Mina Gomberg's father-in-law Vladimir Gomberg

My husband's father Vladimir Gomberg in hospital after he was wounded in the Soviet-Finnish war in 1940. My father-in-law was born in Khodorkov in 1901. He didn't study, but he could read and write. He worked at the nail plant in Kiev from the middle of the 1920s. During the Finnish war my husband's father was recruited to the army. He was severely wounded on his legs. He had to stay in hospital for a long time until his wounds healed; and walking remained difficult for him after that. During World War II, he was released from military service. He couldn't run or walk properly. He was in evacuation with his family in the village of Galkino, Cheliabinskaya region [2,500 km from Kiev]. In 1943 my husband's father got a job at the Zagotskot office [a government economic agency for the provision of meat]. He was responsible for the selection of cattle for slaughtering. As an award for good performance he was given a cow. My husband's grandmother Mihlia was familiar with looking after livestock. She milked the cow, made butter and sour cream. She sold her dairy products at the market and bought bread and sugar. In 1947 my husband's father returned to Kiev and became the manager of a vegetable storage facility. In 1951, at the height of the anti-Jewish campaign, he was summoned to a KGB office. He was asked about his work and colleagues. A few days later he was arrested. He was accused of theft from the storage facilities where he worked and was sentenced to 15 years in camp. Several of his colleagues were also arrested. He returned to Kiev in 1966. We weren't allowed to correspond with him all these years. Later he didn't talk about the years that he had spent in the camp. He wasn't allowed to live in a big city after his imprisonment, and we bribed a state officer to obtain a residence permit for him. My father-in-law died in 1978. He is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Kiev.