Evgenia Gendler’s sister Lubov Feldman with her daughters Raisa and Alla.

My sister Lubov Feldman and her daughters Raisa and Alla. This photo was taken in Sverdlovsk in 1955. In 1941 my sister Lubov finished the 10th grade and was planning to go take entrance exams to a college in Sverdlovsk. We heard on the radio that Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. At 12 o'clock on 22 June 1941 the radio announced that the war began. My sister was a very determined girl. She convinced her friend to volunteer to the front. They were both 18. They decided to go to the Navy for good food and warm clothing. They didn't share this idea with their household and walked 10 km to the military registry office where they said they wanted to serve in the Navy. They were sent to Leningrad with other recruits. When my mother heard about it she almost fainted. In Leningrad the girls studied at an artillery school. After finishing school my sister and few others were sent to an island in the Finnish Bay. They were the first to meet German planes that headed to Leningrad. They shot at them. They slept in holes that they made in the layer of snow. Once a week a small boat delivered food to this island. We occasionally received letters from my sister. Lubov was severely wounded in her leg in 1943 and demobilized from the army. She came to Sverdlovsk wearing her uniform and there were medals and orders covering the front of her jacket. She received awards even after the war. Mother used to say that Lubov even had a character of a soldier. Her husband Yakov Feldman was Jewish. He was a nice man. His parents perished. Yakov was an agreeable man, but his sister was a dictator in the family. In 1947 their daughter Raisa was born and in 1950 - daughter Alla. Lubov went to work as an accountant at the factory of plastic where Elena and I were working. They received accommodation in a barrack of the factory. The five of them lived in a small room with a stove and two iron beds. My mother lived with Lubov. Some time later my sister and her husband received a nice apartment with all comforts in the center of Sverdlovsk. Our mother died in 1958, before they got a new apartment. She was buried at the town cemetery of Sverdlovsk. Lubov's husband Yakov died in 1999. My sister and I correspond and talk on the phone occasionally. My sister's daughters also live in Sverdlovsk.