Eugenia Zodian, my grandmother,was born Razdarozhnaya in the Soviet Union in Ukraine. I do not know much about her youth as she does not like to talk much about it - or maybe I'm not a good listener. I do know, from other readings, that during that era millions of Ukrainians died in Holodomor due to criminal communist policies, particularly forced collectivisation. When she met my grandfather, who was an engine driver, she was attending some college, but she left the country with him interrupting it. They met in a town called Razdelnaya, which was a railway node. My grandfather was there because as soon as he graduated (1942) from his college was drafted to war. Romania was fighiting alongside Nazi Germany, partly because it had no choice and partly because it was trying to get back from Russia Bassarabia (aka Moldovan Republic) which it had seen as Romanian. [The Russians eventually took it back after winning the war and called it Moldova Republic. They had an intense campaign of Russification of the Romanian population. It is unfortunate that the inhabitants bought into it and now they speak “Moldovan Language”.] |
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