Family History
I saw my mother today. Learned a lot of interesting things about my family from her.
My great-grandfather
It turns out that my great-grandfather was a translator for the Romanian king. He worked at the Romanian embassy of the USSR. He met my great-grandmother during a business trip. She lived in the city of ***, in Ukraine. They conceived my grandfather.
Great-grandfather had the last name *** and was a pure-blooded Jew, and because of anti-Semitism during the Soviet Union, he was recognized as an enemy of the people and was repressed.
They just took him away from his job and sent him to Omsk or Tomsk without trial. To prison.
Great-grandmother
She found him through the lists, which at that time were only in Moscow. She moved to that small town with her little son and waited for him all this time.
When great-grandfather came out of prison, he became embittered and broken. They made another child, grandfather’s sister. My great-grandfather took out all his anger on my then little grandfather, calling him names and humiliating him.
Grandpa
Grew up very bright and graduated with honors. His father insisted that he go to military school.
Grandfather trained as a tank driver and was sent to suppress the uprising in Czechoslovakia, when it wanted to break away from the USSR.
He said it was very scary and he himself didn’t think it was right to go after people who wanted independence with guns, but an order is an order.
My grandfather rolled over on a tank, got wounded, but he did something and was promoted.
Then he served a long time, was a company commander, but he had a dream of becoming a general. The leadership somehow made it clear to him that with the surname *** and his father being an enemy of the people, he would never get a high rank.
But he is clever, eloquent and could be hired as a propagandist if he graduated from the history department. He graduated with honors.
He was a colonel for a few more years and retired to teach history at a school near apartment that she and her grandmother bought in the city of ***.
Grandma
And my grandmother also came from a military family. Her mother is a nurse, her father served in the army during the war. They met at the front.
After the war, great-grandmother worked for many years as a housekeeper. She was very proud of her skills as a housewife. And great-grandfather worked in a factory. They built a house with their own hands in the town of ***, in Ukraine.
Mother met my father’s family when grandfather served in the Urals (they lived in many places), she became friends with my father’s sister in the music school.
In parallel, my grandfather became friends with that sister’s mother in classes at the university when he was studying history. And they became family friends.
Father
Mom fell in love with a friend’s brother and she married him when she was 18. I have my father’s last name on my passport, but I sign my mother’s name everywhere because I don’t know anyone from my father’s family personally, nor does he himself.
My father’s parents
My father’s parents met at the construction of a large train line running through the Urals.
My father’s mother gave birth to him at 16 and apparently was such a mother, because she died early from alcoholism. My mother says she was a wonderful and very caring person and that I look a lot like her.
My grandfather, my father’s father — divorced three times, had 5 children and was a professional writer in Moscow. There are even his hunting stories on the internet (saw it myself, googled it).
Divorce
My mom says she got married to get away from her parents, and I understand her perfectly. They are tough people. I understand it because she often gave me to them, after divorcing my father.
Now my grandparents live in Germany, moved out of the town of ***, which is now being destroyed by war. Grandpa already speaks decent German. They are likely to stay there.
I was brought up in Ukrainian society. Spent most of my life here. This is my home.
And hearing this story made me think what baggage of historical events brought me to this world.
Unbelievable.
