Alexandr Nepomniaschy and his friend Fyodor Glebov

Alexandr Nepomniaschy and his friend Fyodor Glebov

My comrades from the Partisan Unit under the commandment of Sidor Artemiyevich Kovpak. I, Alexandr (Shaya) Nepomniaschy, and my comrade Fyodor Glebov. This photo was taken for the "Pravda Ukrainy" newspaper during the march of the unit in Western Ukraine in 1943.

In 1943 the Germans threw big forces to destroy us near Yaremcha, Ivano-Frankovsk region. We were in the woods and our commander was commissar Rudnev. He was killed in one of the battles. We separated in smaller units and moved to Zhytomir region. General Kovpak was wounded and taken to hospital by plane. This happened at the beginning of 1944. Then Pyotr Petrovich Vershygora, the former actor of the Kiev Russian Drama Theater, became our commander. At the beginning of the war he was an intelligence officer and then became a commanding officer of the intelligence unit in the Kovpak partisan unit. In 1944 we were fighting with Germans in Poland under his commandment.

At the end of 1944 when our unit returned to Ukraine from Poland I got a vacation and went to Novosibirsk to visit my family. I was really happy that I could see them. After I returned to the army headquarters in Kiev I was told that the war was over for me. Officers from the partisan units were sent to restore the public economy that was actually destroyed. I went to Western Ukraine. Even before the war I heard that Chernovtsy was a nice town and there were many Jews living there. At the beginning of 1945 I got a job assignment in Chernovtsy and received an apartment there.

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