Lev Zakh

This photo was taken in the evacuation. This is my future husband Lev Zakh. This photo was taken in Barnaul in 1942. My husband Lev, the only son of Ida and Itzhak, was born in Tartu in 1929. Two years after he was born the family moved to Tallinn. Itzhak was the breadwinner, and Ida did the housekeeping. Itzhak had a little jewelry shop in the center of Tallinn. Itzhak had one employee working for him. He was also a skilled jeweler. Lev went to the Jewish gymnasium in Tallinn, and Ida worked as a teacher in a Jewish kindergarten. Everything went well. Even when the Soviet rule was established, it didn't affect the Zakh family. The shop was appropriated by the Soviets, but Itzhak and his employee continued working in the shop. The resettlement didn't affect the family either. When the war began, the family evacuated. My husband's family was in evacuation in Barnaul. My husband went to school there. Itzhak and Ida worked in a shop. They were accommodated in the house of a Russian family that treated them well. My mother-in-law told me that no one ever commented on their Jewish identity. Vice versa, their surrounding was helpful and supporting. They returned to Tallinn in late 1944, when Estonia was liberated.