The Ukrainian Jewish Family Album

Portraits
Baby Pisetskaya
Photo taken in: Uman, 1925
Interviewer: Ada Goldferb
Chaya Meyerson (nee Pisetskaya),
my father’s youngest sister. Chaya
finished a lower secondary school
then married Israel Meyerson, a
Jewish man, in 1936. They had a
Jewish wedding with a chuppah.
There was a big wedding party. All
her brothers and sisters and their
families from Kharkiv, Moscow,
and Kursk came to her wedding in
Odessa. There was even an article
about this wedding in a Jewish
newspaper. There was even a
photo of our family published. Her
husband died on the front in 1943.
Dora Postrelko
Iosif Shubinsky
Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1952
Interviewer: Ella Orlikova
My mother, Etl Shubinskaya, with my
son Boris. For a long time after the
war, I knew nothing about my parents.
Later I learned that my parents
evacuated from Kyiv. They left on their
own without any organization. I knew
they had a difficult time at different
evacuation destinations. I looked for
them for a long time. Only in 1943 was
I informed that my parents were in
Kazakhstan, where my wife had also
gone. My father died there.
Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1947
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
My father Aron Gehtmann and his
third wife, Lisa, on their wedding
day. My father was a very impulsive
person; when he liked someone,
he poured kisses and gifts onto
that person. The problem was
that he was too full of love. For
that reason he left my mother
for a different woman. He often
wrote to me, but he only visited
from Leningrad two or three
times, always bringing gifts. I could
not afford to go to see him, but
I always wished him well on all
holidays. He died in 1968.
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