Leya Yatsovskaya with her husband Evsey Yatsovskiy

This is me with my husband Evsey Yatsovskiy, at work at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania. This picture was taken in the assembly hall after a regular party meeting in the 1960s in Vilnius. In summer 1944 Lithuania and its capital Vilnius were liberated. My father-in-law left for his motherland immediately as well as the government. Like in the pre-war times he was assigned the head of the Cinematography of the Republic. In September 1944 my mother-in-law Maria and I also returned to Vilnius. We had been roaming for a couple of months: renting apartments or staying with relatives. Evsey continued his service and was far from Vilnius. I was immediately employed in the same position I had before the war. I resumed working as an accountant in the Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania. I managed to get an invitation letter for my kin rather quickly. In January 1945 I was meeting my loved ones: my mother, my sisters Dora, Riva and Malka. They didn't have a place to stay and so they rented a small apartment. My sisters' husbands were coming back from the lines: Srol Moskovich and Shleime Atamuk. The families of Dora and Malka got their own apartments. At that time there were many unoccupied houses in Vilnius: mostly Jewish, as their hosts had perished in the Vilnius ghetto, in Ponary and other places of mass execution. Riva's husband had perished in the lines. My Evsey still served in the army. My husband was transferred to Vilnius shortly after Alexandra was born and continued his service in the headquarters. During the war, he joined the Communist party. I joined the Party in 1948. I can't say I did it deliberately. I didn't have the guts like many Komsomol members, nor did I have strong beliefs in the ideas of communism. I couldn't have acted in a different way. First of all I lived in a family where communist ideas reigned owing to Maria, who was able to inculcate all the family members with them. Secondly, I worked in such a place where it was mandatory for me to be a member of the Party. I did that, as I wasn't strongly against communism. Before joining the Party, I was asked a question whether I wished to do that, and I honestly said yes.