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Part Two: The Braverman Family 73 the fiery "Gypsy Dance," which, years later at the Chez Raspoutine in Paris, earned her the nickname "Gypsy Girl." She also danced waltzes set to the music of Johan Strauss, the highlight of the performance given by the Pavlovskiy Posad entry in Moscow, at the Children's Folk Song and Dance Festival. As luck would have it, they performed on June 21, 1941, the eve before Hitler's armies attacked the Soviet Union. By October the family was on the train to Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Aer Leib's disappearance and death in Uzbekistan, the family was le without any means of subsistence. Zhenya had to quit school and, for lack of any other job, picked cotton on a collective farm. It was difficult, back-breaking work, and in the dead of night she had to rise to take her place in the bread line. She knew that her sister Zina and her small niece depended on the rations she shared with them. At least on the collective farm she could eat all the onions she wanted and even take some home. The farm was several miles away and there was no transportation, so she had to get to work on foot. Finally fortune smiled on her: She found a job at a sewing shop, where she got to know her future husband, Abel Fajerman, a Polish Jew, who had fled Poland for the Soviet Union ahead of the advancing German army. When the war broke out, he wanted to serve Russia. At that time he was a dedicated communist and felt that workers had a better future in Russia than in Poland. Abel, like many of his Polish compatriots, had been incarcerated in a concentration camp near Arkhangelsk, near the Arctic Circle, but a few years later, under an agreement between the Soviet and Polish governments, he was released and sent to relatively easy exile in Samarkand. Abel fell in love with the 17-year-old Zhenya. Malka admired the serious Polish Jew, an expert tailor, who was so unlike the many callow and immature admirers of her gorgeous daughter. As for Zhenya, she had fallen head over heels for Semyon Leshchinsky, an aspiring actor Above: Zhenya Fajerman in Paris. and the son of a renowned actress om the Kharkov Yiddish Theater. To Zhenya's chagrin, Semyon was called up for military service, effectively ending the romance. Without Semyon close by, Zhenya began responding to Abel's fervent love and they grew closer. Abel, who was fluent in Yiddish, translated to Zhenya her mother's letters. Finally they decided to marry. Malka insisted that her daughter should get married in a traditional Jewish ritual, under a huppah. Abel

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