This is me and my husband Kuzma Zelinsky in 1939 in Gayvoron.
He was drafted into the army and was supposed to ‘release Western Ukraine’ from Germany.
We decided to have a picture taken before his departure.
I married a Ukrainian, Kuzma Yefremovich Zelinsky in 1938. He was born in 1911 in the village of Salkovo in Gayvoronsky district. It is a Russian territory. I worked in Gayvoron at that time.
My husband Kuzma was raised in a big family with nine children. He went to the town school and later joined the army. Their family was very nice to me, and his mother said that I was her best daughter-in-law.
His father came from the village of Polish settlers, which was formed during World War I. My husband's parents were common peasants and worked in the kolkhoz.
His mother remembered the serfdom times. His father's name was Yefrem, and his mother's Natalia Danilovna Melnik. His mother stayed with me in evacuation during the war in Podolsk.
Kuzma returned form the army and worked in DOSAAF [Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Army, Aircraft and Navy]. They taught the youth and prepared them for service in the army.
We got acquainted at a Komsomol meeting when he came back from the army. We knew each other for about two years, and then he proposed to me.
He knew that I was a Jewess. I accepted his proposal and didn't discuss it with anyone; I had become a rather independent person by that time.
There was no wedding; we just registered the marriage at the ZAGS [civil marriage registry office], which was located in a room in the rayispolkom building. Kuzma didn't even have three rubles to pay for the registration.
We were registered on credit, since it was in rayispolkom [District Executive Committee] and everybody knew us as active YCL members.
Later our friends came to celebrate the wedding, and his mother also visited us to take a look at me.
