Finds by Aishe Yunus: If only they knew what would happen next …

13.06.202013:56

In this photo of the pre-war years – two sisters: Zore (left) and Esma Osmanovs. They were born in Feodosia in the family of a Turkish official  Belial.

With the advent of Soviet power, his father decided to move his family to Ankara. The documents were ready, all is left is to wait for the departure of the ship. But the wife of Bialal, a native of Feodosia Emine, burst into tears: she did not want to part with her relatives at all. The husband took pity on her and handed over the tickets. If he only knew what would happen next…

And then there was a war. The Germans stole Esma to Germany for forced labour. And the rest of the family (father was no longer alive at that time) was deported by the Soviet authorities to the Kostroma region. There, in a foreign land, they had to live in rotten barracks and work on logging (the oldest daughter Ashiba soon died of overwork).

The younger Zora and her brother Mamut were taken to an orphanage. At least they were fed there. Later, Zore recalled that she was constantly tormented by conscience due to the fact that her mother continues to live in hunger and cold. The girl secretly ran away to her mother and carried rations to her.

After the war, sister Esma returned from Germany to the USSR, but for a long time, she could not get a meeting with her relatives. She managed to reunite with her family only in 1956 – by then all of them already lived in Uzbekistan.

In 1976, Zorah, already being an adult woman for the first time after deportation came to her native Feodosia. Her daughter Zera (she shared a family story with us) recalls: “Mom just asked to enter her house to remember her childhood, but the frightened new owners did not let us in. Allowed only to the yard, and then not for long. An old apricot tree has been preserved there. Mom tore herself and me an apricot, we ate, and then she burst into tears … “

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Author: Редакция Avdet

Avdet