Khanna Moiseevna Shklovskaya, 101 years old, Moscow:
"In May, 9th everybody laughed of happiness but I was crying, I knew that my husband died. My sister was hiding a “killed in battle” notice from me, he had been killed in 1944. Since that time I have been living alone and growing our two children.
Children and old men take tragedies easier. When the war was over me and my daughter came back to Leningrad. The flat was open, littery, but daughter was so upset that a box with X-mas tree decorations was stolen. She was 5 years old then. I told her: “We have no father anymore and you are crying because of X-mas toys”, she replied: “I didn’t know my father anyway, and I feel more sad about the toys”.
I forget many things. Even when I start to tell about the brightest moments I forget a word I wanted to pronounce. But will you be better at my age?
When I was young I ate standing to keep a nice figure. And I always worked much....
Sometimes I wake up and think what a fool I’ve always been. Did so many stupid things. And never became smarter. I have a bad character, I have never been able to swallow my pride.
I’ve never had “the best time in my life”. Only deeds and work, work and deeds….
I am afraid of nothing. I was born in the time of the tsar, underwent the Jewish mess, the war of 1914, hunger in Ukraine in 1922, WWII… What should I be afraid of after that?”
From English Russia - Club of a Hundred Years Old Ladies.
More old ladies, from East London photographer Phil Maxwell, at Spitalfields Life. And again.
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