Family Stories

Today we observe Veterans Day and here are my maternal grandparents Roman and Elizaveta in their WWII uniforms sometime in 1944-early 1945.

They are here at about my son’s age now and it’s incredible to think what they’d gone through by the time they were 21-22. My grandfather was a surgeon and grandma was a nurse. They met at a mobile hospital (it was basically a train that served as a hospital moving through Eastern and Western Europe and eventually all the way to Germany).

Grandma came from a small village deep in the Russian countryside sitting by the Volga river. The family had many children but only four reached the adulthood. She survived two famine periods as a child and as a young teenager so she’s definitely of a strong spirit and body. Grandma is still alive and in her 97th year. Back then, she was stunningly beautiful with her strawberry blonde hair and deep blue eyes.

So, a nice Jewish boy from Ukraine, my grandfather, who served as a surgical supervisor of the military hospital could not pass her by. Grandpa was a middle child from a quiet intelligent family of Jewish settlers with roots stemming from across Bavaria and Switzerland. My great grandfather was a known jeweler in the city but my great grandmother was the one who held the whole family together. I remember her, she had an iron spirit, but great grandpa, unfortunately, died before I was born. So, my  grandparents came from two different worlds but the war united them and they fell in love.

They got married during the war and continued to serve together. Grandma left the military hospital shortly before the war ended as she was already pregnant with my mom. She went to stay with my great grandparents in Ukraine as my grandfather continued to serve in Germany for another three years and didn’t meet my mom till she was almost 3 years old.

Grandpa was lucky to be alive actually. At some point during the war, his family received a death notice that he was killed but it was a mistake that they learned about later on. He did get injured though by a stray missile shrapnel and that injury claimed his surgical skills as he was left with a shaky hand and inability to perform surgeries so, after he was discharged from the military service in the 1950s, he became a salesperson eventually climbing up the career ladder and worked as a director of a large supermarket in St. Petersburgh where he later moved to.

My grandma remained working as a nurse and she actually provided medical care to the railroad staff so she kind of honored her early roots of the train hospital service. Grandpa’s profession was continued by my cousin (also named Roman) who became a doctor and is working as a pulmonologist.

And, here’s my other grandma, my dad’s mom, with yours truly when I was a baby. Grandma Praskovia did not serve during the war as she was much older than my mom’s parents. I never met my dad’s father as he died before I was born but he served during WWI and then in the Red Army.