Tag #123070 - Interview #99947 (Samuel Birger)

Aunt Leya also moved in our place. She was not only literate, but also had a more robust health and stamina. Leya went to work in timber rafting. She worked with men. In summer I also started working- herding kolkhoz cattle. I knew how to ride since childhood and it was easy to take a horse and ride along the pasture. The chairman of kolkhoz was very pleased with me and gave me trudodni [13]. In summer I was involved in harvesting. I tilled the land on tractor. I did not go to school in that village either because there was no school at all, or because I had other things to worry about- earn my bread and butter. We did not know anything about father at that time and thought that he was not alive. Mornings and evenings through mother had been praying about him. On Yom-Kippur she and the aunts fasted in spite of the fact that by the vissicitude of fate our life turned into a long fasting.