Tag #108134 - Interview #91135 (Icchok Grynberg)

Then they announced that people could sign up to go to Russia. The Russians provided trains with baggage cars. That was before the war [German-Soviet War 1941] [12]. In front of these cars there was an office of the ‘politruk’ [political officer]. People were lined up there to sing up for the departure to Russia. Hardly anyone had documents, so the Russians were asking for our data. They wrote down whatever we told them: date of birth, profession. They gave everyone a piece of paper. They said we had to go with it to this and this car. And we went to Russia. Along the way, whenever the train stopped, everyone had to go out and get bread that they prepared for us. I got frostbite on my hands then. I cried terribly, curled up from pain, my hands hurt so much. Sometimes the train stopped somewhere so that we could go out to relieve ourselves, and then it kept on going. There were about twenty people in one car. There were bunk beds. Obviously, it was no luxury. We didn’t know where we were going. That trip took about ten days. Finally we arrived in Magnitogorsk on the Ural River.