In the center is my grandfather Bencion's second wife Rosa, my father's brother Moishe, on the left is his wife and child. The photo was taken in 1960 in Tomashpol.
My father's parents Perl and Bencion Herman were wealthy. Perl and Bencion were of the same age, they were born in Alexandrovka village in 1886 in 25 kilometers from Tomashpol. The family supported its well-being working tirelessly, but during the period of famine in 1932-33 authorities took away almost all their bread and food stocks and Perl, the only one of the family, starved to death.
In 1933 my grandfather married my mother's cousin sister Rosa who was much younger than my grandfather. Rosa became the hostess of my grandfather's house in Alexandrovka. Our family often rented a horse-drawn wagon to visit grandfather Bencion in Alexandrovka. He and Rosa had a son one year older than me. His name was Moishe. We were friends. We bathed in the river and played with a ball in the yard. My grandfather told us stories. They were probably chapters from the Torah, but I don't remember what they were about. All I remember is how we sat there listening to him. We spent summers in Alexandrovka.
During World War II Rosa and Moishe was in the ghetto in Tomashpol. My grandfather was killed by fascists in 1941. Rosa didn't remarry. Her son Moishe finished college in Kiev. He became an engineer and visited his mother with his family. I saw them once in the 1960s. I don't remember Moishe’s wife’s or son's names. Rosa died in Tomashpol in the early 1970s and Moishe and his family moved to the USA in the late 1980s and I lost track of them.
