Maria Yatsovskaya with her sister Sarah Glieman and a friend

From left to right are my husband's mother Maria Yatsovskaya, her sister Sarah Glieman and a friend, whose name I don’t know. This picture was taken in 1923 in Kaunas.

My husband Evsey was born in Kiev in 1918. He came from an intellectual Jewish family. Evsey's parents were from Kiev. Before the outbreak of the October Revolution they moved to Lithuania to escape pogroms and the communist regime. Evsey's father, Jacob Yatsovskiy, was a real merchant, businessman, who knew how to make money. He did really well. Jacob donated a lot of money to charity and helped the poor. His wife, Maria, found another way to spend her husband's money. There was a coup d'etat in Lithuania in 1926 and the nationalists came to power. Four communists were executed in the central town square. Touchy Maria was deeply impressed by that and she soon became a member of an underground communist organization. Maria easily talked her husband into contributing rather large amounts of money to the communist party.

Those who were connected with the Zionist movements were touched by repressions as well. The communists, who were in the underground, were assigned to high posts in the new state. Then it turned out that Maria Yatsovskaya actually rescued her husband and son. Her assistance was appreciated by the communist party. Shortly after the Soviets came to power, Jacob Yatsovskiy voluntarily gave all his property to the state and became the chairman of the Cinematography Committee of the Lithuanian Republic. Maria went to work in the Central Committee of the Party. The owner of my firm was exiled right away and I lost my job. Evsey's mother, who treated me like her own daughter, gave me a hand. She helped me get a job as an accountant in the Central Committee of the Party.