar school. My grandmother was a beautiful girl and dressed with good taste. She was married very young to a man she didn't love. She divorced him shortly afterwards and never wanted to talk about him. She then married Isaac Rahman for love. I don?t know where she and my grandfather met. The newlyweds settled down in the town of Konstantinovka in the Poltava province where my mother and her brother were born. Then they lived in Yelisavetgrad.
My mother's younger brother, whose name I?ve forgotten, unfortunately, was born in 1899. Right after finishing grammar school he was carried away by revolutionary ideas to such an extent that he found himself in a combat unit of the Red army. During the Civil War in 1919 his combat unit was involved in the suppression of an uprising of German colonists in Lustdorf and was killed.
