My uncle Michael Michailovski, my mother's older brother, photographed to mail this photo to his relatives. Rostov-na-Donu, May, 1942.
My mother's older brother Michael Mikhailovski, born approximately in 1900 or 1901, finished a realschule in Kiev before the revolution and worked as a trade shipments forwarder. Michael didn't have a smooth marital life. He was married three times. His all three wives were Jewish. Michael divorced his first and second wives. In his second marriage he had two sons: Boris, born in 1927, and Arkadi, born in 1936. When the Great Patriotic War began Michael was recruited to the army. I don't know where exactly he served. He was awarded two orders of Red Star. Shortly after he returned from the front he got married for a third time. He worked in a supply company in Kiev. Then he resigned. His third wife Fania - all I know about her is her name - and he did housework together; they counted how many berries they would put in each varenik [dumpling with filling]. Michael took after my grandfather: same appearance and same bad character. He and his wife visited us every now and then. He didn't observe any Jewish traditions and spoke Russian. I didn't keep in touch with his children and cannot say whether they observed any traditions. Michael died of cancer in 1970s. His older son Boris buried his father in their family grave at Berkovtsy [town cemetery in Kiev] and then moved to America with his family. I don't have any information about him. I don't have any information about Michael's younger son either.
