Larisa Radomyselskaya

This is me, Larisa Radomyselskaya. This photo was taken in Uzhhorod in 1957.

After finishing college I asked them to issue me a mandatory job assignment to Uzhhorod in Subcarpathian region [800 km from Kiev]. My friend Ada Trudler also got a job assignment to Uzhhorod. We became friends when we were first-year students. We went to work in Subcarpathian regional construction trust where we received a double room in a hostel.

I met my husband Isaac Radomyselski in 1956. My husband was a professional military he received a room in a barrack in Uzhhorod. His mother joined him there. After we got married we lived in this barrack for few years. We registered our marriage in a registry office and then had a small wedding dinner with Isaac's mother, my aunt Ghenia and her daughters and my closest friend Ada. None of us was religious and we didn't even mention a religious wedding.

In 1957 our older daughter Irina was born. Our second daughter Galina was born in 1961. After my older daughter was born I didn't have any problems and Irina was growing a strong and healthy girl. I began to have problems after Galina was born. My daughter was a difficult girl and didn't develop like other babies. She couldn't even sit when she turned one year old. When I took Galina to a professor pediatrician he said that she had 'children's cerebral palsy'. He told me that my daughter would never grow to be a normal person and that she would remain a creature with no mind or motion and would be not able to lead an independent life. But I didn't believe it was a final sentence. I took my daughter to doctors in big towns and was hoping for good luck. It's horrible to recall what my baby and I had to bear, but it worked. At the age of 8 my daughter went to the first form of an elementary school. She could read and write already. She couldn't walk well. She often fell injuring her knees. Her schoolmates teased her for her handicaps. Galina had a strong character and strong will and she finished school with a golden medal regardless of anti-Semitism of this period. It was next to impossible for a Jew to receive a gold medal, but my daughter did it.

We had Jewish, Russian and Ukrainian friends. We didn't care about nationality. Unfortunately, our daughter's condition didn't allow us to meet with friends or invite them home often, but we celebrated Soviet holidays: 1 May, 7 November, Victory Day and the Soviet Army Day and our children's birthdays. I cooked and we had parties with guests. We danced and talked. On our daughters' birthdays they invited their friends. Sometimes on weekends we went for walks with the family. My younger daughter loved these outings, though walking was hard for her. We wished we could take our daughter out of the town, but we didn't have such opportunity. We didn't have a car and we couldn't generally afford it. Considering Galina's condition we spent our vacations in Uzhhorod.

I worked as an engineer in a construction trust 20 years. In 1974 I got an offer to go to work at the Uzhhorodpribor plant. I got a position of acting chief of the department of capital construction. I worked there until I reached the age of retirement and then I continued to work as an engineer. I left work in 1992.