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

Still, we celebrated our holidays…We saved something to eat for that day. A piece of boiled beet. Or a carrot. My mother tried to smile on that day. She had faith that our soldiers would come. Thanks to that faith, we survived.

After the war, I went straight into fifth grade, not first grade. I had grown. But I was very reserved, I avoided people for a long time. All my life I’ve liked solitude. People were a burden to me, I had trouble being with them. I kept something inside that I couldn’t share with anyone.

Mama, of course, noticed how I had changed. She tried to distract me. She invented holidays, and never forgot my birthday. We always had guests, her friends. She herself invited my friends. It was hard for me to understand. She was drawn to people. And I didn’t realize how much mama loved me.

She still saves me with her love…

“I REMEMBER THE BLUE, BLUE SKY…AND OUR PLANES IN THAT SKY…”

Pyotr Kalinovsky TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW A CIVIL ENGINEER.

Before the war…

I remember that we studied war. We prepared. We learned to shoot, to throw grenades. Even the girls. Everybody wanted to earn the Voroshilov Sharpshooter badge, we were burning with desire. We sang the song “Granada.” The words were beautiful, about a hero going to war “to return their land to the peasants of Granada.” To pursue the cause of the revolution. The worldwide revolution! Yes, that was who we were. Those were our dreams.

In childhood I composed stories myself. I learned to read and write early. I was a gifted boy. I think mama wanted me to become an actor, but my dream was to learn to fly, to wear a pilot’s uniform. That, too, was a sign of the times. For instance, before the war I never met a boy who didn’t dream of becoming a pilot or a sailor. We wanted either the sky or the sea. The whole globe!

Now imagine what it was like for me…for our people…What it was like for us, when we saw Germans in our own town. On our own streets. I cried. When night fell, people closed their blinds, and they cried behind their closed windows.

Papa joined the partisans…Our neighbors across the street put on their white embroidered shirts and greeted the Germans with bread and salt. They were filmed.

When I first saw our people hanged, I ran home: “Mama, our people are hanging in the sky.” For the first time I was afraid of the sky. After that incident, my attitude toward the sky changed, I became wary of it. I remember that the people were hanging very high, but maybe it seemed like that because of the fear. Hadn’t I seen dead people on the ground? But it didn’t frighten me like that.

Soon papa came back for us…Then we left together…

One partisan post, a second…And suddenly we hear Russian songs all through the forest. I recognize the voice of Ruslanova.^* The brigade had a gramophone and three or four records completely worn out from frequent playing. I stood there dumbfounded and couldn’t believe that I was with the partisans, and they sang songs there. For two years I had lived in a town occupied by Germans. I had forgotten how people sang. I had seen how they died…How they were scared…

In 1944 I took part in the Minsk partisan parade. I was at the right-hand end of the rank; they put me there so I could see the tribune. “You’re not grown up yet,” said the partisans. “You’ll get lost among us and won’t see anything, and you have to remember this day.” There was no photographer with us. It’s a pity. I can’t remember how I looked then. I’d like to know…To see my face…

I don’t remember the tribune. I remember the blue, blue sky. And our planes in that sky. We had been waiting for them, waiting all through the war…

* Lidia Ruslanova (1900–1973) was a Ukrainian-born singer who became widely popular for her renditions of Russian folk songs and performed all over Russia.

“LIKE RIPE PUMPKINS…”

Yakov Kolodinsky SEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW A TEACHER.

The first bombardment…

They began dropping bombs…We dragged pillows, clothing into the garden, under the cherry tree; the pillows were big, we couldn’t be seen behind them, only our legs stuck out. The planes flew away, and we dragged everything back into the house. And so it went several times a day. Later we already didn’t care about anything, our mother just gathered us children, and we left everything else behind.

That day…I believe I’ve added something from what my father told, but I remember most of it myself. In the morning…Mist in the garden. The cows had already been taken out. My mother woke me up, gave me a mug of warm milk. It was nearly time to go to the fields. My father was riveting the scythe.

“Volodya.” A neighbor knocked at the window, calling my father. He went outside. “We’d better run for it…The Germans are going through the village with a list. Somebody reported all the Communists. They’ve taken the teacher…”

They both scrambled through the kitchen gardens into the forest. After a while, two Germans and a polizei came into our house.

“Where is the man?”

“He’s gone haymaking,” answered my mother.