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This is me on duty in the war. I was a radio operator. The picture was taken by a press photographer who came to our unit in one of the aerodromes in Belarus in 1943. I sent it to my relatives.

Within a month after the outbreak of the war, the Germans started bombing Moscow. The institute was evacuated to Stalinsk, about 3,200 km to the east of Moscow. Now the town is called Novokuznetsk.

In May 1942 I was trained as a radio operator for the army. We were supposed to work with aircrafts, aviation headquarters and with aviation in general. We had serious military training. Apart from training in radio operation, Morse code and radio devices, we also underwent physical training. In October 1942 we finished school, and I got the rank of a sergeant and started to work at a radio station in Maloyaroslavets, about 115 km to the south-west of Moscow. I witnessed the end of the war in Konigsberg.

After the victory I stayed in Konigsberg for a while. There was a party committee, and I had to take charge of it. I became the candidate of the party on the front, and when I returned home I became a member of the party. I was demobilized in July, 1945 and went to see my father in Derbent.

More Photos from Berta Zelbert

Mina Shulman and Tsilia Shulman (1916)
    Congress of Military Writers and Poets (1945)
      My husband Simeon Gorelik (1960)
        Tsilia and Moses Zelbert (1926)
            Family at Dacha (1951)
              Tsilia Zelbert and Berta Zelbert (1924)
                Evgeniy Gorelik and Olga Gorelik (1960)
                    Moses Zelbert in World War I (1914)