Raya Gorosh and her family

This photo was taken shortly before the war, in early June 1941. Mama went to Riga to visit her younger daughter Raya’s family. They were photographed in the yard. From left to right: Raya’s husband Kolia Gorosh, Raya, their daughter Efros and our mother, Ida Kaplan. This photo was taken in Riga in 1941. We did not know then that we would see Raya and her family for the last time. My sisters and their families perished in the Riga ghetto in 1941.

I was born in 1901 in Aluksne, Latvia. There were five of us in the family. My brother Sahne, born in 1898, my sister Rosa, born in 1900. Revekka was born in 1903, and Raya, the youngest one, was born in 1905.

Raya married Kolia Gorosh, a trader from Riga, in the early 1930s. I don't remember his Jewish name. Their daughter, Efros, was born in 1936. My older sister Rosa's only daughter Roni was born in 1936. I was very attached to my nieces and nephews.