Tag #140736 - Interview #77966 (Deborah Averbukh)

My father, Yakov Abramovich Averbukh, was born in 1887 in the town of Novokonstantinov. He was born into a very religious family. He had an exceptionally good knowledge of Judaism and kept every religious tradition and holidays up until his very death in Babi Yar [2]. In our home we always kept kosher laws and observed traditional Jewish holidays. Even though we were extremely poor, we had one or two needy Jewish students from the synagogue, who received monthly support from us, according to the Jewish tradition. To our holiday table on Friday evening and during Pesach seders we always invited Jews who were visiting from other cities and who had no place to celebrate.

My father came directly from the line of Baal Shem-Tov [3], the founder of Hasidism [4], in the sixth generation. His father, Avrum Arns Averbukh, was the father of three sons and three daughters. One of the sons, Aron, born in 1890, was a very famous doctor in Kiev. He was always ready to help our family.

My father's older brother, Beresh, born in 1885, lived near Korosten, Zhytomyr region. He organized Jewish collective farms [5] in the Crimea in the 1930s. Then he and his family moved to Birobidzhan [6], but before the war they returned to Korosten. He had seven children: four sons, who all died during the Holocaust, and three daughters, who live in Israel now.