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My brother in Mongolia during the war

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Ilya Melenevsky, my brother, who was called up in 1939, survived the war and returned home (to Leningrad) only in 1947, because after the end of the war his regiment was sent to Japan, in Manchzhuria. During the war we got no news about Ilya and only in 1945 we received a letter from him with a photo made in Mongolia, in a photographic studio. In this photo he is sitting at the table with a friend of his. They are celebrating capture of Moukdek. On the back side of the photo he wrote: "There is nothing else to relieve the monotony here - sometimes we have to resort to cognac and champagne, though we dream about something else. Ilya. Moukdek. 1945".

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).