Rimma Leibert’s uncle Aron Leibert

My uncle, my father's brother Aron Leibert. This photo was taken in Leningrad in 1935, he in the uniform of an officer of the Red Army. He gave my father this photo for the memory. I don't know anything about my father Boris Leibert's parents. All I know is that my grandfather's name was Iosif. They said my father, his brothers and sister grew up in a children's home in Odessa. My father didn't tell me anything about it. My mother mentioned once that grandfather Iosif was a craftsman. I don't know how the children happened to grow up in the children's home. Aron, born in 1903, was the oldest in the family. The next was Sima, born in 1905. My father Boris was born in 1907, and Mikhail, the youngest, was born in 1911. I don't know my father brothers or sister's Jewish names. I give their names as I heard them from my mother. It goes without saying that these children did not get any Jewish education. I don't know whether the boys finished cheder since I don't know at what age they became orphans. After the children's home they went to the army, finished military schools and became professional military. They were members of the Communist Party and were far from religion. This was the best way possible for the poor and orphaned: they were provided meals and uniforms in the army. Besides, they had a place to leave since after the children's home those children hardly ever had a place to go to. So, the army came to my father and his brothers' rescue. My father's brother Aron finished a political military school in Leningrad and stayed to serve there. He also finished the Military Academy. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he was a colonel and lectured at the Academy. His wife Sonia, a Jew, came from the town of Mirgorod in Ukraine. They had two daughters: Lidia and Rita, born in the middle of the 1930s. They have a prewar photo where the girls were photographed with their friends. In early June1941 Sonia and the girls went to Mirgorod to visit Sonia's parents. When the war began, they failed to evacuate and perished in Mirgorod. They and Sonia's parents were killed by fascists. Aron went to the front on the first days of the war. He was commander of a regiment. He perished near Kharkov in 1941. He didn't know what happened to his family. He was probably hoping they had survived.