Mark Rozenfeld with his colleagues

This is my father Mark Rozenfeld ( in the middle of the middle row) and his colleagues at the garment factory in evacuation in Frunze. This photo was taken in late 1944 before his departure to Kiev. His fellow comrades signed their best wishes and thanks on the back. On 22nd June 1941 at 12 o'clock we heard Molotov's speech on the radio. He announced that the war had begun. Germany was attacking our country. On the next day I ran to school. There was a hospital set up there. Beds were put into the classrooms and hallways and there were people in white gowns running to and fro with their faces expressing concern. All medical personnel was subject to military service and my mother was recruited by a subpoena from the military registry office on 25th June. On that same day she was sent to a front line hospital. My father was very busy preparing his school for evacuation. In early July 1941 he sent me to Boguslav. I stayed in Boguslav for about ten days. We went to Novosibirsk and my father went to the town of Molotov [Penza at present] with his school. In Novosibirsk my mother got an assignment to the face injuries and stomatology hospital in Frunze. In winter 1941 my father came from Molotov. His vocational school was dismissed. My father became the director of the garment factory evacuated from Kharkov. My mother spent days and nights in the hospital. She wanted to work as much as possible to distract herself from the big sorrow that fell upon us: in August 1941 my brother Israel disappeared. We received a notification about this in late December 1941. After Kiev was liberated in November 1944 my father tried to obtain permission for himself and my mother to return to Kiev for almost a year. He finally managed to obtain such a permission from the Ministry of Light Industry. My father was the director of a construction trust for several years. After he retired he went to work at the trade union committee of the motorcycle plant. In 1960 my father fell ill with cancer. He died in 1961.