Women in the army

Jewish women who served as engineers, translators and doctors

Lidia Korotina

Photo taken in: Panaveshys, Lithuania 1945 Interviewer: Ella Orlikova

My aunt Serafima Korotina when she was in Panavezhys, Lithuania, in 1945. She was my father’s younger sister and my grandfather’s favor- ite. She became an excellent doctor after graduating from the Odessa Medical University and served as a captain in the army medical service. She didn’t have a family of her own and took care of my grandmother, who died in 1943 in evacuation in the village of Tikhoretskaya.

Isaac Gragerov

Photo taken in: 1945 Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya

My mother, Raissa Gragerova, in her military uniform. Before the war, she was trained as a doctor. In 1941 she and my father evacuated to Sverdlovsk oblast. Her parents died on their way to evacuation. To dis- tract herself, she started working at the hospital in Sverdlovsk. In 1944 she was sent closer to the front. She became an experienced surgeon, earned the rank of major, and received many awards.

Susanna Sirota

Photo taken in: Moscow, Russia, 1942 Interviewer: Ella Orlikova

Me as a cadet in partisan school, where I learned Morse code and became a radio operator. I was stationed in Moscow and later Kyiv, where we established communication with and supported partisan groups behind enemy lines.

Yelizaveta Dubinskaya

Photo taken in: Kuibyshev, Russia 1942 Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya

Me, in military uniform, with my sister Manya. I was visiting her during the redeployment of the front. I volunteered to go to the front and served as the commander of a medical unit on the front lines. I carried the wounded out of the fire on my shoulders, thus ruining my own health.

Mirrah Kogan

Photo taken in: Kuibyshev, Russia, 1943 Interviewer: Natalia Fomina

Me, first on the right, with my parents and my friend Zhenia Lerner. I served as a doctor during the Second World War. When my company was encir- cled near Kharkiv, Zhenia and I escaped captivity by pretending to be civilians. We wandered for eight months until we reached the front lines. After an investigation by the military we went to Kuibyshev to see my parents.

Asia Matveyuk

Photo taken in: Mykolaiv, 1946 Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya

Me, sitting on the right in my army uniform, with my stepbrother, Sam- uel, on the occasion of his wedding. When the war broke out I was a student in the Pharmaceutical College. I was a patriot and eager to go to the front. I served in a sanitary unit and was chief of my regiment’s pharmacy. In 1943 I received a medal “For Valor.”