Warren Commission (09 of 26): Hearings Vol. IX (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (09 of 26): Hearings Vol. IX (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. Well, she said exactly her story of her life
as she told me, that she comes from a family of ex-Czarist officers.
That her father had been a Czarist officer of some kind--you see what I
mean? I don't remember whether it was navy or army. I don't recall it
any more. That her mother remarried, and that her stepfather did not
treat her well. That they moved--I think they lived in Leningrad when
she was a child. That eventually they moved to Minsk. I don't remember
what her father's profession was.
One thing I remember--that one of her uncles was a big shot Government
official, something like that--colonel or something like that. That I
remember she told me.
And then she went to this school of pharmacists, I think in Minsk, and
graduated as a pharmacist. And one day she was walking by this river,
which I also remember, in Minsk--the River Svisloch, which crosses the
whole town, and where there are some new apartment buildings built, and
in one of those apartment buildings there were very nice apartments,
and that is where the foreigners lived.
She said it was her dream some day to live in an apartment like that.
And that is where Lee Oswald lived. And eventually when they met--I
remember they met at some dance--I think he was ill, something like
that, after that dance, and she came to take care of him. That is
something I have a vague recollection of--that she took care of him,
and from then on they fell in love and eventually got married. But she
said it was the apartment house that was one of the greatest things she
desired to live in, and she found out later on that Lee Oswald lived in
that apartment house, and she finally achieved her dream.
It sounds ridiculous, but that is how in Soviet Russia they dream of
apartments rather than of people.
She told us a tremendous amount of things which will come to me as
things go on.
Mr. JENNER. Go ahead.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Naturally I was talking to her and to him--I was
trying to find out what is life of young people in Soviet Russia, what
are the prices on food, what can you get for your money, what salary
you get, what amusements you get.
Mr. JENNER. Tell us what they said.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. The salaries--she was getting an equivalent of
$60 a month. He was getting something like $80 a month. That almost
all of it had to be spent on food. The lodging was very cheap, almost
nothing, because it was provided by the Government. That the food was
rather plentiful, you could get it--but it was rather monotonous.
Sometimes you could not get meat. They used to have discussions between
them all the time--always they quarreled about--Lee Oswald and Marina
always quarreled between themselves as to what actually were the
prices, what actually were the conditions of life in Soviet Russia.
Mr. JENNER. Tell me about the differences here.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. The attitudes she had, and the attitude he had.
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