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I fell in love with Grigoriy Nerubanko, a Ukrainian young man when I was at the Institute. He came from a family of workers in Donbass. He was born in 1911 and he was a serious and positive young man – he had his objectives and knew what he wanted in life. He was a communist. He was successful with his studies and was well-mannered. His mother was a communist and his father died in an accident at the railroad when he was young. Grigoriy’s mother raised four children. Grigoriy was an older son in the family and his mother hoped that he would help other children to get education upon graduation from the Institute.
Grigoriy also fell in love with me. My parents were horrified to hear that I was meeting with a non-Jewish man. They said they would never accept him into the family. I graduated from the Institute in 1936 and got a job assignment of production engineer at a glass factory in the vicinity of Leningrad. Grigoriy had another year to study. Grigoriy was a man of his word and wanted to return to his mother upon graduation to help his family, but his mother knew that was seeing a girl and she said to him “Go to Sima – she is your happiness”.
Grigoriy also fell in love with me. My parents were horrified to hear that I was meeting with a non-Jewish man. They said they would never accept him into the family. I graduated from the Institute in 1936 and got a job assignment of production engineer at a glass factory in the vicinity of Leningrad. Grigoriy had another year to study. Grigoriy was a man of his word and wanted to return to his mother upon graduation to help his family, but his mother knew that was seeing a girl and she said to him “Go to Sima – she is your happiness”.
Period
Location
Kharkov
Kharkivska oblast
Ukraine
Interview
SIMA-LIBA NERUBENKO