Tag #115192 - Interview #96082 (Bella Chanina)

Soviet troops liberated Kishinev on 24th August 1944. I returned to my hometown with my college before my parents came there. We were accommodated in a hostel and first thing in the morning I ran to our yard. Our apartment was half-ruined, there was no furniture left. I climbed the ruins, imagined the dining room and the bedroom. Where there was a cupboard I found broken pieces of our dinner set, with purple flowers. I found my baby bathtub with a missing bottom and an old kettle. My mother and father returned a few months later, receiving a letter of invitation from Fyodor Nikitich Tikhanyuk. Papa went to work at his Champagne factory. We stayed in the ruins of our house, gradually fixing the roof and building up the walls. The town authorities reimbursed our expenses for the restoration of our house in part. For a long time there were no comforts [toilet and bathroom] in this apartment. Only many years later water piping was installed to supply water.