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And then I started visiting the Communist Party district committee every morning to ask the first secretary about temporary premises for our maternity home. Every morning I came to see him in his study and every day I explained him our problem. I asked him to put at our disposal a house, where we could work temporarily, until our maternity home was under repair. I explained him that it was impossible to assist in delivery at home. I promised that we would put the house in order by ourselves; we only did not want to assist in delivery at home. At last I managed. They gave us an empty house. A glazier was invited for glass-work. The girls whitewashed everything inside and repaired stoves. And we started working in this house temporarily converted into a maternity home. Everyone was tickled pink.
Among the operating personnel deported from Volga, Crimea, Ukraine there were a lot of Germans. They served at me as interpreters - in case a German woman who was not able to speak Russian came to the maternity home. Or girls, who worked before in the area where Kazakhs lived, and could speak Kazakh language, translated from Kazakh language if there was brought a bleeding woman in childbirth from home delivery. So, I fight against bleeding, the woman stays at my clinic, but she can not understand Russian. And those girls, who worked earlier in Kazakh villages, "worked" for me as interpreters.
This was the way I worked 4 years - from September 1949 till September 1953.
Among the operating personnel deported from Volga, Crimea, Ukraine there were a lot of Germans. They served at me as interpreters - in case a German woman who was not able to speak Russian came to the maternity home. Or girls, who worked before in the area where Kazakhs lived, and could speak Kazakh language, translated from Kazakh language if there was brought a bleeding woman in childbirth from home delivery. So, I fight against bleeding, the woman stays at my clinic, but she can not understand Russian. And those girls, who worked earlier in Kazakh villages, "worked" for me as interpreters.
This was the way I worked 4 years - from September 1949 till September 1953.
Period
Interview
Alexandra (Shifra) Melenevskaya