Tag #156102 - Interview #103885 (Malea Veselnitskaya Biography)

My father was released from the army, but in 1943 he was recruited to the so-called labor army. Its units were involved the construction of defense facilities. Father had duodenal ulcer and might have been released had he insisted, but he said ‘I want to go to the front’. He left holding his hands on his stomach. He exchanged everything he had for food on the way, but it was not enough. He was on the train 12 days and ad one meal per day – his ulcer opened. In Moscow he got off the train and was sent to work as receptionist in the institute named after Molotov. However, his condition got worse and he had to go to hospital. My older brother Semyon whose unit was moving from Leningrad to Stalingrad Front was going via Moscow. He obtained a permit for few hours’ leave from his commanding officers to visit our father. When he came to see him he found our father exhausted: he weighed 42 kg. His diagnosis was: general tuberculosis. My brother left some money with an attendant to buy food for my father. He almost missed his train. We were notified that father died in hospital in 1943 and his body was incinerated.