Ketevan Loria

* 1926

  • It was the beginning of August in 1944. The order came in Odesa that our battalion had to go abroad. We were taken out, counted, formed in columns and then made us walk to Romania. The distance from Odessa to Romania is 400 km. imagine how it is hot in August and we were walking. We experienced war, misfortune, blood, dust and heat. We were all in sweat and there was no water around. We were very thirsty. When we opened our mouths and sticked out our tongues, salty sweat dropped on our tongue and …. So, I think you can imagine what kind of travel we had.

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    Batumi, 29.06.2013

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When we arrived in Sajavakho, I showed myself out of the train window and shouted ”Mom, I’m leaving” could you imagine my mom’s condition then?

Ketevan Loria (marjvniv).jpg (historic)
Ketevan Loria

Born in 1926, village Meore Nigorzgva, Samtredia district. She doesn’t remember father that died early, had sister. After finishing 7th form at school, continued studies in Lanchkhuti pedagogical school. In 1941 she entered Tbilisi State University, at the faculty of Georgian philology. In her first year, she was called up in war, where she worked as a telephone operator first in Georgia, later in Ukraine and then in Romania. She walked 400km from Odesa to reach Romania, they have been walking for a month. She was in Romania when the war ended. There in Romania 9th of May in 1945 a phone rung and she heard Stalin’s voice that congratulated her end of the war.   When the war was over, she returned to Georgia and continued studies at Batumi Pedagogic Institute. Since 1948 she has been working as a school teacher in Adjara, where she has been working for 56 years. Since 2002 she has been living in Batumi together with family.