This is a photo of me with my sister Dora Milgrom. This photo was taken in Krasilov in 1940 when she came on vacation from Pechisk village near Starokonstantinov where she worked as a teacher.
My sister Dora finished a 10-year school in 1936, then she finished a teachers' school and worked as a primary school teacher in Pechisk village near Starokonstantinov. In 1939 I finished a 7-year school and went to the higher secondary school. Graduates of all lower secondary schools of the town came to complete their secondary education here in this school and there were four 8-grade classes, four 9-grade and four 10-grade. There were Jewish, Ukrainian and Polish schoolchildren. We got along very well and spoke actually three languages: Yiddish, Polish and Ukrainian, easily switching from one language to another. We played football at the school stadium after classes, went fishing and swimming in the lake in summer. I liked mathematic and physics. I also liked geography. I read a lot about other countries and travels and dreamed of going to Odessa Navy College. I also wanted to become an artillerist if I had to serve in the army.
In the late 1930s there were talks about Hitler and the war in Western Europe, but it seemed too distant to us. Of course, we didn't know anything about German abhorrence of Jews. There was a feeling of the war, but nobody believed that Hitler could dare to attack the USSR. We believed that our country was powerful and unconquerable.
