Tag #114705 - Interview #102852 (Chaya Sakhartova )

The university was evacuated on 23rd February 1942 to the town of Saratov. The University operated there during the war and my fellow-students graduated quickly, they got their degree certificates. I completed my education after the war. I joined the university for evacuation with my sister and her husband. However, we didn’t reach Saratov; we were taken off the train in Vyatka, as Divora fell very ill: she caught chicken-pox, which she hadn’t had as a child. She got a rash on the train and we had to get off at a small transfer station. From Vyatka we went to the place where our parents were staying, the village of Olshanka, Tambov region – the very center of Russia. When we came to the village, we were on the brink of total starvation. We entered a peasant hut and realized that it was full of grain, up to my ankle. The grain was being dried there.