The family of Simcha and Bluma Meyerovich

This is a photo from the family album, taken in Leningrad in 1928. This is the family of Simcha Kusiel Meyerovich: Simcha and Bluma are sitting in the chairs, the girl standing behind them is my wife-to-be, Marianna. Around Simcha and Bluma are their sons and daughters-in-law. Standing to the right are Abram and Miriam, my father and mother-in-law. The Meyerovich family came from Pochep, located on the border of Russia and Ukraine. Their ancestors owned a private printing-house in Pochep. They printed books and magazines. All their sons and their whole family worked in that printing-house. They were considered a wealthy and prosperous family, middle-class for those times. They were someone who is called ?ikes? in boroughs, which means cultured respectable people with a developed dignity. My father-in-law, Abram Semyonovich Meyerovich, was the elder son of Simcha, Kusiel's elder son. In 1923 he married his distant relative, Miriam Yudovna Medvedeva. In 1924 their only daughter Marianna, my wife-to-be, was born. Before the Revolution, Abram Meyerovich finished a vocational school, obtained engineering education in the 1920s and worked at a bread-baking plant. He was arrested in 1932 in connection with a slanderous denunciation, accused of participation in a Zionist organization; they tried to get a testimony from him against the bread-baking plant general manager, a Jew. He was a courageous and physically strong man, so he passed the ordeal. He didn't slander anyone and didn't sign anything. Meanwhile his relatives found some acquaintances who managed to get a release for him. During the war, Abram Meyerovich was in technical units of the Baltic Navy aviation, took part in the defense of Leningrad, liberation of the Baltic countries and the seizure of Koenigsberg. His wife and daughter were in evacuation in Omsk at that time and worked at an aircraft plant. A lot of their relatives starved to death in besieged Leningrad. In 1947 Abram Meyerovich was demobilized and the family was re-united in Leningrad. After the war he worked at the ?Krasnaya Zaria? plant, specialized in production of communication means, until he retired. Maria Yuryevna graduated from the Library Institute and worked in a library at the Kulakov plant. They lived at Petrogradskaya Storona in two rooms in an apartment, which they inherited from their parents. This four-room apartment completely belonged to the Meyeroviches before, but after the war a lot of locals had to make room for others. There was not enough space for everyone to live. When Marianna and I got married, we didn't know each other well enough. We liked each other when we met. She promised to be a faithful and devoted wife, but there was no time for the mutual feeling to grow stronger. I wanted to put my personal life in order as quickly as possible and to bring up my daughter in a normal family environment. Marianna was a 5th-year student of the Medical Institute at that time and her marriage allowed her to stay in Leningrad when it came to getting an assignment. Otherwise she should have been sent to work in some far-away countryside district of the country with hard conditions.