They lived rather poorly: Grandfather earned little money, he even worked as a carter for some time, and Grandmother had to bake pies and sell them at the market-place. They rented a room in a wooden one-storey house from a Russian family. There was certainly no water supply system, no heating or electricity there. They had to go to the water-pump at the end of the road. They had a Russian stove [1] in their room with a stove-bench. They also had a small vegetable garden, where they grew vegetables; and a small husbandry, hens and a cow that Grandfather milked. No one helped them; that’s why they worked hard. Their children were busy with their own households and lived separately.
- Traditions 11661
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Major events (political and historical)
4221
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Holocaust
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Communism
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Displaying 48061 - 48090 of 50364 results
Chaya Sakhartova
My grandmother observed traditions, but in a rather limited way. On Pesach she changed dishes from the common to Pesach ones and Grandfather tinned the samovar, so that everything would be like new for Pesach. To tin means to clean, polish the dishes. They were not Orthodox Jews. They dressed like petty bourgeois, as did everyone else in town. However, they attended the synagogue and I visited them there. Before his death, my grandfather became a very pious man, began to attend the synagogue regularly and read religious books, though in Russian translation. Unfortunately, neither my grandfather, nor my grandmother knew Yiddish and spoke Russian at home all the time.
I should mention that my grandparents observed the kashrut. However, I suddenly craved for some sausage. I was about eight and I was very stubborn. I yelled until Grandfather went to buy sausage for me. But since it wasn’t kosher, he had to chop the sausage with an axe in the corridor and feed us there, in order not to spoil the dishes, since everything was kept kosher.
My maternal grandfather’s name was Simon Leibovich Lebyan. He was born in 1862 somewhere in Smolensk region. Grandfather sewed hats, he was a hatter.
My grandparents lived very poorly there, that was the reason for their moving to Roslavl. Unfortunately I can’t remember any more details about this town. They had a knitting shop there, they knitted stockings. Later they moved from Sukhinichi to Roslavl. Grandmother was very business-like. She set up a business there.
My grandparents lived very poorly there, that was the reason for their moving to Roslavl.
A lot of Jews lived in our town and there was quite a Jewish community there [it was not a shtetl, or a town with a big Jewish community that played a prominent role in the life of the city: the population was multinational].
Boris Lesman
To tell the truth, I attend the day time centre in the Hesed Avraham Welfare Center [30]: they bring us there; we have breakfast, listen to a lecture or watch a performance. Then we have lunch, and they take us home. But lately I stoped visiting it: I disliked it.
A visiting nurse regularly comes to my place from the Hesed Center: she does my flat, cooks, goes shopping, because, you see, I am almost not able to walk, I live alone (I am divorced).
A visiting nurse regularly comes to my place from the Hesed Center: she does my flat, cooks, goes shopping, because, you see, I am almost not able to walk, I live alone (I am divorced).
And notwithstanding the fact that my grandson lives in Israel, I was and I am Russian of Jewish origin: I still know nothing about Jewish holidays and I do not observe traditions. So things came round this way.
At present my grandson Mikhail lives in Israel, in Haifa. [Haifa is a city-port in Israel.] He is 15; his mother took him there in an underhand way. We searched for him for half a year through Moscow, through embassy, through our acquaintances. It was a tragedy. He does not love Israel, he does not love Hebrew, though he speaks it perfectly (he studies there at school). Now we call each other every month: I call him, my wife calls him, and my son (his father) calls him. We expected him to come to us in summer, but his mother did not allow him. He tells me ‘Grandfather, don’t worry, at the age of 16 I’ll get my passport and start to take decisions myself.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Eltsin destroyed the great country and the reason was only one: his personal hostility to Gorbachev. But of course, it was impossible to go on living that way. Those years were hungry: shops were empty, people stood in line to buy bread or a piece of sausage – that was the result of our communists’ policy. When I was young, I certainly believed in ‘the bright communist future’, but later I understood that Communist Party members were (first of all) careerists and they gave a damn about people. We are different… We were brought up by Pioneer [27] and Komsomol organizations, by the Communist ideas: necessity to defend our native land, necessity to bear with difficulties for the sake of our native land guided our steps.
Gorbachev [28] understood that the country went in wrong direction, that reforms were necessary. His natural style was reorganizing, but his activities lost its urgency and he disappeared from political arena. But in the beginning of his reforms I welcomed them, because communists led the country into a dead end.
We were the only country in the whole world, which lived according to its own rules. At present we live according to the global rules, but it is difficult: it happened that our people are not initiative, we are accustomed to live under oppression. We need time: Moses took Hebrew slaves to the desert for 40 years to free them, and I guess we need 80 years.
Among the postwar events that one was the impressive. Besides, I remember Gagarin’s flight [29]. At that time I was sitting in the dental surgery having my cavities filled. Someone entered the surgery and said ‘A fellow called Gagarin started the first flight into space, he is flying now!’ So I remember Gagarin’s flight!
Gorbachev [28] understood that the country went in wrong direction, that reforms were necessary. His natural style was reorganizing, but his activities lost its urgency and he disappeared from political arena. But in the beginning of his reforms I welcomed them, because communists led the country into a dead end.
We were the only country in the whole world, which lived according to its own rules. At present we live according to the global rules, but it is difficult: it happened that our people are not initiative, we are accustomed to live under oppression. We need time: Moses took Hebrew slaves to the desert for 40 years to free them, and I guess we need 80 years.
Among the postwar events that one was the impressive. Besides, I remember Gagarin’s flight [29]. At that time I was sitting in the dental surgery having my cavities filled. Someone entered the surgery and said ‘A fellow called Gagarin started the first flight into space, he is flying now!’ So I remember Gagarin’s flight!
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I was demobilized and worked in the Ministry of Navy and Inland Water Transport. I was the chief of Kherson Technical department of Azov Transport Shipping Routes. It was in Kherson in 1954-1955.
And since 1955 we have been living in Leningrad: I was transfered to the Leningrad seaport as a chief of the surveying party.
Later I got tired of hanging about seas and I left for military hydrography department, but as a civilian. I started working at the Navy Central Cartographic Department as a chief editor. Later I became a chief of publishing department. I have been working there for 11 years.
After that I left for machine-building factory (the regional Communist Party Committee appointed me). I worked there as a deputy director, responsible for civil defence actions. And until I retired at the age of 60, I worked there.
And since 1955 we have been living in Leningrad: I was transfered to the Leningrad seaport as a chief of the surveying party.
Later I got tired of hanging about seas and I left for military hydrography department, but as a civilian. I started working at the Navy Central Cartographic Department as a chief editor. Later I became a chief of publishing department. I have been working there for 11 years.
After that I left for machine-building factory (the regional Communist Party Committee appointed me). I worked there as a deputy director, responsible for civil defence actions. And until I retired at the age of 60, I worked there.
He had no difficulties while entering college: he had passed examinations well and became a student of the Leningrad Electrotechnical College (faculty of Automatic Control Systems). As far as the College also prepares specialists for the Army (through the special additional military course for male students), having graduated in 1972, he was sent to the North Fleet. Three years he sailed on board a rocket warship as a chief of computer center, a lieutenant. He visited Cuba and Egypt. After that he became a civilian, he is a civilian now.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I brought up my son not as a Jewish child. Of course he knows that he is a Jew, but it is not of great importance for him: he is a citizen of the Russian Federation. He is not religious at all; he does not know Jewish language and takes part in no Jewish events.
I never came across Anti-Semitism: all my life I was an officer, a naval man - I never felt it. But at present I realize that it was Anti-Semitism that caused my demobilization at the age of 30. In 1953 I was dismissed, regardless of the fact that I was an excellent graduate of the Higher Officers Classes for Hydrography Specialists. I guess it happened because I was a Jew [26]. But being in the army, I never felt it. I was a commanding officer, I was a chief, but we did not know words ‘You are Jewish.’ Around me there were Uzbeks, Azerbaijanians, Tadjiks, and Ukrainians. We were at war. After the end of the war I also did not come across something of that kind: they sent me adroad… But there were rumours about people (not my friends), who were dangerously touched… I was far from it, because I am a Russian man of Jewish origin.
The rear admiral made a telephone call ‘Comrade Khryaschev, come to me.’ Major Khryaschev was the chief of the navy housing department. ‘What about our new house? Is it already occupied?’ – ‘Not yet, we will do it tomorrow.’ – ‘Give this officer a room.’ – ‘Yes, sir!’ That was the way I got a room in a two-room apartment. The guys, my friends, nearly killed me: ‘We stay here for 4 or 5 years! We pay 700 roubles per month to rent a room! And you got it during your first month here!’ A blessing in disguise.
It was a block of 8 flats: 4 apartments on each floor. We lived on the second floor: the larger room was occupied by the chief of communication service Vassiliy Pudrikov. We lived in the smaller room. We used firewood to heat premises and had to bring water in buckets. That chief’s wife Polina called him Vassilyek, and my son used to say ‘Look, Polina, your Kossilyek has come!’ [Kosselyek is a purse in Russian, it is concordant with endearing word his wife chose to call her husband.
It was a block of 8 flats: 4 apartments on each floor. We lived on the second floor: the larger room was occupied by the chief of communication service Vassiliy Pudrikov. We lived in the smaller room. We used firewood to heat premises and had to bring water in buckets. That chief’s wife Polina called him Vassilyek, and my son used to say ‘Look, Polina, your Kossilyek has come!’ [Kosselyek is a purse in Russian, it is concordant with endearing word his wife chose to call her husband.
Three years had passed since I finished my School, it was necessary to go on studying; I decided to enter the Higher Officers Classes for Hydrography Specialists in Leningrad. I was the best graduate: I became a lieutenant commander and was sent to the Pacific Ocean. As the best student, I had the right to choose fleet. They said ‘Sure, you may choose, but we know that you served in the south.’ – ‘I am ready to serve on the Baltic Sea. Do I have the right to choose fleet?’ - ‘Yes, you do.’ … And they sent me to the Pacific Ocean. Probably, my Jewish origin played its role: it happened in 1951.
I arrived in Sovetskaya Gavan on the Pacific Ocean: conditions there were even harder than in Vladivostok. [Sovetskaya Gavan is a city in the Far East of Russia.] [Vladivostok is a city-port in the Far East of Russia.] A nightmare! I went to headquarters and said ‘As I got to the Pacific Ocean, I ask you to give me an opportunity to go further - to Kamchatka.’ I already got to know that in Kamchatka one had an opportunity to serve only 3 years, whereas in Sovetskaya Gavan it was possible to spend a hundred years or even more. They told me that in Kamchatka there were no duties of a commander. I said ‘Guys, I’ll give you a receipt that I do not object to be appointed to any post, but in Kamchatka.’ My wife and my child (1 year and a half old) were together with me: they lived in a barge (there was no other place for living). It was heated by means of a small stove: ice on one side, warmth on the other one. That was the way officers lived at that time. Certainly, they sent me to Kamchatka.
We got to Vladivostok, got on board the steamship, and went to Kamchatka, to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy.
I arrived in Sovetskaya Gavan on the Pacific Ocean: conditions there were even harder than in Vladivostok. [Sovetskaya Gavan is a city in the Far East of Russia.] [Vladivostok is a city-port in the Far East of Russia.] A nightmare! I went to headquarters and said ‘As I got to the Pacific Ocean, I ask you to give me an opportunity to go further - to Kamchatka.’ I already got to know that in Kamchatka one had an opportunity to serve only 3 years, whereas in Sovetskaya Gavan it was possible to spend a hundred years or even more. They told me that in Kamchatka there were no duties of a commander. I said ‘Guys, I’ll give you a receipt that I do not object to be appointed to any post, but in Kamchatka.’ My wife and my child (1 year and a half old) were together with me: they lived in a barge (there was no other place for living). It was heated by means of a small stove: ice on one side, warmth on the other one. That was the way officers lived at that time. Certainly, they sent me to Kamchatka.
We got to Vladivostok, got on board the steamship, and went to Kamchatka, to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
When we got acquainted with her, she worked as a pioneer leader at school. We got married and she did not work for some time. Later she entered the Leningrad College of Soviet Trade and Economy. She became a financier, and works as a financier up to date.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Her name was Serafima Rabinovich, a Jewess. If I am not mistaken, she was born in Belarus (in Mogilev) in 1928, on 31st December. But before the war she lived in Sevastopol with her parents Abram and Raissa. Raissa was a housewife, and I do not remember her father’s profession. Her family was not religious, her mother tongue was Russian.
At that time I got acquainted with my future wife – it happened in the House of Officers during some celebration. We got married when I returned home from abroad finally.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
In Kerch I served during one year (in 1947-1948), until they sent me back to Sevastopol and half a year later - abroad, to the Danube River.
Suddenly they called me and told that there came an order from Moscow to send me on Danube, to the Danube Military River Flotilla. ‘Very good!’ I got my documents and left for Izmail. [Izmail is a city on the Danube River near the Romanian border.] After my arrival they said ‘You go adroad for postwar creeping.’ Danube was stuffed with mines: Germans dropped them, Russians dropped, Americans and French did it. It meant that Danube was completely unsuitable for navigation: mines were everywhere. As for me I was an experienced specialist in creeping: I did it on the Black Sea and on the Azov Sea, too. On the Azov Sea I was blown up and thrown overboard, nearly died… And there it was necessary to creep all Danube long: through Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria. It was necessary to creep, and I was appointed for that job – I do not know for what sins or battle services. We were in the process of training for about a month, our commander estimated our achievements, taught us the way to behave (you know, in the USSR authorities always taught people how to behave), etc. And we started: from Germany to Bulgaria twenty two times! That means that we shuttled over each area 22 times, because Germans made special magnetic mines, which reacted only to the 22nd pass of a ship: the first ship passed by – nothing happened, the second one passed – nothing happened, and only the 22nd one caused explosion. That means that twenty one ships could pass over that dangerous place safe, and the 22nd one had to be lost. That is why we moved there and back over every area 22 times, and then passed on to the next one – again and again along the whole river. Only after we finished, navigation was opened.
Vienna was damaged greatly. In Budapest all five bridges across the Danube River were destroyed [editor's note: the interviewee is wrong, there were seven bridges across the Danube]; and in 1948 all of them were still in ruins down in the Danube; people used bridges of boats, though 4 years had passed since Hungary was liberated. Situation in Belgrad was better. In Belgrad they started to develop uninhabited islands in the mouth of Drava River: they arranged communist subbotniks [24] (they were all Communists), where millions of people worked under banners and flags to ‘build the best decoration of the Earth.’ They worked so enthusiastically! They were building new city. At present that place is very beautiful.
I saw Marshal Tito, Rankovich, Kardel, Milutinovich, and doctor Ribar: in fact, I saw all the Yugoslavian history. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia followed our socialist way of development, except Yugoslavia. However hard Stalin tried to break them down, Tito went capitalist way. Therefore in Pravda Newspaper there appeared an article, signed by the CC [the Communist Party Central Committee] - we all knew that that signature meant Stalin himself, he wrote it personally (we recognized his style). It was titled ‘What is the future of the country leaded by the Anti-Communist Tito’s clique?’ There was a caricature: Tito holding an axe, and blood flows down from it. At that time the 5th congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was held in Belgrad. And I was in Belgrad at that moment. In the streets there were tanks, portraits of Stalin and Tito, and slogans ‘Long live Marshal Tito! Long live comrade Stalin!’ Tito gave a five-hour report, I understood it a little (we learned their language), listening to the report by the radio.
Two weeks later they offered us to leave, to go home. By that time I moved from a flat in Belgrad to our ship (they ordered us to move). And as soon as we finished creeping, they ordered us to go home. So I witnessed to moment, when they separated from us, from the Communist International. And only Khrushchev [25] managed to renew contacts many years later. And other countries were with us. I visited Bratislava several times (the former Czechoslovakia), but I have never been to Prague. I have been to Budapest, Bucharest, Bulgaria, and Austria (in Vienna). I simply went there for a walk, when our ship moored there. And in Yugoslavia I managed to spend about 20 days in a hospital. In Novi Sad city there was a Hospital of Yugoslavian National Army - Hospital no.3. I caught cold, and had 22 furuncules and running temperature. I could not sit, lie down, I ate and slept upright. At first I was treated by our doctors, but it went from bad to worse, and they decided to send me to a hospital. They brought me there and left alone.
I was placed in the officer’s ward: 5 beds (4 Yugoslavs and me). But they loved us: ‘Oh! Here is our friend captain!’ I was a lieutenant commander (a captain). They spoke Russian a little, and I knew Yugoslavian a little, because in 1945, 5 Yugoslav's came to study in our School: 2 captains, a senior lieutenant, a lieutenant and a private. And I was appointed to show them Leningrad, to teach them Russian. We made friends. They were Mario Ostoich, Rade Stiela, and Tonko Zanetich. All of them were given Soviet uniform (they arrived in Yugoslavian uniform). I brought them round the city, taught them Russian. And they studied at our School, finished it and left for Yugoslavia. Therefore when I talked to Yugoslavs in the hospital, I already understood a lot of their words. I spent there about 20 days, and then my guys visited me and told me that they were going to leave for Vienna (Austria). ‘What shall we do with you?’ I answered ‘It’s enough, I am going to leave the hospital!’ The hospital command did not object: I was a Soviet officer, they gave me a certificate of health and I left.
But still I was sick. It lasted 2 months more, but not in a hospital. Therefore they gave me a holiday and I went to Simferopol, to my father’s. People working abroad had 45-day leave, in contrast to others (others had only 30 days). I reached Bucharest by transeuropean train Paris – Bucharest, and then I moved to Galatz, crossed the Soviet border and arrived in Izmail. [Galatz is the city-port on the Danube River in Romania.] We did not receive salary during a year, we had savings books. Therefore I arrived very hungry: I could not buy food, having no cash. First of all I went to the bank and received 22 thousand roubles. Rye-bread cost 16 copecks, white bread cost 9 copecks, sausage cost 2 roubles and 20 copecks per kilogram. I wore white uniform (it was summer), I was filling my pockets with money and people stared at me… A car waited for me, I ordered the driver to go to a restaurant. There I ordered meals for the driver and for myself. Then we went to buy a train ticket, and the next day morning I arrived in Odessa. I immediately went to the airport and on April 30 I was already in Simferopol in the face of my father. May 1st was my birthday.
Suddenly they called me and told that there came an order from Moscow to send me on Danube, to the Danube Military River Flotilla. ‘Very good!’ I got my documents and left for Izmail. [Izmail is a city on the Danube River near the Romanian border.] After my arrival they said ‘You go adroad for postwar creeping.’ Danube was stuffed with mines: Germans dropped them, Russians dropped, Americans and French did it. It meant that Danube was completely unsuitable for navigation: mines were everywhere. As for me I was an experienced specialist in creeping: I did it on the Black Sea and on the Azov Sea, too. On the Azov Sea I was blown up and thrown overboard, nearly died… And there it was necessary to creep all Danube long: through Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria. It was necessary to creep, and I was appointed for that job – I do not know for what sins or battle services. We were in the process of training for about a month, our commander estimated our achievements, taught us the way to behave (you know, in the USSR authorities always taught people how to behave), etc. And we started: from Germany to Bulgaria twenty two times! That means that we shuttled over each area 22 times, because Germans made special magnetic mines, which reacted only to the 22nd pass of a ship: the first ship passed by – nothing happened, the second one passed – nothing happened, and only the 22nd one caused explosion. That means that twenty one ships could pass over that dangerous place safe, and the 22nd one had to be lost. That is why we moved there and back over every area 22 times, and then passed on to the next one – again and again along the whole river. Only after we finished, navigation was opened.
Vienna was damaged greatly. In Budapest all five bridges across the Danube River were destroyed [editor's note: the interviewee is wrong, there were seven bridges across the Danube]; and in 1948 all of them were still in ruins down in the Danube; people used bridges of boats, though 4 years had passed since Hungary was liberated. Situation in Belgrad was better. In Belgrad they started to develop uninhabited islands in the mouth of Drava River: they arranged communist subbotniks [24] (they were all Communists), where millions of people worked under banners and flags to ‘build the best decoration of the Earth.’ They worked so enthusiastically! They were building new city. At present that place is very beautiful.
I saw Marshal Tito, Rankovich, Kardel, Milutinovich, and doctor Ribar: in fact, I saw all the Yugoslavian history. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia followed our socialist way of development, except Yugoslavia. However hard Stalin tried to break them down, Tito went capitalist way. Therefore in Pravda Newspaper there appeared an article, signed by the CC [the Communist Party Central Committee] - we all knew that that signature meant Stalin himself, he wrote it personally (we recognized his style). It was titled ‘What is the future of the country leaded by the Anti-Communist Tito’s clique?’ There was a caricature: Tito holding an axe, and blood flows down from it. At that time the 5th congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was held in Belgrad. And I was in Belgrad at that moment. In the streets there were tanks, portraits of Stalin and Tito, and slogans ‘Long live Marshal Tito! Long live comrade Stalin!’ Tito gave a five-hour report, I understood it a little (we learned their language), listening to the report by the radio.
Two weeks later they offered us to leave, to go home. By that time I moved from a flat in Belgrad to our ship (they ordered us to move). And as soon as we finished creeping, they ordered us to go home. So I witnessed to moment, when they separated from us, from the Communist International. And only Khrushchev [25] managed to renew contacts many years later. And other countries were with us. I visited Bratislava several times (the former Czechoslovakia), but I have never been to Prague. I have been to Budapest, Bucharest, Bulgaria, and Austria (in Vienna). I simply went there for a walk, when our ship moored there. And in Yugoslavia I managed to spend about 20 days in a hospital. In Novi Sad city there was a Hospital of Yugoslavian National Army - Hospital no.3. I caught cold, and had 22 furuncules and running temperature. I could not sit, lie down, I ate and slept upright. At first I was treated by our doctors, but it went from bad to worse, and they decided to send me to a hospital. They brought me there and left alone.
I was placed in the officer’s ward: 5 beds (4 Yugoslavs and me). But they loved us: ‘Oh! Here is our friend captain!’ I was a lieutenant commander (a captain). They spoke Russian a little, and I knew Yugoslavian a little, because in 1945, 5 Yugoslav's came to study in our School: 2 captains, a senior lieutenant, a lieutenant and a private. And I was appointed to show them Leningrad, to teach them Russian. We made friends. They were Mario Ostoich, Rade Stiela, and Tonko Zanetich. All of them were given Soviet uniform (they arrived in Yugoslavian uniform). I brought them round the city, taught them Russian. And they studied at our School, finished it and left for Yugoslavia. Therefore when I talked to Yugoslavs in the hospital, I already understood a lot of their words. I spent there about 20 days, and then my guys visited me and told me that they were going to leave for Vienna (Austria). ‘What shall we do with you?’ I answered ‘It’s enough, I am going to leave the hospital!’ The hospital command did not object: I was a Soviet officer, they gave me a certificate of health and I left.
But still I was sick. It lasted 2 months more, but not in a hospital. Therefore they gave me a holiday and I went to Simferopol, to my father’s. People working abroad had 45-day leave, in contrast to others (others had only 30 days). I reached Bucharest by transeuropean train Paris – Bucharest, and then I moved to Galatz, crossed the Soviet border and arrived in Izmail. [Galatz is the city-port on the Danube River in Romania.] We did not receive salary during a year, we had savings books. Therefore I arrived very hungry: I could not buy food, having no cash. First of all I went to the bank and received 22 thousand roubles. Rye-bread cost 16 copecks, white bread cost 9 copecks, sausage cost 2 roubles and 20 copecks per kilogram. I wore white uniform (it was summer), I was filling my pockets with money and people stared at me… A car waited for me, I ordered the driver to go to a restaurant. There I ordered meals for the driver and for myself. Then we went to buy a train ticket, and the next day morning I arrived in Odessa. I immediately went to the airport and on April 30 I was already in Simferopol in the face of my father. May 1st was my birthday.
On the 3rd course I became a lieutenant commander for my long service: I was at war! Being an excellent cadet and a former front-line soldier, I had the right to choose the fleet to serve at. I chose the Black Sea, because I was born there. I arrived in Sevastopol and said ‘I want to serve in Kerch.’ As I was a specialist in hydrography, I was appointed to research hydrographic group. [Sevastopol is a city-port in Crimea.] I arrived in Kerch: earlier I was simply Boris, and by that time I became a four-star lieutenant commander.
I started thinking where I to go after the hospital. Of course, to the front. Later I decided that it would be better to join Lev. By means of field mail he informed me that he was able to take me to his unit. And it meant serving not at the front line, but somewhere in a financial department. By that time I already was a senior lieutenant. And my uncle arranged a request from the front line, from his unit ‘… to detach the senior lieutenant Lesman to our unit.’ But at that time I got to know by chance that according to Stalin’s order, all man-of-war's men had to return to fleet. All of us were in infantry: they threw us to Stalingrad on feet, because the course of war events was extremely hard. I addressed the hospital command, and they answered ‘We have no right to send you to the School: we do not know such order of comrade Stalin.’ – ‘But I have official information that they return seamen!’ – ‘Certainly we can send you to the front line. Otherwise you have to recall your assignment.’ And I wrote my uncle (nervously and urgently) ‘Lev, I have an opportunity to get back to the Navy School, please recall your request.’
And they sent a telegram from the front line ‘We do not object to sending Lesman to the Navy School.’ That was the way I got back to the School and finished the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th course and became a seaman. So Lev made a good act, a very good act for me: my uncle turned to be very fine to me! We were 5 on the course, who returned from the front according to the Stalin’s order; in total 22 cadets from 300 were back at School. I returned to School, which was in evacuation in Baku, at the end of April 1944. On 4th July 1944 the School got back to Leningrad, because the siege had been already raised. Destructions were not great, but people changed a lot, naturally: they starved 900 days during the siege. Leningrad looked not very attractively, but it was already clean: its citizens already introduced order in it.
And they sent a telegram from the front line ‘We do not object to sending Lesman to the Navy School.’ That was the way I got back to the School and finished the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th course and became a seaman. So Lev made a good act, a very good act for me: my uncle turned to be very fine to me! We were 5 on the course, who returned from the front according to the Stalin’s order; in total 22 cadets from 300 were back at School. I returned to School, which was in evacuation in Baku, at the end of April 1944. On 4th July 1944 the School got back to Leningrad, because the siege had been already raised. Destructions were not great, but people changed a lot, naturally: they starved 900 days during the siege. Leningrad looked not very attractively, but it was already clean: its citizens already introduced order in it.
Once on the Ukraine front in Antratsit city we held the line during April, May, and June 1943. Germans did not disturb us, neither did we. Peaceful life was around us: Ukraine, summer - amazing time... I was a batallion commander, a senior lieutenant. I do not remember how it happened, but there appeared a photographer, and took a photo of us together with Boulatnikov, a headquarters commander. We were standing in the street, when a very young girl passed by. I said ‘Let’s have our picture taken!’ And she agreed. After that she left and I know nothing about her name or place of residence. She lived in Antratsit, and she was about 17 or 18 years old - that was all I knew about her.
At that time I served in the 51st army, where I managed to get, thanks to my teacher of physics.
About 40 years have passed. In 1983 or 1982 I was invited to Antratsit to participate in some celebration. We were 7 (former soldiers). Hospitality of local citizens was fantastic - we had been among those who liberated their city. They arranged tasty meal for us and invited to the local museum, where showed an exposition devoted to our division and regiment.
At that time I served in the 51st army, where I managed to get, thanks to my teacher of physics.
About 40 years have passed. In 1983 or 1982 I was invited to Antratsit to participate in some celebration. We were 7 (former soldiers). Hospitality of local citizens was fantastic - we had been among those who liberated their city. They arranged tasty meal for us and invited to the local museum, where showed an exposition devoted to our division and regiment.
November 19 became the Day of Artillery and Rocket Troops, because it was the day of full-scale offensive in Stalingrad. I was a lieutenant, an assistant of company commander, but by the end of the day I already became a company commander. Statistics tells us that during that battle, a terrible, a dreadful battle platoon leader commanders lived 3 days. On the fourth day they were either killed or wounded; company commanders lived 7 days. I became a company commander and managed to drag out my life from November 19 till December 2. The temperature was 30 degrees below zero, and we wore thin socks and naval boxcalf boots. We were in field caps! 30 degrees below zero!
I went to commissary and asked to give me a pistol. They gave me a rifle, an old Russian rifle, rusty. Sergeant fired it several times to clean it and gave it to me. ‘I am a lieutenant.’ – ‘Procure a gun in action! We have no pistols!’ To tell the truth, by evening 18 people remained from 100, and only 1 officer – me. So, I was a company commander, I was a platoon leader commander, and I was a section leader at the same time. There was no place to take cover: it was impossible to dig trenches, because the ground was frozen – that was the way we ‘amused ourselves’.
There I got my feet and hands frostbitten and also was wounded - therefore in the hospital they treated me both for my wound and for chilblain. A German sniper managed to take aim at us: we had to lie down on the ground covered with snow; we could not move our hands or legs (he would have shot us). And we were underclad… We had to lie still till dark. We were two: I and a political officer [23] lieutenant Diveykin. Our hands and feet got absolutely frostbitten: we were in boxcalf boots and in rag gloves – not suitable for winter conditions. And only after dark we started rolling over and crawling away. At that time the sniper wounded me in the buttock by an explosive bullet. And the same bullet caused a fatal wound in the stomach of Diveykin. When we reached our positions, we were brought to a hospital. In the hospital a doctor looked at me (I was 19 years old – a child) and said to a soldier ‘Bring him (me) to the operating-room, and take that guy over there.’ – ‘Where?!’ – ‘Over there, I said: he is dead.’ On our way to the hospital he spoke to me, he called me ‘lieutenant’! So, I was quickly operated, and Diveykin…
They took me away to Uralsk to a hospital, where I spent a month and several days. [Uralsk is a city in Kazakhstan.] After that I left hospital and went to the front via Saratov. [Saratov is a city on the Volga River.] In Saratov I spent a day or two. And once early in the morning I was walking to Saratov railway station to learn about the departure time of the train from Saratov to Stalingrad front (in south direction). And I was walking along an empty street (January, 7 o’clock in the morning, snowstorm) and suddenly saw a figure across the street: that was my uncle Lev! Can you imagine that it could happen during the war, at 7 o’clock in the morning! I embraced him. He was a junior lieutenant, I was a lieutenant. We embraced and kissed ‘Where are you from?’ – ‘I am from hospital. And you?’ – ‘I go from the Caucasus (Germans were already in the Caucasus by January 1942) to our headquarters to get informed about my destination.’ – ‘Do you have a place to live here?’ – ‘No, I don’t’ – ‘Come with me!’ And we spent 2 days together with him. Later I left Saratov, but I gave him my father’s address in Chapaevsk, and through my father we found each other: got to know our field mail addresses.
It was my first wound. I have got to Stalingrad front. By that time Paulus troops had already been encircled, but not taken yet. So I was moving to the south by train. I was lying on the upper berth (my wound still bothered me). Three officers were sitting below: two lieutenants and one junior lieutenant. They were talking, suddenly I looked at that junior lieutenant … and understood that I knew him! ‘Konstantin Vassilyevich! Hi!’ He looked at me. I said ‘Konstantin Vassilyevich, don’t you recognize me? You are my teacher of physics, and I am Lesman …’ – ‘Oh, Boris!’ We embraced …
He was a junior lieutenant. He said ‘Boris, where are you going?’ – ‘To our headquarters.’ – ‘Listen, come with me, to our army. We will be there together.’ – ‘But can it cause any troubles for me?’ – ‘No, you will go to the front line, not to back areas!’ – ‘Where shall we go? To the front headquarters?’ – ‘No, it is not necessary! We will go directly to the army headquarters.’ And so we arrived there. They asked me ‘Do you want to serve in our army?’ – ‘Yes, I do.’ – ‘Good. What position did you occupy before you were wounded?’ – ‘I was a company commander.’ – ‘Good.’ And I found myself in the rifle division no. 302 as a company commander. Thanks to my teacher I became one of them through and through. We liberated half of Ukraine, when Germans managed to defeat our division, and we were taken off from the front line and sent to Voronezh region, to heartland (it happened in July). [Voronezh is a city in the Central Russia, 500 km far from Moscow.] There we got new weapon, new soldiers, because we had lost many people. And I was appointed a battalion commander (about thousand people). And you remember that I was a twenty-years-old senior lieutenant! Two fourty-years-old captains and several senior lieutenants much older than me were subordinate to me. I fought for my country very well.
From Voronezh region we were transferred to Ukraine, where I was wounded badly for the last time: for about seven months I have been treated in hospital in Kuybyshev.
I went to commissary and asked to give me a pistol. They gave me a rifle, an old Russian rifle, rusty. Sergeant fired it several times to clean it and gave it to me. ‘I am a lieutenant.’ – ‘Procure a gun in action! We have no pistols!’ To tell the truth, by evening 18 people remained from 100, and only 1 officer – me. So, I was a company commander, I was a platoon leader commander, and I was a section leader at the same time. There was no place to take cover: it was impossible to dig trenches, because the ground was frozen – that was the way we ‘amused ourselves’.
There I got my feet and hands frostbitten and also was wounded - therefore in the hospital they treated me both for my wound and for chilblain. A German sniper managed to take aim at us: we had to lie down on the ground covered with snow; we could not move our hands or legs (he would have shot us). And we were underclad… We had to lie still till dark. We were two: I and a political officer [23] lieutenant Diveykin. Our hands and feet got absolutely frostbitten: we were in boxcalf boots and in rag gloves – not suitable for winter conditions. And only after dark we started rolling over and crawling away. At that time the sniper wounded me in the buttock by an explosive bullet. And the same bullet caused a fatal wound in the stomach of Diveykin. When we reached our positions, we were brought to a hospital. In the hospital a doctor looked at me (I was 19 years old – a child) and said to a soldier ‘Bring him (me) to the operating-room, and take that guy over there.’ – ‘Where?!’ – ‘Over there, I said: he is dead.’ On our way to the hospital he spoke to me, he called me ‘lieutenant’! So, I was quickly operated, and Diveykin…
They took me away to Uralsk to a hospital, where I spent a month and several days. [Uralsk is a city in Kazakhstan.] After that I left hospital and went to the front via Saratov. [Saratov is a city on the Volga River.] In Saratov I spent a day or two. And once early in the morning I was walking to Saratov railway station to learn about the departure time of the train from Saratov to Stalingrad front (in south direction). And I was walking along an empty street (January, 7 o’clock in the morning, snowstorm) and suddenly saw a figure across the street: that was my uncle Lev! Can you imagine that it could happen during the war, at 7 o’clock in the morning! I embraced him. He was a junior lieutenant, I was a lieutenant. We embraced and kissed ‘Where are you from?’ – ‘I am from hospital. And you?’ – ‘I go from the Caucasus (Germans were already in the Caucasus by January 1942) to our headquarters to get informed about my destination.’ – ‘Do you have a place to live here?’ – ‘No, I don’t’ – ‘Come with me!’ And we spent 2 days together with him. Later I left Saratov, but I gave him my father’s address in Chapaevsk, and through my father we found each other: got to know our field mail addresses.
It was my first wound. I have got to Stalingrad front. By that time Paulus troops had already been encircled, but not taken yet. So I was moving to the south by train. I was lying on the upper berth (my wound still bothered me). Three officers were sitting below: two lieutenants and one junior lieutenant. They were talking, suddenly I looked at that junior lieutenant … and understood that I knew him! ‘Konstantin Vassilyevich! Hi!’ He looked at me. I said ‘Konstantin Vassilyevich, don’t you recognize me? You are my teacher of physics, and I am Lesman …’ – ‘Oh, Boris!’ We embraced …
He was a junior lieutenant. He said ‘Boris, where are you going?’ – ‘To our headquarters.’ – ‘Listen, come with me, to our army. We will be there together.’ – ‘But can it cause any troubles for me?’ – ‘No, you will go to the front line, not to back areas!’ – ‘Where shall we go? To the front headquarters?’ – ‘No, it is not necessary! We will go directly to the army headquarters.’ And so we arrived there. They asked me ‘Do you want to serve in our army?’ – ‘Yes, I do.’ – ‘Good. What position did you occupy before you were wounded?’ – ‘I was a company commander.’ – ‘Good.’ And I found myself in the rifle division no. 302 as a company commander. Thanks to my teacher I became one of them through and through. We liberated half of Ukraine, when Germans managed to defeat our division, and we were taken off from the front line and sent to Voronezh region, to heartland (it happened in July). [Voronezh is a city in the Central Russia, 500 km far from Moscow.] There we got new weapon, new soldiers, because we had lost many people. And I was appointed a battalion commander (about thousand people). And you remember that I was a twenty-years-old senior lieutenant! Two fourty-years-old captains and several senior lieutenants much older than me were subordinate to me. I fought for my country very well.
From Voronezh region we were transferred to Ukraine, where I was wounded badly for the last time: for about seven months I have been treated in hospital in Kuybyshev.
Most of all I was afraid of being captured: I was Jewish, a Communist Party member, an officer. I joined the Communist Party at the front; I went into actions crying ‘For our native land! For Stalin!’ We had no idea that Stalin was a devil incarnate. And we knew nothing about ideology of Fascism.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
I entered the Naval School on July 3, as soon as I arrived from Kerch, and in August I was already at the front, here in Leningrad. I was a machine gunner (they changed our cloths for infantry uniform). At the end of September they brought us back to Leningrad and changed our uniform for naval one. We starved in blockade for three months, till December 9. On December 9, 1941 we were brought to Ladoga Lake [39 km far from St. Petersburg]. The Lake was already ice-bound, and 1 day and a half we went on foot across the Ladoga Lake to Kobona. [Kobona is a settlement on the east coast of the Ladoga Lake, where they accepted people evacuated from the besieged Leningrad.] And we happened to loose our way at night walking through the ‘ice desert’ and went towards German positions. We were lucky to be noticed and set on the right way by ski patrols of the Road of Life [20].
We walked about 50 km across the Ladoga Lake: it was terribly windy and frosty. On my left there walked Sergey Akhromeev (later he became a USSR Marshal and a Hero of the Soviet Union [21]), and on my right – Evgeniy Markin. All of us were cold and lousy, because we had no opportunity to wash. We suffered from starvation! During the hardest period of the siege people received 125 grammes of bread per day, and we got 250 gr. From Kobona we went on foot to Tikhvin. [Tikhvin is a city 140 km far from the Ladoga Lake; front line went across Tikhvin.] At that time Tikhvin was recaptured and was full of corpses: both German and Soviet. We were told to take away corpses. They promised to give us supplementary ration for it. We did it and received half-pack of porridge concentrate and two small bits of sugar each. In Tikhvin we got into the train and moved to Astrakhan: our School had been already evacuated there. [Astrakhan is a city in the Delta of the Volga River.]
It took us a month to get to Astrakhan by train. We got terribly dirty - black! But we were well fed, in compare with Leningrad.
We arrived in Astrakhan on 10th January 1942. Immediately from the railway station we were brought to bath-house, they gave us clean uniform and took to our School. And we started our studies. At first I studied at the command faculty. But soon we got to know that a lot of students from Hydrographic school perished on the ice of Ladoga Lake. Therefore in Astrakhan they offered us to change the faculty in case we wished. I agreed to change for hydrographic department, because I wanted to get engineering education.
Having finished the first course, we went for practice to a village near Astrakhan. As far as I was a specialist in hydrography, I fulfilled topographical survey.
By that time German troops approached Volga (Stalingrad, Volgograd at present). Our School students immediately finished their practical studies and moved to Baku. But we, specialists in topography (‘educated’ already after a year of studies) were made lieutenants: those who had not very good marks for exams became junior lieutenants, and those who had good and excellent marks (like me, for example) became lieutenants. And we were sent to Stalingrad hell [22]. It was the time of the famous Stalingrad battle. By the way, not all students, specialists in hydrography were sent to the front line (only 28 from 100). And the rest 72 did not participate.
We walked about 50 km across the Ladoga Lake: it was terribly windy and frosty. On my left there walked Sergey Akhromeev (later he became a USSR Marshal and a Hero of the Soviet Union [21]), and on my right – Evgeniy Markin. All of us were cold and lousy, because we had no opportunity to wash. We suffered from starvation! During the hardest period of the siege people received 125 grammes of bread per day, and we got 250 gr. From Kobona we went on foot to Tikhvin. [Tikhvin is a city 140 km far from the Ladoga Lake; front line went across Tikhvin.] At that time Tikhvin was recaptured and was full of corpses: both German and Soviet. We were told to take away corpses. They promised to give us supplementary ration for it. We did it and received half-pack of porridge concentrate and two small bits of sugar each. In Tikhvin we got into the train and moved to Astrakhan: our School had been already evacuated there. [Astrakhan is a city in the Delta of the Volga River.]
It took us a month to get to Astrakhan by train. We got terribly dirty - black! But we were well fed, in compare with Leningrad.
We arrived in Astrakhan on 10th January 1942. Immediately from the railway station we were brought to bath-house, they gave us clean uniform and took to our School. And we started our studies. At first I studied at the command faculty. But soon we got to know that a lot of students from Hydrographic school perished on the ice of Ladoga Lake. Therefore in Astrakhan they offered us to change the faculty in case we wished. I agreed to change for hydrographic department, because I wanted to get engineering education.
Having finished the first course, we went for practice to a village near Astrakhan. As far as I was a specialist in hydrography, I fulfilled topographical survey.
By that time German troops approached Volga (Stalingrad, Volgograd at present). Our School students immediately finished their practical studies and moved to Baku. But we, specialists in topography (‘educated’ already after a year of studies) were made lieutenants: those who had not very good marks for exams became junior lieutenants, and those who had good and excellent marks (like me, for example) became lieutenants. And we were sent to Stalingrad hell [22]. It was the time of the famous Stalingrad battle. By the way, not all students, specialists in hydrography were sent to the front line (only 28 from 100). And the rest 72 did not participate.
Before war my father worked as a civilian legal adviser at a military training ground, which was based near Kerch. As my father was not subject to call because of his disease, in 1941 he together with his wife and child was evacuated to Chapaevsk of Kuybyshev region. [Kuybyshev is a city in Urals, Samara at present.
Here I entered the Naval School named after Frunze [19]. I sent there my document beforehand, in 1940. That School celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2001 (it is older, than St. Petersburg itself, because it was created in 1701, and St. Petersburg - in 1703). According to the decree of the President Eltsin it was renamed Naval College of Peter the Great.
Seamen were always rich, having 8 variants of uniform. No.1 - white trousers, white jacket with high collar and white cap; no.2 - black trousers, white jacket with high collar; no.3 - black trousers, black jacket with high collar and black cap; no.4 - no.3 + pea-jacket; no.5 - no.3 + overcoat and sailor's cap or uniform cap; no.6 - the same + fur-cap; no.7 - the same + tied up fur-cap; no.8 - a sheepskin.
I had a lot of friends at the College: Markin Eugeny (he died already); Pautov Nikolay (he lives in Petrodvorets); Alexander Zaharov (he died); Baboshin Eugeny (handicapped: he lost his leg at the front; he has already died); Chernov Yury (he was a member of Association of Writers: he managed to graduate from the Literary College in Moscow after retirement in the rank of captain, he died already); Novimzon Abram (we served together on the Black sea (in Kerch), later he served in Vladivostok, and I went to Kamchatka, and we met in Vladivostok several times. Later we moved to Leningrad, and he visited me million times. Now he lives in Haifa). We use to gather at the Naval School every year on the 9th of May (to celebrate the Victory Day).
Seamen were always rich, having 8 variants of uniform. No.1 - white trousers, white jacket with high collar and white cap; no.2 - black trousers, white jacket with high collar; no.3 - black trousers, black jacket with high collar and black cap; no.4 - no.3 + pea-jacket; no.5 - no.3 + overcoat and sailor's cap or uniform cap; no.6 - the same + fur-cap; no.7 - the same + tied up fur-cap; no.8 - a sheepskin.
I had a lot of friends at the College: Markin Eugeny (he died already); Pautov Nikolay (he lives in Petrodvorets); Alexander Zaharov (he died); Baboshin Eugeny (handicapped: he lost his leg at the front; he has already died); Chernov Yury (he was a member of Association of Writers: he managed to graduate from the Literary College in Moscow after retirement in the rank of captain, he died already); Novimzon Abram (we served together on the Black sea (in Kerch), later he served in Vladivostok, and I went to Kamchatka, and we met in Vladivostok several times. Later we moved to Leningrad, and he visited me million times. Now he lives in Haifa). We use to gather at the Naval School every year on the 9th of May (to celebrate the Victory Day).
When the World War II burst out, we did not attach importance to it. Probably, it happened because we were boys, not adults.
On June 14, 1941 I finished my school, on June 22 we were going to hold a meeting in celebration of it, but that day the war burst out. They cancelled our banquet, gave us urgently our certificates, and that was all. Approximately for a week I stayed in Kerch, and Komsomol leaders appointed me to be a company commander. We participated in patroling the city streets (2 or 3 men together). And a week later I left for Leningrad.
On June 14, 1941 I finished my school, on June 22 we were going to hold a meeting in celebration of it, but that day the war burst out. They cancelled our banquet, gave us urgently our certificates, and that was all. Approximately for a week I stayed in Kerch, and Komsomol leaders appointed me to be a company commander. We participated in patroling the city streets (2 or 3 men together). And a week later I left for Leningrad.