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

We rode for a long time. The train moved slowly, we could see very well…Dead people lay on the embankment, arranged neatly like railway ties. This has stayed in my memory…They bombed us, and we shrieked, and the shrapnel whizzed. At the stations some women fed us—they knew from somewhere that a train with children was coming—and we kissed their hands. A nursing baby turned up among us. His mother had been killed in the shelling. And a woman at the station saw him and took off her kerchief to use as a diaper…

That’s it! Enough! I’m too agitated. I shouldn’t get agitated, I have a bad heart. I’ll tell you in case you don’t know: those who were children during the war often died before their fathers who fought at the front. Before the former soldiers. Before…

I’ve already buried so many of my friends…

* In 1939 Soviet forces fought a series of battles against the Japanese on the border of Mongolia. The conflict was named for the river Khalkhyn Gol, which flowed through the battlefield.

“I LOOKED AT THEM WITH A LITTLE GIRL’S EYES…”

Zina Gurskaya SEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW A POLISHER.

I looked at them with a little girl’s eyes. A little village girl. With wide open eyes…

I saw my first German closely…A tall man, blue eyes. I was so surprised: “Such a handsome one, and yet he kills.” It was probably my strongest impression. My first impression of the war…

We lived—mama, two little sisters, a little brother, and a hen. We had just one hen left, she lived with us in the cottage, she slept with us. Hid from the bombs with us. She got used to following us like a dog. No matter how hungry we were, we spared the hen. We starved so much that during the winter mama boiled an old leather coat and all the whips, and they smelled of meat to us. My little brother was a nursling. We cooked an egg in boiling water and gave him the water instead of milk. Then he would stop crying and dying.

Around us there was killing, killing, killing…People, horses, dogs…during the war all our horses were killed. All the dogs. True, the cats survived.

During the day the Germans would come: “Mother, give us eggs. Mother, give us lard.” There was shooting. During the night the partisans would come…The partisans had a hard time surviving in the forest, especially in winter. They knocked on the window during the night. Sometimes they took things peaceably, sometimes by force…They led away our cow…Mama wept. And the partisans wept…I can’t tell about it. I can’t, my dear. No, no!

Mama and grandma plowed like this: first mama put the yoke on her neck and grandma walked behind the plow. Then they changed places and the other became the horse. I wanted to grow up quickly. I was sorry for mama and grandma.

After the war there was one dog for the whole village (a stray one who stayed) and one hen, ours. We didn’t eat eggs. We collected them to hatch some chicks.

I went to school…I tore off a piece of old wallpaper—that was my notebook. Instead of an eraser—a cork from a bottle. We had beets in the fall, and we were glad because we could grate some beets and have ink. The gratings stand for a day or two and turn black. We had something to write with.

I also remember that mama and I liked to embroider in satin stitch, and always wanted to have gay little flowers. I didn’t like black threads.

I still don’t like the color black…

“OUR MAMA DIDN’T SMILE…”

Kima Murzich TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW A RADIO TECHNICIAN.

Our family…

We were three sisters—Rema, Maya, and Kima. Rema stood for Electrification and Peace, Maya for May 1, Kima for Communist Youth International. Our father gave us these names. He was a Communist. He joined the party when he was young. He brought us up this way. There were many books at home, also portraits of Lenin and Stalin. In the first days of the war we buried them in the shed. The only one I kept for myself was The Children of Captain Grant by Jules Verne. My favorite book. I read and reread it all through the war.

Mama went to the villages near Minsk and exchanged shawls for food. She had a pair of nice shoes. She even took her only dress made of crepe de chine. Maya and I sat and waited for mama: will she come back or not? We tried to distract each other from these thoughts, we remembered how we used to run to the lake before the war, to swim, to lie in the sun, how we danced in school amateur performances. How long the alley was that led to our school. The smell of the cherry preserves mama cooked in the yard on stones…They were so far away now, all these good things. We talked about Rema, our older sister. All through the war we thought she was dead. She left for her work at the factory on June 23 and never came back…