Galina Barskaya’s son, Roman Natov in kindergarten

This is a picture of the kindergarten my son, Roman Natov, attended in evacuation. My son is in the middle of the first row. The photo was taken in Pervouralsk in 1943.

In 1938 I gave birth to our son. When I began to work at the Spanish orphanage I was not yet pregnant. When my son was born, children from this orphanage came to the hospital to visit me, brought me flowers and a huge cake, on which they wrote ‘Ramon.’ That was the name they decided to give to my son. So, I called him Ramon, and he later changed his name to Roman, which was more common here.

After the war broke out, we left Kiev. The thing is that as soon as we came to Pervouralsk, on 1st October 1941, my husband was called up to the army, and on 14th October he was sent to the front. I don’t know why it happened, maybe somebody was envious about our happiness. Before his departure my sister threw a party, and for the first time in his life my husband got drunk. We did not even say a proper goodbye to each other.

Our life was very hard. My son went to the kindergarten where children were fed. Aunt Olya and uncle Nikolay came to see me and helped me a lot - they spent time with my son while I was working.