Tag #135234 - Interview #77995 (Liana Degtiar)

My father's sister Gita, born in 1906, graduated from the Pharmaceutical Department of the university in Iasi and went to work as a pharmacist. Gita married my father's former group mate in the Realschule, Yakov Shtivelman. My father told me that Yakov wrote his diploma thesis on the October revolution [see Russian Revolution of 1917] [4] before finishing the Realschule [5]. Yakov was a talented man. He graduated from the Chemical Faculty of the university in Iasi. He and Aunt Gita lived in Bucharest and we visited them. In 1931 their son Carl was born. In 1940 they also returned to Bessarabia. Uncle Yakov worked as a chemistry teacher in the Jewish school in Soroki. He always recalled this school with a warm feeling; they had a great team of teachers there. During the war, Aunt Rachil and Uncle Yakov evacuated to the vicinity of Samarkand. They worked at a sugar factory. Yakov was a chemist and Gita worked at the laboratory, or perhaps, she was a pharmacist. In 1945 their second son Boris was born. They returned to Soroki in 1948.