We lived in Ternovka village, Ukraine. I was five or six years old - it was 1922, then. We were six - the eldest daughter was about 17. Our father Pinhas Rabinovitch decided that the family should move to America. So we moved closer to the Romanian border - to Kamenka village. I remember traveling through villages with my sister, and natives treated us with corn cakes.

   We used to live in some hut there. And there was a plum-tree under our windows. We could pick the plums just out of the window. We were going to cross a boundary river. It was illegal; some people succeeded, others drowned. But then some of the children felt ill with scab, and our plans changed. We moved to Uman town and lived there till 1926.

   Then father moved to Leningrad, and later on mother with the children followed him. I was a smart girl - when they said we would live in Vassilyevsky Island, I thought - how could we live there, among the water? My elder sister Dvoyra was a teacher. She taught us Russian. First we lived in a one-room apartment: mother, father and six girls. Then we had an additional room.

   Father was a handicraftsman, but his business wasn't successful. There was a machine in the kitchen; we used to knit by turns, and then father took our knitting somewhere. Mother worked at the stocking factory. Dvoyra was a teacher of Russian. Nehama became an accountant and worked at a garment factory. My sister Bella and I graduated from Leningrad Institute of Mines and got married. In 1939 I had a son Yury.

   Two days before WWII my sister Sonya with her daughter and nephew visited us. I was in a maternity hospital that time. When the war started, Sonya and I took four children (my baby was only 4 days old!) and evacuated to Karaganda. It was a miracle that my son survived. He was terribly weak. Later on mother, father and Nehama joined us in Karaganda. Dvoyra and Fanya stayed in Leningrad during the blockade.

   On the second photo are my mother and all her six daughters. Dvoyra holds a girl - she's our mother's great-granddaughter (mother lived up to 96). Dvoyra also lived to see her great-grandchildren - this girl's babies. Bella and Nehama have passed away. Sonya lives in Leningrad, and Fanya - in Israel.

Written down by Alexander Abramovitch