Lev Drobyazko's aunt, mother's sister Genya Vaisblat

My aunt, Genya Vaisblat (Genderfeld), my mother's sister. She was born in 1890 in Malin. The photo was taken in 1970 in Kiev. The eldest daughter in the Vaisblat family was my aunt Genya. Her husband's last name was Genderfeld. She was the only child of the rabbi who was schooled in Jewish subjects. Jewish teachers taught her at home, and she was good at Hebrew. She knew all the Jewish holidays, traditions, and recipes for Jewish foods, and in general possessed all that knowledge a Jewish woman ought to know. Genya could read, write and speak French. In 1910-1915 she was considered one of the most beautiful Jewish girls of Kiev. When she married at the Brodsky synagogue in Kiev, there were so many guests that the carriage wagons that brought them to the ceremony occupied every street within a two block radius of the synagogue. In July 1941 Aunt Genya and her two children, my mother and I were evacuated together, while Genya's husband, Israel Genderfeld, who actively propagated the idea that nobody needed to leave Kiev since the Germans were a highly cultured nation, stayed here and was subsequently killed in the Holocaust in Babiy Yar . Aunt Genya was the oldest girl in the family, so she brought up my mother, and was like a second grandmother to me. She died in Kiev in 1980 at the age of 90.