When the Great Patriotic War broke out, Irina Zaitseva was studying at the 3rd year of the Kharkiv Medical Institute, at the faculty of "therapeutic business". She was 21 years old at that time. German invaders were quickly conquering our territories and advancing inland. Soon after the outbreak of war, Kharkov Medical Institute was evacuated to the Urals, in the city of Chkalov, now Orenburg. All students were transferred to an accelerated course of study, including Irina Zaitseva. In the summer of 1942 she received the diploma of doctor. She went to the Urals, to the city of Irbit, Sverdlovsk region, where her husband Yevdwniy Matsyra was evacuated with the plant "Sickle and Hammer". Both wrote an application with a request to send them to the front. Yevgeny Matsyura received a reservation and was left to work at the Irbit motorcycle plant as a highly qualified engineer. The plant produced the necessary equipment for the front - motorcycles "Irbit". Irina Zaitseva was mobilized to the Red Army in 1943 and joined the Voronezh Front, later the 1st Ukrainian Front, as a resident of the sorting evacuation hospital No. 398, No. 1094, Northern Group of Forces. She had to escort and treat the wounded and sick in sanitary trains and sorting evacuation hospitals. It was not easy for the medical service workers at the front. They performed surgeries on the wounded and bandaged their wounds in difficult field conditions, often under enemy fire, using candles, kerosene lamps and flashlights instead of light. There was a lack of medication and dressing materials. The human forces were running out. But doctors, nurses, orderlies and sanitation workers worked selflessly. The Red Army was advancing on all fronts, and our entire country, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was already liberated. Our troops entered Europe and reached Berlin, the capital of Germany. Irina Zaitseva welcomed the long-awaited Victory in Berlin. And just like many frontline soldiers, in these unforgettable days she left her inscription on the Reichstag: "Ira Zaitseva from Kharkov". Even more than a year after the end of the war, Irina stayed in Germany, treated both our fighters and the German population in the hospital. Irina returned to her homeland only in the middle of 1946 with the rank of Senior Lieutenant of medical service. In peacetime, she worked as a doctor, Head of the Surgical Department in the hospital of the city Irbit, Sverdlovsk region and Melitopol, Zaporozhye region, Ukraine. Irina Vladimirovna completed her almost half-century medical activity in Ukraine in Melitopol at the age of 70.