Tag #120617 - Interview #89576 (Tobijas Jafetas)

I got a [mandatory] job assignment [23] to Taurage [Lithuania, 200 km from Vilnius], where I worked for two years. I taught physics, astronomy and mathematic in a secondary school. In Taurage I made friends with a girl. She had finished the same college and was an English teacher in my school. I had never looked at her, when we were at college, but at that school, far from home, we became friends and I proposed to her. Yelena Zagorstene, whom I chose, was two years younger than me. She was born in Alytus [Lithuania, 100 km from Vilnius]. During the war Yelena was in the occupation, and after the war she moved to Vilnius with her parents. Her parents and Masha were against our marriage due to the national issue. We were given six months for the probation period. Both sides hoped that we would find different attachments within this time. However, Yelena and I remained faithful to one another. On 20th June 1955, when the academic year was over, we registered our marriage in the district registration office in Taurage. My wife went to take an advanced training course in Vilnius almost immediately after this event, and I followed her after my assignment term was over.