This is my maternal grandmother Golda Finkelstein and great grandmother Debora (don't know her surname). This photo was taken in Kiev shortly before my great grandmother Debora died in 1928. My daughter Debora was named after Granny Debora. My mother took this and some other photographs among few other things evacuating from Kiev during the Great Patriotic war and kept them.
My maternal grandfather Yefim Finkelstein came from Mazyr town in Belarus. [about 600 km west of Moscow] He had a secondary education and was a timber specialist. He worked in timber companies and even wore a uniform cap with leaves on it. He traveled across Belarus a lot. His headquarters were in Kiev - so my grandfather moved to Kiev, lived there many years and died in Kiev. He was born in 1863 or 1865. He died in 1936. My grandmother Golda's maiden name was Begman. Her parents lived in Pinsk. [about 50 km west of Mazyr] My grandmother and grandfather probably had a prearranged wedding around the 1890s. My grandmother Golda was born in 1873. She died from pneumonia in evacuation in 1943. I remember her well.
My great grandfather, my grandmother Golda's father, Lazar Bergman was the father of a big family - they had ten children. For some reason most of Lazar Bergman's children moved to Petersburg before the Civil War and the revolution. Solomon Bergman and Semyon Bergman were educated people. One of Solomon or Semyon Bergman's children Gedalia became a popular actress in Leningrad. Her family name was Belogorskaya. Her daughter Tatiana finished the College of Culture in Leningrad. She, her husband Ilia and their son Tolia moved to the USA. Marcus Bergman also lived in Petersburg. I knew his daughters Zhenia and Luba. Zhenia lived in Leningrad and Luba - in Moscow. My grandmother's brother Meyer Bergman lived in Bobruysk [About 550 km west of Moscow]. He perished during the Great Patriotic War. Germans killed him in the town.
My grandparents were very religious. They lit candles on Saturday and had silver stands for them. They often went to the synagogue and had old prayer books. My grandmother prayed every Friday. On Friday morning she covered her head, lit candles and prayed. On holidays and on seder my grandfather put on his old kitel and yarmulke, lit candles and broke bread or matzah over the wine and recited a prayer. They had kosher silver crockery stored separately and only used on Pesach. They had all necessary accessories for rituals. They celebrated all holidays and gave me Hanukkah gelt on Chanukkah. Hey ordered matzah for Pesach and I stole a piece according to the ritual and posed traditional questions. We had delicious traditional food on Pesach, delicious Haman ears [hamantashen] with poppy seed filling on Purim. When I knew them, my grandfather was a pensioner, and my grandmother was a housewife. She had never gone to work. She was very kind and loved me dearly. She believed I would become a writer. So, I became a literature man following my grandmother's forecast.
