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

I saw a soldier who was running and seemed to stumble. He fell. For a long time he clawed at the ground, he clung to it…

I saw how they drove our prisoners of war through our village. In long columns. In torn and burned greatcoats. Where they stayed overnight, the bark was gnawed off the trees. Instead of food, they threw them a dead horse. The men tore it to pieces.

I saw a German train go off the rails and burn up during the night, and in the morning they laid all those who worked for the railroad on the tracks and drove a locomotive over them…

I saw how they harnessed people to a carriage. They had yellow stars on their backs. They drove them with whips. They rode along merrily.

I saw how they knocked children from their mother’s arms with bayonets. And threw them into the fire. Into a well…Our turn, mama’s and mine, didn’t come…

I saw my neighbor’s dog crying. He sat in the ashes of our neighbor’s house. Alone. He had an old man’s eyes…

And I was little…

I grew up with this…I grew up gloomy and mistrustful, I have a difficult character. When someone cries, I don’t feel sorry; on the contrary, I feel better, because I myself don’t know how to cry. I’ve been married twice, and twice my wife has left me. No one could stand me for long. It’s hard to love me. I know it…I know it myself…

Many years have passed…Now I want to ask: Did God watch this? And what did He think?

“THE WIDE WORLD IS WONDROUS…”

Ludmila Nikanorova TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW AN ENGINEER.

I wish I could remember…Did we talk about war before the war?

Songs played on the radio: “If There Is War Tomorrow” and “Our Armor Is Strong and Our Tanks Are Swift.” Children could sleep peacefully…

Our family lived in Voronezh. The city of my childhood…In the schools, many teachers were part of the old intelligentsia. A high level of musical culture. The children’s choir of our school, where I sang, was very popular in the city. I believe everyone loved the theater.

Our house was inhabited by military families. A four-story house with rooms along the corridors; in summer, a sweet-scented acacia bloomed in the yard. We played a lot in the little park in front of the house. There were hiding places there. I was very lucky with my parents. My father was a career soldier. All through my childhood, I had seen military uniforms. My mother had a gentle character, golden hands. I was their only daughter. As expected in such cases, I was persistent, capricious, and shy at the same time. I took lessons of music and ballet dancing at the House of the Red Army. On Sundays—the only day when he wasn’t busy—papa loved walking around the city with us. My mother and I had to walk to his left, as my father kept greeting oncoming officers and raising his right hand to his visor.

He also loved to read poetry with me, especially Pushkin:

Study, my son: for learning shortens

The lessons of our swift-passing life.^*1

That June day…In my pretty dress I was going with a friend to the garden of the House of the Red Army to see a play that was supposed to start at noon. We saw everybody listening to a loudspeaker fastened to a pole. Bewildered faces.

“You hear—it’s war!” my friend said.

I rushed home. Flung the door open. The apartment was quiet, mama wasn’t there, my father was shaving with concentration in front of the mirror, one cheek covered with lather.

“Papa, it’s war!”

Papa turned to me and went on shaving. I saw an unfamiliar expression in his eyes. I remember that the speaker on the wall was switched off. That’s all he could do to postpone for us the moment of the terrible news.

Life changed instantly…I don’t remember my father being at home at all during those days. Everyday life became different. We held general meetings of the tenants: how to extinguish a fire if the house started burning, how to cover the windows for the night—the city had to be without lights. Provisions disappeared from the counters, ration cards appeared.

And then came that last evening. It wasn’t at all like those I see now in the movies: tears, embraces, jumping onto moving trains. We didn’t have that. Everything was as if my father was leaving on maneuvers. My mother folded his belongings, his collar, his tabs were already sewn on, she checked his buttons, socks, handkerchiefs. My father rolled up his greatcoat—I think I was holding it.

The three of us went out to the corridor. It was late. At that hour all the doors were locked except the front one—to go out to the courtyard, we had to go up from the first floor to the second, pass through a long corridor and go back down. It was dark outside, and our always thoughtful father said,“There’s no need to accompany me any farther.”

He embraced us. “Everything will be fine. Don’t worry, girls.”

And he left.