Tag #128806 - Interview #78169 (rachel randvee)

My father, Hirsh-Leib Tsivian, was born in the town of Kreizburg in Latvia. It was a small town on the bank of Daugava River; many Jews lived there at that time. My father's father, Yakov Tsivian, went around Latvian villages purchasing cattle and selling it to butchers. He died early so neither my elder sister, Riva, nor I ever met him. My father's mother, Grandma Haya- Sore, was left alone with a whole flock of children after her husband died. In order to maintain her family she started baking. She baked and sold challah for Sabbath, strudel and other delicious pies for Jewish holidays, and she also took orders for wedding cakes. This kind of business wasn't very profitable; her family was very poor and the children were often sick.

My grandmother had twelve children, but some of them died in infancy and some died later. In the 1930s only four of my grandmother's children were still alive - my father and his three sisters: Sofia, Dina, and Asne. At that time, Grandma Haya-Sore lived in Riga [Latvia] with the family of her youngest daughter Asne Fain, nee Tsvivian. My sister and I went there for our summer holidays on several occasions. Aunt Asne rented a room for us in a Jewish summer hotel at a Riga seaside resort so we would only eat kosher food. For Sabbath we always went to Riga to our grandma's and attended the synagogue on Saturday mornings. Our grandmother was very old, she could only walk with great difficulty. She told us that attending synagogue gave her strength.