Tag #140104 - Interview #78006 (faina minkova)

When they reached Orenburg my mother met my father's sister Zina at the railway station. Zina had left Orsha at the beginning of the war. Zina told my mother that she, Tania, my father's younger sister, and Fania's daughter Ania had managed to leave Orsha. My father's brother Aron and his family had moved to Podmoscoviye in the early 1930s. My father's other sisters and brother perished in the first days of the war when Orsha was occupied by the fascists.

Zina was heading for Kuibyshev, and my mother and the kids joined her. When they reached Kuibyshev my mother wrote to the evacuation inquiry office in Buguruslan. She found out that my grandparents, Tzypa and her two children, and Haya were in Korkino village, Cheliabinsk region. My mother moved to this village to be with them and went to work. Tzypa's husband was killed at the front. The authorities gave her a cow as aid to the family of a deceased military. Tzypa and my mother got a plot of land where they were growing potatoes. My grandparents had a goat. My mother was a laborer at a canteen and later became an accountant there. She could have her meals in this canteen and so could my sister. When my mother was at work my grandparents looked after the children. They lived in Korkino until 1947.