Jemma Grinberg's father Moisey Grinberg, his sister Nehama and Leya

From left to right: my father, Moisey Grinberg, with his sisters Nehama (center) and Leya. The photo was taken in Radzivillov, Ukraine in 1915. My father Moisey Grinberg was born in 1903. After he finished his studies at a cheder and the Jewish primary school, he worked for some time in his father's shop, helping him repair shoes. In the early 1920s my father attended a trade union activist's school and for some time was involved in trade union activities. My father did not receive any special education, but he took a number of different courses and attended several workshops. He studied German and got a job as a German teacher at a school. In 1925, he met my mother, Anna Deich, through his sister Rosa who was her friend. They corresponded by mail for a whole year before they actually met. When they finally did meet, they fell in love with each other. In 1925 my father was arrested for some reason and was imprisoned for a few months. When he was released, my parents realized that they couldn't live without each other and got married. I mean, they just began to live together, because civil registration was considered to be a vestige of the past. My father's sister, Nehama, was born in 1902. She was called Ania at home. She completed her studies at a medical school and worked in the nursery room at the railway station in Kiev. Her husband, Boris Lensky (Lensky was his Party nickname), had been her brother Yevsey's friend since the civil war. After the war he graduated from the Medical Institute and became a famous surgeon. Boris perished during WWII. Nehama and her daughter Regina were evacuated with us to Tashkent After the war, Nehama returned to Kiev, where, until her death in 1969, she lived with her daughter, Regina. Nehama's older son, Leonid, was sent to the front during the war. The war changed his personality, and he became withdrawn and lived alone. The next sibling born into the Grinburg family after my father was Leya, who was called Liza. Liza finished her studies at a pedagogical school and worked as a tutor at a hostel for laborers. She was single, but she has a daughter named Tamara. Liza died in 1989 and Tamara, her daughter, now lives in Australia.