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So this was still in central Russia [approx. 350 km east of Moscow, on the Volga River]. It wasn't Siberia and it wasn't Kazakhstan, we were actually lucky. We didn't live in the town itself, you had to take a train to get to us. Our apartment was wooden, there were horrible bugs. I painted this apartment over and over, with lime, it even burned my hands. This was in 1940.
Meanwhile I gave birth to my second child [Cetka]. After eleven years. I went to work and they signed me up for the steelworks. They made pitchforks there, they had these automatic hammers and you had to turn this shovel quickly enough, so that these teeth would be cut out and you'd end up with a pitchfork. But I suffered from migraines all my life and I couldn't stand it there - this noise, this racket. I was working three shifts. I had a small child and they only had four weeks of so-called maternity leave.
I couldn't work in the steelworks. A doctor signed a certificate that I wasn't fit for this job. And then I met a woman, who was the headmistress of a nursery. She must have liked me. It was a week-nursery, that is, children would be left there for the entire week. She took me in and I worked there until the end of the war. The mothers were young, but they looked like grandmothers and I was amazed that such old women could have such small babies. But they were laying railroad tracks, carrying wooden planks. They all worked, so they looked like that.
I didn't have anything to dress my little daughter [baby Cetka] in, so I would hold her close to my body, so she wouldn't freeze, because sometimes it was minus 40 degrees [Celsius]. When I had the morning shift, I had to be at work at 7am. You couldn't be late. Not even a minute late. I was punished once in Russia. I had a plot of land, so I could plant some potatoes [a makeshift garden]. So I gathered some bread, traded it for potatoes and went to plant them. And then I remembered that I was supposed to leave for work! I got there and my director took my hand and led me somewhere. I didn't know what it was about. And she said that I was 20 minutes late. Twenty minutes, and they took away 20 percent of my salary for six months. In Russia it was impossible to just not go to work. If you didn't go to work once, you'd go to jail. You had to work. No getting around it.
Meanwhile I gave birth to my second child [Cetka]. After eleven years. I went to work and they signed me up for the steelworks. They made pitchforks there, they had these automatic hammers and you had to turn this shovel quickly enough, so that these teeth would be cut out and you'd end up with a pitchfork. But I suffered from migraines all my life and I couldn't stand it there - this noise, this racket. I was working three shifts. I had a small child and they only had four weeks of so-called maternity leave.
I couldn't work in the steelworks. A doctor signed a certificate that I wasn't fit for this job. And then I met a woman, who was the headmistress of a nursery. She must have liked me. It was a week-nursery, that is, children would be left there for the entire week. She took me in and I worked there until the end of the war. The mothers were young, but they looked like grandmothers and I was amazed that such old women could have such small babies. But they were laying railroad tracks, carrying wooden planks. They all worked, so they looked like that.
I didn't have anything to dress my little daughter [baby Cetka] in, so I would hold her close to my body, so she wouldn't freeze, because sometimes it was minus 40 degrees [Celsius]. When I had the morning shift, I had to be at work at 7am. You couldn't be late. Not even a minute late. I was punished once in Russia. I had a plot of land, so I could plant some potatoes [a makeshift garden]. So I gathered some bread, traded it for potatoes and went to plant them. And then I remembered that I was supposed to leave for work! I got there and my director took my hand and led me somewhere. I didn't know what it was about. And she said that I was 20 minutes late. Twenty minutes, and they took away 20 percent of my salary for six months. In Russia it was impossible to just not go to work. If you didn't go to work once, you'd go to jail. You had to work. No getting around it.
Period
Location
Vyksa
Russia
Interview
Gustawa Birencwajg