Valentina’s sister Tsitsilia Vul

Tsilya - my sister [1924-1950].

My sister [Tsitsilia] was 3 years older than I was, she was born in 1924, and I - in 1927, and 10 years later my brother Vladimir was born there, in Vladikavkaz [1937].

In Sverdlovsk [nowadays Ekaterinburg] I finished a medical assistants school, I entered it in 1943, and graduated in 1945, received a specialty. And for Tsilya Mum rented a room, and she lived independently and was a student of the Pedagogical Institute in Sverdlovsk.

Tsilya is my sister, she was 3 years older than I. She was brought an honest and respectable person and was very clever. She received only excellent marks.

After graduation from the institute she was a teacher, taught literature and the Russian language, and when they returned from evacuation in 1946, she was a teacher in Koltushy [a small town near Leningrad].

It was a time of starvation and some teachers used to rob children, and she struggled against it, put up a whole fight. She ended up with an infarct and died in 1950, very young.

My brother, Vul Vladimir Abramovich, was born in 1937 in Vladikavkaz. My brother is alive, but he is seriously ill. He lost his first son. The boy left for school once, in his 10th from, and didn't return. He was tripped up, fell down and had his abdominal aorta ruptured.

They could not rescue him, and the boy died. My brother had an infarct. And recently he endured a very serious oncological operation of intestines. He is sick, but both him and me have a very strong will.

Probably, inherited from our father. He is an invalid of the second group, but he still teaches in a technical institute, and he has a doctor's degree.

His son, Vitaly, born in 1980, is a student of physics and mathematics faculty at the Saint Petersburg State University.