SHE SURVIVED THE HORRORS OF CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Three days later, a notice was put up near the school, saying that all the men should assemble in the courtyard of the school. Nikita went there as well. Although he was only 17 and hadn't fought, his mother was very worried about him. He and Fatima looked at the men on the square from inside the school. There was a major there who approached their window and Veronika Valentinovna said that her son was there; he hadn't fought and had no documents. After that, the major shouted, pointing to Nikita: "That one - bring him over here." The major set him free. "Some time later we were transferred to another school in Nachoda itself. We lived in classrooms to which those men from our school had been brought before. All the classrooms were packed with greatcoats. We realized that they had been interrogated with 'extreme prejudice' there. My mother and the two girls who were with us picked the greatcoats and sewed skirts. Several days later, the major who had saved Nikita visited us in the morning and said that he had been ordered to leave urgently: 'I've come to say goodbye. If you want to send a message to someone in the Soviet Union, I can take it.' Mum gave him the address of my father's sister - aunt Nazira. Indeed, when he returned to the Soviet Union, he wrote literally two lines to aunt Nazira: 'If you want to find out anything about Veronika Qayibova and her children Nikita and Fatima, write to me.' But my aunt was scared that it was a trick and didn't reply," Fatima said.

Then Fatima went down with scarlet fever - the second case in the family - and she was taken to hospital. Despite her illness, she was quite happy here - the wards were spacious and absolutely clean, while the food was good. Veronika was respected in the district, which is why all her requests were met at the hospital. "I had plaits and mum didn't want my hair to be cut," Fatima says. "She asked the nurses who looked after us not to cut my hair and to remove the lice. There were other children and a German boy there. Everyone was looked after very well. We were transferred to a separate children's ward. Mum visited me every day. One day she couldn't visit me. Nikita told me that she cried and was afraid that something would happen to me. I stayed in the hospital longer than the others. I was told that I had complications. Only later did Nikita tell me that I was completely healthy. But we had received a summons saying that we had to go to an assembly point in Prague for those who were going to return to the Soviet Union. It turned out that my mum had asked the chief doctor at the hospital to keep me there. Thus we didn't leave Czechoslovakia at first and stayed there."

When Fatima was discharged from hospital, her mother was already living in a flat and working as a Russian language teacher at a police school. Nikita found a job at a sawmill in a neighbouring town. "Soon we met a family of Russian immigrants - Vasiliy Alekseyevich Stepin, his wife Yevgeniya Ivanovna and their daughter Zhenya. Stepin himself was a White Guard ?migr? and was a Czech citizen, but he still thought that he could be imprisoned. He had graduated from the University of Prague and was the best lung specialist in that small town. We often visited the Stepins. I went straight into second grade at school, spoke a little bit of Czech and studied well and, after the first six months, I was transferred to the third grade, because I was much older than the others."

The Stepins lived closer to the school than Fatima's family and so the girl often stayed there overnight. Later, Fatima found out that this was deliberate: her mother was afraid that she could be arrested and did not want this to affect her daughter in any way. In early 1946, a Soviet officer came from Prague and Veronika Valentinovna was actually arrested, although she was released two days later. They were soon visited by an officer who interrogated her and said that they should not be friendly with the Stepins, as this could be harmful. Later, they found out that he had destroyed the minutes of all Veronika Valentinovna's interrogations at his own risk because he believed they were not guilty. However the family was still worried that they could come for their mother again. Absolutely everyone tried to avoid returning to the Soviet Union. One family - a father and son - were arrested overnight and sent to the Soviet Union. The son escaped during the journey. He jumped out of the train. A woman took him in. So he managed to stay.

Veronika Valentinovna agreed with the local police chief who handled all the arrest warrants that if there was one for her, he would let her know in advance. The police chief visited them one night and said that Fatima's mother should be ready by the morning, because she was going to be sent to a forwarding station for Soviet repatriates in Prague. She packed her stuff and left before it got light. Fatima was woken up. Sleepy, she said goodbye to her mother without realizing that this was the last time she would see her. "The Stepins told mum not to take me with them. They said that I was too little and anything could happen to me. They told me - don't worry, your mum is going away and we will send you to her soon. I believed them and quietly said goodbye to mum, and I didn't realize that I was seeing her for the last time. Mum was very worried and I felt that. She couldn't even talk and we said goodbye," Fatima said.

Miraculously, Veronika Valen-tinovna managed to cross the border into West Germany. Many years later, Fatima learnt from her brother Nikita about the colossal difficulties and deprivations that she had to endure after that. Veronika Valentinovna got married again. The marriage turned out successfully and, in 1950, she and her husband moved to America, after much difficulty. Nikita managed to follow only two years later. "All this time, mum wrote to the Stepins." She and her new husband did everything possible to take Fatima. But it wasn't easy at the time. The Stepins asked Veronika Valentinovna for permission to adopt Fatima, to whom they had become attached, but she didn't agree. "I learnt from Nikita that the Stepins had asked mum to allow them to adopt me. If they had adopted me, I would have stayed in Czechoslovakia without any problem. But mum didn't agree. I don't know if she was right or not, it's difficult to judge. Vasiliy Alekseyevich was very upset, but Yevgeniya Ivanovna Stepina became my second mother anyway and, in all, I had four mums."

Goodbye, Czechoslovakia!

Fatima lived with the Stepins for two years. As long as Benes was president, Czechoslovakia remained a safe haven for Soviet repatriates. But soon the communists came to power. The Soviet government made a deal with the new government of Czechoslovakia to repatriate Soviet citizens. The Stepins received a summons - Fatima Qayibova was ordered to go to the forwarding station in Prague. "My second mother and my second family - the Stepins - tried hard, and visited the Soviet embassy, but they were rejected and told that I had been summoned by my Moscow grandmother - Veronika Valentinovna's mother. To be honest, I believed it because I knew that my grandmother lived in Moscow. They hid me for some time. But I couldn't remain locked up for long. In fact, I myself decided to leave. I thought my grandmother was waiting for me. Besides, the Soviet Union was treated with respect in Czechoslovakia. I was keen on going to a country which was respected so much. My second mother Yevgeniya Ivanovna did not want to let me go, but she had to."

Together with other Soviet repatriates, Fatima was sent to a big forwarding station in Szeged, Romania. She spent several months there. Then they were sent to the Soviet Union. They travelled in packed freight cars, but this did not disturb Fatima: she was used to every imaginable and unimaginable deprivation. They arrived in Kiev late at night. The next morning, a soldier who was attached to them took Fatima and another boy to a children's home where the waifs were handed over. There were children with criminal records there - it was something like a labour colony. Fortunately, the next day, the same soldier took them to special children's home No 13 in Kiev. "I spent some time at that children's home. It wasn't a bad place on the whole and better than some others. The management of the children's home was mainly engaged in searching for their pupils' relatives. Some time later, the head of the curriculum department called me and asked whether I had relatives. I said that I had aunt Nazira and uncle Zulfuqar in Baku. She literally forced me to write a letter and then they found their address. About one and a half weeks later I received a letter from aunt Nazira, saying that she would come to pick me up immediately after preparing the necessary documents. What surprised me most of all was that my aunt congratulated me on my birthday, which she had remembered after all those years. It was 8 March," our interviewee said.

Aunt Nazira took the girl out of the children's home in 1949. In Baku, they were welcomed by their closest relatives. A small party was arranged, Samad Vurgun came - it turned out that he was a relative. Fatima was sent to school No 134. "It was difficult for me. I had to get used to the language. But things soon sorted themselves out and I had no problem with my studies. I lived at aunt Nazira's - in the flat where Aliaga Sixlinski, my aunt's maternal relative, spent his final years. Another relative, Bahadur Qayibov, a well-known paediatrician and one of Azerbaijan's leading physicians, lived next door. Unfortunately, he died literally within a few days of my arrival. I never met him personally, but I had heard a lot about this man. All my family was proud of him."

Aunt Nazira lived with her son Mursal - she had divorced her husband who was also from a well-known family and a descendant of the Nuxa beys - the Sahmaliyevs. He taught in the history faculty at Azerbaijan State University. Everyone believed that he had studied at the Sorbonne, probably because he specialized in the history of France. By that time, Mursal had left school and entered the Azerbaijani Institute for Oil and Chemistry. Aunt Nazira worked as a merchandiser and they lived well. However she could have had problems because of Fatima. Soon after her niece's arrival, she was summoned to the NKVD and questioned about Fatima and her feelings. She said that the girl had parted from her mother in 1945 and had lived in Czechoslovakia without her. A reference from the children's home was also quite useful. It said that Fatima didn't remember anything from her previous life…

Later, Fatima always said that she did not remember anything when she was asked about her past and, when talking about the experiences she had endured, she never mentioned her mother. She was too scared.

Fatima gradually got used to her new life. But trouble was soon on the way - her aunt fell ill with cancer and, since nothing could be done, she passed away in 1951. The girl was in the 7th grade at the time. Now she lived with Mursal. His father supported them financially, while his paternal grandmother helped them to look after the house. They lived together for two years, after which Mursal got married. Fatima did not get on with his wife and she started living separately - in a corridor which was separated off by a veneer partition.

At this point, Izzat xanim entered her life and became her "fourth mother". She was the daughter of Ziba Qayibova, the same princess from the Qacar family. Ziba was still alive and Fatima remembers her very well. However, the woman's posture was not that of a member of an aristocratic family. Ziba had suffered a lot from the Soviet authorities. Her husband Cahangir Qayibov, the son of Mirza Huseyn Afandi, had been sent on refresher courses in Turkey before the revolution. Ziba had several brothers and two sisters, and they all lived in Tbilisi; they were Persian nationals. Some of them went abroad, while others could not. In the 1930s, Cahangir and Ziba's remaining brothers and sister were imprisoned and executed. Ziba remained in Tbilisi with her daughter Fatima, after whom, by the way, our Fatima was named. At that time, her second daughter,r Izzat, who had already graduated from university as a railway engineer, was sent to work in Baku. Later, she took her mother and sister to be with her.

Now Izzat xanim began to look after Fatima. Uncle Zulfuqar also helped her sometimes. He actually managed to get the authorities to pay her a small pension for her father. Her Moscow grandmother, Kapitolina Ivanovna, also sent her some money. Stalin died and the atmosphere in the country became easier. Things were gradually improving. Fatima graduated from school with two B grades and even got a medal from school. She tried to enter Moscow State University and passed her exams successfully, but could not get through the tough competition. With such good marks, she could have entered any university in Baku. But she was late - when she brought her documents to Azerbaijan State University, the deadline for applications had already expired. Samad Vurgun helped her with this: he called the rector of the university, Prof Mammadaliyev, and the issue was resolved. Since enrolment to the day department had already ended, she was accepted into the extramural section of the faculty of mathematics, with the right to attend day-time courses and, after completing her first year, she was transferred to the day department.

Having graduated in 1959, she was assigned to a district and planned to go with a friend from the faculty. Actually, Fatima was quite patriotic at the time and during her second year in university, she wanted to go to work on virgin land, but Izzat did not let her go. She set Fatima up in a job at the Energy Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR. Two years later, she was given a one-room flat in a five-storey block of flats ahead of the queue, with the help of the director of her laboratory, Yaqub Babayevich Qadimov. So, things were getting better; for this she was very grateful to her fourth mother - Izzat.

But of course, she always remembered her real mother. She knew that for all this time, her mother had been trying to help her daughter Fatima to go to America, but she had no success at all. By that time, Nikita had graduated from an American university and was working in the well-known aircraft building company Lockheed. Veronika Valentinovna was working as a Russian teacher at a military school. In 1957, she managed to send a letter to her mother in Moscow, who received the letter but did not tell anyone about it, as she was afraid that it could cause trouble for uncle Igor who was working at a secret factory.

She told Fatima about the letter some time later and made her promise not to write to her mother. But Fatima's grandmother decided later to write to Veronika Valentinovna and so she knew that her daughter was alive and even saw her in photographs which Fatima's grandmother sent to America. Fatima was hoping to see her mother, but it never happened - in 1970 Veronika was killed in a traffic accident. Her brother Nikita wrote to Fatima to tell her about it. Two years later, Fatima managed to visit America to see her brother and visit her mother's grave…

In 1964, Fatima visited Czechoslovakia. One year earlier she had written to her Czech mother and father, and they had replied. But when she visited them, Vasiliy Alekseyevich was no more. Yevgeniya Ivanovna was living with her daughter and granddaughter. The encounter was very warm, and they wanted Fatima to stay with them, but she decided to return to Baku where she soon married. She had two daughters - Narmina and Ziba. She did not get on well with her husband and they separated after 10 years. After working at the Energy Institute for more than 10 years, Fatima took up a teacher's job at the Baku Energy College. She was a very good teacher and worked there until she retired in 1992. Her elder daughter graduated from the faculty of physics at Azerbaijan State University, while her younger daughter became an architect. Narmina, who worked in the Baku office of an American company and was fluent in English, was sent to work at the head office in America where she lives now. She married a wealthy American of Turkish origin and has a daughter. Ziba also married, but divorced her husband. She won a green card in 1999 and left for the States with her two children. Fatima left with her. Nikita helped them settle in there. So now, the whole family lives in America. We managed to talk to Fatima during a recent visit to Baku.

"In America, I feel bored. But on the other hand, all my children and grandchildren are there. I don't know - probably, I would have ended up there in any case. When I lived in Baku, I couldn't even think of going there. I feel good in Baku. There are relatives and friends here with whom I have a very warm relationship. But my daughters wouldn't feel good without me," she said at the end of the interview.