These are my parents: Rozalia and Abram Fridman. The photo was taken in Minsk in the 1920s.

My father was born in 1896 in Minsk. I don’t know if father had even studied anywhere, but he worked as an engineer and director of studios at the State Film Company of Belarus. He was a kind, fascinating person, a man of fashion; the center of all social gatherings in our house. He got married to mum in 1918.

My mother was also born in Minsk in 1898. Her childhood and young years were spent lightheartedly and in luxury. Her family was a very well-to-do family. Before the revolution of 1917 she finished a Russian secondary school.

When my mum got married, she had no children for 10 years. She was actively educating herself. Mum knew English, French, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish. My parents loved each other very much, and the fact that they had no children for a long time didn’t affect their relationship.

In 1936, when I began to go to school, and my brother Grigory grew up a bit, mum became proficient in accountancy and went to work in the State Railway Administration.

During the war, we were in the Minsk ghetto. Both of my parents were killed there by the Germans: my father in 1941 and my mother in 1942.