Evgenia Ershova's father Leiba Gutianskiy

My father, Leiba Gutianskiy, photographed in Kiev around 1940. My father was born in Ladyzhin on September 27, 1901. He changed his name to Lev during the Soviet era. He finished cheder and then the Jewish elementary school, like all the other boys in the family. Later, my father became a laborer at the sugar factory not far from Ladyzhin. Subsequently, he became a clerk at this same factory. After the Revolution he finished a course in accounting and continued to work as an accountant at this same factory. My parents met in Sobolevka around 1925 while my father was there on a business trip. There were quite a few sugar factories in Vinnitsa. Almost every town or village had one, and my father often visited Vinnitsa on business. There was also a sugar factory in Sobolevka. My father traveled to Sobolevka almost every month.I don't know any details of my parents' meeting each other, but I know that they married in 1928. They had written letters to each other for three years and saw each other quite often. They had a civil registration ceremony in Sobolevka. They didn't have a wedding party. The three of them just had dinner: my mother, father and my mother's sister, Hontsia. There were no other relatives of ours left in Sobolevka. My father had quit his job by then, and they left for Kiev. They decided to begin a new life in a big city. My father wasn't recruited into the army. He had a white chit for his poor eyesight. We evacuated in the summer of 1941 with the Krasny Rezinschik rubber plant where my father worked. My father was an accountant at the plant. In 1942 he volunteered to go to the front. He had a very hard job. There were thefts at the plant and he was given forged papers for his signature. He didn't sign them. He began to be persecuted at work and one day he said to my mother: ?Rather than work with those swindlers I'll go to the front to defend my children.? In 1942 all men were recruited regardless of their health conditions. My father was shortsighted, but he was made a machine gun man. He wrote us several letters, but then no letters came in 1943 and at the end of the year we received notification of his death. I remember my mother, my grandmother and my sister crying. I didn't understand why they were crying. I couldn't understand the words ?perished? or ?died? at that time. This was the first death in my life, and I was just 6 years old.