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

In the first days of the war papa left for the front. I remember saying goodbye to him at the train station…Papa kept telling mama that they’d drive the Germans away, but he wanted us to evacuate. Mama couldn’t understand why. If we stayed at home, he would find us sooner. At once. And I kept repeating, “Papa dear! Only come back soon. Papa dear…”

Papa left, and a few days later we also left. On the way we were bombed all the time. Bombing us was easy, because the trains to the rear ran just five hundred yards apart. We traveled light: mama was wearing a sateen dress with white polka dots, and I a red cotton jumper with little flowers. All the adults said that red was very visible from above, and as soon as there was an air raid and we rushed for the bushes, they covered me with whatever they could find so that my red jumper wouldn’t be seen. Otherwise I was like a signal light.

We drank water from swamps and ditches. Intestinal illnesses set in. I also fell ill. For three days I didn’t regain consciousness…Afterward mama told me how I was saved. When we stopped in Briansk, a troop train arrived on the next track. My mama was twenty-six, she was very beautiful. Our train stood there for a long time. She got out of the car and an officer from that train complimented her. Mama said, “Leave me alone, I cannot look at your smile. My daughter is dying.” The officer turned out to be a field paramedic. He jumped into our car, examined me, and called his comrade: “Quickly bring tea, rusks, and belladonna.” Those soldiers’ rusks…a quart bottle of strong tea, and a few belladonna pills saved my life.

Before we reached Aktyubinsk the whole train had been sick. We children were not allowed where the dead and killed lay; we were protected from that sight. We only heard the conversations: so many buried here, and so many there…Mama would come with a very pale face, her hands trembled. And I kept asking, “Where did these people go?”

I don’t remember any landscapes. That’s very surprising, because I loved nature. I only remember the bushes we hid under. The ravines. For some reason it seemed to me that there was no forest anywhere, that we traveled only through fields, through some sort of desert. Once I experienced fear, after which I wasn’t afraid of any bombing. We hadn’t been warned that it would be a short stop of ten or fifteen minutes. The train started and I was left behind. Alone…I don’t remember who picked me up…I was literally thrown into the car…Not our car, but the one before the end. For the first time I had a scare that I would be left alone and mama would go off. While mama was near me, I wasn’t afraid. But here I went mute with fright. And until mama came running to me and threw both arms around me, I was mute, and no one could get a word out of me. Mama was my world. My planet. When I had pain somewhere, I would take mama’s hand and the pain would go away. At night I always slept next to her, the closer the less fear there was. If mama was near, it seemed that everything was as it used to be at home. You close your eyes—there isn’t any war. Only mama didn’t like to talk about death. And I kept asking her…

From Aktyubinsk we went to Magnitogorsk, where papa’s brother lived. Before the war they had been a big family, with many men, but when we arrived there were only women in the house. All the men had gone to the war. At the end of 1941 two death notices came—my uncle’s sons had been killed…

Of that winter I also remember chicken pox, which everybody at school came down with. And red trousers…Mama got a length of dark red flannelette for her coupons, and she made me a pair of trousers. The children teased me: “Fancy pants, go back to France.” I was very hurt. A bit later we got galoshes for our coupons. I tied them up and ran around. They rubbed at my little bones, and I had to put something under the heels so that the heels were higher, to avoid getting blisters. The winter was so cold that my hands and feet kept freezing. The heating system at school often broke down, the water on the floor in the classroom turned to ice, and we could slide between the desks. We sat there in our coats and mittens, only we cut the tips off so that we could hold a pen. I remember that we were forbidden to offend and tease those whose papas had been killed. For that we were severely punished. We also all read a lot. As never before or after…We read all the children’s books, all the adolescent books. They started giving us adult books. The other girls were afraid…even the boys didn’t like the pages where death was written about and skipped over them. But I read them.

Heavy snow fell. All the children ran outside and made a snowman. I was perplexed: how was it possible to make a snowman and be happy, if there was a war?