Golda
Although her actual date of birth was never recorded and by official documents she is a year younger, Golda “Olya” Shleifman was born into an orthodox Jewish family in the summer of 1919.
In 1947, Golda was sent to a relative’s cobbler shop to repair some shoes. Unbeknownst to her, she was really being sent to meet a boarder living with her relatives; a widower named Moisei “Misha” Kievsky.
In two weeks they were married.
Nine months later, they had a son, Elya, named for Golda’s father.
In 1949, when Elya was six months old, Misha was re-arrested, taken away and eventually charged with “past and future counter-revolutionary activity.” What followed was ten months of worry and uncertainty, until Golda finally discovered her husband’s location. Finally, Golda and Elya made the dangerous two week journey to join Misha in Siberia.
Five years later, after Stalin’s death and Beria’s execution, Soviet political prisoners were finally deemed rehabilitated and allowed to leave. The family of three returned to Cherkassy where they once again started over.
When my family left the USSR in 1979, three years after Misha’s death, my grandmother came with us. Aside from a brief visit in 1987, she hasn’t been back to Ukraine or Russia since.