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On 27 November 1946 we were demobilized. I didn’t know where my father and Tania were. I wrote them, but our neighbors accommodating in our room destroyed my letters. My father couldn’t get his room back, though he had one son at the front and another one perished and he was in the army. His sister Manya gave shelter to my father, Tania and Cecilia. My father couldn’t get a job without a residential permit.33 His friends made a knitting machine for him: he knitted sweaters and Tania was selling them at the market. Only in summer 1946 my father got my letter. I sent him a photograph to prove I was alive and a certificate issued by my military unit. In June he showed my photo and certificate to chief prosecutor: ‘Here is my son, he was at the front’. Only on 4 December my father moved into his room with the help of a militia officer. On 5 December I knocked on my door. Without waiting for an answer I opened the door: there was no table or chairs, there was a box by the window with a knitting machine on it and my father standing. He turned back. He didn’t recognize me. He thought it was another militiaman. My father looked like an old man. He didn’t have one healthy tooth left. He had suffered a lot thinking that he had lost two sons.
The next day I went to my school. Director Vasiliy Piymachok was happy to see me, but when he heard that I was in captivity, he was upset, since for official authorities I was an untrustworthy person anyway. He offered me a job of a cashier, gave me a key to the safe with 200 rubles and a pile of school certificate forms. Director issued certificates to all who returned from the war, but lost their certificates. I lost all my documents during the war and so did many others. My family left our home and many houses burned down in Kiev. The archives of Kiev registry office was not damaged and I had my birth certificate reissued to me. Priymachok issued a new school certificate to me. As for my Komsomol membership card I didn’t want to be a Komsomol member any longer.
The next day I went to my school. Director Vasiliy Piymachok was happy to see me, but when he heard that I was in captivity, he was upset, since for official authorities I was an untrustworthy person anyway. He offered me a job of a cashier, gave me a key to the safe with 200 rubles and a pile of school certificate forms. Director issued certificates to all who returned from the war, but lost their certificates. I lost all my documents during the war and so did many others. My family left our home and many houses burned down in Kiev. The archives of Kiev registry office was not damaged and I had my birth certificate reissued to me. Priymachok issued a new school certificate to me. As for my Komsomol membership card I didn’t want to be a Komsomol member any longer.
Period
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Leonid Kotliar