Tag #120063 - Interview #87381 (Simon Meer)

When we reached Otaci [Atachi], on the bank of the river Dniester, at 12 in the night, the army made us get off the train cars and told us: “Don’t take anything, you will come in the morning to pick up your luggage!” Were you there? As if we ever saw our luggage again! I remember that when they deported us, my mother wrapped the sewing head of the sewing machine in an eiderdown together with a pillow and baled it. But what was the use, since all our luggage was left behind on the train that night and we never saw it again. God forbid! I don’t even want to remember.

And we stayed in Otaci [Atachi] for one night in a derelict building, with no roof, with no windows – and it was cold by then –, we stayed there crammed, shivering. They crammed thousands of people in there, we spent the entire night standing on our feet, and in the morning, under escort – army troops, gendarmes –, they took us on the bank of the river Dniester – Otaci [Atachi] was located right on the bank of the river Dniester. The bridge, needed for crossing the Dniester, was destroyed by now, for the front had moved forward. We crossed the Dniester on ferries. Many of the older people, poor souls, even fell in the Dniester, that’s how crowded we were.