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

We were seven children. Before the war, mama laughed: “The sun is shining, the children are growing.” The war began—she cried: “Such an evil hour, and children all over the place like beans…” Yusik was seventeen years old, I was eleven, Ivan nine, Nina four, Galya three, Alik two, and Sasha was five months old. A baby, nursing and crying.

At the time I didn’t know, only after the war people told me that our parents were connected with the partisans and with our prisoners of war who worked in the dairy plant. My mother’s sister worked there, too. I remember one thing: some men were sitting at night in our house, and apparently the light seeped through the window, though it was curtained with a thick blanket. A shot rang out—straight through the window. Mama grabbed the lamp and hid it under the table.

Mama was cooking us something with potatoes. She could do anything with potatoes—as they now say, a hundred dishes. We were preparing for some celebration. I remember it smelled delicious in the house. And my father was cutting clover by the forest. The Germans surrounded the house and ordered, “Come out!” Mama came out with us, three children. They started beating mama. She shouted, “Children, go inside!”

They stood her up against the wall under the window, and we stood in the window.

“Where is your oldest son?”

Mama answered, “Digging peat.”

“Let’s go there.”

They pushed mama into the truck and got in themselves.

Galya ran out of the house and shouted, asking to go with mama. They threw her into the truck along with mama. And mama shouted, “Children, go inside…”

Papa came running from the field. Apparently someone had told him. He grabbed some papers and ran after mama. And he also shouted to us, “Children, go inside.” As if the house would save us, or mama was there. We waited in the yard…In the evening we climbed up, some on the gate, some in the apple tree: aren’t our papa and mama, sister and brother coming back? We saw people running from the other end of the village: “Children, leave your house and run away. Your family is gone, and they’re coming for you…”

We crawled through the potato field to the swamp. We sat there for the night. The sun rose: what should we do? I remembered that we forgot the little one in her crib. We went to the village, took the little one; she was alive, just turned blue from crying. My brother Ivan says, “Feed her.” What should I feed her with? I didn’t have breasts. But he was afraid she would die, and asked: “Try…”

Our neighbor came. “Children, they’ll be searching for you. Go to your aunt’s.”

Our aunt lived in another village. We said, “We’ll go and find our aunt, but you tell us, where are our mama and papa, and our sister and brother?”

She told us that they had been shot. They were lying in the woods…

“But you mustn’t go there, children.”

“We’ll go to say goodbye on our way out of the village.”

“You mustn’t, children…”

She led us out of the village, but didn’t let us go where our family lay.

Many years later, I learned that my mother had had her eyes torn out, her hair pulled out, her breasts cut off. They set German shepherds loose on little Galya, who was hiding under a fir tree and wouldn’t come out. They brought her back in pieces. Mama was still alive, she understood everything…It was all right in front of her…

After the war, I was left with my little sister Nina, just the two of us. I found her with some strangers and took her to live with me. We went to the district committee: “Give us a little room, the two of us will live there.” They gave us a corridor in the worker’s dormitory. I worked in a factory, Nina studied at school. I never called her by her name, always just “Little Sister.” She’s all I have. The only one.

I don’t want to remember. But I need to tell people about my misfortune. It’s hard to weep alone…

“THE CHICKS HAD JUST HATCHED…I WAS AFRAID THEY’D BE KILLED…”

Alyosha Krivoshey FOUR YEARS OLD. NOW A RAILROADMAN.

My memory…The only one…The chicks had just hatched. Small and yellow, they ran around the floor, came to my hands. During the bombing, my grandmother gathered them on a sieve.

“How about that: war—and chicks.”

I was afraid the chicks would be killed. I still remember how I cried because of that fear. Bombing…Everybody ran to hide in the cellar, but I wouldn’t leave the house. I was holding the chicks…Grandmother took the sieve with us, then I went. I went and counted: one chick, two, three…There were five of them…

I counted the bombs. One fell, two…seven…

That’s how I learned to count…

“KING OF CLUBS…KING OF DIAMONDS…”

Galina Matuseeva SEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW RETIRED.

A man is born…

Beside him sit two angels, and they lay out his fortune. They prescribe the years of his life, whether his path will be long or short. And God watches from above. He sent the angels to welcome the new soul. To say that He is there.