Tag #117539 - Interview #100491 (Frida Zimanene)

At first, there were hardly any changes. Mother’s store was so small that her business was of no interest to the new regime. However, it was nationalized a couple of months later and my mother started working there as a sales assistant. Father kept on working. He got even more orders as Soviet officers with their wives and children settled in Kaunas. The wives of officers, who hadn’t seen beautiful clothes before, swept anything they liked in the store and ordered new things for their kids. Mother leased one of our rooms to a yeshivah student. That student was very poor and our kind Marite gave him food in our kitchen. I was astounded that the student was so untidy, even filthy. It was strange to watch how a person who had been praying all day long used one and the same towel all year round and went without a bath for weeks. I mention that student, whose name I forgot, as there was a very sad episode in our family connected with him.