Naum Ilyich was a NEPman, running a private mill in the early 1920's. The family, now with three children, had a comfortable life in Kerch. But comfort in this Russian century was nothing if not fleeting: in the years following Lenin's death in 1924, NEP was abolished and a violent backlash started against NEPmen, who were branded as dirty capitalists. Children of NEPmen were denied entrance to kindergartens, and so Lia, the couple's youngest child, was forced to take her mother's maiden name of Gurevich. To her father's shame and distress, she never took his name back.

The late 20's was a time of tremendous famine in Russia and Ukraine. Naum Ilyich, his mill taken from him when NEP ended, worked first as a sailor, then in a quarry, where he labored 16-hour days for meager pay. When little Lia became ill with typhus, her father brought home noodles for her from his rations received at the quarry. Maria Mikhailovna fed the children as best she could, but the first of Stalin's Five Year Plans was underway, wreaking havoc on Russia and bleeding the country dry.

Times were exceedingly difficult for the family, and took a turn for the worse in 1930 when Naum Ilyich hurt his shoulder in an accident. No longer able to work at the quarry, and with no prospects for other employment in Kerch, he decided to move to Leningrad, where an aunt lived, and look for work there. He left his wife and children in Kerch, and headed north.