Who Is Her Father? A Child of WW2

Who Is Her Father? A Child of World War II

By Ella Romm

with help from Michael Romm

San Diego, California, 2022

Content

Introduction4

In the Village of Kosinovo5

Origin of the Savenkóv surname7

The Village of Novomarevka8

What Truly Happened?12

Her Childhood. Uncle Mitya16

Sholokhovskiy24

The Puzzle of Patternity Solved31

ISBN 978-1-4583-9601-3

To my mother, Valentina

Introduction

During World War II, as in any war, women were often subjected to forced or consensual relationships with men of their own or enemy armies while their husbands and boyfriends were absent. Children born in such relationships kept their stories a secret for the rest of their lives or were never even informed by their mothers who the biological father was. It caused a lot of frustration, anxiety, and undeserved shame to the children even after they grew up. The shame of the “secret birth stories” was passed from generation to generation, even though, in theory, people understood the innocence of the kids.

One of the causes of frustration is not knowing who your biological parent was. A mother would tell her son or daughter a story about a missing father, but the doubt would never go away. Only in recent years, when DNA testing became widely available, many people could shed light on their true hereditary identity. One such victim of doubt and shame was my mother, and this writing is a story about her pain and suffering.

In the Village of Kosinovo

Grandma Mariya (Mariya Alekseevna Savenkova) was the only source of my knowledge about the maternal line. Mariya’s grandfather, Mikhail Savenkov, was born circa 1950 and lived in the Kosinovo village, the Oboyan District of the Kursk Gubernia of the Russian Empire. He had a son, Alexey, born in 1876. Alexey likely had brothers and sisters, but history has not preserved their identities.

Alexey lived in Kosinovo with his second wife, Tatyana (1890-1948). Most likely, his first wife died young, although she managed to give birth to two sons, Yakov and Matvey. Alexey and Tatyana had seven more children: Dmitry (Mitya) (1908-1990’s), Mariya (Manyu) (1914-1992), Sonya (1916-1930), Ivan (1918-1943), Georgy (Zhora) (1921-1986) and two more who died in infancy. Mitya, Zhora, and my grandmother Mariya lived to old age. Sonya died in her youth, and Ivan, as a soldier, went missing during World War II. Tatiana probably had a liver tumor when she passed away. My mother had only a vague memory of her. A photograph of Tatyana and Alexey was hanging on the wall in my grandma’s bedroom. Unfortunately, this priceless photo disappeared during emigration, and I regret it unspeakably.

According to my grandmother, before the revolution of 1917 and until circa 1930, her family was not poor and, possibly even wealthy. They owned a big house and a garden. She used to recount many sorts of apples that grew in their garden. There was a forest and a river behind it. The Savenkovs family lived prosperously. The Soviets classified them as kulaks (rich peasants who were landowners).

Here's what I found on the Internet about Kosinovo, where they lived. Since 1480, the Russian people began to move from the northern to the southern territories to protect the region of the Psel River from the raids of the Crimean Tatars and Turks. So, on the small river of Rybinka, a tributary of the Psel River, the first border guards had appeared. Some of the Kosinovo villagers were militias from the central districts of Russia. They were exiled there for disobeying the Tsar. People arrived in the forest zone to the Psel River, along which Crimean Turks and Tatars sailed in boats, trying to collect tribute. The Crimeans also raided along the Rylskaya road. This road runs seven kilometers from the Kosinovo village to the north. The newly arrived people knew about the dangers of this road, so they penetrated deep into the forests and settled where the Kosinovo village now is. People from many Russian regions came to the area, including Tver, Kaluga, Smolensk, Bryansk, and Kursk. Kosinovo got its name in 1650 in honor of Anton Kosinov, son of a landowner and nobleman, Yeremey Kosinov.

Church of Cosma and Damian in Kosinovo, built circa 1801

Origin of the Savenkóv surname

The name Savenkóv, with the stress on the last syllable, has been known since the 17th century as a noble surname in the Kursk region. Perhaps my mother's ancestors were from an aristocratic family. Otherwise, where may her proud posture and refined manners be coming from? The official records of the Savenkov families are traceable back to the Kursk archives of 1628. The families were large, with ten to eighteen children.

Mass development of the Kursk region began in the 16th century with the strengthening of the Moscow state. Savenkovs were engaged in agriculture and trade. Cattle and sheep went through Kursk from Ukraine, and agricultural products poured into the country’s center. Perhaps Savenkovs were the owners of inns located along the postal route Moscow - Valui - Voronezh - Azov - Taganrog during the time of Peter the Great. From the Kursk lands, Savenkovs are traceable to the regions on the river Volga, in Siberia, the Urals, and the Far East. There is also a village of Savenkovo in the Oryol region, a district of Mtsensk.

It is possible that a variant of the surname with “i” (Russian “и”) instead of “e” (Russian “e”) and the stress on the first vowel, Sávinkov, is not an independent surname, but a result of a clerical mistake. This variant spread over time. Amongst the known figures, Boris Viktorovich Savinkov was a Russian writer and revolutionary (a leader in the Socialist Revolutionary Party), and Pavel Savinkov was a Russian theater and cinema actor.

According to the Russian Nobility project, "all Savenkovs can be traced to a single ancestor, Fotiy Savin, who was born in 1630 in the village of Oboyan, Kursk region”.

The Village of Novomarevka

The prosperity of the Savenkov family did not last long. Around 1930, the Soviets began “dekulakization” in the Kursk region. It included deportations, arrests, and executions of countless kulaks and their families. To facilitate the expropriation of the farmland, the Soviet government portrayed the kulaks as the “class enemies” of the USSR.

“Down with the kulak!” (a Soviet poster, 1930)

Aleksey Savenkov received a warning about the impending arrest by peasants who worked for him, and he fled to Ukraine, then to Morozovsk in the Rostov region of Russia. His two sons from the first marriage fled with him. Lacking documents and fearing being given out, they worked various unskilled jobs to survive. For instance, they were shepherds and furriers dealing with dead animals. This occupation led him to contract anthrax in 1938, from which he died. The same fate befell the eldest son. Their burial places are lost.

After dekulakization, Tatyana and her children lost their house. They moved to the same area where Alexey was hiding but to a different village, Novomarevka, avoiding any attention to the family.

The history of Novomarevka dates back to 1830. At that time, the land along the Bystraya River between the villages of Morozovsk and Zhirnov belonged to a landowner, Mariya Yanova. She lived on the territory of the present Novomarevka village. Before the October Revolution, Novomarevka was called Yanova-Maryevka after her. Yanova built a church and two elementary schools. In Soviet times, a collective farm—“Fallen Fighters of the Revolution" —was arranged there.

After moving to Novomarevka, Tatyana's eldest son, Mitya, who headed the family now, began to build a new house, where Tatyana had settled with her grown-up children, Mitya, Mariya, and Ivan. Not only did they flee and go into hiding, but they also lost all the property, including Mariya’s dowry (in money and goods). As the dowry, she had a large chest full of dresses, shoes, and bedding accessories.

In addition to all the hardship, Marya (my future grandmother) felt insecure because of her extremely poor eyesight since early childhood. In 1933, Fyodor Reznikov, from a neighboring Morozovsk village, proposed to her. He just squeezed her into a dark corner behind a barn and informed that she was to be his wife. She was 19 years old, and Fyodor was 23. Fyodor loved to drink, was rude to Marya, and freely cheated on her. Even after living together for eight years, they have not had children. Fyodor’s mother bullied her daughter-in-law, calling her “nezhereb” (нежеребь), meaning literally “a horse that cannot bear a foal.” In 1941, the war came, and Fyodor went to the front.

As a child, I believed that Fyodor was my grandfather, who died in a battle during the war. But he didn't die. Fyodor returned from the front in 1945 and learned that Mariya gave birth to a child in 1943. He skipped Novomarevka and went to Morozovsk, not pursuing any contact with her. Mariya desperately tried to meet and reason with Fyodor not to leave them. She thought he would like to be a father after all the years without kids. However, he did not stay. He died in Morozovsk in 1986, never having children.

The pregnancy caught Mariya by surprise. She could not believe she had finally become a mother after many years of childless marriage. For a while, she did not feel any signs of her pregnancy. But one day, Anna, her sister-in-law, noticed that Marya started to eat a lot of sunflower seeds, having an unusual craving for them, and started asking questions. Mariya visited a doctor who said it was too late for an abortion.

Mariya then had to announce her pregnancy to the family. Surprisingly, her mother and brothers were supportive, and Mariya moved from Morozovsk, where she lived with her husband before the war, back to Novomarevka, where her mother lived. On October 2, 1943, my mother, Valentina, was born. On the birth certificate, Fyodor Reznikov was listed as her father.

Novomarevka was at the center of fierce battles from 1942 to 1943, and the village was periodically conquered back and forth by German or Soviet troops. On December 12, 1942, the 6th German Army of Marshal Paulus was surrounded in Stalingrad, and Germans attempted an operation to break the circle. On December 16, 1942, the Russians launched an offensive. On December 30, a military operation, "Little Saturn'' was carried out in the surroundings of Novomarevka and other villages to take them back from the Germans.

During the occupation, a high-ranked German officer stayed in Savenkovs' house at Novomarevka. The house was only a little damaged by artillery bombardments. It also was the only house in a village with a tiled roof. The Savenkovs stayed in the basement for safety, and Mariya had to cook for the German officer. He mostly went about his business and paid little attention to the hosts. He complimented Mariya’s masterful cooking. Potatoes, boiled and then fried in sunflower oil, were his favorite. He also loved the homemade noodles. She never hid this story from her daughter Valentina, who suspected her entire life that this man was her father.

Novomarevka after the battle, about 1942-1943

What Truly Happened?

Based on her birthday, Valentina was conceived in early January 1943. She believed for many years that her father was a German officer lodged in her mother's house. However, granny Mariya once told me that Valentina's father was a Russian military man. Coincidentally, his name was Fyodor, the same as Maria’s husband. He stayed at the Savenkovs’ upon the liberation of Novomarevka from the Germans.

After one of the local combat escalations, Mariya left the basement to check what was happening outside. She found a poor cow torn into pieces by a bombshell in their yard. Another bombshell hit the basement, but people extinguished the fire quickly. Mariya spotted several soldiers walking from the forest towards her, shouting, “Don't be scared! We are Russians!”

These were some military detachments, and two officers settled in the Savenkovs' house. In the evening, Fyodor, who seemed like the boss, asked Mariya to prepare hot water for bathing. They had a Russian-style stove fired with wood. That evening, my mother was conceived. Was it consensual? Who exactly was my grandfather? Did he survive the war? Did he have a family? These and other questions will remain unanswered. The only thing we know about Fyodor is that he was from Ukraine.

I tried to research the troops that stayed at Novomarevka around early January. Incredibly, I found the book “Tanks between the Don and the Seversky Donets. Memories of the Commander of a Tank Company about the winter battles at Stalingrad. 1942-1943”, written by Horst Scheibert. Horst Scheibert was a German commander of Erhard Routh's 6th Panzer Division. Who would have thought that he wrote memoirs about Novomarevka and I would find them after so many years? With enough imagination, we can pretend that this was the German officer, who, according to my mother believes, was her biological father.

I learned from one of the Internet forums that the 25th Russian Panzer Corps participated in the liberation of Novomarevka. The Germans were freed from the Village on January 4-6, 1943, and the 11th German tank regiment, consisting mainly of the 2nd battalion, left it.

Like his German counterpart, Fyodor was probably a tank regiment member who stayed in Mariya's house. The house was in demand and crucial to my grandmother’s fate. Mariya was accused of sleeping with an enemy, and this accusation influenced my mother’s perception of herself, leading to her identity confusion throughout the rest of her life.

Although Valentina did not believe that the Soviet officer named Fyodor was her father, she remembered Mariya's stories of how Fyodor loved the song The Sea Spreads Wide. Most likely, Mariya spent enough time with Fyodor to cherish this intimate detail throughout the rest of her life. Due to rapid military development, the troops could not stay in one place. Of course, I want to believe in the love between Maria and Fyodor. But it is also possible that Mariya came up with a nice story for her daughter. Perhaps Mariya was lucky, and her relationship with Fyodor was romantic, but there was a lot of violence in the war.

This Soviet military correspondence confirms that Novomarevka was at the center of the battle at the beginning of January 1943.

The birth of my mother was long and painful. The summoned midwife “squeezed” the child out with a sheet. The girl was born very thin, and her life hung by a thread for several days. Imagine the drama around Mariya when all believed that the father of her child was German, and it happened while her husband was fighting at the front. The girl was born blonde and blue-eyed, while Mariya was a brunette, and people in the area were mostly dark-haired. The girl was named Valentina, and she seemed very different from her relatives.

The Savenkovs family. Top row from left to right: Liza (Zhora's wife), Mariya (my grandmother), Anna (Mitya's wife). Bottom row from left to right: Zhora with his son Yurik (who died as a child), Mitya with Valentina. Novomarevka, 1946.

That is all I know about my supposed grandfather. From there, Fyodor likely followed to Stalingrad, and Marya never heard from him or of him again.

Her Childhood. Uncle Mitya

Valentina was about five years old when her grandma Tatyana died. She remembered her as a loving and caring individual. Despite all the gossip around her granddaughter’s birth, she was very nice to her. Tatiana was yearning for grandchildren because neither Mitya nor Mariya had kids for a long time, although Mitya was married twice. First, he was married to a beautiful woman, Dusya, but they divorced soon after. According to a family legend, he could not cope with jealousy toward her. Soon after the divorce, Mitya married Anna Shirokova (born in 1910).

Mom with uncle Mitya and his wife Anna, about 1948, Novomarevka

When Mitya was at war, a strange story happened to Anna. She became attached to evacuated orphan children, a brother and a sister. Suddenly, their father appeared in Novomarevka and suggested Anna join them and move to his hometown. Loving the children, she agreed. Soon, they all left. However, Anna returned home after several weeks. Most likely, the man used Anna as a temporary assistant. Despite this incident, after the war, Mitya and Anna continued to live together until they passed away one after another in the 1990s.

There was an elementary school in Novomarevka. Mom started schooling at the age of 5 with older children. She was the only child of 1943.

Valya’s class, Novomarevka, 1950s

Mitya was, in general, a calm person. However, under the influence of alcohol, he was angry and violent. Sometimes, Marya and her little daughter had to hide from him on the veranda of their neighbors. When sober, Mitya was reserved and not particularly talkative.

Mom does not like to speak about her childhood. She recalls often being hungry because there was nothing to eat in the house. She ate mainly potatoes and pickles and always envied uncle Mitya, who was fed well, according to her recollections. The Savenkov family kept the patriarchal traditions prevalent at that time. According to these traditions, the man of the house got the best food. Often, little Valentina had to eat whatever she could find herself. At age 7, she fell ill with dysentery after eating unripe and unwashed apricots from a tree.

My grandmother, who worked at a chicken farm, gave Mitya all her salary. When my mother started working, she did the same. My grandmother did not see anything unusual in that, but it always caused offense and misunderstanding for my mother.

I remember Mitya and his wife in their old age. As the school newspaper's editor, I wrote an article for Soviet Army Day (February 23rd) about Mitya’s war ordeal. He was taken prisoner by the Germans but escaped. I still don’t understand how he managed to avoid Soviet imprisonment. Many former prisoners of war were treated as traitors by the USSR. Why wasn’t he? Perhaps there was a secret behind his story. During the war, Mitya was a platoon driver of the headquarters battery of the 51st Rifle Corps. On April 15, 1942, he was wounded and shell-s

The medal "For Military Merit" certificate and description of what the medal was granted for: ”Private Savenkov of the horseback communications platoon, headquarters battery KAK 51, has been serving in the unit since the beginning of the corps formation. Under any off-road conditions and inclement weather, he carefully preserved the communication equipment without loss or damage.

The horses assigned to Savenkov were in excellent condition. During combat missions, Savenkov courageously overcame obstacles, including the difficulty of passable roads and mountainous and wooded areas under enemy artillery and mortar fire, timely delivery of communication equipment, and help in establishing lines.

Coming home from Saratov, where I studied medicine, I always visited an old couple. Mitya gave me some pocket money. However, there was nothing to talk about, and I did not like such visits.

Mitya (Dmitriy Alekseevich Savenkov) and his wife, Anna

Besides Mitya, my grandmother Mariya had two other brothers, Ivan and Zhora.

Ivan Savenkov, Novomarevka, 1937

Ivan, my grandmother’s favorite sibling, was born in 1918. He went missing at the beginning of the war in the Brest region (Belarus). Unfortunately, I could not find any further information about him.

Zhora (Georgiy Alekseevich Savenkov)

The other brother, Zhora, was the complete opposite of Mitya. He was cheerful and affectionate. He loved women, and they loved him back. While serving in the Far East in the army, he met and married Yulia. From this union, a child was born, who soon died. Yulia fell ill with a psychiatric disease, and they parted. Later, Zhora also had a child with a physician named Liza. Although they were not married, Lisa wanted to have a child with him. Thus, Zina was born, and she also became a doctor. Then Zhora married another woman also named Liza (Elizaveta Ganoschenko) or, as I remember her, baba Liza. She was Zhora's only true love. She died in January 2022 and was 100 years and five months old. Zhora was her second husband. Before him, she was married to Ivan Taranov, who was killed at the front in 1942, leaving Lisa with her young son Victor. In her marriage with Zhora, they had three boys, but two of them, Tolik and Yurik, died of meningitis in childhood and were buried in the village of Gornyatskiy, where Zhora and Liza lived.

The next Zhora’s wife was Raya. She became pregnant, and Zhora had to divorce Liza to marry Raya. Raya gave birth to a girl, Tatiana. She was a late child, born when Zhora was already 47. At the time of Zhora's death in 1986, Tatiana was only 17.

The only surviving child of Zhora and Liza was Vladimir Savenkov. Vladimir lived in the city of Saratov and was a high-ranking military officer. While applying to the Saratov Medical School, I lived in his house for some time. In 2022, he was a retired colonel. After graduating from the Moscow Military School of Civil Defense of the USSR and Saratov Polytechnic Institute, he served in various positions in the armed forces. He was one of the “liquidators” in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. In the 1990s, he was the chairman of the Committee for Civil Defense, Emergencies, and Natural Disasters under the government of the Saratov region. There were military men among the Savenkovs for many generations. For example, during the Persian campaign of 1722 under Peter the Great, a lieutenant colonel named Nikon Savenkov served in the Kazan garrison regiment and possibly was one of our ancestors.

My grandmother, Manya, was a link between all family members. I wrote numerous holiday cards and helped her with carefully prepared birthday parcels. However, this connection practically disappeared after her death and our immigration to the United States in 1993.

Sholokhovskiy

In 1952, Mitya and his wife, sister, and niece moved from Novomarevka to the settlement of Sholokhovskiy, the construction of which had just begun due to the discovery of coal there. Coal mines and a processing plant were built. By that time, Mitya’s and Mariya’s parents were gone. Their father, Alexey Savenkov, died in 1938, and their mother, Tatiana, in 1948. In Sholokhovskiy, Savenkovs first lived in barracks, but later, Mitya went on building his own house.

Mitya with his wife Anna and niece Valentina in front of their house, Sholokhovskiy, 1966

Grandmother Mariya (Mitya’s sister) was also involved in the construction but decided not to stay there. She moved to the so-called “Finnish home” on Mayakovskiy Lane. The house had four entrances for four family quarters. Cabins of this type were imported from Finland and assembled upon arrival in the rural areas of Russia. Mariya occupied two tiny rooms. The toilet and shower were outside. The shower worked only in the summertime when the sun heated the rainwater inside the metal container. But there was a cellar for garden tools and, most importantly, a small plot of land with several fruit trees and berry shrubs.

From July 1957 to September 1960, 220 young people from the Republic of Bulgaria worked on the construction of Sholokhovskiy. Some brought home Russian wives from the settlement. Zhora also worked on the construction site, heading a truck convoy. Mariya, whose eyesight was getting worse, worked different unskilled jobs. First, it was a poultry farm, then a butter factory, and later a bread-making factory where she checked the workers for stealing bread.

Meanwhile, Valentina grew up to be a natural beauty. She was the Marilyn Monroe of her town.

Valya, 1965

All her life, she was the object of men’s admiration. However, Valentina did not see herself as beautiful. Her mother was not generous in compliments. Perhaps Valentina's appearance, blonde hair and blue eyes seemed out of place in the region. Besides, it was not customary in those days to focus on the daughters’ looks.

It is a pity, but beauty doesn't always make people happy. Valentina's relationship with men was unsuccessful from the very beginning. Her first school love was Lesha Baghdasaryan, the most prominent boy in School #7, where both studied. This love almost ended tragically. The school Principal knew about the sympathy between the young people because Valentina was accused of immoral behavior, although Lesha’s attention to Valentina was just platonic. Valentina was in despair. Back then, such accusations could forever ruin a young girl’s reputation. She considered committing suicide after visiting the Principal’s office. She was lucky that a random woman nearby realized the seriousness of the situation, calmed her down and brought her back home safely. The relationship did not survive. Young Romeo and Juliet split apart. This first experience was one of the early heart wounds she had suffered.

Valentina graduated from high school at 15 because she started her education early. In the next two years, she worked as a laboratory assistant in a chemistry lab at her school. At that time, Valentina met Viktor Voronin. Once again, nothing good came out of this love affair. It turned out that Victor had a family in Ukraine. Not only was Victor married, but Valentina was slandered again by Victor’s friend Alexander, whose courtship Valentina rejected earlier. Taking revenge and, maybe, to annoy his friend, Alexandr gossiped in the village about her in a way that she no longer wanted to stay in Sholokhovskiy. Valentina could not stand another scandal. She also fled from resentment against Victor, who believed the slander. Valentina was also offended when Victor asked about her origin. He believed in the legend of her German father. Therefore, she accepted an offer from her best friend Valentina Shevchuk to join her in going to Kishinev, Moldova, where her relatives lived. An acquaintance promised two young and beautiful girls careers as TV announcers. Valentina, considering her beauty, seemed very suitable for this opportunity. Perhaps she could become an actress or singer because of her remarkable voice and beautiful appearance.

Valentina, 1965

Unfortunately, the girls did not speak Moldovan, and nothing emerged from those ideas. Fate brought Valentina to Beltsy, a town in Мoldavia, where she graduated from nursing school. Returning to Sholokhovskiy for the holidays, Valentina continued to meet with Viktor, who realized he made a mistake believing in the slander. He unsuccessfully sought a relationship with her, even after her marriage, until Valentina and the family left for the USA in 1993.

Another unpleasant story happened to Valentina in Beltsy. She was inaccessible and proud, sending all the suitors away. One rejected guy spread a rumor that she gave him syphilis. However, during the annual physical exams, a sympathetic teacher made a “public announcement” that Valentina's syphilis test was negative, preventing a potential tragedy.

Upon graduating from nursing school, Valentina went to the town of Faleshty for employment. At the same time, my future father-to-be, Yuliy, arrived in Faleshty. He worked as a doctor in the neighboring village of Unceshty and needed nurses. Yuliy immediately drew attention to two pretty nurses, Lisa and Valentina, to whom he offered a job. Valentina was tired of the trip to Faleshty and agreed without hesitation. Soon, the girls sat in the back seat of the farm’s auto wagon that Yuliy used at his medical practice to travel between the villages. Sitting on the front right seat, Yuliy spent the whole trip in an uncomfortable half-turn position, not taking his eyes off Valentina. We call it love at first sight. At the time, Yuliy was married but lived separately from his wife.

Courtship for Valentina was long and stormy. Yuliy fascinated Valentina more and more. Once, she had a dream. A man whose face was impossible to see was standing on top of a staircase while she was standing on the ground level. Her friend, who claimed to be a dream reader, said that Valentina’s future husband is to be older and with a higher social status than her.

Yuliy was a perfect match for the dream. Perhaps because she believed in her dream or because she saw her unknown father in Yuliy, she started to accept his courtship and appreciate his feelings toward her.

Valentina and Yuliy, 1965

Even before there was any real thing between Yuliy and Valentina, his estranged wife was bringing up accusations about his playful attitude toward women, which were not without merit. She was making scandals, and Valentina started taking Yuliy’s side. However, even after the divorce, there was a lot of drama in the relationship between Valentina and Yuliy. At some point, not wanting to be the cause of the family breakup, Valentina fled back to Sholokhovskiy. Yuliy was persistent. Taking his younger brother Fima as an assistant, he arrived in Sholokhovskiy. Valentina was terrified. There was enough gossip in her hometown even before the sudden arrival of a married Jew. Yuliy brought gifts, including a rug, for Valentina’s mother. Valentina just accepted her fate and joined him back to Unceshty. Her feelings towards him were growing stronger day by day. After Yuliy’s divorce was finalized, Yuliy and Valentina returned to Sholokhovskiy, where I was born in 1967 and my sister Zhanna in 1974. Yuliy worked there as a physician, and Valya was a nurse in a local hospital.

Yuliy with daughter Zhanna, Sholokhovskiy, 1974

The Puzzle of Patternity Solved

My mom's childhood and adolescence were not her best times. She carried the secret of her identity and was ashamed of it. In 2012, a DNA test confirmed that she had no “enemy blood.” Her most likely heritage comes from Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. Most likely, my unknown grandfather was from Ukraine and possibly with some Polish genes. The Polish genes may explain my mother’s blond hair and blue eyes. With great pleasure, she would have delivered the DNA proof to all those who whispered behind her back. Would the evidence be convincing enough for them? Sadly, they are no longer alive, so the question cannot be answered. Valentina's story is not unique. The war left many scars, not only on the adults and their children but also on future generations.

Valentina was 78 years old in 2022. She lived in San Diego, California, with her husband, Yuliy, 93, and enjoyed spending time with her children and grandchildren.

Very truly yours,

Ella Romm

Dr. Yuliy Vaysman and Mrs. Valentina Vaysman, 2019

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