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Does everyone have to know his or her roots, the ancestors and relatives who are separated by wars, revolutions, decades of terror, emigration and so on? Is it not a corner-stone problem in human life? In the former Soviet Union, many people believed that they not only had to abstain from learning more of their roots, but also to repress everything they already knew. People changed names, and did their best to destroy the documents and photos. Many people never came to know the true names of their grandparents. Fathers often changed their names in order to protect their children: to keep a Jewish patronymic off their passports. My parents kept pictures of the relatives, who lived in the USA, or had been persecuted, or had served in the Tsar's army, as deeply hidden as they could - without any inscriptions or legends, so that any moment they were ready to reply, "I have never known that person". I have written this history because I hate to lose the information saved by the older generations.
It is our History!
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