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This is my sister Lubov Moshkovich, her husband Moshkovich is standing, my mother Bluma Shafer is holding their first son Semyon Moshkovich. This photo was taken in Khust on the occasion of my mother visiting my sister and birth of her first son in the middle 1950s.
My sister Luba married shoemaker Moshkovich, a Jewish man from Odessa in the early 1950s. She lived with her husband and son in Khust in Subcarpathia. My sister Luba died from cancer in Khust in 1981. She was buried in the town cemetery there. She was 50 years old. My parents and sister were buried in the Jewish cemetery following all Jewish traditions. My sister's husband and their sons Semyon and Felix moved to Israel in the late 1980s.
Once in 1952 mama's old acquaintance offered to introduce me to her distant relative Meyer Kozak. I liked Meyer. We got married in 1953.We lived with my parents: my mama and papa treated him very well. Life was getting better and I even thought that my fortune smiled at me, but it happened to be an illusion. On 11 February 1954 my son was born. Shortly afterward I got pregnant again. As for Meyer, he fell severely ill. When I was pregnant 5 months, Meyer died from tuberculosis in hospital in Odessa. I was struck with grief. Mama and I went to the funeral. My second child was born in late 1955. My parents helped me to raise the children.
However hard life was, we continued to observe Jewish traditions. My parents went to an old synagogue (the new one had been removed) but that one was all right. On Saturday father didn't work and mama tried to cook something special: latkes, kugel, even there was nothing else, but flour that she had. Father always brought matzah from the synagogue on holidays, or sometimes we made it in the Russian stove. We fasted on Yom Kippur and I still keep fasting nowadays. On Chanukkah mama made buckwheat pancakes. My children also know this holiday - they always got a few coins for sweets on this day.
