Dora Slobodianskaya with her daughter Polina Slobodianskaya and her husband Boris Slobodianskiy

This is a picture of me, my daughter Polina Slobodianskaya and my husband Boris Slobodianskiy. The photo was taken in Chernovtsy in 1971. I met my husband in 1951. We got married in 1952. Polina was born on 22nd May 1959. We named her Polina, and she also has a Jewish name, Pesia-Perl, after Boris' mother and my grandmother Perl. I had had a few miscarriages before my daughter was born. The doctors said that former inmates of ghettos had problems with pregnancy due to hard living conditions in their childhood. My husband and I had to go to work, but there were no kindergartens available. I didn't want to quit my job because I feared that I wouldn't be able to get another one. My parents helped me raise my daughter. Polina went to kindergarten at the age of 5. My husband and I spoke Yiddish at home. My parents also spoke Yiddish with my daughter, and she said her first words in Yiddish. Our neighbors were loyal to us. One of our neighbors, an old Russian woman, told me that I should speak Yiddish with Polina since she needed to know her mother tongue. After the war Boris became a human resource inspector at the factory where his mother worked. He finished an evening secondary school and entered the Faculty of Economics at Chernovtsy University. He studied there by correspondence. He became secretary of the party organization of the factory. Boris was very busy with his party activities. We celebrated Soviet holidays at home. Soviet holidays were days off and we took advantage of this chance to get together and have a party. We enjoyed such occasions very much. My parents continued to celebrate Sabbath and all Jewish holidays after the war. We visited them on Jewish holidays and participated in the seder on Pesach. Polina finished a secondary school. After that she finished a music high school and entered the Music Pedagogical College in Ivano-Frankovsk. It was a smaller town, so it was easier for a Jewish girl to enter a higher educational institution there. Polina returned to Chernovtsy after she finished college and became a teacher at a music school. She still works there. She married a nice young Jewish man. My husband and I were happy that our daughter married a Jewish man. They didn't have a traditional Jewish wedding because my husband was secretary of the party unit of the garment factory. If his daughter had decided to have a Jewish wedding he might have lost his position. Our granddaughter Marina was born in 1981. I helped my daughter raise Marina. Marina finished a Polytechnic College. She is a manager in a company now.