Esther Shulyakovskaya and Gertz Shulyakovsky

This photo of my parents, Esther Shulyakovskaya and Gertz Shulyakovsky was taken in 1907 in Slutsk, in the Juchnin photo studio.

My father was born in 1881 in the town of Slutsk. Dad’s mother tongue was Yiddish. He also spoke Russian as well as Hebrew and later he learnt German on his own; he was a very talented man. Everyone else in our family also spoke Russian. Dad had only elementary education. He left home approximately at the age of 15 and continued his studies. He went to cheder as a child, as all Jewish kids did. Later he became an accountant and worked at the forestry. When a Jewish kolkhoz was set up on landowner Volzhinsky’s land and Grandpa Kulakovsky was invited to be chairman, Dad worked as an accountant there and my mother worked as a milkmaid, so this was where they met.

My mother was born in 1888. Mom grew up in a village and she was used to the countryside labor. Mom also had only elementary education. She was taught by a village teacher at home. She didn’t go to cheder, there weren’t any in that village. She was proposed to my father as a wife. Most likely it was her parents’ idea and it was a custom in those times. Mom was the eldest daughter in her family. She was married off at the age of 17. Mom never told me about her wedding. I was her fourth kid when she was 24 years old. She was married off because there were seven daughters in the family. Before her marriage she worked as a milkmaid in the kolkhoz, later she kept her household. During the war in 1941-1944 she was with me in evacuation in Sverdlovsk. After the war Mom lived with us, she was sick a lot of the time and died in 1952.

My parents got married in 1905. I don’t know what kind of wedding they had. They lived in Slutsk at first. They had four kids: Yefim, Lev, Nina and me, Raisa.