Beila Gabis’s uncle Avrum Fainshtein with his wife Lisa Fainshtein

This is my father's brother Avrum Fainshtein and his wife Lisa. This photo was taken in Nemirov where they were working in 1939 and sent to my parents.

My father's brother Avrum, born in 1912, finished the Polytechnic College in Vinnitsa. He got a job assignment at the distillery in Bershad'. I remember one event where Arum was involved that can serve as an example of educating a grown up son whom my grandmother Rivka handled perfectly. When Avrum received his first salary he bought vodka for his foreman and crew which was a tradition at that time. Avrum was not used to drinking. He returned home tipsy. Grandmother didn't say a word. In two or three days was Avrum's birthday. Grandmother gave him a nice big money box. Everybody was surprised: why would a big guy need a moneybox? Avrum was hurt, but he didn't show it. Before going to bed he came to give grandmother his usual kiss and couldn't help asking her why she made such strange present to him. I stayed at my grandmother's that night. I was reading a book in bed and I stayed quiet as a mouse waiting for my grandmother's reply. She said 'Now, Avrum, when you buy vodka you shall drop exactly the same amount of money into this moneybox. One day you will open it and see how much you've stolen from yourself'. He rose, kissed my grandmother and thanked her for teaching him. He didn't drink from then on. He became a very good engineer. He worked in Layzhin and Nemirov.

Before the Great Patriotic War he became chief engineer of the distillery in Bershad. When the war began he was demobilized to the army regardless of his poor sight. He didn't return from this war. His wife Lisa, a Jew, a beautiful and intelligent woman with higher education, married a tinsmith after the war since she needed support. She gave good education to her only daughter Manechka. Manechka married a director of a bank. They moved to USA in the 1970s.