Tag #129111 - Interview #78123 (ruth strazh)

My father's family was very religious. In Tallinn my grandfather was a rabbi in the synagogue [4] of Tallinn. My grandfather's photograph was there in the Tallinn synagogue office until the early 1940s. My father had a similar, but enlarged, picture over his desk. The family did observe Jewish traditions, followed kashrut and celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays. It couldn't have been otherwise in a rabbi's family. My father and his brother received Jewish education, as was common with Jewish families. I don't know what language they spoke in my father parents' family. When I first saw my grandmother Johanna in 1937, the only language she spoke was German, and my father could speak fluent Yiddish.

All three children were given appropriate secular education. They finished a gymnasium and continued their studies. My father's older sister Dora graduated from Tartu University with the diploma of a dentist. My father and his younger brother Leon went to Vienna and entered the Medical Faculty of Vienna University.