On July 21st, our oldest member of the Jewish Community Mariya Lvovna Danilenko turned 100 years old! Director of Hesed Polina Inessa Chugainova congratulated the Mariya Lvovna with this great anniversary. Relatives, neighbors, and students also came to celebrate the event.

  A hero of a famous movie asked this question: "What does a person need to live to old age decently?" And have the answer - a good house, a good family. And Mariya Lvovna has a cozy apartment and a wonderful family: a son, daughter in law, grandson, granddaughter, and other relatives who came from Israel and the US to participate in the centenary celebration. In the warm atmosphere of the house we thought that it is possible to live in it for a century. But it was not always that Mariya Lvovna’s life was nice. She went through greatest life hardships: she was a prisoner of Karlag and ALZHIR (Akmolinsk Prison for Wives of Parricides). Later she wrote a chapter about it in the book of memoirs of victims of political repressions "Tragic Fates".

  In 1937, her husband "enemy of the people" journalist Ivan Danilenko was arrested; Mariya was expelled from pedagogic institute and was exiled to Kazakhstan. Her eight-year old son was left alone, then he lived with his grandmother, and met his mother again only in nine years. Mariya’s husband was shot dead right after he was arrested and only in 1957 he was rehabilitated. Some people possess an amazing endurance. Having gone through all horrors of Stalin prisons she retained amazing kindness to people. And at her 100 years this great woman is beautiful.

  All Jewish Community of Almaty wished Mariya Lvovna Danilenko to live to 120 years old.

Lyudmila Starodubova