This is my birthday certificate. It reads as the following:
‘Certificate.
Issued by Rabbi of Sevastopol eparch duly signed and stamped stating the following in the birthday record of Sevastopol Jews as of 1917. Line fi 10 ,the females:
Rosalia Pincusovna gave birth to a daughter named Tamara in the year of nineteen seventeen, September, 15. Father's name is Jacob Adolfovich Goldenberg.
The city of Sevastopol, Sep 24, 1917
Sevastopol Rabbi Sh. Yunovich’
I was born in 1917. My true name is Tamara -Alexandrà. I was named Tamara at birth. My mother's brother Alexander Geftman tragically perished in 1918 shortly after my birth.
After that tragedy I was given a double name Tamara - Alexandrà, and this is my original name, written in the documents. People call me Tamara.
My parents were not religious. We did not mark any religious holidays or rites at home.
I did not go to the kindergarten, at that time they did not exist. We had a house-keeper. Mother was a home-maker. She had lots of things to do so she would not have time to think of earning her bread and butter.
In 1917 my maternal grandfather Pincus Geftman immigrated with his family. All Geftmans left, but my mother. My relatives did not approve of revolution. My parents refused to leave the motherland.
They thought that such educated and prosperous people would do well in Soviet Russia, and besides he did not want to sever with his relatives.
He also was sure that the doctor of such a level would always be in demand no matter who was wielding the scepter.
Our live was not all beer and skittles. First of all these were the times of starvation and drought in the country, and the salary of my father was very skimpy no matter how well-qualified my father was.
His salary was not enough to make a living, and mother tried real hard to feed us. She sold some of the things left by our relatives in the commissioner shops or swapped them in the market for food.
