In loving memory of our mother, grandmother, and mother-in-law Ninel [Ne:nel] was born in 1936 in the USSR to the family of a history professor and a housewife.
The year of 1937 was one of the darkest pages of Stalin’s repressions and killings in Russian history known as the Great Terror of 1937. Family members were separated; some killed, some sent to camps. Children were placed in special kinder-houses. One night, there was a knock at the door of her parents’. They came to arrest her father. Her mother opened the door with a little Ninel in her hands. That night, her father happened to be at a local hospital with infectious diarrhea. That saved his life and the life of his family. The NKVD officers left, deciding to stay away from the Infectious Unit. Her father got well, and the family quietly left the area.
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany crossed the borders of the USSR. It was the beginning of the annihilation of peoples of all ethnic groups that lived on the Russian territory occupied by Nazi. Many families tried to evacuate ahead of the Germans coming including Ninel’s family because her father was a communist, and the families of communists or military were the first to be executed by Nazi Germans. Ninel, 5 years of age, and her younger sister were with their mother on a freight train. The train stopped and people were jumping off the freight cars to hide along the railway ditches. Ninel’s mother was not able to get down with the little children. It was too high from the ground. She stayed in the freight car covering the girls with her body. By the Lord’s mercy, that car was not affected by bombing, but unfortunately, there were many casualties that day.
Ahead of her and her family, was a long four years of war that brought deprivation, hunger, and fear for lives of her loved ones, but they came out stronger than before because they had learned that unity of the family, care for children, support and love for each other is the key for a good life. That was what made Ninel such a loving and caring mother, wife, and grandmother. She and her husband, Grigor, created such a wonderful family for their daughter and granddaughter with a strong bond and loving kindness. She lived a long life, and she was a bright light in our lives and always will be.
Her ashes will be buried in Bulgaria, the burial plot and resting place of her much-loved husband.
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