The Ukrainian Jewish Family Album

Portraits
Grigoriy Stel’makh
Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1947
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
My father Isaac Stel’makh in his office in the
military administration in Berlin. This photo was
taken to send it to the family in Kyiv. My father
was the product of his epoch. He went to cheder
like all Jewish boys and then finished a Jewish
school. Then… I would say he was drawn in with
the ‘wheel of history.’ He left his home at the
age of 14. He headed to Kamyanets-Podilskyi,
100 km west of his home where he joined the
Komsomol and became a Komsomol activist.
Photo taken in: Berlin, 1956
My father, Isaak Stel’makh, in jail. In 1945
he reached Berlin. After the victory, my
father was assigned to the Soviet Military
Administration of the city. On 20 January
1949, state security officers came to his
office and asked him to follow them. He was
arrested under article 58, item 10: anti-Soviet
agitation and propaganda. He was taken to a
prison in Berlin. For ten months he underwent
interrogation, including torture, before he
was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1962
I took this photograph of my father
Isaac Stel’makh during the Celebration
of Victory Day in Kyiv. There was a big
official celebration of Victory Day in
1962. It was always the best holiday
for my father. On 14 August 1956, the
Military Collegium of the Supreme Court
of the USSR reviewed my father’s case
and closed it for absence of corpus
delicti. After spending several years in
prison, my father was rehabilitated.
Photo taken in: Kyiv,1936
Interviewer: Tatyana Chayka
My husband, Kushel Finberg,
when he was 19, at the factory
in Kyiv where he worked. Before
we married in 1947 my mentality
was Soviet with simply no place
for Jewish traditions or faith. The
war and the Holocaust radically
changed my mind. With my
marriage to Kushel, my life began
to fill with Jewish traditions and
religion again.
Lilya Finberg
Photo taken in: Chernivtsi, 1920s
Interviewer: Andreea Laptes
My husband, Carol Ionel Greif, as
a baby with his mother Amalia.
Carol was a Jew from Chernivtsi.
He studied at two universities. He
studied languages and chemistry by
correspondence at a university in
Belgium. I met him in Brasov before I
left for university. He was older than
me and had quite a reputation with
women, but to me he was friendly
and he often took me out to the
theater, behaved like a gentleman,
and joked that when I grew up he
would marry me.
Ruth Greif
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