Lives of Kostanay Hesed clients are similar in many ways: they went through hardships of the war and development of virgin lands. I would like to tell about an elderly woman, who is totally deaf. Elizaveta Ryumina was born in the Ukraine in Donetsk city in 1932 in a Jewish family. Her childhood was very comfortable and full of joy until the beginning of the war. When the war started, people tried to leave their homes to save their children. Malka Londa did the best to save her daughter Liza. The family decided to move to Dzerzhinsk, where the mother’s brother lived. There were no tickets, so people had to storm trains. There were crowds of refugees everywhere; people had to travel even on trains’ roofs. During the several days they had to spend at the train station, they lost their luggage, food packages. They could preserve only the things they were wearing. When the next train came, the crowd separated the little girl from her mother. People were shouting and running to the train. Finally, the girl was standing alone on the platform calling her mother, but there was nobody around. The train began to move and was moving faster and faster. Suddenly, somebody’s strong hands took and held Liza. Liza realized that it was an old rail road official and they were standing on the stair-steps of the moving train.

The train carriage was overcrowded, people were pressed against each other, and children were placed on the upper shelves behind luggage. Liza spent several days alone among unknown people. Some people gave her bread and tomatoes, but the girl was only crying hiding on the upper shelf. When the train stopped, mothers were looking for their lost children calling their names, but Liza had never heard her name. She would cry all the time. Once, when she was sleeping, somebody shook her and asked: "What is your name?" "Liza" she answered. "Your mom is looking for you!". Somebody’s hands took the girl and passed her from hands to hands over the people’s heads to the exit. At the train stair-steps there was her mother. The mother held the weakened girl tightly and cried. Liza had no tears to cry any more...

They made it to Dzerzhinsk finally with great difficulties. There they had to live in an empty cold apartment. They could not receive ratio cards. Authorities tried to dispossess them from the apartment because they were not registered. Elizaveta Dmitriyevna remembers that horrible day when the siren was on and people were running to the bomb shelter. Liza was the first to move out from the apartment, her mother followed her. Then there was an explosion. Liza regained her consciousness only in the hospital. She was injured. Doctors removed lots of bomb fragments but one remained in her head for ever. Elizaveta Dmitriyevna calls it "the memory of war".

The family could not stay in the city, and the mother and Liza, who was sick at that time, decided to go to Kazakhstan (the plant where the mother’s elder sister worked, was evacuated to Kazakhstan). They had to travel sitting on an open-air platform between boxes with equipment. There was rain, strong wind, and snow while they were on the road. Several times, the train was bombed. People jumped out of the train and tried to run as far as possible away from the rail road. Then they were moving again on the platform. Elizaveta Dmitriyevna remembers Vitya, a 14-year old boy, who was crying over his killed mother. Liza’s mother invited the boy to go together. Vitya helped, ran to bring food and water at rail way stations. Liza could not move at all because of her disease. At one of the stations, the boy said that he had arrived. Liza’s mother gave him her address, Vitya waved his hand and left. They had never seen him again.

They arrived in Kazakhstan in winter of 1943. The sick and weak Liza was treated for a long time. Doctors noticed that Liza started to lose her hearing ability. After the war, the relatives returned to Ukraine, while Liza and her mother stayed in Kostanay. Liza studied at school, worked, married. And she always had to put up with the bomb fragment. She has lost her hearing ability completely and can speak with difficulties now but her eyes sparkle. Elizaveta Dmitriyevna tries to visit all Hesed holidays, reads a lot. She enjoys reading Davar newspaper. Everytime she asks, "Is there a new issue?" She is interested in people’s lives and traditions of Jewish people. Let our Liza’s eyes sparkle with joy as long as possible, let her live without any more sorrow and grief in her life.

Zoya Firenshtein