Sophia Belotserkovskaya with her pupils

This is a picture of me (in the center) and my pupils in the village school in Skvira district, Kiev region. The photo was taken in 1950 after graduation exams. In 1948 Vatulia and Kosheski, honored actors of the USSR who worked in the theater in Kiev, helped me to get a job. I was employed as an editor at a publishing house called Soviet School. I worked as an editor for a year and then I got bored with correcting other people's typescripts. I went to the School Department of the Ministry of Education and asked them to send me to work in a school in a village. I wanted to become a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature. They were very surprised to hear that I wanted to work in a village because people preferred to work in towns at that time. I got a job assignment to work in a school in Skvira district, Kiev region, where I worked from 1949-1950. Many years later my pupils came to see me when they visited Kiev. They told me about themselves and thanked me for what I had taught them. I didn't stay longer in the village due to my illness. It was either a result from hard conditions during evacuation or, more likely, from living in that cold room. I fell ill with tuberculosis. Fortunately, it was a closed form of tuberculosis. I got treatment in a nice hospital. Later I stayed in a recreation center for some time. I recovered, but I didn't go back to the village. I went to work in a secondary school and then became a teacher in an evening school. I cannot say that I faced any anti-Semitism when I tried to get employment, but I should mention that except for my job in the village I got all other jobs with the help of actors from the theater. In the evening school I was a Russian and Ukrainian teacher. My students were young war veterans and eager to study. Many of them became high officials later, and they never forgot about me. I've never been married. There was a man in my life once: he loved me and came to see me from another town, but he didn't dare to leave his wife and children for me. However, I'm grateful to him that he brought many happy hours into my life and made me a fully-fledged woman. I don't know whether I would have been so happy in a marriage. We both cherished our short meetings.