All my maternal relatives were born and lived in Minsk. This photograph shows my grandmother in 1927, at that time she was 53 years old. I remember her very well, her name was Dina-Rayzle Hautovskaya. She was a housewife and mother of 10 children: 7 daughters and 3 sons. She often went for a walk with me, we talked a lot. My grandmother died in 1934.

My grandfather was called Elya Hautovsky, but all of us called him grandfather. He was born in 1870, and died in the Minsk ghetto in 1941. He ran a small shop.