Arkadiy Redko with his parents Pesia and Leib Redko

This picture was taken on the second day of my return home from the army. I was photographed with my mother Pesia Redko and father Leib Redko. This photo was taken in Kiev in 1950. After the war I served in Germany for five years. My year of recruitment to the army, 1942, meant that I was subject to demobilization in 1950. In 1950 I demobilized and returned to my family in Kiev. I had to work and study. I had finished nine grades before the war. I went to work as a receptionist at the mixed fodder factory. In 1952 I went to the 10th grade of an evening school. I attended school after work, came home very late and still had to do my homework. It was very hard, but I was eager to get education. My family supported me as best they could. In 1954 I finished school with a gold medal. I had all excellent marks in my certificate. That same year I entered the Sanitary Technical Faculty of Kiev Engineering Construction College. I didn't have to take any entrance exams having finished school with a gold medal. I had to pass an entrance interview. I never faced any anti-Semitic attitudes. Perhaps, the fact that I had been at the front, played a role. I studied well. I was one of the few communists in the course. I was appointed senior man of the group. My co-students and lecturers respected me. I had many Jewish and non-Jewish friends in college, and we still keep in touch. In all the years of my studies I only had three 'good' marks, the rest were 'excellent'. I met my future wife, Tamara Shkuro, in the evening school. She and I shared a desk. I liked this sweet humble girl. We became friends first and then began to see each other. My wife, Tamara, entered the Geodesic Faculty of the Land Reclamation College. We got married after finishing the second year in college, in 1955. My mother had died in 1954. We buried her in the Jewish cemetery in Kiev according to the Jewish ritual. Later this cemetery was closed since there were no more places for burials. My father didn't worry about my marrying a non-Jewish woman. What mattered to him was that we loved each other. He helped us with preparations to the wedding. We registered our marriage in the registry office, and in the evening we had a wedding dinner with our closest friends. We stayed to live with my father.