Tag #151915 - Interview #77998 (Zina Kaluzhnaya)

This was a difficult time. Mama didn't work and was hiding away. I didn't eat enough. There had to be something to keep me alive, and it was my future husband, Alexei Dmitriyevich Kaluzhniy, or Alyosha as I call him, who supported me. He came to the classes, and during the first break he stated that he hadn't had breakfast yet, unwrapped a huge package and said, 'Zina, let's have breakfast'. I accepted it, and we ate his huge breakfast. In the afternoon I walked to Volodarskogo Street for dinner at his aunt's. As for dinner - I cannot remember whether there really was any food though. I was a thin girl. As for mama - I don't know what she was eating. Later, after the court hearing, mama took a job at some dressmaker's shop; she was sewing underwear. In the evening she brought home bras and we sewed buttons onto them.

Alyosha helped us sewing on buttons. Mama thought nicely of him. After my father's arrest they stopped people coming close to our home and interrogated them. We were spied on. So all my admirers disappeared immediately. I valued highly how my husband treated me then. My mother liked Alyosha very much, but such a 'present', that is a second 'goy' in the family because he's Ukrainian was terrible. She was very afraid of papa's reaction. So, she said to me, 'You know, Zina, you will graduate from the institute, go on your [mandatory job] assignment 20 and you will get married there. Then I will tell papa that I had nothing to do with it'. But everything turned out to be much easier when papa returned because he accepted Alyosha.