From right to left: my aunt, my mother`s sister Anna Fokina (nee Buch), my aunt Katia Buch, my mother Taiba Ogushevich, I, Maria Zabozlaeva, and my mother`s acquaintance whose name I don`t remember. This photograph was taken in Kislovodsk in summer 1935 when we went on vacation before my going to school.
My mother Taiba Ogushevich, nee Buch was born in Saratov in 1905. She finished a secular grammar school in Saratov. She could speak some French and occasionally read us poems in French. She was very kind and handy: she could sew, embroider and knit. My mother made her clothes herself. She didn't wear any shawls or hats. She also made clothes for her acquaintances. Her clients were mostly Jewish women. All her friends and acquaintances called her affectionately Tusia. When in grammar school my mother went to dancing-party at the House of Officers where she met my father. They were seeing each other secretly from their parents since they met against the Jewish tradition of matchmaking. They got married for love in 1927. They never spoke about their wedding and I never came to asking about it.
My mother and father lived in a house with my grandfather in Niznyaya Street in the Jewish neighborhood. There was a synagogue and a mosque in this street. Our neighbors were Tatars for the most part. There were few lilac bushes, a cherry tree and an apple tree near the house. My mother and father had three children: I was the oldest and was born in 1929, and my brother Michael was born in 1936. We were born in Saratov. I didn't go to a kindergarten since my grandmother Sophia was looking after me. I liked playing in the yard and spending time with my grandfather Semyon. When Michael was born I began helping my mother to look after him. He was a quiet boy and didn't cause any problems. Shortly before the war in 1941 my younger sister Vera was born. I also helped to look after her. In summer 1935 my mother, her sisters Ania and Katia and I went to Kislovodsk on vacation. [Town in Stavropol region, Balneal resort. Located at the foothills of the Caucasus at the height of 720-1060 meters, over 1300 km from Moscow] I have dim memories of this trip, but I remember the feeling of happiness and quiet.
My mother's sister Anna was born in 1910. She finished the Faculty of Humanitarian Sciences Pedagogical College in Serdobsk, Penza region, [about 800 km from Moscow]. She was a teacher at the Pedagogical School and then became a human resources manager at the vocational education department. After moving to Saratov she became a member of a Party control commission of October district committee of the Communist Party. Her husband Vasili Fokin, Russian, came from Serdobsk. They didn't have children. Anna died in 2000 and was buried at the Jewish cemetery.
My mother's sister Katia lived in a village near Leningrad. She was a pharmacist and worked in a pharmacy. She was single. In 1943 Germans executed Katia as a Jew.
