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

Once a German came up to me and put his foot on the box. His boots were dirty, with old, caked dirt. We had already had to deal with such footwear, and I had a special scraper to scrape the dirt off first and then apply the polish. I took the scraper, passed it over just twice, but he didn’t like it. He kicked the box, and then me in the face…

I had never been hit in my life. I don’t count boys’ fights, there was plenty of that in Leningrad schools. But no adult had ever hit me before.

Kim saw my face and shouted, “Don’t you dare look at him like that! Don’t! He’ll kill you…”

Just then we encountered people in the streets who had yellow stars sewn on their jackets and coats. We had heard about the ghetto…This word was always uttered in a whisper…Kim was a Jewish boy, but he shaved his head, and we decided to pass him off as a Tatar. When his hair began to grow in, his curly black hair, who would believe that he was a Tatar? I suffered over my friend. During the night I would wake up, see his curly head and couldn’t go back to sleep: something had to be devised so that Kim wouldn’t be taken to the ghetto.

We found a hair clipper, and I shaved Kim again. It was already getting cold, and it was useless to polish shoes in winter. We had a new plan. The German authorities set up a hotel in the city for arriving officers. They used to come with big backpacks, suitcases, and the hotel wasn’t near. By some miracle we got hold of a big sled, and we waited at the station for the arriving trains. The train would arrive, we would load the sled with two or three persons’ luggage, and pull it across the whole city. For that we were given bread or cigarettes, and cigarettes could be exchanged for anything at the market, any food.

Kim was taken one night when the train came very late. We were freezing cold, but couldn’t leave the station because the curfew was already in effect. We were chased out of the building and waited in the street. At last the train arrived, we loaded the sled and set out. We pulled, the belts cut into our bodies, and the Germans urged us on: “Schnell! Schnell!” We couldn’t go quickly, and they began to beat us.

We brought the things into the hotel and waited for them to pay us. One man ordered, “Get out!” and he pushed Kim. Kim’s hat fell off. Then they shouted “Jude!” They seized him…

A few days later I found out that Kim was in the ghetto. I went there…I spent whole days circling around it…I saw him several times through the wire. I brought him bread, potatoes, carrots. The sentry turns his back, goes to the corner, and I toss in a potato. Kim comes, picks it up…

I lived several miles away from the ghetto, but during the night such shouting came from there that the whole city heard it. I would wake up with the thought: is Kim alive? How can I save him? After the next pogrom, I came to the appointed place, and they made signs to me: “Kim isn’t there!”

I felt miserable…But I still had hope…

One morning someone knocked on my door. I jumped out of bed…My first thought was: Kim! No, it wasn’t him. The boy from downstairs woke me up. He said, “Come outside with me, there are dead people lying there. Let’s look for my father.” We went outside. The curfew was over, but there were almost no people. The street was covered with light snow and, covered with this snow, at a distance of fifteen to twenty yards from each other, lay our captive soldiers. They had been driven through the city during the night, and those who lagged behind had been shot in the back of the head. They all lay face down.

The boy was unable to touch the dead men, he was afraid that his father was somewhere among them. It was then that I caught myself thinking that for some reason I had no fear of death. Mentally I was already used to it. I turned them over and he looked at each face. We went along the whole street that way…

Since then…there have been no tears in me…Not even when maybe there should have been. I don’t know how to cry. I cried only once during the whole war. When our partisan nurse Natasha was killed…She loved poetry, and I loved poetry. She loved roses, and I loved roses, and in summer I used to bring her bouquets of wild roses.

Once she asked me, “How many grades did you finish before the war?”

“Four…”

“When the war is over, will you go to a Suvorov School?”

Before the war I liked my father’s military uniform, I also wanted to bear arms. But I told her, no, I wouldn’t be an officer.

Dead, she lay on pine branches by a tent, and I sat over her and cried. Cried for the first time at the sight of a dead human being.

…I met my mama…When we met, she only looked at me, didn’t even caress me, and repeated, “You? Can it be you?”

Many days passed before we could tell each other about the war…

* It is traditional in Russian funerary practice to lay out the body of the dead person on a table until the coffin is brought.

“BECAUSE WE’RE GIRLS, AND HE’S A BOY…”

Rimma Pozniakova (Kaminskaya) SIX YEARS OLD. NOW A WORKER.