Semyon Gun's mother Fira Gun

This is my mother Fira Gun. This photo was taken in Odessa in 1940. My mother Fira Shtilman was born in 1912. My mother either didn't remember or didn't want to tell me where she was born or who her parents were or why she became an orphan. We didn't have any information about her childhood. The Alperts adopted her and her sister, but nobody told me how it happened. I am sure that my mother wasn't in an orphanage or we would know about it. My mother studied at school. She could read and write Russian. My mother was a quiet and reserved woman: Shtilman means 'quiet person' in German and it fully corresponded to her personality. In the 1920s my mother was an ardent Komsomol activist, as she told me. In the 1930s my mother worked in joiner's shops in Odessa. My father and mother got married in 1933. They had a civil ceremony. They rented a room in the house where the Alperts lived. In some time my parents received an apartment in a wing house in the yard of this house. I was born in in Odessa on 17 October 1934. I was named Semyon after my mother's father. On 21 December 1937- Stalin's birthday - my brother Alexandr was born. We lived in 27, Podbelskogo Street, near the circus. My mother and her sister Nina worked in joiners' shops in Bugaevka in the outskirts of the town. I don't know what my mother did in particular, but she was well respected at her work and had awards for her performance. Her sister and she always came to work on time and never missed a day of work. Once there was one-meter deep snow in Odessa, but they still came to work, although public transportation did not commute. There was even an article published in a newspaper on this occasion.