Agnessa Margolina and Israel Katz

This is a picture of me and my husband, Israel Katz. My husband was photographed in his Soviet military uniform, he had the rank of captain of medical services. The photo was taken in Kiev in 1945 after we registered our marriage. In August 1944 we heard that Soviet troops had liberated Kiev. I and my brothers decided to go home from evacuation in the village of Nukha in Azerbaijan. I met my future husband at the home of my former school friend. I bumped into her on the street in 1944. I was very glad to see her again. I came to see her after work sometimes. On one of those evenings she introduced me to Israel Katz, a Jew and student at the Military Medical Academy. Israel was born in the town of Krasnoye, Vinnitsa region [about 200 kilometers from Kiev] in 1921. In 1939 after finishing school Israel entered Kiev Military Medical Academy. When the Great Patriotic War began the academy evacuated to Middle Asia. Israel was there, too. The Academy returned to Kiev in 1944 and so did Israel. Israel finished the academy in February 1945. We got married a few days before he graduated. We just had a civil ceremony in a registry office. My husband got a job assignment as a military doctor in a division in Budapest. He left. I couldn't follow him since my brothers hadn't finished school and I didn't want to leave them. My older brother, Boris, was rather sickly after evacuation. I stayed with my brothers. My husband came to see me about twice a year. My husband wrote me that their regiment was moving to Kiev. A few people from that regiment came to Kiev to make accommodation arrangements for officers. They brought me a letter from my husband and a food parcel. Later they told me that my husband's regiment reached the Soviet border from where it was sent back to Budapest. My husband's friends were going back to join their regiment and I decided to go with them. In Chop, a town on the border with Hungary, I had to get off the train. I stayed in the waiting room at the railway station. My husband came to pick me up after two days. He was transferred to Austria. He had an invitation letter for me to serve as an official permit. I only needed to have it stamped in Uzhgorod. I was glad to have this opportunity to see my brothers in Uzhgorod. In Uzhgorod we went to the military office and it turned out that on that day they received an order forbidding military officers to take their wives abroad with them. We were late. We walked in the town and I was crying. We were to be separated again. I stayed in Uzhgorod.