Selected text
On 9th July Samuel came to us. Each of us took a backpack, my brother hired a cab and we went to the station. The five of us went: my parents, my brother Rudolf, my sister Vera and I. David Berkovit?, the son of my father's younger brother Iosif Berkovit?, and Mother's sister Rosa joined us at the station. Their eldest son Samuel went into the army as a volunteer. In 1944 Samuel perished in the battles under Narva. David was 14 in 1941. He was a very gifted boy; he played the violin. He was the student of a great teacher at the Tallinn conservatoire. David took the train with us, but a military convoy took him from the car. He was told that he was an adult and was supposed to dig antitank trenches with the others. David stayed in Tallinn and perished during the occupation. His parents weren't going to leave. They stayed in Tallinn and died in the concentration camp.
We were lucky to get a passenger train; our trip was comfortable. There were trains with open carriages, full of evacuees. We saw a train coming from Riga, where a lady stood on the open carriage with an infant in her hands. It was horrible. The train set off, the pace was slow. We had to let the trains going to the front go first. When we were approaching the bridge across Narva, an air raid started. Our train was being bombed, but antiaircraft weapons which were on the bank, were aiming at the planes. The train was crossing the bridge and I was trembling with fear thinking that the bridge would be crushed and the train would fall into the river. For many years after war I had a recurring dream: the train was going along the bridge and we didn't know whether we made it or not.
We passed the bridge and had the first stop at Mga station. It was burned after a bombing and I heard cries, the lamentations of scattering people. I remember people rushed to the station trying to look for a place where bread was being handed out. It was a brief stop and the train started off pretty soon. It was a long and tiring trip and finally we reached Arsk station, in Tatarstan [1000 km east of Moscow].
We were lucky to get a passenger train; our trip was comfortable. There were trains with open carriages, full of evacuees. We saw a train coming from Riga, where a lady stood on the open carriage with an infant in her hands. It was horrible. The train set off, the pace was slow. We had to let the trains going to the front go first. When we were approaching the bridge across Narva, an air raid started. Our train was being bombed, but antiaircraft weapons which were on the bank, were aiming at the planes. The train was crossing the bridge and I was trembling with fear thinking that the bridge would be crushed and the train would fall into the river. For many years after war I had a recurring dream: the train was going along the bridge and we didn't know whether we made it or not.
We passed the bridge and had the first stop at Mga station. It was burned after a bombing and I heard cries, the lamentations of scattering people. I remember people rushed to the station trying to look for a place where bread was being handed out. It was a brief stop and the train started off pretty soon. It was a long and tiring trip and finally we reached Arsk station, in Tatarstan [1000 km east of Moscow].
Period
Year
1941
Location
Talinn
Estonia
Interview
Liya Kaplan