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

We lay low. We became completely silent. Someone looked into the hut and said in Russian, “Whoever is in there, come out!”

The voice was calm, and we came out of the hut. I saw a tall man in a green uniform. “You have a papa?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“And where is he?”

“He’s far away, at the front,” I revealed. I remember the German even laughed.

“And where is your mama?” he asked next.

“Mama left on a mission with the partisans…”

Another German came, he was in black. They discussed something, and that one, the one in black, showed us with his hand where to go. There stood the women with children who hadn’t managed to escape. The black German pointed his machine gun at us, and I understood what he was about to do. I didn’t even have time to shout and embrace the younger ones…

I woke up to my mother’s crying. Yes, it felt like I’d been sleeping. I got up and saw mama digging a pit and crying. She stood with her back to me, and I didn’t have the strength to call to her, I only had the strength to look at her. Mama straightened up to rest, turned her head toward me, and cried out, “Innochka!” She threw herself at me, picked me up. She held me with one arm, and with the other she felt the rest of us: what if one of the other children was alive? No, they were cold…

After I was treated, mama and I counted: I had nine bullet wounds. I learned to count: in one shoulder—two bullets, and in the other—two bullets. That made four. In one leg—two bullets, and in the other—two bullets. That made eight. And on the neck—a wound. That made it nine.

The war ended. My mother carried me to first grade in her arms…

“MY DEAR DOG, FORGIVE ME…MY DEAR DOG, FORGIVE ME…”

Galina Firsova TEN YEARS OLD. NOW RETIRED.

I had a dream—to catch a sparrow and eat it…

Sometimes, but rarely, birds appeared in the city. Even in spring, everybody looked at them and thought of only one thing, the same thing I thought of. The same thing…Nobody had strength enough to stop thinking about food. From hunger, I constantly felt cold inside, a terrible inner cold. Even on sunny days. No matter how many clothes I put on, I was cold, I couldn’t get warm.

We really wanted to live…

I’m telling you about Leningrad, where we lived then. About the siege of Leningrad. They starved us to death, for a long time. Nine hundred days of siege…Nine hundred…When one day could seem like an eternity. You can’t imagine how long a day can seem to a hungry man. Or an hour, a minute…The long wait for lunch. Then for dinner. The daily ration during the siege went down to 125 grams of bread. That was for those who didn’t work. A dependent’s ration. The bread was oozing water…It was divided into three pieces—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We drank only boiled water. Plain boiled water.

In the dark…From six in the morning, in the winter (I mostly remember the winter), I stood in line at the bakery. We stood for hours. Long hours. When my turn came, it was dark outside again. A candle burns, and the counterman cuts those pieces. People stand and watch him. His every move…with burning, mad eyes…And all this in silence.

There were no trams. No water, no heating, no electricity. But the worst thing was the hunger. I saw a man chewing his buttons. Small buttons and big ones. People went crazy from hunger…

There was a moment when I stopped hearing. Then we ate the cat…I’ll tell you how we ate it. Then I went blind…They brought us a dog. That saved me.

I can’t remember…I’ve forgotten when the idea that we could eat our cat or our dog became normal. Ordinary. It became part of our life. I didn’t keep track of that moment…After the pigeons and swallows, cats and dogs suddenly started disappearing in the city. We didn’t have any, we didn’t take one in, because mama believed it was a great responsibility to have a dog, especially a big one, in the house. But my mama’s friend couldn’t eat her own cat, so she brought it to us. And we ate it. I started hearing again…I had lost my hearing unexpectedly. In the morning I could still hear, but in the evening, mama said something and I didn’t respond.

Time passed…And we started dying again…Mama’s friend brought us her dog. And we ate it, too. If it weren’t for that dog, we wouldn’t have survived. We certainly wouldn’t have survived. It’s obvious. We had started to swell from hunger. My sister didn’t want to get up in the morning…The dog was big and gentle. For two days, mama couldn’t…How could she make up her mind? On the third day, she tied the dog to the radiator in the kitchen and sent us outside…

I remember those meatballs…I remember…

We really wanted to live…

Often we gathered and sat around papa’s photograph. Papa was at the front. We rarely received letters from him. “My dear girls…” he wrote to us. We answered, but we tried not to upset him.