Adolf Landsman with his family

Adolf Landsman with his family

This is our family sauntering. From left to right: first row: I, my mother Mina Landsman, my cousin Arkadiy Landsman. The 2nd row: 1st to the left is my father Isaac Landsman, my mother's sister Marta is the first to the right.
Unfortunately, I don't remember the person standing behind my father. The picture was taken in Moscow in 1928.

I was born on 14th April 1924 in Nizhniy Novgorod. My parents called me Adolf. I don't have a Jewish name. My father still worked in his shop with his brother Pavel. My mother was a housewife and took care of me.
We were pretty well-off during the NEP times, and the Soviet regime encouraged entrepreneurship. I remember hardly anything about my life in Nizhniy Novgorod. We left it for Moscow in 1928.

My parents spoke only Russian with me. They spoke Russian, too with each other and they switched to Yiddish when they needed to conceal something from me. Unfortunately, I wasn't taught Yiddish.
I don't think my parents were religious. They stuck to Jewish traditions rather conventionally. My parents didn't pray. My father worked on Sabbath and my mother also had things to do.
Maybe it was connected with the rigid struggle of the Soviet regime against religion.

Religious people were persecuted and disdained. Pesach was the only holiday we celebrated at home. We bought matzah for the holiday. My mother cooked traditional festive dishes: chicken broth and gefilte fish.
She also baked strudels. I think they just paid tribute to the tradition. My mother never went to the synagogue. My father went on Pesach and Yom Kippur. He had a prayer book and a tallit made from rich silk.
That tallit was kept in the family for many years.

My mother's sister Marta was a seamstress before getting married. She married a Jew, Naum Krivin, before the revolution. He was a pharmacist.
Before the revolution he had a small pharmaceutical enterprise, where several people made medicine.

After the revolution, his enterprise was taken over and the Krivins moved to Moscow. Naum worked as a pharmacist in the state apothecary.
After getting married Marta was a housewife and raised the children. They had three children: the eldest, David, was born in 1912,
then Vladimir was born in 1926, and the youngest, Tatiana, was born in 1929.

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