Bella and Rita Bogdanova

This is me with my daughter Rita Bogdanova. The photo was taken in Riga in 1964.

My daughter Rita, born in 1957, graduated from the Latvian University, from the Department of German Philology. She works in the State Historical Archives. When she received her passport, my daughter wanted to be recorded as Jewish, but I talked her out of it. It was difficult for the Jews in the Soviet times.

Rita is my joy, my happiness. She was brought up by my husband Sergey’s mother, because I worked. Sergey and I talked Latvian between ourselves, for I didn’t know Russian. But I learned Russian later. I speak only Russian with my Ritulya. I was somehow unable to talk German to her, the language spoken to me by my mom. Sergey loved Rita very much. As much as my father loved me. They liked each other a lot. He was very proud of her and of the fact, that she was the first of the Bogdanov family to obtain higher education.