That’s me at my birthday party when I turned two. The photo was taken in Babruysk in 1923.

My parents moved to Babruysk after getting married. In 1914 my elder brother Solomon was born. In 1915 my mother’s father, Volf Rosenblum, passed away, and that is why my second brother, born in 1915, was named Volf.

I was born in 1921. I was given the Russian name Yuri; my Jewish name is Yudl. Only Yiddish was spoken at home. It’s my mother tongue. I spoke Yiddish in my childhood and I remember this language very well now. Of course, we were fluent in Russian, but we didn’t speak it at home.