Tag #152588 - Interview #94179 (Gherda Kagan )

In 1944 my parents decided to return to Odessa. This wasn’t an easy thing to do: they needed a pass, permit and documents. My father went to Moscow to obtain permission and we lived with uncle David’s family at Kinel station near Kuibyshev through that winter. There was no job in Odessa and my father was appointed to restore a tinned food factory in Tiraspol. We lived there for a year. Victory Day in Tiraspol is one of the strongest impressions in my life. When at half past five in the morning we woke up from crazy knocking on the door, my father decided that the factory exploded. It turned out they woke him up on the occasion of the victory. There was a small square in front of a garden in the central square. Everybody came there including schoolchildren and we, pioneers, were there wearing our red neckties. It was warm and sunny and there were lilac trees and tulips in blossom. It was so beautiful. Everybody smiled, but when they said ‘Glory to deceased heroes’, every single person burst into tears!