Aron Rudiak

I sent this photo to my future wife from Ternopol to Odessa in 1952.

I arrived from the army to Odessa in early October 1945 and submitted my documents to Odessa Construction Engineering College. I was admitted and a month later I passed my half-yearly exams successfully. I had only the highest grades. I finished my college with honors and had the right to take my post-graduate studies, but I didn't get an offer. Probably it was due to my Jewish nationality. I was a proud guy and decided to ask nobody about it. I got a job assignment [graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated] in Ternopol, a regional town in Western Ukraine, and in September 1950 I got off the train in this small half-ruined town in 500 km from my hometown.

I was chief engineer at a maintenance construction company in Ternorol. I had a low salary. I received a one-room apartment [people could not own apartments, so they were "given" apartments by the government]. In 1951 when my first year at work was over, I went to a recreation center near Odessa on vacation. On my way back I visited my family in Odessa. I visited my relatives when I met a lovely Jewish girl. She was my wife to be. Her name was Lubov Bruches. I fell in love with her at first sight and took her home on that day. We began to correspond and sent photographs to one another. I saw her again on October holidays [October Revolution Day]. I came to Odessa and we met at a party. Lubov came to the party with somebody else, but left the party with me. We met again on New Year's day and on 30 April 1952 I came to Odessa and proposed to her. We had a civil ceremony in the registry office and a small wedding dinner at Lubov parents' home in the evening. Shortly after we got married Lubov finished a Pedagogical College in Odessa and joined me in Ternopol.

In 1953 our elder son Gennadi was born and in 1960 our son Yuri was born.

The Centropa Collection at USHMM

The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.

Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC". 

Please contact collection [at] centropa.org (collection[at]centropa[dot]org).