Tag #129079 - Interview #100036 (Pesse Speranskaya)

My mother and I would have stayed to live in Tartu, had our house been intact. However, it was ruined like many other houses in Tartu during the war. Our acquaintances gave us shelter where we stayed for some time before moving to Tallinn.  My mother’s sister Sonja, her husband and their baby daughter lived in a 26 square meter room in a shared apartment [10]. Sonja had to go back to work. She worked as a shop-assistant. There were no nursery schools or kindergartens available at that time. Sonja talked us into moving in with them. She wanted Mama to be a babysitter. Having no other options, we agreed.  

I attended no school in the evacuation. My mother believed the war wasn’t going to last long and then I would go back to an Estonian school. This was why I went to school in 1945, when I was about to turn 10. However, there were many overage children like me at that time. In the evacuation I almost forgot the Estonian language and mama sent me to a Russian school. I met Tsylia Perelman, a Jewish girl, in the first form, and we became close friends. We are still friends with Tsylia. Tsylia was two years younger than me, but this made no barrier to our friendship. When we were in the 4th form, Edith Umova came joined our class.  Tsylia had known her before. Edith’s mother used to work for Tsylia’s grandmother at some point of time. We became friends, and we still are. However, Tsylia is a closer friend to me that Edith.