Tag #150127 - Interview #97046 (Evgenia Gendler)

My mother’s family lived in Riga, the capital of Latvia. I have never been to that city and can’t remember anything of what my mother told me about it.  My paternal grandfather Marcus Ioffe was born in Latvia in 1870s, but I don’t know exactly the place of his birth. I don’t have any information about my grandfather’s family or his life. I don’t even know how he looked since we had no pictures of him.  My grandmother Enta was the same age with my grandfather.  My grandmother came from the family that had many children, but I’ve never seen any of her relatives. I knew that some relatives of my grandmother’s moved to the US in early 1900s but this is all the information I have about them. Beginning from 1920s one could even get arrested for having relatives abroad [5].  The families didn’t correspond and members of our family didn’t even dare to mention their names. My grandfather was a businessman and my grandmother was a housewife.  There were three daughters in the family. The oldest Genia was born in 1894. My mother Chesl was born in 1896. Later, when we went to live in Novosokolniki she began to be called with the Russian name of Serafima [common name] [6]. My mother’s younger sister Sima was born in 1900. My mother’s family wasn’t wealthy, but they had enough to go on. They were a religious family. It’s hard to say how often they went to synagogue, but I know they celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays at home and followed kashrut. Their daughters got Jewish education at home. Then they studied in a Russian lower secondary school. They finished it before the revolution in 1917. After the revolution they didn’t continue their education. At my mother’s parents’ home they spoke Yiddish and Russian. The language of communication in Latvia was German and my mother could speak fluent German. My grandfather died in 1930s. After he died grandmother Enta used to come on durable visits and stay with us for long. 

I don’t know how my parents met, but I think it was an arranged marriage through matchmaker. My mother told me that she had a traditional Jewish wedding in her parents’ home. There was a chuppah and a rabbi conducted the wedding ceremony. They lived in Riga for some time, but my father didn’t know German and had problems in this regard since the majority of people spoke German.  I don’t know for what reason my parents chose Novosokolniki, a district town in Kalinin region in Russia, in about 500 km to the south of Leningrad [520 km to the west from Moscow]. They moved there before their first baby was born. They rented an apartment at the beginning, but then their relatives lent my parents some money to buy a house. My older sister Elena was born in 1920. My other sister Lubov was born in 1923. Her Jewish name was Liebe, but I don’t remember Elena’s Jewish name. I was the third daughter. I was born in 1926 and named Zelda at birth.