Roman Barskiy with his family: mother Bertha Kazakova, grandmother Freida and sister Elena

This photo waa taken when our family returned from the evacuation in 1944. From left to right: me, my sister Elena, my grandmother Freida, and my mother Bertha Kazakova. In April 1944, we returned to Kiev. During our trip back, we saw a stunning battlefield near Voronezh with a lot of damaged equipment. The Darnitsa station near Kiev had been destroyed by German bombings. We went to the Jewish bazaar when we arrived in Kiev. There was everything there! My mother bought me a pie with beans and it was such a delicacy! There had never been enough food in the evacuation. And there was so much of everything at the bazaar. They were selling borscht (beet soup) with sour cream, stew, et cetera. I went to school to finish the first form. There were many Jewish children in my class and we were friends. We received a 5th floor room on Reitarskaya Street. It was the top floor and there was a big hole in the roof. We stayed with a friend of my mother's for some time until we had the roof fixed. This friend, a Ukrainian, came from Lubny. She was a very interesting woman. Her husband was a Jew. He perished in 1937 when the KGB eliminated the leading Party officials. She returned from evacuation. Her son was with his grandmother in a village. He survived miraculously. His grandmother's neighbors pointed fingers at him saying 'This is a Judah. He is a Jewish child.' But his grandmother managed to save him. She was my parents? friend for life.