Yelizaveta Zatkovetskaya with her uncle Berl Zatkovetskiy, aunt Feiga Lubashevskaya and cousine Semyon Lubashevskiy

From left to right: my father's brother Berl Zatkovetskiy, I, Yelizaveta Zatkovetskaya, am in the center, my father's older sister Feiga Lubashevskaya is from the right, her son Semyon Lubashevskiy is standing. This photo was made in Krivoy Rog in 1936, when my aunt and I were visiting my uncle Berl.

Feiga, the my father’s oldest sister was born about 1885. Feiga's husband Abram Lubashevskiy perished during a pogrom during the civil war leaving Feiga with three children: sons Mosia and Semyon and daughter Olga. During the great Patriotic War Feiga's sons were at the front, and Feiga and her daughter were somewhere in the Ural in evacuation. Feiga lived a long life. After returning from the evacuation Feiga lived with her younger son Semyon in Odessa. She died in 1980. Semyon and his family live in Germany now. Mosia became an invalid at the war and died shortly after the war. Olga, whose family name was Zeldina, finished a college and moved to Zhdanov (present Mariupol in the east of Ukraine, 670 km from Kiev). She died in the middle 1990s.

My father’s brother Berl, born in 1892. Berl married his friend's widow whose husband perished during a pogrom in the middle 1920õ. She had a child, but Berl didn't have children with her. In the early 1930s he and his family moved to Krivoy Rog to work in a mine. They lived there until the great Patriotic War. During the war he evacuated with his mine and after the war he moved to Kirovograd. He died in the middle 1970s.

In 1932 I finished 7-year school. Two of my friends also wanted to become teachers and convinced me to go to the Pedagogical College in Kiev. I was eager to see a big town, live and study in it. Besides, I had never seen a train before. Everything seemed interesting to me, and I was not afraid of anything. I became a student of the Jewish Faculty of Kiev Pedagogical College. This faculty trained teachers of the Jewish literature and language for Jewish schools. There were many Jewish schools in Ukraine at that time. We studied in Yiddish. I lived in a hostel. There were huge rooms. There were 16 tenants in my room. We got along well and had a lot of fun together. I also became a Komsomol member, when I was the first-year student and took an active part in public activities. Again I was responsible for helping other students with their studies. We were to study four years, but there was a need in teachers, and they reduced our course to three years. We celebrated all Soviet holidays, went to parades and festivals, but I also remembered the Jewish traditions. Being a Komsomol member, I couldn't openly celebrate holidays or go to the synagogue, but I tried to observe traditions quietly. I tried to do no hard work on Saturday and fasted on Yom Kippur without mentioning it to anyone. Of course, following the kashrut was out of the question since we were always hungry and ate whatever we could get.