My parents (Odel Melenevskaya and Yakov Melenevsky) with my elder brother Ilya - before my birth

In 1910s my mum Odel Levina married my father and changed her surname - she became Melenevskaya, and in 1921 my mum gave birth to a son, Ilya Melenevsky, my elder brother. My father became a member of my mum's family. Mother considered him to be an orphan. All sisters of my mum got to like him, and all his life he helped them as best as he could. My mum turned up to work, when my brother had already been called up for military service. It happened when the war with Finland burst out in 1939. At that time he just entered the Institute. So, he left for army. Mother helped him pack his things and a bit later she turned up to work. As for me, in 1939 I was about 13 years old.

In 1940 my mum was arrested and imprisoned. She was called as a witness in the action against a bookkeeper (her collaborator), and she was released already in the war time. She was taken away from Leningrad. When she was released from prison, she got a job of seamstress right there, where she was exiled to (Nevyansk city in the Urals). My mum was a seamstress. She could sew underwear for men and women. My mum died in March 1942 because her health was exhausted. A woman, who lived in the same barrack with her, informed us about her death, she also informed us, that mother was released from prison because they had nothing on her.