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In early July 1941 we again had to flee from the advancing Germans, this time into the Soviet interior, and somehow we ended up in the Kharkov area [a city in north-eastern Ukraine, close to the Russian border], thinking that the war wouldn’t get that far and we’d be able to wait things through. We were there for a month or two, and in October, when a new German offensive started, we had to flee again.
This time it was on foot, walking through mud so deep you had to watch not to lose your shoes. We were walking like this for 10, 15 kilometers a day. Until we reached some train station and got by train to the Saratov district [city in Russia, some 1900 km east of Kharkov], and there father simply reported to the authorities and applied for work. They sent us to the countryside, a small town, a village, actually, called Balanda [730 km north-east of Saratov], and there we stopped, they already treated us as refugees. We settled there, it was late fall 1941.
This time it was on foot, walking through mud so deep you had to watch not to lose your shoes. We were walking like this for 10, 15 kilometers a day. Until we reached some train station and got by train to the Saratov district [city in Russia, some 1900 km east of Kharkov], and there father simply reported to the authorities and applied for work. They sent us to the countryside, a small town, a village, actually, called Balanda [730 km north-east of Saratov], and there we stopped, they already treated us as refugees. We settled there, it was late fall 1941.
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Interview
Estera Migdalska
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