Based on what she was telling her grandchildren, we think that she was enrolled in Pertrograd's Concervatory before revolution under her mother's maiden name Golodetz and the record below is about her.

Архивы Санкт-Петербурга
ЦГИА СПб. Фонд 361. Опись 2. Дело 1636

Голодец Цецилия Шмеровна

Справочная информация
Начальная дата: __.09.1916
Конечная дата: __.__.____
Количество листов: 5
Постоянная ссылка: ­https­://­spbarchives­.­ru­/­infres­/-/­archive­/­cgia­/­361­/­2­/­1636­

­https­://­forum­.­j­-­roots­.­info­/­database­/­GeoCentric­/­DossierDetails­.­php­?­ID­=­2791443­
ЦГИА СПб ф. 361 оп. 2 д. 1636
Название дела: Голодец Цецилия Шмеровна
Архив: ЦГИА СПб
Номер фонда: 361
Название фонда: Петроградская консерватория Императорского Русского музыкального общества
Номер описи: 2
Номер дела: 1636
Годы: 1916
Тип архивного дела: Персоналии
География дела: Петроград ‎(Петроградская губерния->Российская Империя)‎
Упомянутые фамилии: Голодец

Shmerko's and Emilia's family was very well off and they had three daughters, Cecilia, Masha, and Rachil ‎(Raia)‎. When revolution started, Emilia was very sick with long bout of tuberculosis and could not be moved, while Shmerko had to escape to Poland quickly on the account of being rich and targeted by revolutionaries. Some time around 1920-23 Cecilia employed assistance of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was commanding Soviet army against Poland and was headquartered in Minsk. Tukhachevsky was infatuated with Cecilia and at her behest agreed to help ‎(or allow)‎ Rachil cross into Poland. Rachel reunited with her father, but Cecilia had to stay behind, in part to take care of their mother. Cecilia told this story to her grandchildren and it was confirmed by Rachel after they reunited.
Masha was studying to be a dentist in Kharkiv when revolution happened and she could not come back home, as result, she also stayed in what was now Soviet Union.

Hence family separated for many years. Rachil lived in Poland with her father, married David Liberman, a son of Shmerko's second wife and moved to Paris ‎(1936)‎. There was limited correspondence between families in Poland, France and in Soviet Union until beginning of the WWII, when all contacts seized.

Shmerko and his second wife Chaia died in Holocaust, in Poland.

Rachel, David and her young daughter Emilia managed to escape nazis to Portugal and from there to Sao Paulo Brazil, where their descendants still live.

Approximately in 1925, Cecilia married Solomon Ipshman and had twins Faina and Betti. When WWII started, family evacuated to Omsk ‎(Siberia)‎ and after the war returned back to Minsk.

Masha with her family ‎(Boris, Emiliya, Gena, Misha)‎ evacuated from Bobruisk to Chelyabinsk. worked in Chelyabinsk as a dentist. Her husband Boris designed and built Medical Institute and worked there as Chief Engineer.

After WWII both sides presumed that the other perished. While family in Soviet Union was restricted from searching for any information outside the country, Rachil was trying to find what she could about her sisters. She wrote to Red Cross and to other organizations. Every answer was negative and there was little doubt that the family perished in Holocaust.

The story of reunification is bit difficult to put together, as we have many different versions of it, and they do not fit together very well.

--Version 1 as was told to us in Brazil ‎(Do not remember if it was Michel, Sergio or Mila)‎. I didn't write it down at the time and it is possible some details are off:
Around 1970 someone from Moscow was visiting Rachil's friends in Brasil and Rachil went over to meet them. During the meeting there was a discussion about each other family and topic of missing sisters came up. The person from Moscow realized that he knows the family and shared with Rachel that they are alive and live in Minsk.

--Version 2 by Semyon Ginzburg:
Raia and David had friends in Brasil who traveled to Moscow and after returning back told Rachel that he heard from somebody about Raia's sisters, they are alive and live in Minsk.

--Version 3 by Lazar Ginzburg:
David had a relative in Leningrad, and he was in contact with them. Raia had letters from Cecilia before the war and knew that Cecilia married Ipshman. David and Raia asked these relatives to find Cecilia and they did find Ipshman relatives in Leningrad and through them, Cecilia.

--Version 4 by Vova Mukasey:
David and Raia where on the tour in Europe and there they met with couple in France ‎(they knew each other before, but exact relationship we do not know)‎ who had relatives in Bobruisk. During the talk Raia told a story about her sisters, who supposedly died in Holocaust. Apparently it was a known fact that Bobruisk relatives knew Cecilia before the war. Couple offered help contacting their relatives in Bobruisk and ask about Cecilia. Raichel was reluctant, because she thought the family was dead. The contact was initially made with Moisey Lyakhovitskii, Cecilia's cousin, living in Moscow. Moisey was staying in contact with French couple and future money transfers from Rachel to her sisters have been made through France and then through him.

--Version 5 by Betti Mukasey:
They found in Moscow someone ‎(maybe female)‎ who knew Cecilia. The person told them that Cecilia lives in Minsk.

--Version 6 by Misha Katsnelson
A person from San Paulo, probably one who worked in David's factory, traveled to Moscow and brought back the news about sisters being alive and living in Belarus.

--Version 7 by Sania Katsnelson, passed down from Masha Gershonok:
It was Moisey Lyakhovitskii who found Rachel and not the other way around. We do not have any details.

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One day there was a phone call in Cecilia's house, around 8pm from Moisey in Moscow. Moisey told Cecilia that Raia was found, that she lives in Brasil, and he will send over all information. In a few days there was a call from Rachel. There was so many cries and tears and emotions.


Rachil managed to find her sisters in 1972 and despite heavy KGB surveillance and hovering visited them in Minsk and Moscow several times.