Lyudmila’s mother with her brother


The girl, who is standing beside the tree, is my mother Aida, and the boy is her elder brother Syoma. The snapshot is taken in the Ukraine. They, probably, arrived here to visit the parents of their father, grandmother and grandfather - Meer Golshmid (what grandmother's name was, I do not know). I only know, because mother told me so, that grandmother was for some reason always sitting in an armchair, and they took her from place to place in that armchair. I don't know anything else.

My mother Àida Leibovna Levit (nee Golshmid) was born in 1906 in St.Petersburg. Before revolution, in lower classes, she studied in the well-known female Stayuninskaya grammar school. She was telling me about that grammar school with delight, that there was good order and, by the way, no anti-Semitism ever existed. One of the subjects was the Law of God, and the Jews were allowed to skip those lessons. And in general there was no anti-Semitism in the attitudes of people with whom my grandmother and grandfather communicated. Anti-Semitism in their circle in general was considered a shame. A person who showed any sign of anti-Semitism, was simply announced a boycott. After the revolution, in 1924, Mum  finished a school in Petrograd that was located in the building of the former 1-st grammar school for boys in Kabinetskaya Street (now Pravdy Street).

Mum had two brothers. The elder, Semen Leibovich Golshmid, was born in 1902. During the Great Patriotic War he was severely wounded and lost his leg.  He died in 1948 in Leningrad. Her second brother - Alexander, born in 1909, also was a participant of the Great Patriotic War, and received a heavy contusion in the fights in Nevskaya Dubrovka. After the war he worked as an engineer and designer.  He died in 1980.