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Family Is All That Matters 112 her eyes. She looked to the whole world like an itinerant old peasant woman. "That invisibility saved me," Rosa says. With instructions about which road to take, Rosa started on a long trek. As she walked down the village street, German soldiers on motorcycles passed by. Nobody took notice of her. "Once the Germans were out of sight, I went on my way," she says. "I saw other German soldiers; no one looked at me." Then she saw an old man being led, probably to his execution, by a German escort. The area was full of Germans, but she kept walking. As Rosa approached a ravine, she heard digging noises. Investigating, she saw a Russian soldier digging near a transmission line. "Fool," she yelled. "What are you doing? There are Germans all around us." The soldier was surprised to hear words of such force and authority coming om what appeared to be an old woman. But when she explained who she was, the soldier laughed. He quickly led Rosa to where the Red army was. Luckily her unit had also arrived at the same Russian military base, and Rosa and her colleagues tearfully reunited. Her body reacted to the stress and her feet began to swell. She told her story of escape to the commanding officer of the base and he was impressed. He had instructions to identify soldiers of exceptional leadership ability and he believed Rosa exhibited "the right stuff." He issued orders for Rosa to go to the railroad station and report to army headquarters in the capital. The war effort needed her in Moscow. The entire Russian society and economy was organized to fight the Germans. Rosa started work as secretary to the medical commission of the dra board. She worked there for some time, but then her superior got suspicious and began an investigation. The Russian military, deeply paranoid, constantly suspected that Russian citizens must have had treasonous contact with the enemy, with proximity to the enemy oen taken as sufficient proof. In Russia, POWs have always been despised for that reason. Rosa suspects that even though she was never taken prisoner by the Germans, her exposure while she was behind enemy lines made her a suspect. She was called in for interrogation. "I was very tough and too young and stupid to be scared," she laughs. The interrogators wanted to ighten her into confessing and they actually arrested Rosa and put her in the brig for one day. "I knew they just wanted to panic me," she says, "and they failed." In fact, Rosa's excellence soon became clear to even the most suspicious KGB officer. Rosa was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. This recognition was good for her family, who were in Tashkent, because with an officer in the family they were now entitled to special privileges. Eventually, as she knew she would, she received orders to report to a medical unit on the ont. This was a very dangerous assignment and she knew it was likely she would not return. Rosa requested, and was granted, permission to visit her parents in Tashkent before reporting to the ont. While in Tashkent, Rosa served at a local military hospital. It was wonderful to be with her parents and sisters—Iosif was already on the ont—and to be able to help them get more food. Rosa was 20 years old and a beautiful woman. Many of the soldiers wanted to date her and she enjoyed their attention. But she would never allow men any familiarities. Rosa was known as a "touch-me-not peach" as much for her rosy complexion as for her modesty. One day, she knew, she would meet the man she would spend the rest of her life with, and she wanted to be worthy of him. She returned first to Moscow before moving to Central Asia, where she worked at a military hospital and was finally sent back to the Fourth Ukrainian Army Group on the ont. Rosa helped set up the hospital and began accepting the wounded. Soon she was promoted to senior medical officer. In addition to her clinical duties, she had the heavy responsibility of deciding what would happen to wounded soldiers. She had to decide if a wounded soldier

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