In this photograph in the center is my stepmother Freida Leikind's mother Mindel Grinker. I, Asia Leikind, am beside her. From the right is my stepmother's brother Boris Grinker with his wife Ida and their child and from the left is her second brother Mendel with his wife Khasia. This photo was taken in Nikolaev in the 1930s.
My mother died in 1924. A year later my father married my grandmother's niece Freida. Her father Ruvim Grinker was grandmother Zisel's stepbrother. Freida's first husband Abram Girshel' died. She had a son named Samuel. He was the same age with me. My father and Freida registered their marriage in 1925. They didn't have a Jewish wedding. We moved in with Freida with our father. Freida's father Ruvim was a tailor and earned well. Freida's mother Mindel was a very kind and nice woman. Freida had two brothers: Boris and his wife Ida and Mendel and his wife Khasia. I only saw them once, when we went to be photographed in Nikolaev. The brothers perished during the Great Patriotic War. I have no more information about their wives. The big stone house had five rooms and a big kitchen. Later they leased a part of the house and we stayed in two rooms. There was no electricity and food was cooked in a Russian stove.
