Shiva Rubalskaya

This is my younger sister Shiva Rubalskaya. This photograph was taken at the request of my grandfather Iosif after we moved to Kiev. My sister turned 2 years old. This photo was taken in Kiev in 1923.

I don't know how my parents met. My parents got married in 1916. They had a traditional Jewish wedding: it couldn't have been otherwise at the time. The marriage was registered at the synagogue book and the rabbi conducted the ceremony under the chuppah. After the wedding my parents moved to the house my father had bought. . It was a spacious wooden house with 3 rooms and a kitchen with a big Russian stove. One room served as my parents' bedroom, another room was mine and the 3rd room was a living room. Mama was a housewife. My father worked and was well respected in the town. My father provided well for the family.

I was born in 1918 and was named Evadiy. My sister Shiva was born in 1921. I didn't study Hebrew. My parents spoke Yiddish to one another at home and spoke Russian to me and my sister. I could speak and understand Yiddish. My sister only knew Russian and Ukrainian. The family celebrated all Jewish holidays, but I think they did it as a tribute to traditions. They went to the synagogue on holidays and then celebrated at home according to the rules. When a holiday was over, they continued to live their routinely Soviet life.

In 1941 I was on the front, my mama, sister and grandmother decided against evacuation. My grandfather remembered Germans from the time of World War I and believed they might persecute communists, but not Jews. They stayed and followed the commandant's order to walk to Babi Yar on 29 September 1941. Besides my grandfather, mama and my sister Shiva, who finished the 1st course of the Food Industry College in June 1941, my maternal grandmother Itta Pogrebinskaya, mama's sister Riva Pogrebinskaya, grandfather Iosif's sister Hana Leschiner and her husband perished in Babi Yar.