JUDr. Antonina Ponomarenko

"I knew neither Ukrainian nor Russian. I didn't understand those languages. But when I talked to Ela, she taught me Russian. So that we could talk, she would talk to me, and I could understand her, so I learned Russian. She went to the first class here in Dubno, took me nicely by the hand and took me to school. I studied with her until the sixth grade and then she left. I went to a Russian school, so I learned Russian there too. I didn't learn Ukrainian until I was at university in Lviv."

"On the first of June we got married, on the nineteenth of August we went to Czechoslovakia, and on the twenty-first of August my cousin came and opened the door, that was in the morning, and said: 'So there is a war and you have attacked us.' Do you mean what you say, or do you not mean what you say?' - 'Yes, there is a war, you have attacked us.' I didn't want to believe that we could attack someone. We always said peace, peace, peace."