Tag #140762 - Interview #77966 (Deborah Averbukh)

The yeshivah in Dnepropetrovsk, where my father worked, was closed in 1922, and he was left without a job. But there was something like a wine-making company, where my father began to work. However, there wasn't enough work. My father's older brother, Aron, was working in Kiev as a doctor and my parents decided to move to Kiev. At the beginning we lived on 55, Zhilyanskaya Street, on the second floor, but only for a short time. It was there, where we must have celebrated my second birthday. The adults sat around one table, while the children were seated around a children's wicker table in little wicker chairs. On the second floor there was a porch with a wooden staircase. I didn't like one of the boys who was my guest so I pushed him down the staircase from the second floor. I remember that very well. I also recall that it was raining. I went downstairs and my neighbors treated me to lobster. Lobster isn't kosher, so I knew I shouldn't eat it, but I still tried it.

In 1923 we moved to 18, Sovskaya Street, which is now Fizkulturnaya Street. It was a big house, or actually two houses: on the street there was a one- storied brick house on the left, while on the right there was a two-and-a- half-storied house with a basement where a shoemaker, a dressmaker, and a street-cleaner, a Jew, whose name was Yefremchik, lived. A Polish family of intellectuals by the name of Dobrolej lived on the second floor. The family of Rozanovy lived in the one-storied brick house. They were also good people. Their daughter was a pianist. When I turned six, my parents wanted me to learn play the piano, and I had to practice in their apartment because we had no piano of our own. They also had a son who was successful in life; I believe he was an engineer.

In the yard stood another one-storied house, in which a very poor Jewish family from the province lived. They had two daughters. The younger daughter was called Bronya; she dated a very handsome young man by the name of Abrasha. Several times he came there by car, which was unique at the time. Later they got married. Today his son, Vladimir Avrumovich Polyachenko, is the director of Ukraine's biggest building company, Kievgorstroy. We also had a small open barn in the yard, so these two young girl as well as the Rozanovys and Dobrolejes staged plays there. They sold tickets for these plays and donated the money to charity. I also played in those charity performances: I would recite poems by Lermontov [13] and dance lezghinka [a fast folk dance, which originated in the Northern Caucasus and was very popular all over the Soviet Union].