Rimma Rozenberg

This is me, Rimma Rozenberg. This photo was taken in Odessa in 1931, when I was three years old. I am enjoying my favorite pastime in the living room of our apartment playing with my father's chess set. I was born in Odessa in 1928. My parents lived in an apartment at 28 Kanatnaya Street. My first childhood memory is as follows: I am throwing toys out of the window. We were quite wealthy and I had many toys while other children, I noticed, didn't have any and I decided to share mine with them in this way. I didn't go to kindergarten, but I attended a group with Maria Ivanovna, a russified German lady, a Froebel tutor. For some reason we couldn't get together in her apartment, so we gathered in her pupils' apartments; every day with a different family. Maria Ivanovna taught us German and music. We had a noise orchestra where I played the castanets. I learned to read at the age of four. We had Russian newspapers that were kept on a window sill, so I learned to read from them. I played with my friend Truda Zolotaryova, a Jewish girl, sitting under the staircase making up stories. I was quite a dreamer and plotted new games. When I turned six, I had a German teacher who visited me at home. As a result, I got a good grasp of German.