This is Maryasya Zakharovna .
In 1945 I received the summons and arrived to Leningrad. In May I turned 18, and in September I arrived, and got a job as a medical assistant in the factory named after Plekhanov. After work we used to clean and restore the city all together.
There was no information from Daddy. When I arrived in 1945, I learned that he was wounded. He continued to work in the factory not at his specialty, and only later he worked as a medical assistant.
In 1946 we met. He accidentally found out, that I arrived in Leningrad, when he visited Aunt Maryasya, who lived in 80 Nevsky Avenue. From her he learned that I was in Leningrad [1945]. Her Russian-way name was Marusya, but indeed she was Maryasya Zakharovna.
She was the second sister after Mum, born in 1907. When I arrived, I lived about half a year with her, she did not work, her husband had just come from the war.
They had a son, but we were not especially close with him. They lived quite well financially. Aunt Maryasya helped all poor Jews, there was a whole concourse of Jews in their home.
For some reason everybody knew her and she helped everyone out financially, fed them with dinners. And in 1946 all our family arrived from evacuation, that is my sister, brother and Mum, they also were summoned to Leningrad.
Asya and Tasya are sisters of my Mum. Asya is the youngest, and Tasya was born after Maryasya. Thy all bear the name Zaretsky, Grandfather's daughters. They were four: Asya, Tasya, Maryasya and my mother.
Asya worked as a librarian in the Palace of Arts in Nevsky Avenue, then [1950s] referred to as the House of Arts. There I met Simonov [a Soviet actor, the people's actor of the USSR], and many other prominent actors, who came to see her. They all respected her. She knew the English language, was very gifted.
Her daughter lived here. In honor of grandmother she was named Inna Zaretsky. So Aunt Asya and Aunt Maryasya were librarians, and Tasya worked as a booking office cashier at the Moscow railway station. There she got acquainted with her Russian husband. Her grandfather "crossed her out of the list" after she married a Russian.
