Faina Perlova (Kogan)

Faina (Fenya) Kogan was born in 1909 in Yanovka (Odessa Oblast), in a Jewish family.

After finishing school, Faina began to work as a switchboard operator. She was thirty-two years old at the time of the Nazi invasion of the USSR in late June 1941. By that time, Faina had married and changed her last name to Perlova. Despite having the option of evacuation into the Soviet interior, she volunteered for frontline duty, following her husband.

Faina Perlova served in the Military Field Construction Administration. At various times, she was a dispatcher and a cashier in a mechanized column.

In the course of the war, as she moved with her mechanized column, Faina Perlova took part in the fighting for the defense of the Caucasus in 1942-1943, the crossing of the Danube in November 1944, and the battles for Budapest and Bratislava at the end of the war.

In 1946, after being discharged from the army, Faina Perlova settled in Kiev. She died there four years later, in 1950, and was buried at the Kurenevskoye Cemetery in the city.