The wedding day of Isaac and Sara Hercenberg

This is the wedding photo of my brother Isaac Hercenberg and his wife Sonja (Sara in the documents) Sorkina. They got married in 1938 in Riga. Top row (left to right): my sister Gita, my brother Isaac, my sister-in-law Sara, Moric Rozenberg (Gita's husband) and me. Bottom row: my father, Adolf Hercenberg and my mother, Feike Ite Hercenberg. My youngest brother, Isaac, also known as Isaac Meier, was born in Mitava, or Jelgava, in 1912. Isaac went to a Jewish school, graduated and went as a trainee to work in a clothes shop. He was rather short, but he grew up later to be a very handsome man. He was very kind. Isaac, too, like Boris, joined the ?Brit-Trumpeldorf? club. He wanted to go to Israel, too. Isaac became a salesman in a shop, and then joined the Latvian army in 1934. You had to be 21 to join the Latvian Army. When he came back there was a tendency among Jews to do hard physical work - to prepare themselves for life in Palestine. It was through such work that Isaac met his future wife, Sonya Sorkina. He was carrying bags for his brother-in-law (Moric Rozenberg). At four or five in the morning his brother-in-law got dressed and went out to work, in winter as well as summer. Farmers took corn from their farms to sell in town. They didn't deliver all their corn at once, just when they needed money. His brother-in-law was a great specialist. He tasted the corn, then brought it to the corn elevator. In 1938 Isaac married Sonya (Sara) Sorkina. In 1941 we saw him for the last time on St. John's Day, 24th June. The war had already started. He came to our house, and Sara was there too. He told her, ?If everybody is leaving, you should leave too!? She answered, ?I am not leaving without you!? Later we found out that Isaac had been killed in Staraja Russ in 1941. We have a document to that effect. His wife Sonya remained with us for the rest of her life. My sister Gita was studying to become a pharmacist. In 1933, she married Moric Rozenberg, who was 18 years older than Gita. Gita was very beautiful, and looked much younger than her true age. Moric Rozenberg was a bachelor, an older man, not too poor, but I wouldn't say he was extremely rich, either. In Jelgava he decorated a very beautiful flat, ordering everything from a catalogue, and employed a housekeeper to care for it. They had a beautiful, grand wedding. I was finishing the 7th grade when Gita got married. In 1934, she gave birth to a daughter who they named Atida. They lived a normal life. Gita didn't work any more. They had a Jewish circle of friends and played cards in the evenings. Gita could lose as much money as she wanted, as Moric would always pay. But when Gita happened to win some money, she would buy something for me - some material for a dress, or a coat or an outfit. Her husband loved me dearly.