The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

So life went on until June 22nd, 1941, when we heard on the radio that Germany had invaded Russia. Soon after that many Americans sent their wives back to the United States and Robert was most anxious to send me. However, he couldn’t get permission from the Russian government. He had applied for a visa for me soon after we were married. Then every six months he wrote a letter and asked has the decision yet been made; but like the real Russian bureaucracy, they never said no and they never said yes. They just said they had taken it under consideration and that Robert would be informed when the time came. We were both terribly afraid, of course, that they would never give the permission for me to go.

The war finally broke the stalemate. The American ambassador, Lawrence Steinhardt, called Robert one day and said, “I think I have good news for you. I think we have succeeded in getting permission for Nila to go to the United States. We have arranged with the Russians to exchange her and Pauline Habicht for two loads of high octane gas.” Pauline was the wife of Herman Habicht, the assistant chief of the United Press bureau.

That was all Ambassador Steinhardt told Robert and for many years Robert bragged that he was one of two men who knew exactly what his wife was worth—one load of high octane gas. Thirteen years later he and I learned that Pauline and I and several other people were exchanged not for gas but for a prominent Russian who was being detained in the United States.

Anyway, the morning after the ambassador telephoned, I got a call from the Moscow bureau that gives visas and they invited me to come there. When I arrived they say the visa is granted, but they must warn me that I must renounce my Russian citizenship. This was no more than I expected. Nevertheless, it was a terrible wrench. I was never a member of the Communist party and God knows I had suffered at the hands of the Communist regime; still I loved my country, my family and my friends, and it hurt me to turn my back upon them.

Everybody at the American embassy, though, helped me to feel better. Robert and I went there as soon as I got my visa and they all seemed so happy that I was going to Robert’s country and would some day be an American citizen. Everybody in the embassy knew there are two kinds of marriages between Russian woman and American man. One is when Russian woman’s aim is to get everything she can from the American man because of the hard life, and the other one is for love. Everybody knew Robert’s and my marriage was a real love.

Now we had to decide whether Robert would come with me to America. This was a very serious decision, for Robert recently had become chief of the NBC bureau in Moscow and broadcast over the radio. Robert said if I am afraid he will come with me, but I said absolutely not, for I understood how

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Chapter Twenty-Two

important this new job was for him. I never thought until now how brave I was to come here alone.

Freddy Rhinehardt, the first secretary of the embassy, made out an affidavit for me for, of course, when I renounced my Russian citizenship I had to give up my passport. It was a long paper with my name and a photograph and a description of me, and it had a big, red stamp on it and was rolled and tied with a red ribbon; it was really a very beautiful document.

I first went from Moscow to Vladivostok, which took nineteen days as our train had to leave the main tracks frequently to let pass trains with troops going to the front. At Vladivostok I caught a small freighter for Japan, then from Japan I went to Shanghai, and from Shanghai I sailed for San Francisco, and from San Francisco, as I told you in the very beginning, to New York and the three-room apartment on Twenty-first Street.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tat’iana Fesenko, War-Scorched Kiev

Please see note to the previous Fesenko entry.

It’s Sunday morning and father is at his favorite pastime, fiddling with the radio trying to get the world news. “War,” he says. “Today German airplanes bombed Post Volynskii [a major railroad center west of Kiev]. Molotov1 will address the nation at noon.”

It is evening. As usual, Shura [diminutive of Aleksandr or Aleksandra] is here in the orange glow of our cozy living-room lamp. He and father are talking.

“It’s not as simple as you think, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, and it’s too early to be gleeful. Russia is a tough nut to crack, especially since we’ve been preparing for war all these years.”

“Pavel Pavlovich, I can’t believe that the moment has finally come when we’ll be rid of our beloved and wise leader with all his faithful shock workers and devoted communists. The German troops which went through Europe in a flash will do the same against the red commanders into whose skulls, Tania, you can’t even pound ten English phrases, despite all your enthusiasm. Then Russia without the Soviets will again become our great and beautiful motherland.”