This is my grandfather on mother's side, Leibe Vulfovich Berkal.
He lived in the Latvian city of Dvinsk, which now is called Daugavpils.
His wife, my grandmother Hana Berkal (I do not know her maiden name), was born in the same Pre-Baltic area in the 1860s and died before the war in 1930 – I don’t know the exact date.
My grandfather was handsome, with a white beard. He was thin and of average height. He was very kindly, gentle and quiet, and he was also very religious. He was a shames in a synagogue.
He and my grandmother were quite well off financially. When he came for a visit, Grandfather Leibe prayed in our house every morning, and put tfilin on his arms.
Grandfather and Grandmother spoke to each other only in Yiddish. Grandmother Hana was a housewife, a very religious woman.
They had a large family, six children. Among them was my mother, Tsitsilia Leibovna Averbukh, nee Berkal. She was born in 1883 and died in 1968.
