Tag #128910 - Interview #99833 (Morris Schiff)

We were constantly following the news from the front. When three were battles in Estonia, we listened to every roundup. We were so agog to come back home. As soon as the troops of Estonian corps liberated Estonia, mother and I started planning our return home. We only were the first to go. Mother’s sisters had to stay in Tashkent. We had been on the road for two months. We crossed Estonian border at night, when the train arrived in Narva, native city of my mother. We stayed there until dawn. When I looked out of the window, there was nothing I could see but the ruins. There was not a single building left in Narva. During the battles in Narva artillery was shooting incessantly from both sides and local people left the city. Very few people came back, therefore postwar Narva population consisted mostly of new-comers. Later when I was in Narva, I went to Jewish cemetery, where my grandfather Iosif Seviov was buried, but I could not find his grave. All of them were upturned by tomb raiders, who were seeking gold. I do not know if they found anything, but there was no grandfather’s grave.