Selected text
It was in 1942. For the two days that he was at home before he went to the Military Committee, I literally hung on him all the time. We were at the shop where he worked, where he received his last salary, we were at our relatives place (Uncle Shepa's family), said goodbye to them and on the 7th of June, 1942, we saw him off to a large steamship, that took them up Volga River.
At that time a really serious fighting was going on - the Battle of Stalingrad. I wrote letters to Daddy every day through his field mail, every single day. But he had not received any of mother's letters or mine. Soon Mum and me were evacuated from Astrakhan again with the staff of the shipbuilding factory.
Mother's older sister Hai-Sara was in Perm then so we decided to go there. That's how we found ourselves in the village of Chastye of Perm (then Molotov) region.
There we stayed till autumn of 1944. Life was rather hard, we were financially very restricted. Uncle Misha helped us with regular cash transfers, and so did relatives who lived there. Mum exchanged what was left of our belongings for food.
The spring of 1944 was especially hard as far as I can remember. I was extremely undernourished. Mum and I would cook a 3-liter pot of boiled potatoes, which was then consumed in one go. As I had a dependant's ration, I was assigned for 200 grams of bread and Mum -for 400 grams.
I usually divided this daily ration in halves, ate my portion at once, and never touched mother's. Mum worked as a technical secretary in the village council. In autumn of 1944 Nikolaev was already liberated, and mother's niece sent us an invitation for re-evacuation and we returned to the city of Nikolaev.
At that time a really serious fighting was going on - the Battle of Stalingrad. I wrote letters to Daddy every day through his field mail, every single day. But he had not received any of mother's letters or mine. Soon Mum and me were evacuated from Astrakhan again with the staff of the shipbuilding factory.
Mother's older sister Hai-Sara was in Perm then so we decided to go there. That's how we found ourselves in the village of Chastye of Perm (then Molotov) region.
There we stayed till autumn of 1944. Life was rather hard, we were financially very restricted. Uncle Misha helped us with regular cash transfers, and so did relatives who lived there. Mum exchanged what was left of our belongings for food.
The spring of 1944 was especially hard as far as I can remember. I was extremely undernourished. Mum and I would cook a 3-liter pot of boiled potatoes, which was then consumed in one go. As I had a dependant's ration, I was assigned for 200 grams of bread and Mum -for 400 grams.
I usually divided this daily ration in halves, ate my portion at once, and never touched mother's. Mum worked as a technical secretary in the village council. In autumn of 1944 Nikolaev was already liberated, and mother's niece sent us an invitation for re-evacuation and we returned to the city of Nikolaev.
Period
Year
1942
Location
Russia
Interview
Boris Rubinstein