Last Witnesses : An Oral History of the Children of World War II

Our village was set on fire in 1943…That day we were digging potatoes. Our neighbor Vassily—he had been in WWI and knew a little German—said, “I’ll go and ask the Germans not to burn the village. There are children here.” He went and got burned up himself. They burned the school. All the books. They burned our vegetable patches. Our gardens.

Where were we to go? Father took us to the partisans in the Kozinsky forests. On the way we met people from another village, which had also been burned. They said the Germans were very close by. We got into some sort of a hole: me, my brother Volodya, mama with our little sister, and father. Father took a grenade, and we decided that if the Germans noticed us, he’d pull the pin. We already said goodbye to each other. My brother and I made nooses to hang ourselves and put them around our necks. Mama kissed us all. I heard her say to father, “If only one son could be left…” Then father said, “Let them run for it. They’re young, maybe they’ll save themselves.” But I felt so sorry for mama that I didn’t go. So…I didn’t go…

We heard dogs barking, we heard foreign words of command, we heard shooting. Our forest was all windfall, fir trees uprooted, you couldn’t see anything ten paces away. It was all close, then we heard the voices from farther and farther off. When it became quiet, mama couldn’t get up, her legs were paralyzed. Papa carried her on his back.

Several days later we met some partisans who knew father. By then we could barely walk, we were so hungry. Our feet hurt. We were walking and one partisan asked me, “What would you like to find under a pine tree: candy? cookies? a piece of bread?” “A handful of bullets,” I replied. The partisans remembered it long after. I hated the Germans so much for everything…And for mama…

We walked past a burned-down village…The rye hadn’t been harvested, there were potatoes growing. Apples lying on the ground. Pears…But no people. Cats and dogs running around. Solitary. So…No people. Not a single human being. Hungry cats…

I remember after the war we had one primer in the village, and the first book I found and read was a collection of arithmetic problems.

I read it like poetry. Yes, so…

* Yuri Levitan (1914–1983), the principal Soviet radio announcer during WWII and after, was known as “the voice of the war.”

“HE WIPED HIS TEARS WITH HIS SLEEVE…”

Oleg Boldyrev EIGHT YEARS OLD. NOW AN ARTISAN.

A good question…What’s better—to remember or to forget? Maybe it’s better to keep quiet? For many years I tried to forget…

We spent a month getting to Tashkent. A month! It was way in the rear. My father was sent there as an expert. Factories and mills were being relocated there. The whole country was moving to the rear. Deep inside. A good thing our country is big.

There I learned that my older brother had been killed at Stalingrad. He had been eager to get to the front, but I hadn’t even been taken to work at the factory yet, because I was young. “You’ve still got half a year before you turn ten.” My mother shook her head. “Forget these childish thoughts.” Father also frowned: “A factory isn’t a kindergarten, you have to work twelve hours a day. And what work!”

The factory made mines, shells, bombs. Adolescents were accepted to do polishing…The unfinished molded metal parts were polished by hand…The method was simple—a stream of sand heated to 300 degrees Fahrenheit was directed through a hose under high pressure. The sand bounced off the metal, burned your lungs, hit your face, your eyes. It was rare that anyone could stand it longer than a week. It called for strong character.

But in 1943…I turned ten and father took me with him anyhow. To his workshop number three. To the section where fuses for bombs were welded.

Three of us worked together: me, Oleg, and Vaniushka, who were only two years older than me. We assembled the fuse, and Yakov Mironovich Sapozhnikov (his last name is stamped in my memory), an expert at his work, welded it. After that you had to get on a box in order to reach the vise, clamp the sleeve of the fuse, and calibrate the inner thread with a tap. We quickly got the knack of it…The rest was simpler still: you insert a plug and put it in a box. Once the box was full, we brought it to where it would be loaded. It was a bit heavy, up to a hundred pounds, but two of us could manage it. We didn’t distract Yakov Mironovich: his was the finest work. The most responsible—the welding!

The most unpleasant thing was the fire of the electric welding. You tried not to look at the blue sparks, yet in twelve hours you got enough of those flashes. Your eyes feel as if they’re filled with sand. You rub them, but it doesn’t help. Whether from that or from the monotonous humming of the electric generator that supplied the current for the welding, or simply from fatigue, we sometimes wanted terribly to sleep. Especially during the night. To sleep! To sleep!