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

We look—our teacher isn’t there, she’s lying on the floor. She was hungry and also smelled this oil. And fainted. Our girls took her home; she lived with her mother. In the evening we decided that beginning that day each of us would set aside a small piece of bread to give to our teacher. She would never have taken it from us, so we secretly gave it to her mother and asked her not to tell it was from us.

We had our orchard and our kitchen garden. In the orchard we had apple trees, and in the kitchen garden—cabbages, carrots, beets. We guarded them, several of us taking turns on duty. In changing watch, we counted everything: each head of cabbage, each carrot. During the night I thought, “Ah, if only one more carrot would grow overnight! It wouldn’t be on the list and could be eaten.” If it had been put on the list, God forbid it should disappear. For shame!

We sat at the kitchen garden with food all around us, and held ourselves back. We were terribly hungry. Once I was on duty with an older boy. An idea came to his head.

“Look, there’s a cow grazing…”

“Well, what of it?”

“Fool! Don’t you know there’s a decree that if a private cow grazes on government land, it’s either taken away or the owner gets fined?”

“But it’s grazing in a meadow.”

“It’s not tied to it.”

And he explains his plan to me: we take the cow, bring it to our orchard, and tie it up there. Then we go looking for the owner. And so we did. We brought the cow to our orphanage orchard and tied it up. My partner ran to the village, found the woman who owned the cow: thus and so, your cow is in the government-owned orchard, and you know the decree…

I don’t think…Now I doubt that the woman believed us and was frightened. She actually felt sorry for us, seeing we were hungry. We made this arrangement: we look after her cow, and she gives us several potatoes for it.

One of our girls fell ill and needed a blood transfusion. There wasn’t a single child in the whole orphanage who could give blood. Do you understand?

Our dream? To get to the front. Several boys, the most reckless ones, got together and decided to escape. As luck would have it, an army choirmaster came to the orphanage, Captain Gordeev. He chose four musical boys, including me. That was how I wound up at the front.

The whole orphanage came to see us off. I had nothing to wear, and one girl gave me her sailor suit, and another had two pairs of shoes and gave one to me.

Thus equipped I went to the front. Most of all I was embarrassed to be wearing girls’ shoes…

“I SCREAMED AND SCREAMED…I COULDN’T STOP…”

Liuda Andreeva FIVE YEARS OLD. NOW AN AUDITOR.

The war left me with the impression of a bonfire…Burning and burning. Endlessly…

We little children would get together, and you know what we talked about? That before the war we had liked sweet rolls and tea with sugar, and that we would never have them again.

Our mamas often wept, they wept every day…So we tried to cry less than in peacetime. We fussed less.

I knew that my mama was young and beautiful. Other children’s mamas were older, but at the age of five I understood that it was bad for us that mama was young and beautiful. It was dangerous. I figured it out at the age of five…I even understood that it was good that I was little. How could a child understand that? Nobody explained anything to me…

After so many years…I’m afraid to remember it…to touch it…

A German truck stopped by our house, not on purpose, but something broke down in it. The soldiers came into the house, sent me and grandma into another room, and made mama help them. They boiled water, cooked supper. They spoke so loudly that it seemed to me they weren’t talking together and laughing, but yelling at my mama.

It was evening, already dark. Nighttime. Suddenly mama runs into the room, grabs me, and runs outside. We had no garden, the courtyard was empty, we ran around and didn’t know where to hide. We got under the truck. They came out and looked for us with a flashlight. Mama lay on top of me, and I heard her teeth chatter. She turned cold, cold all over.

In the morning, when the Germans left, we went into the house…Grandma lay on the bed…tied to it with ropes…Naked! Grandma…My grandma! Horrified…Frightened, I began to scream. Mama pushed me outside. I screamed and screamed…I couldn’t stop…

For a long time I was afraid of trucks. As soon as I heard the sound of a truck, I began to tremble. The war ended, we were already going to school…I would see a tram coming, and I couldn’t help myself, my teeth chattered. From trembling. In our class there were three of us who had lived under the occupation. One boy was afraid of the noise of planes. In spring it was warm, the teacher would open the windows…The noise of a plane…or of a truck driving…This boy’s eyes and mine would grow big, the pupils would get dilated, we’d panic. And the children who had been evacuated and came back laughed at us.