Synopsis
Regina, Aged fifty seven. Born In Kiev, Ukraine, thirteen years in Israel. Divorced, mother of two daughters and grandmother to one grandson. Resides in Lod with her 86-year-old mother. In the Ukraine she taught Russian and literature. In Israel she functions in high schools as advisor to Russian youth in distress. It took Regina a long time to discover the evils of the Communist regime in the USSR. When her husband told her that the communists were no better than the Nazis she was alarmed, and did not want to listen. Her family was murdered by the Germans in Babi-Yar. After her daughter Ruth migrated to Israel, Regina “woke up”. A year later she migrated to Israel with her non-Jewish husband and her young daughter Nina. In Israel her marriage dissolved. Her husband took everything, including the family’s car.
On her way to school, while driving the car she finally managed to purchase, she said: “Now I am a queen, because of the car the whole world is ahead of me”. Before she found her current job, she worked in a laundry, as house cleaner and also in a factory. “Most of the Ukrainians hate the Russians because they were seen as conquerors, but in Israel, most of the Ukrainians and the Russians are politically on the extreme right, because conquered land should not be returned. This is what they are used to. But I am willing to return territory and to live in peace with the Arabs. I am proud to live here, I do not need to make excuses to anyone, I love everything here. I walk in the street with my head up saying to myself: this is my home! this is my home! I am not too patriotic?”
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