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

They went through the house, looked around, didn’t touch us, and left.

The blue morning haze was still hanging outside. Chilly air. Mama and I watched from behind the gate: a neighbor was pushed out into the street, they were tying his hands, the teacher was taken, too…They tied everybody’s hands behind their backs and stood them two by two. I had never seen a man tied up. I began to shiver. My mother chased me away: “Go into the house, put on your jacket.” I stood there in my shirt, trembling all over, but didn’t go into the house.

Our house stood right in the middle of the village. They gathered everybody there. It all happened quickly. The prisoners were standing, their heads bowed. They counted them according to their list, and led them outside the village. There were many village men and the woman teacher.

The women and children ran after them. They were led quickly. We were left behind. We ran up to the last barn and heard gunshots. People started falling, falling and getting back up. They executed them quickly and were about to leave. One German on a motorcycle turned around and drove all over those dead people. He had something heavy in his hands…Either a bludgeon or a crank from his motorcycle…I don’t remember…Driving slowly, without getting off of the motorcycle, he smashed all of their heads…Another German wanted to finish them off with his gun; but the first one waved his hand as if to say no need. They all drove off, but he didn’t drive off until he had smashed everyone’s head. I had never heard the sound of cracking human bones…I remember that they cracked like ripe pumpkins, when my father split them with an ax and I scraped out the seeds.

I got so scared that I abandoned mama and everybody and ran off somewhere. Alone. I didn’t hide in a house, but for some reason in a barn; mother looked for me for a long time. I couldn’t utter a word for two days. Not a sound.

I was afraid to go outside. I saw through the window a man carrying a board, a second an ax, and a third a bucket. The boards were trimmed, the smell of freshly planed wood was in every yard, because in almost every yard there was a coffin. Even now I get a lump in my throat from that smell. To this day…

In the coffins lay people I knew. None had their heads. Instead of their heads, something wrapped in a white cloth…Whatever could be found…

…My father came back with two partisans. It was a quiet evening, the cows had been brought in. It was time for bed, but my mother prepared us to set out. We put on our suits. I had two other brothers—one was four years old, the other nine months old. I was the biggest. We got to the forges, stopped there, and my father looked back. I also looked back. The village no longer looked like a village, but like a dark, unknown forest.

Mama carried my little brother. My father carried the bundles and my middle brother. And I couldn’t keep up with them. A young partisan said, “Put him on my back.”

So he carried his machine gun and me…

“WE ATE…THE PARK…”

Anya Grubina TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW AN ARTIST.

I lose my voice when I tell about this…My voice dies…

We arrived in Minsk after the war. But I’m a Leningrad girl. I survived the siege there. The siege of Leningrad…When the whole city, my dear and beautiful city, was starving to death. Our papa died…Mama saved her children. Before the war, she had been a “firebrand.” My little brother Slavik was born in 1941. How old was he when the siege began? Six months, just about six months…She saved this little one, too…All three of us…But we lost our papa. In Leningrad, everybody lost their papa, the papas died sooner, but the mamas stayed alive. I guess they couldn’t die. Otherwise who would have been there for us?

When the ring of the siege was broken through, we were taken out on the “road of life” to the Urals, to the city of Karpinsk. The children were saved first. Our entire school was evacuated. On the road, everybody talked constantly about food, about food and parents. In Karpinsk we immediately rushed to the park; we didn’t stroll in the park, we ate it. We especially liked larch, its fluffy needles—they’re so delicious! We ate the young shoots from small pine trees, we nibbled grass. From the time of the siege, I knew about every kind of edible grass; in the city people ate all that was green. In the parks and the botanical garden, the leaves were already gone in the spring. But in the park of Karpinsk there was a lot of wood sorrel, also called hare cabbage. This was in 1942. In the Urals, too, there was hunger, but not as terrible as in Leningrad.