Revekka Mexina with husband Alexandr Nepomniaschy and sister Ida

My sister Ida, my husband Alexandr Nepomniaschy and I, Revekka Mexina.

In 1908 my sister Ida was born.

In 1936 I went to visit my grandfather in Kirovograd. I met there my future husband Alexandr (Shaya) Nepomniaschy. He was born in a poor Jewish family in the Jewish colony in Dmitrovka, Elisavetgrad province in 1910. He had two sisters and a younger brother. Alexandr's parents lived in the same street as my grandfather. In 1936 he graduated from the Mechanical Department in Leningrad Mining Institute and got a job assignment to a plant in Leningrad. He was visiting his parents in Kirovograd. My distant relative, his friend, introduced us to one another. We met several times and wrote one another after we left Kirovograd. Very soon Alexandr asked me in one of his letters whether I would agree to become his wife. My answer was "Yes" and I never in my life regretted it.

My sister Ida evacuated to the Middle Asia. My brother's wife was there and we corresponded with one another. Thus, Ida found out my address and wrote me a letter. I asked her to come. I thought it would be easier, if we were all together. She was with us from that time. Her husband was in Donetsk to blast the whole network of power plants in case Germans occupied Donetsk. He stayed there for two years. The Germans occupied Donbass twice and twice our army liberated it. In 1944 Ida's husband joined us. He worked at the Department of Energy of Siberia in Novosibirsk until the end of the war. They lived in the same building that we did. Ida's husband got a job assignment at the Department of Energy in Moscow and they left for Moscow. Ida got a job of Deputy Chief Accountant of Mosenergo and her husband had a job at the Ministry of Power Plants in Moscow. They were renting a room in Moscow at the beginning and then in 1964 they placed a deposit into a cooperative association to build a private two-room apartment. My sister retired when she was 55. She died in 1983.