Maya Pivovar with her parents Buzia-Rivka Freidman and Mikhail Pivovar

I, Maya Pivovar, with my parents Buzia-Rivka Freidman and Mikhail Pivovar. This photo was taken on the occasion of my finishing the fourth year of the college. Kiev, 1949.

I had finished seven forms in 1941. I remember well beginning of the war on 22 June 1941, I was already 14 years old. At 12 o'clock in the afternoon Molotov spoke on the radio, he announced that the Great Patriotic War began. My father was a reserve officer and he had to make his appearance at the military registry office in case of war. He went to the registry office on Monday and they told him to pack his luggage and come to an induction center. My mother was working at the factory round the clock. My mother and I evacuated with my mother's factory where she was working on a barge in July. When we arrived in Dnepropetrovsk, we were not allowed to get off. We moved on we didn't know where. It was pouring with rain, we got black from coal dust all over. I don't remember how long the trip was: two or three days… We changed few freight trains for transportation of cattle to get to Zlatoust [about 900 km from Kiev]. The conditions were terrible. This was a beginning of the winter 1941.

In Zlatoust we were accommodated in local apartments. My mother continued to work at the factory that worked for the needs of the front: they made military overcoats, uniforms and tents for the front. I went to the local school but gave up my studies very soon to go to work at my mother's factory. My father was in the 5th Army. He was wounded in January 1942. His right arm didn’t function and he had lost thee fingers on his left hand. He came to Zlatoust and we all moved to Frunze. In Frunze we first accommodated in a club building till my father rented an apartment for us. Our main food was bread and vegetables, but we didn't starve, actually. In Frunze my father was chairman of the local committee of the institute trying to make the life of employees of the institute easier. For example, he found a jobless shoemaker and the management of the institute managed to get pieces of leather, and this shoemaker fixed employees' shoes.

I finished the 8th and 9th forms at school in Frunze. I hope you don't think that we, school children, didn't do anything during the war! One day a week at school was a work day. We worked at the construction of a railroad spur.

In 1944 my parents and I returned to Kiev. My father worked at the Institute of Endocrinology, and my mother worked at the factory. They worked from morning till night, left home early in the morning and came back late at night.

When we returned to Kiev from the evacuation I entered a preparatory course at the Polytechnic College and concurrently I was finishing a secondary school. In 1945 I received my school certificate. We took exams upon finishing school and the results were accounted for during admission to colleges. I entered the Chemical Technological Faculty, department of paper and cellulose, of the Polytechnic College. I didn't have any problems with admission. I remember how we, students had to work at making wood stocks near Kiev for a month. We cut trees, sawed them and stored in the store metering boxes. However, I recall this time as a very romantic period. We lived in tents, baked potatoes in the open fire in the evenings, it was fun. Then it seemed there was going to be nothing bad in life, and the most scaring thing - the war - was in the past. I was the only Jew in my group and in college. Still, everybody treated me well and we still call each other and meet with my fellow students. I had Russian and Ukrainian friends. I cannot say that I had only excellent marks, but I wasn’t among the worst students. I liked to go to the cinema and theater and I particularly like the Russian Drama Theater. I often went there with my parents and friends. I read a lot. I read classics and modern Soviet literature.

After I finished the college in 1950 I got a job assignment to the Kamskiy cellulose and paper factory in Perm region Krasnokamsk town [over 3000 km from Kiev]. I worked there 7 years.