The photo of my father was taken in Chernovtsy in 1948. My father’s name was Ekusiel Pisarenko. They called him Kusha in the family. He was born in the village of Rechitsa, Gomel region, Belarus, in 1898.

My parents got married in 1917. My father joined a red revolutionary unit during the Civil War almost immediately after he got married. He returned in 1919 and got a job as a plumber, and later as a locksmith at the Gomel Plant of Agricultural Equipment. He died in 1957.