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When we were in Poland we were visited by Korotchenko, secretary of the Communist party of Ukraine. He talked with me and asked me where my family was. I replied that I didn’t know – they were probably somewhere in the evacuation. Korotchenko found my family through the evacuation agency in Buguruslan and sent me their address. I sent them a letter to let them know that I was alive. They wrote me that my sisters’ husbands were at the front and that my parents and my sister Elizabeth and her son Yury were in Kramatorsk with my wife. My older sister Tsylia that lived in Leningrad was evacuated to Novosibirsk where the plant where she was working moved. All other members of my family evacuated to Novosibirsk from Kramatorsk. My father worked as a blacksmith, my sister Tsylia was an accountant at the plant and my other sister Elizabeth was working at the municipal department of commerce. My wife was working as electrician at the power plant. Her mother was looking after our son Valery. At the end of 1944 when our unit returned to Ukraine from Poland I got a vacation and went to Novosibirsk to visit my family. I was really happy that I could see them. After I returned to the army headquarters in Kiev I was told that the war was over for me. Officers from the partisan units were sent to restore the public economy that was actually destroyed. I went to Western Ukraine. Even before the war I heard that Chernovtsy was a nice town and there were many Jews living there. At the beginning of 1945 I got a job assignment in Chernovtsy and received an apartment there.
Period
Interview
Alexandr Nepomniaschy