Mariasha Vasserman

This is me, when my aunt and I came back from the exile to Tallinn. The picture was taken in Tallinn in 1945. In late 1944 Tallinn was liberated from the Germans, and evacuees started coming back home. I turned 16, but I didn't want to receive a passport in exile. I procrastinated with that in order to come back home and get a passport as a citizen of the Soviet Estonian Republic. I was small and lean, so I looked much younger than my age. Thus, my aunt took me to Estonia without passport. My aunt and I returned to Tallinn. Other people occupied the apartment we used to live in before our exile. My aunt got our apartment back by a ruling of the court. I lived with her. Now we also lived in the communal apartment. I wasn't entitled to live in Tallinn : there was a law at that time: people were not permitted to settle in the place, wherefrom they were exiled. I couldn't get a passport in Tallinn either. In general, there was no way the passport could be issued without a residence permit. I went to school, submitting my birthday certificate. I finished the 8th grade there. It was dangerous to live without a passport and I had to find a way out. A motor-transport depot was established in a small settlement called Mardu in the vicinity of Tallinn. They needed an accountant, who was familiar with the automobile business. Since I had worked in the motor-transport depot in Kazan', I was offered a job in Mardu and given the residence permit registered in the hostel of the motor-transport depot. Finally, I was able to receive a passport.