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My mother's brother Isaac was born in the late 1880s. During the Civil War [8] Isaac was in the Red army. In the 1920s he began to work as a railroad conductor. He lived in a railway station and rarely visited us. Uncle Isaac perished on a train during an air raid in 1943.
Bencion, the youngest of the brothers, was born in 1891. He was a carpenter. Before the war he worked at a trade company. He was married, but they had no children. His wife perished in Odessa during the Great Patriotic War. He volunteered to the army and perished near Sevastopol in early 1942.
My mother, Rachil Ghendler-Feldman, was born in Odessa in 1887. She finished a grammar school and wanted to continue her education. One of her aunts agreed to sponsor her and pay 35 rubles per month. My mother went to Zurich, Switzerland, in 1905 where she studied at the Medical Faculty. She and her girlfriend rented an apartment. They ate students' food: cheese and chocolate. In Zurich my mother heard Lenin's speech in public and Plekhanov [9]. She said Lenin didn't impress her: he looked like a zemstvo specialist in statistics and Plekhanov looked like a European professor. [Editor's note: zemstvo is a local self-government body, introduced after the 1864 reform in Russia, and consisted of elected representatives of all classes. It dealt mostly with local issues, had its own budgets, which consisted of the taxes collected from the local people only and was independent of the state budget.] My mother took no interest in politics and she thought that serious people didn't get involved in political matters. She finished two years [of her studies] in Switzerland and returned to Odessa where she met my father. I don't know where they met.
Bencion, the youngest of the brothers, was born in 1891. He was a carpenter. Before the war he worked at a trade company. He was married, but they had no children. His wife perished in Odessa during the Great Patriotic War. He volunteered to the army and perished near Sevastopol in early 1942.
My mother, Rachil Ghendler-Feldman, was born in Odessa in 1887. She finished a grammar school and wanted to continue her education. One of her aunts agreed to sponsor her and pay 35 rubles per month. My mother went to Zurich, Switzerland, in 1905 where she studied at the Medical Faculty. She and her girlfriend rented an apartment. They ate students' food: cheese and chocolate. In Zurich my mother heard Lenin's speech in public and Plekhanov [9]. She said Lenin didn't impress her: he looked like a zemstvo specialist in statistics and Plekhanov looked like a European professor. [Editor's note: zemstvo is a local self-government body, introduced after the 1864 reform in Russia, and consisted of elected representatives of all classes. It dealt mostly with local issues, had its own budgets, which consisted of the taxes collected from the local people only and was independent of the state budget.] My mother took no interest in politics and she thought that serious people didn't get involved in political matters. She finished two years [of her studies] in Switzerland and returned to Odessa where she met my father. I don't know where they met.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Victor Feldman