Tag #135212 - Interview #77957 (Rachel Gitelis)

We stayed at our acquaintance's house for some time. We found out that some people in high positions were living in our old apartment. They refused to move out, and we went to live with Mirl, Aron's widow, in the center of Odessa before we received a new apartment. Her daughter, Sonia, and Sonia's two children also lived there. Sonia's husband had perished at the front. They lived in a poor one-bedroom apartment. The living conditions were terrible, of course, but we were happy to be alive. After a few months we received a one-bedroom apartment. It was just one room but we refurbished a small hallway into a kitchen. We had no comforts whatsoever. Later we installed a water supply pipe, but the toilet was outside. There was no heating in the apartment, and it was very cold. We bought coal and used a burzhuika [a primitive iron stove] to heat the room. We didn't have any furniture. Everything had been stolen from our former apartment. Only our wardrobe had been saved by our neighbor and he gave it back to us.