Tag #107485 - Interview #78781 (Gustawa Birencwajg)

Meanwhile, they had started catching us for labor. That is - deportations! They deported us, but they said it was for work. My husband said, 'We can sign up for work.' I said I didn't want to... Some plants in Russia were recruiting employees and my husband said, 'Well. How long can this war last? Winter, summer, it will be over soon, we will go home.' My husband was only afraid to stay in the countryside. He wanted us to be in the city, because we were city folks. There was some agitator there who talked us into it, told us there'd be a city there, and what a city... [where they'd go]. And this city was a dump where a goat steered the traffic with its tail at the intersection.

We went to this city and those in-laws also went with us. Entire transports went there from Lwow. The city was called Vyksa, but it wasn't, God forbid, a district city, the district was Nizhny Novgorod. [Editor's note: Gorki and Nizhny Novgorod are two names for the same city. Until 1931 the city was called Nizhny Novgorod, in the period 1932-1991 Gorki, after 1991 the name Nizhny Novgorod was restored.