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My parents, Uncle Hirsh and some other relatives had a long discussion whether to get evacuated or not. We had discussed it for about two weeks and finally decided that we had to leave. On 5th July 1941, Father went to work in the store. He called Mom from there and said that the store was closed down and all employees were told to evacuate. We left on the same day, and on 9th July Germany occupied Tartu.
Grandmother, Uncle Hirsh and his family left with us. We didn’t know anything about Mother’s relatives who stayed in Tallinn. We went through Pskov, wherefrom we went to Chuvash. We didn’t stay there for a long time. All of us worked in kolkhoz fields [18]. It was harvest time.
In September, when the German army was approaching Moscow, we were told to go farther, towards Central Asia. Grandmother was with us. So we went to Central Asia from Chuvash. In Kazan, at night, Grandmother got off the train with her things. She wanted to go to her daughters-in-law in exile. We knew that Mother’s brother Isaac and German were involved in timbering in Siberian camps [19], and their wives were exiled in Siberia, in Kirov oblast, and the settlement Darovskoy was not far from the town of Molnyzh.
Thus, Grandmother got off the train to look for them. She didn’t know Russian at all, but she managed to find her daughters-in-law. Grandmother knew that German’s wife left for the exile when she was in her last months of pregnancy. In 1941 my cousin Marina was born in Darovsk. Grandmother stayed with them during the period of exile and helped them out.
We moved on and reached Kyrgyz. We were sent to a kolkhoz – I cannot recall its name – in Talass oblast. Germans from Volga region [20] lived there. They were dispossessed in 1932 [21]. Men were exiled to the Gulag to work in timbering and women and children were to stay in the kolkhoz. They treated us pretty well since we knew German. We were starving all the time. The Germans had everything they needed. They were well-off, but they were not generous. Apart from Germans, there were also wounded people in the kolkhoz, the ones who couldn’t return to the lines because of severe wounds. I remember one of them –a Ukrainian guy, who sang very beautiful Ukrainian songs and played the guitar. When Mother went to work, she often had me stay with him.
Grandmother, Uncle Hirsh and his family left with us. We didn’t know anything about Mother’s relatives who stayed in Tallinn. We went through Pskov, wherefrom we went to Chuvash. We didn’t stay there for a long time. All of us worked in kolkhoz fields [18]. It was harvest time.
In September, when the German army was approaching Moscow, we were told to go farther, towards Central Asia. Grandmother was with us. So we went to Central Asia from Chuvash. In Kazan, at night, Grandmother got off the train with her things. She wanted to go to her daughters-in-law in exile. We knew that Mother’s brother Isaac and German were involved in timbering in Siberian camps [19], and their wives were exiled in Siberia, in Kirov oblast, and the settlement Darovskoy was not far from the town of Molnyzh.
Thus, Grandmother got off the train to look for them. She didn’t know Russian at all, but she managed to find her daughters-in-law. Grandmother knew that German’s wife left for the exile when she was in her last months of pregnancy. In 1941 my cousin Marina was born in Darovsk. Grandmother stayed with them during the period of exile and helped them out.
We moved on and reached Kyrgyz. We were sent to a kolkhoz – I cannot recall its name – in Talass oblast. Germans from Volga region [20] lived there. They were dispossessed in 1932 [21]. Men were exiled to the Gulag to work in timbering and women and children were to stay in the kolkhoz. They treated us pretty well since we knew German. We were starving all the time. The Germans had everything they needed. They were well-off, but they were not generous. Apart from Germans, there were also wounded people in the kolkhoz, the ones who couldn’t return to the lines because of severe wounds. I remember one of them –a Ukrainian guy, who sang very beautiful Ukrainian songs and played the guitar. When Mother went to work, she often had me stay with him.
Period
Year
1941
Location
Talinn
Estonia
Interview
Avi Dobrysh
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