My uncle, my father's brother Horatsiy Volodarskiy. This photo was taken on the occasion of his arrival from France where he studied. He gave this photo to my father. Kiev, 1920s.
My father's parents died before I was born. They were wealthy. My father's father Leib Shul Volodarskiy owned a transportation office in Belaya Tserkov. He transported loads to and from the railway station, also furniture and other loads in town or took passengers to on business to nearby towns. My father inherited it after his father died. I don't know when it happened. I don't know anything about my grandmother. My father's family was religious. My father had three brothers and a sister. I don't know when they were born. I know that Horatsiy Volodarsky was the youngest. I have no information about two of my father's brother, but I know a little about his sister and his younger brother.
My father's younger brother Horatsiy Volodarskiy finished a grammar school in Belaya Tserkov. He was considered to be the most talented one in the family. There was a 5% quota for Jews to enter higher educational institutions and the Volodarskiy family decided to contribute money so that the smartest one got a higher education. So they exactly he studied. Horatsiy went to study in France in the 1920s and became an engineer. I don't know in what college he studied. After finishing his college he returned to the USSR, got married and worked in Kiev. I know that at some time Horatsiy worked as an engineer at the 'Bolshevik' instrument-making plant in Kiev. I don't remember my uncle wife's name, but I remember that she was very strict. When my father, my brothers and I visited them in Kiev, we had to watch our manners: wash ourselves, speak quietly and behave ourselves. We were so scared there! My uncle didn't have children. During the Great Patriotic War Horatsiy and his older brother Semyon evacuated to Nizhniaya Salda in Sverdlovsk region. There were very hard life conditions. He may have starved to death. He was an old man. Horatsiy's wife died probably in 1940.
