The battle of Stalingrad caught up to me once again, when I was studying at the university. One night in my sleep I saw a bomb flying towards me, whistling. It seemed that I woke up one second before the explosion. Every night I saw either a bomb or bullets from a machine gun flying at me. I was inspected by medical doctors, my brain was scanned, they arranged consultations, treated me in hospitals, and prescribed various injections, but the bombs kept falling and the machine guns kept firing. This went on for 15 years.

Our strength was fading. And so, my mother made a decision, we needed to move. We used to walk to Nikolski Market, then we went back and only after that allowed ourselves to eat. It was already dark, it was winter and there was no electricity. We lit our lamp using lamp oil or castor oil – but we tried to save the castor oil, so we could eat it.