Zina Kaluzhnaya's family

This is our family. My mother, Bluma Fridelevna Slobodskaya, nee Tsyrulnik, is on the left. The second from the left is my sister Sarra Slobodskaya the third from the left is my father's sister, Mania Zelmanovna Larionova, nee Slobodskaya, and on the right is my father, Pinhus Zelmanovich Slobodskoy. The picture was taken in Moscow in 1929 by photographer I.G. Pomerantsev, Record studio, Moscow, Sretenka. My father was the director of a greengrocery. Mama didn't work. My parents came from Skwira, a small town in Kiev region. My father was born in Volodarka, in the vicinity of Skwira, but his family didn't stay there long. His younger brothers and sisters were already born in Skwira. My mama had a very soft character, but at the same time it was tough to some extent. If she believed somebody to be dishonest, or if somebody tried to say something bad about her family, she tried to stop seeing those acquaintances. She did a lot of good to her acquaintances, family and relatives, and she loved children. Relatives and neighbors always brought their children to her, and she looked after them. She was very kind-hearted, and when I grew up and got married, all our acquaintances used to say, 'You know, Zina, you are really lucky with your mother'. My sister Sarra was born in Skwira in 1926. She was very intelligent, but her health was failing her. She was ill for the bigger part of her life. She fell ill when she was about six years old. For a very long time the doctors couldn't find out what it was - her legs were failing her. Then they diagnosed the disease - it was bone tuberculosis. She was put into hospital in Puscha-Voditsa. During the war the hospital moved to Buzuluk and she stayed there throughout the war. Then, gradually, the paralysis retreated, she returned to Kiev and stayed in the health center where she studied all the time. Later she went to school, finished it and graduated from university. However, my mother had to take her to the university and back home. My sister worked as teacher all her life, but she didn't live a long life and died in 1990. Aunt Mania lived in Moscow all her life. She married a Russian and any relationships with the family were terminated, as my father rejected her for doing so. Once, before the war, my father went to Moscow to take her and her two children away from her husband. He brought them to Kiev, but her husband took them back. Only after the war they started writing to each other and she came here.