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Yekaterina Kozlova

DUBROVNO RESIDENTS

My great grandmother Zinaida Illarionovna was born in a town called Dubrovno, Vitebsk region. According to the story, her parents arranged her marriage when she was sixteen. The husband was an old man. Unwilling to accept such a life, she escaped to St. Petersburg, where she started working as a maid in a family. There she was treated as a part of the family. She worked there for twenty years and when she turned forty, they said to her: “It’s time you came back home and settled your life.”

Yekaterina Nikolayevna
Kozlova.

So Zinaida returned to Dubrovno. Her husband had died by that time. She then married Nikolay Yegorovich Matuskov, a widower with five children. He worked as a blacksmith. Despite her age, grandmother Zinaida gave birth to two daughters – Yekaterina and Agrippina.

The Kozlov family.

Aunt Grunia did not have children, while my grandmother Yekaterina Nikolayevna, who married Piotr Georgievich Kozlov and had a weak heart, gave birth to three children – Leonid, Nikolay and Verochka. My great grandmother Zinaida lived a long life and saw her grandchildren grow up. She died in 1941, when the war started.

They say she became a psychic before her death. She was not able to get up. Neighbors would visit her and she would tell them: “Don’t worry. Your husband will come back” or sometimes predicted tragic things. She told her daughter Katia that both her sons would return alive from the battlefront. And so it was – everyone came back unharmed.

In 1945 Yekaterina fell ill with typhus and died. Leonid became an engineer and Verochka – a doctor. Their children have grown up. Live goes on. This is what I wanted to relate about the people I used to know and the people I know about from the stories of my parents.

Jewish settlements in Vitebsk region

Vitebsk • Albrehtovo • Babinovichi • Baran • Bayevo • Begoml • Beshenkovichi • Bocheikovo • Bogushevsk • Borkovichi • Braslav • Bychiha • Chashniki • Disna • Dobromysli • Dokshitsy • Druya • Dubrovno • Glubokoye • Gorodok • Kamen • Kohanovo • Kolyshki • Kopys • Krasnopolie • Kublichi • Lepel • Liady • Liozno • Lukoml • Luzhki • Lyntupy • Miory • Obol • Oboltsy • Orsha • Osintorf • Ostrovno • Parafianovo • Plissa • Polotsk • Prozorki • Senno • Sharkovshina • Shumilino • Sirotino • Slaveni• Smolyany • Surazh • Tolochin • Ulla • Verhnedvinsk • Vidzy • Volyntsy • Yanovichi • Yezerishe • Zhary • Ziabki •

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