Elizabeth Kudrin’s husband George says his wife’s passing marks the end of an era. He calls her “the matriarch of matriarchs, the last mom from Attu” after she was taken to Japan as a baby when the Aleutian Islands were invaded in 1942.
Elizabeth Golodoff Kudrin and her brother, Gregory Golodoff, photographed on Atka Island, sometime between 1946-1947, after they had begun to recover from the starvation they experienced during their stay in Japan, where they were housed as prisoners of war until 1945. Of the seven Golodoff children taken to Otaru, Hokkaido, three died from beriberi, a vitamin B deficiency caused by malnutrition, which leads to painful nerve damage and heart disease.
Elizabeth and George Kudrin were a very close couple. In January this year, they celebrated 50 years of marriage. This photo was taken a few weeks before her death on Feb. 19. Although Kudrin and his wife were a close couple, he says she never talked about the war, partly because she was too young to remember what happened — and what memories she did have were too painful to dwell upon.
Those who survived the war were not allowed to return home to Attu, which today remains uninhabited. The federal government resettled Elizabeth, her mother and three brothers in the neighboring island of Atka, where her husband George grew up. He remembers stories about how people were puzzled to hear mysterious sounds from this newly arrived four-year-old girl.But Kudrin says his wife had no memory of that.
“People like Elizabeth are the victims of forces really beyond their control,” said Hudson, who said he was always impressed by her unfailing graciousness. “People like Elizabeth showed amazing courage and resoluteness to start over.” “Anĝaĝinam iĝamanaa,” George Kudrin says in Unagam Tunuu. “She was a good person and she just loved you.
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