Roman’s paternal grandparents, Nachman Leibovich and Toybe (Tatyana) Stepanovna Abramovich, were Belarusian Jews. They lived in Belarus and, after the revolution, moved to Tauragė, Lithuania,with the Lithuanian spelling of the family name being Abramavičius. In 1940, the Soviet Union annexed Lithuania. Just before the Nazi German attack on the USSR, the Soviets “cleared the anti-Soviet, criminal and socially dangerous element” with whole families being sent to Siberia.