Itzyk Weisenberg

This is my father Itzyk Weisenberg. This photo was taken in Mogilyov-Podolskiy in 1915. 

My father Itzyk Weisenberg was born in 1899 in Mogilyov-Podolskiy Vinnitsa province of the Russian Empire. I never saw my father's parents. They died, when my father was just a teenager. My grandfather's name was Shmul. As for my grandmother, I don't know her name. I don't know what my grandfather did to earn his living. My grandmother was a housewife like all married Jewish women at the time. My father didn't tell me about his childhood. Of all his brothers and sisters I only knew his younger sister Klara, Haya in Jewish. She also lived in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Klara was married and her family name was Shtern. She had one daughter, whose name was Lisa. 

I don't know how my mother met my father. My parents got married in 1922. They were both poor, and a big wedding party was out of the question.  There was a chuppah installed in the yard of my mother parents' house, and then my grandmother made a small wedding dinner with my mother and father's relatives. After the wedding my parents returned to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. They rented half of a small house in the center of Mogilyov-Podolskiy, in the Jewish neighborhood. There were two small rooms and a kitchen in the house. The kitchen was behind a partition in the room.  There was a big stove heating the rooms and the kitchen, and mama also cooked on this stove. Water was fetched from the well three houses away from where my parents lived. There was no plot of land near the house. The houses adjoined to one another in the center of the town. There were 2 old apple trees near the house, and a wood shed and a toilet in the backyard. My father made a table, wardrobes and cupboards, plank beds and stools for the house.

Mama was a housewife after getting married. Their first daughter was named Zina - this is a Russian name, Zisl in Jewish; she was born in 1924, their second daughter Etia was born in 1926. I was the third daughter in the family. I was born in 1932. I was named Sonia, and my Jewish name is Sosl. My younger sister Nyusia was born in 1939. She was given the Jewish name of Hana. She was called affectionately Hanusia - Nyusia at home, and this name was put down in her birth certificate. It was hard for my father to provide for the family of six of us.  My father made plain furniture, doors and window frames. We could hardly make ends meet. Nyusia and I wore our sisters' clothes that they had grown out of.