Family house

In our mother's book, "Secret Holocaust Diaries", she wrote fondly of the family house in Konstantinovka. Just minutes from the train station, this house has been in our family for about 100 years. It was first the home of our great grandfather Yakov and great grandmother Fiodosia. Here is a picture of Liz, Zach and myself with (from right to left) Mom's first cousins Lucy and Lydia, Lydia's granddaughter Yulia, and our second cousin Tonya from Minsk, Belarus.

Being here was a moving emotional experience. When we were kids, Mom told us stories of her happy childhood spent at this old house. It seemed smaller than the house she told us about, but as a child it must have seemed enormous to her. And here we were all these years later and half a world away, walking in her footsteps.

The yard was exactly as she described it, with the big cherry trees from which her grandmother picked the fruit used to make her home-made wine.

It's a Ukrainian custom to remove your shoes before entering someones's home.

Here is the kitchen.

And the livingroom where my grandparents would gather with friends and family

This house also saw much sorrow. If you read Mom's book, you recall that her father and our grandfather Yvgeny, hid from the Germans in the cellar behind the house. He was discovered by some soldiers looking for food, and was severely beaten. He died soon afterward from the wounds he suffered at the hands of these young Germans. Here is a photo of me at the entrance to that cellar. It was hard to be there.

This is the bedroom of our Grandparents Yvgeny and Anna. Through the door you can see Mother's bedroom

 Mother passed through this very door every day