The period of adaptation was very rough for both of them. Victor, not a child anymore, did not care for yet another stranger in his life; he did not listen to Ghenya, argued with her, and when something was not to his liking, he ran away from home for hours, leaving poor women in tears. Ghenya, who never had any children, did not know how to approach Victor, her disciplinarian methods were yelling and spanking. She was a hard worker with minimum education and a very harsh life; life where each ruble was counted and re-counted before it was spent. Aunt Ghenya always worked night shifts, so Victor could sleep on that one creaking bed; her sleeping times were during the day, while he was in school. She was not a warm person, life was not kind
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During his service, he developed a lifelong friendship with the fellow soldier from Odessa and the girls from local towns were in the picture. Aunt Ghenya kept working in the same cafeteria; in three years of Victor’ service she never missed a chance to send him a care package with food, worm socks, and change of clothes. Victor started the Army service as an awkward skinny boy, three years later he returned home self-assured young man.
The thoughts of his past became were far removed, replaced by the new exciting life. At home, conversations about murdered family, orphanage, and loss of adopted family or evacuation did not exist. Nobody wanted to open old wounds; these wounds were almost taboo in not only the aunt Ghenya and Victor household, but in the entire Soviet Union. There was no word “Holocaust” or its equivalent in Russian language; it seemed that by not talking about a painful past, people could pretend that it did not happen.
Upon return from the service, he successfully passed the entrance exams in the Odessa Polytech Institute and for the next five years studied in the department of Electrical Engineering. These were the best years of his life: years filled with the new friends, new possibilities, parties, and plans for the
During his service, he developed a lifelong friendship with the fellow soldier from Odessa and the girls from local towns were in the picture. Aunt Ghenya kept working in the same cafeteria; in three years of Victor’ service she never missed a chance to send him a care package with food, worm socks, and change of clothes. Victor started the Army service as an awkward skinny boy, three years later he returned home self-assured young man.
The thoughts of his past became were far removed, replaced by the new exciting life. At home, conversations about murdered family, orphanage, and loss of adopted family or evacuation did not exist. Nobody wanted to open old wounds; these wounds were almost taboo in not only the aunt Ghenya and Victor household, but in the entire Soviet Union. There was no word “Holocaust” or its equivalent in Russian language; it seemed that by not talking about a painful past, people could pretend that it did not happen.
Upon return from the service, he successfully passed the entrance exams in the Odessa Polytech Institute and for the next five years studied in the department of Electrical Engineering. These were the best years of his life: years filled with the new friends, new possibilities, parties, and plans for the