Idler’s family
By Abram Udler
First of Idlers of Kupel, remembered by his son, was Meer Udler, born in 1887 in Kupel. His father’s name was David.
Meer Udler got some elementary education and could read and write. He married Etya (born in 1990), daughter of Motl from Kupel. They had three children:
Rosa (born in 1912), Maria (born in 1915) and Abram (born in 1918).
Father, Meer Udler was a soldier of Russian army in World War 1, got wounded in the leg and limped to the rest of his life. In 1928, as a part of New Economical Policy (NEP) in Soviet Union, there was organized a cooperative of disabled people in Kupel. Meer Udler was elected Chairman of the cooperative. Cooperative had two production units: candies and meat product making and two grocery stores. Members of the cooperative were Chaim Roizen, Chaim Kachko, Gregory Shuster, Lev Katz and others, all people with disabilities.
Mother, Etya Udler, was an almost illiterate housewife, but she took great care of children’s education. She hired private tutors and made sure all children got admitted into Ukrainian 7 grades school in Kupel.
After the school, Rosa Udler went to agricultural college in Ripnino, Ukraine, then got into Veterinary College in Kiev and majored in bacteriology. She died in 1977 in Dnepropetrovsk (former Ekaterinoslav), Ukraine.
Second daughter, Maria, went to a teacher’s college in Proskurov, and then graduated from State University in Kiev. She was a high school history teacher. Maria married a navy officer and lived in Kronshtadt by the Baltic Sea. In the spring of 1941 she came to Kupel with her son Oleg to give birth to her baby daughter under her mother Etya’s care.
Maria gave birth to a girl (name is unknown) and, as many others, was not able to escape German occupation. Maria was murdered in Volochisk along with her son Oleg; and her newborn daughter was murdered in Kupel on September 11, 1942 along with Meer and Etya Udler, her grandparents. Maria’s husband, served in Russian Navy, has been killed in 1942, when his ship was destroyed by Germans and sank in Baltic Sea.
Abram Udler (after the Ukrainian school in Kupel) went to vocational school in Kiev and then worked as electro mechanic in Kiev Tram Depoe. In 1939 he was drafted to the Army and served as a soldier in Elgava, Lithuania, for 6 months. Then he was referred by the Army to Moscow Aero Technical College to learn aircrafts electric appliance maintenance. From June 22, 1941 to 1944 Abram Udler served as a fighter jets technician in a fighter brigade by Karelia front line. In 1944 he was sent by the Army to Army Aero Academy in Moscow and majored in aircrafts electro engineering (piloting and non-piloting aircrafts). Abram Udler married Genya Derman, born also in Kupel. Genya was chemical engineer; she graduated from Moscow Chemical Technology Institute. She died in United States in 1996.
Abram Udler wrote in 2004: “From all our family, I only left, all alone”. There is a painting of Abram's morher, who was murdered in Kupel along with her family.
