Izia Antipka and his wife Alina Litvak

This is me and my wife Alina Litvak. This photo was taken in Kishinev in the late 1950s.

In 1949 I got a job at the meat grinder repair shop. Once I visited a tobacco factory, when I was chief of technical supervision. I met Alina Litvak, a Jewish girl, who worked at this factory. I liked her and we began to see each other. Then we fell in love with each other and I proposed to her. We had a small wedding party with my parents, relatives and a few friends. Of course, it was a common wedding with no chuppah. After the war we didn’t observe Jewish traditions, though we celebrated holidays, particularly Pesach, and my father always brought matzah from the synagogue. 

After the wedding we lived with my parents for some time. My sister married Alexandr Goldstein, a Jewish man from Kishinev. Lida was a pharmacist and Alexandr was a railroad engineer. My sister and later I received apartments from his organization. Our parents stayed in their apartment. 

We lived a good life. I earned well and was promoted to site superintendent in 1955. My wife joined the Communist Party. After about ten years of work she became chief of her laboratory, a forewoman and then shop superintendent. We didn’t have a car or a dacha, but we always spent vacations at the seashore or in a recreation center. We bought good food and clothes, often went to theaters and concerts. We celebrated birthdays and always invited friends and relatives. We also got together with friends on Soviet holidays to go to the river bank or to a forest and have a picnic and barbecue. We didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays, but we visited our parents where my mother treated us to all kinds of delicacies: she was an excellent cook. 

In 1954 our son Ilia was born. We named him after his maternal grandfather. Ilia studied well. He finished the electromechanical technical school and worked at a plant. He never mentioned to me if he ever faced everyday anti-Semitism.