Isaak Shoov

This is my maternal grandfather Isaak Shoov. The photo was taken in Gaisin in 1925. My grandfather Isaak was born some time around 1860 and my grandmother Tsylia Shoov was born in 1862. They lived in Lodz, Poland. Poland was a part of the Russian empire at that time. A few years before the [Russian] Revolution [of 1917] my grandfather and grandmother's family moved to the town of Gaisin in Vinnitsa region, Ukraine. There was a big Jewish community there at that time. I don't know what my grandfather did for a living in Lodz, but I know that he had a big shop in Gaisin. He sold kitchen and household utilities, tools, spades, pitchforks, etc. One could buy anything one needed in his store. The shop was on the ground floor of my grandfather's house. My grandfather's family lived on the upper floor. I remember that it was a big brick house with an iron roof, which could be afforded by rather rich families at that time. There were five or six rooms in the house. As my mother told me, my grandfather Isaak and my grandmother Tsylia were very religious. My grandfather started each day by praying in the local synagogue. When I was visiting my grandfather in the 1930s the synagogue wasn't there any more, but I remember my grandfather putting on his tallit and attaching small boxes with small rolls of paper with prayers to his hand and forehead [tefillin] to pray every day. My grandfather Isaak was buried alive along with other Jews in Gaisin in 1941.