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Iosif (Yuzia) Barats (1902 - 1956), my uncle on my mother's side, chief engineer of Giprograd, Design Institute.
My grandfather Nuhim and my grandmother Rachil had 3 children: my mother Anna (Hanna), born in 1899, her sister Sarah-Genia, born in 1897, and her brother Joseph (Yuzia) born in 1902. My grandfather Nuhim gave education to his children. Later I will tell you about each of his children.
Iosif Naumovich Barats, born in 1902, was the youngest child in the family. He studied in Kharkov technological institute and lived in a hostel. Later Iosif worked in the Design House in Kharkov, located in the central square of the city. Iosif must have been a very talented employee. During the war he worked in Berezniaki, near Sverdlovsk, and then returned to Kharkov. He got a job offer in Kiev and he moved there.
At one time we lived with him in Kharkov. After my grandmother died in December 1933 he received an apartment and we all moved there. Iosif was 32 and he was not married, so my mother was taking care of him. He got married during the evacuation in Berezniaki, Sverdlovsk. His wife also came from Kharkov, but they met in Berezniaki. He was among the last people to evacuate. We left Kharkov on 9 August when it was bombed for the 1st time. We were on the train at that moment. Iosif left some time in September when Kiev was occupied already. He changed one train to another until he reached Russia. And there he stayed - In Berezniaki near Sverdlovsk. I guess he could have met some former colleague that offered him a job. Engineers were in demand then. He didn't stay there long. He met Luba and they got married and moved to Alma-Ata. Iosif got a job offer from a construction institute. This was in 1942, the year of the Stalingrad battle. He wasn't recruited to the army, as he had a spinal curvature. He fell when he was a child. He was among the first ones to return to Kharkov after the war. He got a job offer in Kiev and moved there in 1945. He received an apartment in Bolshaya Zhytomirskaya. I visited him there in 1946. He became Chief engineer at GIPROGRAD (State Town Design Institute). They had a lot of design work. Kiev was to be restored after the war. Iosif was a well-known engineer. He often participated at different meetings; sometimes he even was invited to a meeting at the Communist Party Central Committee. He worked a lot all his life. Once he came home to change and sat in an armchair for a second while his wife was preparing his shirt and tie. His heart failed him and he died instantly. This happened in 1956.
