photo by Milda Rūkaitė
Estera Klabinaitė Grobman was born in November of 1920 in Kaunas to a well-to-do Jewish family who lived in their own home on Vaisių street. She had two brothers and there were three generations living under one roof: grandparents, parents and children. Her grandfather often said he was the Golden Miller because he had light hair and owned a mill. The place where the mill stood was called Klabiniai, so the family’s name was Klabinas. Estera says it was close to Širvintos, Lithuania. She calls herself a Kaunas native and her mother and father owned a small bakery in Kaunas. Fresh-baked bread was delivered by horse each morning in covered containers. They baked delicious bread and the business thrived. They delivered to several shops in the city. Estera remembers her grandmother, the daughter of a rabbi who wrote very neatly. She can’t forget that she was never able to equal her grandmother. According to family tradition her father should have been a rabbi as well and he studied for the rabbinate, but as a child he used to secretly read secular books, and he read much, educating himself. Estera inherited her love of books from her father and to the present reads in four languages: Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian and German. She is interested in everything.
