Tag #156180 - Interview #94930 (Yelizaveta Zatkovetskaya)

In January 1945 the Supreme Soviet issued an order about opening children’s homes for all homeless children. In Kalinindorf a children’s home was opened in the building of the Jewish school built before the war. The executive committee [20] authorized me to take the responsibility for restoration of the building and opening of the children’s home. We gathered bricks to make a stove and washed and cleaned the walls and windows, bought beds, desks, blankets and bed sheets. The villagers also donated whatever they could. On 16 March 1945 I conducted the opening ceremony. At first there were six children in the home. Four of them were German children, whose parents had been deported from the colony before fascists came to the village. The children stayed in a Ukrainian family. At first I was acting director of this home till they appointed a nice man for this position. He returned from the front where he had lost his arms. I became a teacher. I assisted director with everything.