Gherda Kagan

This is me, Gherda Kagan, in my childhood. This photo was made in Odessa in 1934. Mother told me this dress had my grandmother Esphir given me as a present. I was born in Leningrad in 1932. My grandmother Esphir came to Leningrad to take us back home. Being three weeks old I was taken to Odessa in a basket for chemical containers with a lid. When axle boxes in the train caught fire I was handed from one carriage to another in the basket that had turned upside down, as it turned out. After we arrived in Odessa my father went to work at the local affiliate of the All-Union scientific research institute of refrigeration industry. My mother was a housewife and activist in the women's council of the house of scientists. My parents moved into my grandfather Boris and grandmother Esphir's three-bedroom apartment in Starosennaya Street. While my mother was away grandmother gave her permission to his nephew and his wife to move into the best facade room with a balcony. They were supposed to move out when we arrived, but it didn't happen this way. They had guests at night enjoying drinking parties. The nephew's wife had tuberculosis and intentionally spit around the corridor. My parents took me to the toilet holding my hand to prevent me from touching anything.