"We knew he had to go fight, but we thought we would have a little bit of time together first," recalls Maria Mikhailovna, "He left two days after we married, and I didn't see him again for almost three years."

During the war, Maria Mikhailovna and her family moved to Batum, in the Caucasus Mountains, where her father was sent to work in a military factory. There, Maria Mikhailovna worked as a copy editor at a local newspaper, and anxiously awaited the return of her husband.

"He was wounded very badly in the war," says Maria Mikhailovna. "He was hit in the leg with an exploding bullet. One doctor wanted to amputate, but another said it wasn't necessary. He suffered terribly. But in the end, they didn't amputate.

"I remember when I saw him for the first time after he came back," she continues. "He had recovered in a hospital in Odessa, but was still in very bad shape. I was only sixteen when we married, just a girl. But when he came back, I was a young woman; I had changed. When they told me he was coming, I put on a special dress for the occasion, and a new hat, and then rushed over to see him.

"I could not believe what I saw. He was so thin, and ragged-looking, and had lost some of his teeth. He was ten years older than I, and he looked to me at that moment like an old man. I thought, 'Is this really my husband?'"