Revekka Mexina’s sister Ida and her husband

My sister Ida and her husband.

In 1908 my sister Ida was born. My sister Ida studied at home until she passed entrance exams to the girls' grammar school successfully. After the revolution of 1917 such grammar schools were converted into secondary schools and she continued her studies.

In 1926 my sister Ida also moved to Kharkov after finishing school. She entered the accounting college and became an accountant. She met a Jew Abram Sheinin and married him. They didn't have a wedding party, as it was considered a vestige of the past at that time. They just had a civil ceremony. Soon after their wedding they moved to the miners' town of Gorlovka. She got a job as an accountant and he was a power-engineering specialist at the power plant.

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.