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

They fired the first salute…People ran outside, and mama and I hid in a ditch. We sat there until the neighbors came: “Come out—this isn’t the war, it’s the Victory celebration.”

How I wanted children’s toys! I wanted a childhood…We would take a piece of brick and pretend it was a doll. Or the smallest of us pretended that he was a doll. Today, if I see pieces of colored glass in the sand, I want to pick them up. They look beautiful to me even now.

I grew up…And someone said, “You’re so beautiful. Like your mama.” I wasn’t glad, I got scared. I’ve never liked to hear those words said to me…

“WE ALL JOINED HANDS…”

Andrei Tolstik SEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW A DOCTOR OF ECONOMICS.

I was a little boy…

I remember my mama…She baked the best bread in the village, she had the most beautiful kitchen garden beds. The biggest dahlias blossomed in our front garden and backyard. She embroidered beautiful shirts for us all—my father, my two older brothers, and me. The collars were embroidered. In red, blue, and green cross-stitch…

I don’t remember who it was who first told me that mama had been shot. Some neighbor woman. I ran home. They said, “She was shot outside the village, not at home.” My father was away with the partisans, my older brothers were with the partisans, my cousin was with the partisans. I went to our neighbor, old Karp.

“Mama’s been killed. We must bring her here.”

We harnessed a cow (we didn’t have a horse) and went. Old Karp left me near the forest: “You stay here. I’m old, I’m not afraid to be killed. But you’re a kid.”

I waited. With all sorts of thoughts in my head. What will I tell father? How am I to tell him that mama was killed? And also a child’s thinking—if I see mama dead, she’ll never be alive again. But if I don’t see her dead, I’ll come home and she’ll be there.

Mama’s chest was shot through with a submachine gun volley. In a row across her blouse…And a black one on her temple…I wanted them to quickly put a white kerchief on her head so as not to see this black hole. It felt as if it still hurt her.

I didn’t get into the cart, I walked beside it…

Every day they buried someone in the village…I remember four partisans being buried. Three men and a girl. We buried partisans often, but it was the first time I saw a woman buried. They dug a separate little grave for her…She lay alone on the grass under an old pear tree…Old women sat by her and stroked her hands…

“Why did they lay her there separately?” I asked.

“She’s a young one…” the women replied.

When I was left alone, without family, without relations, I became frightened. What to do? They took me to the village of Zalesye to Aunt Marfa. She had no children of her own, and her husband was fighting at the front. We would hide in the cellar. She used to press my head to hers: “My dear son…”

Aunt Marfa came down with typhus. After her I came down with it. The old woman Zenka took me in. She had two sons fighting at the front. I would wake up at night, and she was there dozing next to me on the bed: “My dear son…” Everybody fled from the Germans to the forest, but old Zenka stayed with me. Never once did she leave me. “We’ll die together, my dear son.”

After the typhus I couldn’t walk for a long time. If the road was level I could, but if it was slightly uphill my legs gave way. We were already expecting our soldiers. The women went to the forest, gathered some strawberries. There was nothing else to treat them with.

The soldiers came tired. Old Zenka poured some red strawberries into their helmets. They all offered me some. But I sat on the ground and couldn’t get up.

Father came back from the partisans. He knew I had been ill, and he brought me a slice of bread and a piece of lard thick as a finger. The lard and the bread smelled of tobacco. Everything smelled of father.

We heard the word Victory! while gathering sorrel in the meadow. The children all joined hands and ran to the village like that…

“WE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO BURY…BUT NOW WE SOMEHOW RECALLED IT…”

Mikhail Shinkarev THIRTEEN YEARS OLD. NOW A RAILROAD WORKER.

Our neighbors had a deaf daughter…

Everybody shouted “War! War!” but she would come running to my sister with her doll, sing little songs. Other children no longer even laughed. “Good for her,” I thought, “she hasn’t heard anything about the war.”

My friends and I wrapped our red badges and red neckerchiefs in oilcloth and buried them among the bushes near the river. In the sand. Some conspirators! We came to that place every day.

Everybody was afraid of the Germans, even the children and the dogs. Mama used to put eggs out on the bench near the house. Outside. So as not to have them come into the cottage and ask, “Jude?” My sister and I had curly black hair…