ANDREY RAPPOPORT

As a child I had an interest in history, general history. As I had an inquiring mind I did my best to study it. There I find a lot for me. I had an interest in the history of my family and my relatives, but, there were, - alas! - few facts known. When I explored my surname and understood it to be a non-Russian but a Jewish one, when I knew that the «Jewish problem» was a topic closed or non-spoken aloud, I became very curious... I met my relatives very rarely when a child, but when I got to know my grandfather Shulim Rapoport, my uncles Yuly Rapoport and Valentine Rapoport, Joseph Shaikin, I came across a lot of very bright information. But I must say that this information was not a systematical one, it couldn't give an answer to the questions about us: who are we? Where are we from? And at last - what are we for? I felt these questions to be so important to help me to clarify my place in life, my future, my position in the society. The times were dark and dull for our society those..