The '30s in Russia were a time of paranoia and fear, with hundreds of thousands of people arrested, sent to camps, and shot, many for no reason at all. Maria Mikhailovna's family was not exempted from the terror of Stalin's random violence against his own people.

In 1932, Maria Mikhailovna's father was arrested in the factory where he worked for the crime of defacing the Soviet seal. There had been a shortage of the whistles needed for communication in the noisy factory, so he had melted down 30 five-kopek pieces to get enough copper to make whistles. For defacing the hammer and sickle on the coins, he was arrested. During his imprisonment, his wife sold their valuables for food, which then she brought to him in jail.

He was one of the lucky ones; his imprisonment lasted only three months.

At last, in 1932, Naum Ilyich had enough money to bring Maria Mikhailovna to Leningrad. She went to join him, taking their eldest daughter and leaving the other two children in Kerch with their grandparents. Two years later, she returned to take them to Leningrad as well.

"She brought a suitcase filled with treats for us," recalls Lia, now 72. "White bread, and buns. I hadn't seen white bread in ages. It was the best thing I had ever tasted." And so in 1934, the entire family was reunited at last, in their new home: Leningrad.