This is my father Isaac Landsman. He gave this photo to my mother shortly before they got married. It is written overleaf: "To my Minochka from Senya. 4.5.1919". The picture was taken in Nizhniy Novgorod in 1919.
I don’t know much about my father's family. There were three sons in the family. All of them were born in Liozno. My father’s older brother, Morduhai, was born in 1887, my father was born in 1893, and the youngest brother Pavel, Jewish name Pinhas, was born in 1895.
My father never told me about his childhood and adolescence. His family spoke Yiddish. I think my father's family was religious. It couldn't have been different at that time, especially in hick towns.
My father and his brothers moved to Nizhniy Novgorod before World War I. It was a big city, but it was included in the Jewish Pale of Settlement, and Jews were permitted to live there.
After moving to Nizhniy Novgorod, my father's eldest brother, Morduhai, learned the craft of glass-blowing. My father and his younger brother rented the premises for the shop and sold secondhand men's suits. My father met his future wife in Nizhniy Novgorod.
My mother told me the story of how they met. The central street in Nizhniy Novgorod was called Bolshaya Pokrovskaya; it has the same name now. In the evenings and during the weekends young people used to saunter in the street, sing songs and eat ice-cream.
My father was with his friends and my mother was with hers. Somebody broached the conversation and they got acquainted. In 1920 they got married.
I was born on 14th April 1924 in Nizhniy Novgorod. My parents called me Adolf. I don't have a Jewish name.
My father still worked in his shop with his brother Pavel. My mother was a housewife and took care of me. We were pretty well-off during the NEP times, and the Soviet regime encouraged entrepreneurship.
