Tag #145765 - Interview #102250 (Zoya Shapochnik)

My maternal grandmother’s name was also Dvoira [nee Hadji]. There were a lot of Jewish names of mixed origin in Bessarabia. They had the imprint of Turkish and Romanian languages. [Hadji in the Muslim tradition refers to a pilgrim.] My grandmother mostly took care of the children. There was a maid who came over to do the household chores. Dvoira was mostly keen on theater. She nurtured the love for theater in her daughter, my mother, who passed it on to me. There was a Russian theater in Kishinev. Plays by Gogol [13] and Chekhov [14] were staged there, but it existed only before Bessarabia was annexed to Romania. My grandmother was a frequent theater-goer. It was a real treat when famous actors came from Moscow and Petersburg [today Russia]. Dvoira would take the whole day to get ready. She put on her best bib and tucker, and wore modest jewelry so that the children felt that something great was going to happen. The Treiger family lived very modestly. They never owned a house, just rented small apartments. Education and upbringing were prioritized.