Tag #130651 - Interview #87383 (Carol Margulies)

We went to Skazinec [today Skazintsy, Ukraine]. The locals called it ‘Barracks’ because there were 10-15 large barracks; they put us in one of them. It was summer already. There was a stream two or three meters away; I had some water and caught typhus. Every day, the Community, which was based in Mohilev, sent a large pail of pea soup to Skazinec, where there lived one or two thousand people. It was made of peas for cattle. There were many small children whose parents were gone; nobody looked after them and they were as skinny as a rail. There were no toilets, only an open field full of dirt. Those poor children used to walk the field and pick peas from the dirt; it was a terrible sight.

While I was sick, I stayed with my mother. They took her to another room, lest she should get sick, too. There were about 50 rooms on one side and the other; they had no doors or windows. The sick stayed on one side, and the others on the opposite side. There were many people there. The doctors were the first to get sick and die. We had no medicines, but God had mercy on me. We stayed in Skazinec until fall, when we were moved to Tivriv.