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In summer 1941 Germany attacked the USSR. We knew that Germans were killing Jews and many Jews were leaving Kishinev. Only those who had illusions regarding Germans and Romanians were staying. The sovkhoz [11] where my father was working provided horse-drawn wagons to Jews. My father was told we were expected in a sovkhoz in Kakhovka district, Kherson region [today Ukraine]. My mother, my father, Grandmother Ester and I left in the direction of Dubossary. We left the key to our apartment on the shelf by the door, as usual. We didn’t think we would be gone for long. We reached the town of Kriulyany on the Dniestr. The bridge across the river was destroyed and the army troops were making a bridge of boats before nighttime. There were many people and equipment on the bank. The army troops were the first to pass. At dawn the bridge was removed for the day. Our turn was on the third night. We reached the eastern bank in complete darkness. We didn’t know where to go and turned left. All of a sudden a silhouette of a soldier emerged before us. I can still see it: a short thin soldier with a rifle, its bayonet sticking over his head: ‘Where are you going, there are Germans there!’ He made us turn around. Wouldn’t one believe in miracles after this? If he hadn’t turned us around, we would have gone directly to the Germans.
We moved to the East for two weeks. We stopped to take a rest in the town of Voznesensk. My parents had a discussion and decided that my father would go to the sovkhoz in Kherson region, and my mother, grandmother and I would go to Uncle Max in Moscow. My father left on the sovkhoz wagon. My mother wasn’t feeling well and needed some medications. The owners of the house, where we were staying, told me the way to the pharmacy in the main street. Round the corner there was a steep descent to a bridge across the Bug River. I looked at the bridge, bought the medication and went back. On the next day the front advanced so much that we had to take a prompt leave. The owners of the house were evacuating with their office and couldn’t take us with them. My mother ran about the town the whole day, trying to obtain a permit to board the ship with a hospital on it. She finally got one, but the chief of the hospital said, ‘I can take you and your daughter and you will work for us, but I cannot take the old lady – we shall need this place for a patient.’ My mother refused to go – we couldn’t really leave my grandmother.
An evening and then night fell. Demolition bombs began to be dropped on Voznesensk. We left the house and were walking along the central street without knowing where to. There was a truck with some soldiers moving in the opposite direction to where we were going. The driver asked us from the cabin: ‘Where is a bridge?’ How fortunate that I knew where the bridge was! ‘Take us with you and I will show you the way!’ They pulled Grandmother in by her hands and my mother and I got in. Near the pharmacy I pointed to the right. We crossed the bridge and drove up the steep bank, when we heard an explosion. We turned back and saw the bridge burning. At dawn we had to get off – they couldn’t allow us to stay in the truck – they had ammunition in it. I remember that the soldiers offered us bread and something else, but we refused and didn’t take anything. We were too shocked by everything. We got to Novaya Odessa [Nikolaev Region] walking on the dusty road in the unbearable heat. I was exhausted and remember lying down by a clay fence. Military trucks were driving by, we were trying to stop one, but they didn’t stop until finally somebody picked us up. They drove us to Melitopol, where we met a middle-aged Jewish man. When he heard we were from Kishinev he took us to his house. He turned out to be the director of the town bookstore. He had a comfortable apartment and his wife treated us to a meal.
We decided to go to Rostov [today Russia], where our good acquaintance Fyodor Nikitich Tifanyuk, director of the Champagne factory, had evacuated with his enterprise. We got to Donetsk in a train with other refugees and from there we went to Rostov. Fyodor Nikitich helped us to get a job in the Reconstructor vine growing sovkhoz in Aksaysk district near Rostov. They gave us a little clean room, my mother and I went to gather crops of grapes and my grandmother stayed at home. It was the beginning of September. One day, when my mother and I came to lunch, we were told that somebody from the factory in Rostov called us and told us to go there immediately. We went to Rostov with Grandmother. How happy we were, when Fyodor Nikitich gave us a card from my father! My father wrote to him that he was in the village of Grigoropolisskaya in Alexandrovsk district, Stavropol region, and that he had lost his family. Fyodor Nikitich gave us money for the road and we went to Papa.
Papa had lost hope to see us and was so depressed when he came to the village that he didn’t tell them that he was an agronomist and was handling sacks on the threshing floor. Later he got a job as an agronomist and earned more money, so we managed to save a little. We needed winter clothes. Winter was coming and we had lost all our clothes that we took from Kishinev. One morning my mother left for Armavir, located on the other end of Kuban. My mother went to the market there and in the evening she returned with her purchases. She bought a dark blue coat with a rabbit collar, a big size soldier’s gray overcoat and some other clothing. We made the overcoat shorter and I wore it for many years after we returned to Kishinev from evacuation. From the remaining cloth I made a sleeveless vest and knitted sleeves to it.
When they heard in the village that I had studied at the Agricultural College for a year, they offered me a job as an agronomist in a neighboring village. I agreed. The chairman of the kolkhoz drove me to the field. He explained, ‘These are winter crops, this is a stubble field.’ I had no idea what this was all about. To cut a long story short: I returned to my parents and stayed there quietly. In Grigoropolisskaya I took three months’ training for combine operators at the Mechanic School, and after finishing it I began to work in the equipment yard. It was a cold winter. Huge sheds with tractors and combines. There were hardly any tools, but grips and files sticking to hands from the cold. I wrote a letter to the Ministry of Higher Education asking them where our college was evacuated. It was just incidental that the director of our college, Nikolay Vasilievich Nechaev, was chief of the department of agricultural college at the ministry at that time. I received their prompt response that my college had evacuated to Frunze [today Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan] and that if I wanted to continue my studies there, they would send me money for the ticket. They sent us money for the whole family. This was July 1942. The front line was approaching our village and German troops were on our tails when we reached Mineralnyye Vody and then Baku [today Azerbaijan]. From Baku we went to Krasnovodsk [today Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan] across the Caspian Sea and from there we took a train to Frunze.
We moved to the East for two weeks. We stopped to take a rest in the town of Voznesensk. My parents had a discussion and decided that my father would go to the sovkhoz in Kherson region, and my mother, grandmother and I would go to Uncle Max in Moscow. My father left on the sovkhoz wagon. My mother wasn’t feeling well and needed some medications. The owners of the house, where we were staying, told me the way to the pharmacy in the main street. Round the corner there was a steep descent to a bridge across the Bug River. I looked at the bridge, bought the medication and went back. On the next day the front advanced so much that we had to take a prompt leave. The owners of the house were evacuating with their office and couldn’t take us with them. My mother ran about the town the whole day, trying to obtain a permit to board the ship with a hospital on it. She finally got one, but the chief of the hospital said, ‘I can take you and your daughter and you will work for us, but I cannot take the old lady – we shall need this place for a patient.’ My mother refused to go – we couldn’t really leave my grandmother.
An evening and then night fell. Demolition bombs began to be dropped on Voznesensk. We left the house and were walking along the central street without knowing where to. There was a truck with some soldiers moving in the opposite direction to where we were going. The driver asked us from the cabin: ‘Where is a bridge?’ How fortunate that I knew where the bridge was! ‘Take us with you and I will show you the way!’ They pulled Grandmother in by her hands and my mother and I got in. Near the pharmacy I pointed to the right. We crossed the bridge and drove up the steep bank, when we heard an explosion. We turned back and saw the bridge burning. At dawn we had to get off – they couldn’t allow us to stay in the truck – they had ammunition in it. I remember that the soldiers offered us bread and something else, but we refused and didn’t take anything. We were too shocked by everything. We got to Novaya Odessa [Nikolaev Region] walking on the dusty road in the unbearable heat. I was exhausted and remember lying down by a clay fence. Military trucks were driving by, we were trying to stop one, but they didn’t stop until finally somebody picked us up. They drove us to Melitopol, where we met a middle-aged Jewish man. When he heard we were from Kishinev he took us to his house. He turned out to be the director of the town bookstore. He had a comfortable apartment and his wife treated us to a meal.
We decided to go to Rostov [today Russia], where our good acquaintance Fyodor Nikitich Tifanyuk, director of the Champagne factory, had evacuated with his enterprise. We got to Donetsk in a train with other refugees and from there we went to Rostov. Fyodor Nikitich helped us to get a job in the Reconstructor vine growing sovkhoz in Aksaysk district near Rostov. They gave us a little clean room, my mother and I went to gather crops of grapes and my grandmother stayed at home. It was the beginning of September. One day, when my mother and I came to lunch, we were told that somebody from the factory in Rostov called us and told us to go there immediately. We went to Rostov with Grandmother. How happy we were, when Fyodor Nikitich gave us a card from my father! My father wrote to him that he was in the village of Grigoropolisskaya in Alexandrovsk district, Stavropol region, and that he had lost his family. Fyodor Nikitich gave us money for the road and we went to Papa.
Papa had lost hope to see us and was so depressed when he came to the village that he didn’t tell them that he was an agronomist and was handling sacks on the threshing floor. Later he got a job as an agronomist and earned more money, so we managed to save a little. We needed winter clothes. Winter was coming and we had lost all our clothes that we took from Kishinev. One morning my mother left for Armavir, located on the other end of Kuban. My mother went to the market there and in the evening she returned with her purchases. She bought a dark blue coat with a rabbit collar, a big size soldier’s gray overcoat and some other clothing. We made the overcoat shorter and I wore it for many years after we returned to Kishinev from evacuation. From the remaining cloth I made a sleeveless vest and knitted sleeves to it.
When they heard in the village that I had studied at the Agricultural College for a year, they offered me a job as an agronomist in a neighboring village. I agreed. The chairman of the kolkhoz drove me to the field. He explained, ‘These are winter crops, this is a stubble field.’ I had no idea what this was all about. To cut a long story short: I returned to my parents and stayed there quietly. In Grigoropolisskaya I took three months’ training for combine operators at the Mechanic School, and after finishing it I began to work in the equipment yard. It was a cold winter. Huge sheds with tractors and combines. There were hardly any tools, but grips and files sticking to hands from the cold. I wrote a letter to the Ministry of Higher Education asking them where our college was evacuated. It was just incidental that the director of our college, Nikolay Vasilievich Nechaev, was chief of the department of agricultural college at the ministry at that time. I received their prompt response that my college had evacuated to Frunze [today Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan] and that if I wanted to continue my studies there, they would send me money for the ticket. They sent us money for the whole family. This was July 1942. The front line was approaching our village and German troops were on our tails when we reached Mineralnyye Vody and then Baku [today Azerbaijan]. From Baku we went to Krasnovodsk [today Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan] across the Caspian Sea and from there we took a train to Frunze.
Period
Interview
Bella Chanina
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