The family of my husband Georgi Zabozlaev: upper row: my husband`s father Fyodor Zabozlaev, his mother Evgenia Zabozlaeva (nee Rys), lower row: my husband Georgi and on the right is my husband`s sister Olga. This photo was taken in Leningrad on 12.11.1939 when Olga turned 9 months.
When a senior pupil I attended a history club in the House of Officers. Boys from a school for boys attended it, too. When I was in the 8th form I met my future husband Yuri (Georgi) Zabozlaev. He was born in Saratov in 1929.
Mother my future husband Evgenia Davydovna, his sister Olga and he had evacuated from Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War. There was a secondary school where they also studied aviation in Bakhmetievskaya Street. Georgi - although everybody called him Yuri, studied in this school in the 8th, 9th and 10th form. They were very poor. Their father perished during the siege in Leningrad. There was one teacher of history that worked in our school for girls and in school for boys. She conducted joint classes at the history club and was not favored by the local educational authorities for this. We studied history in this club. Since then Yuri and I were together until Yuri died. My husband's mother Evgenia Zabozlaeva, nee Rys, was a Jew. Her parents David and Olga Rys, Jews, were fabric merchants. My parents knew them. My mother and Evgenia Davydovna studied at the grammar school for girls in Saratov together.
However, Evgenia Davydovna kept the fact of her Jewish identity to herself. She had the Russian last name of Zabozlaeva and everybody believed they were Russian. For her it was a matter of convenience so that her children were not disturbed when studying at school. Yuri and Olga knew that their mother was a Jew. They joined Komsomol and later they joined the Party and of course, there was nothing Jewish in their family. After finishing the 10th form Yuri was sent to a pilot school in Balashov [over 800 km from Moscow] in Saratov region. We got married after I finished my third year in college. This happened in summer 1950, though he had proposed to me few years before. We had a very cheerful wedding. There were relatives on both sides and my co-students. We had a wedding party and tables set in Michael's house that was bigger than ours. My relatives helped with cooking. We had teyglakh, Gefilte fish and forshmak made. There were also lots of pastries.
