Tag #154735 - Interview #103607 (Riva Pizman Biography)

I know very little about my grandmother and grandfather. My parents became orphans at an early age. My paternal grandfather’s name was Moishe Gershberg, but I don’t know my grandmother’s first or maiden name. They lived in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. I don’t know what my grandfather did for a living. As for my grandmother, I think she was a housewife like all other married Jewish women at the time. I don’t know how many children they had, but besides my father, I knew his two older brothers: Froim and Isaac. My father Shloime Gershberg was born in 1890. His mother tongue was Yiddish, as well as his brothers’. He never told me about his childhood. It must have been hard: he was a little boy, when his parents died. All I know is that they died in the 1900s, and that my grandmother lived a little longer than my grandfather.  They were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. I don’t know how religious m grandfather and grandmother were. My father was an atheist, when I knew him. Only my father’s older brother Froim was religious. He went to the synagogue on Jewish holidays and celebrated Sabbath and holidays at home. His children were atheists, though.
 
My father had to go to work at an early age. He became an apprentice of a cabinetmaker. Later he started working on his own making furniture. Of course, this was plain furniture that he made, but his customers were common people.  His older brother Froim was also a carpenter. My father’s brother Isaac was a tailor. They were married. Froim had five children: son Vladimir [Common name] 1, Velvl was his Jewish name, and daughters Golda, Rosa – her Jewish name was Reizl, Musia and Anna, whose Jewish name was Hana. My father’s brother Isaac had three children: sons Iosif and Vladimir and daughter Miriam.