Lubov Vainer with her husband Mordko Wainer

My husband Mordko Vainerand I, Lubov Wainer, nee Broide.

I was born in Zhytomir on 20 December 1911. I was the oldest daughter in the family of stonemason expert Leizer Gersh Broide. I was named Liba at birth, but for many years I've been called Lubov for the convenience of communication.

In the evening we went to the Jewish club. We were very fond of the "Blue Blouse" performances [popular in the 1920s amateur propagandistic performances, ridiculing the bourgeois imperialists and our own drawbacks]. Our director Presman was a very talented young actor. Later he moved to Kiev and became a famous actor at the musical comedy theater.

My husband was born in May 1911 too. His father Shaya Elevich, a shoemaker, lived in Berdichevskaya street in Zhytomir. Their family was rather wealthy and moderately religious. His mother Sura-Leya, a Jew, died from a disease in 1920. I never saw her. They had three sons: Grisha, Efim and Mordko. All 3 sons of this shoemaker from Zhytomir were very handsome, slim and tall.

We fell in love at first sight. We liked each other. We met for two years and then got married in 1928. Any traditional wedding was out of the question at that time of struggle against religion. Mordko was a Komsomol activist and atheist and we believed traditional Jewish weddings to be vestige of the past. Mordko finished the college on the use of land in Zhytomir and was sent to work in Smela. I moved there, too, and worked at a Russian kindergarten. We rented a small room in a house.