Selected text
Lisa worked at the butter creamery. A Romanian guard fell in love with her and allowed her to take some pressed wastes with her. This was our food. In summer we collected the seeds of some plant, I don't know which one. We also ate goose-foot and hawthorn. It caused a headache, but it didn't stop us from eating it. Every now and then there were raids in the streets, and the captives were either shot or sent to death camps. The Romanian guard told Lisa beforehand on what street there was going to be another raid. He saved our lives. Once he gave me a toffee. My mouth still waters when I recall how good it tasted.
There were many children in the camp. Policemen used to make the rounds of the houses and shoot the children they found. Adults sent us, children, to the nearby ravine to hide - this was within the ghetto area - and told us to hide in the bushes if we saw somebody wearing a black uniform. We played there and it was our escape spot. There was a small wheat field within the barbed wire fencing where we looked for spikelets. There were sugar beets on another field. We dug themit out and ate them. But the best thing was a carrot that we found once.
We weren't allowed to cross the barbed wire fence. Such was our life. In the evening we came back home. I remember one day when we stayed in the house. It must have been in winter or maybe the weather was just really nasty, something like that. Drunken soldiers and policemen were shooting through the windows. Adults told us to hide behind the oven. They [the soldiers] went to the neighboring house, grabbed Rosa, the a 14- year old girl, by her hair and pulled her out somewhere. Later she was found dead. [Editor's note: That was all Efim would tell us about the camp - he said he didn't want to repeat what he had said in his interview with the Shoah Visual History Foundation.]
In 1945 the Soviet army liberated us. We didn't know where to go. There were many people from Chernovtsy that said it was possible to find a place to live in Chernovtsy. We went there. Lisa wrote a letter to our address in Gomel. Our house in Gomel was bombed and destroyed. Our neighbor got this letter. She met aunt Musia at the market and gave her the letter. Aunt Musia wrote Mama that we were alive. Lisa wrote Mama that it was possible to find an apartment in Chernovtsy. This was in 1946 and we lived together ever since. At the beginning of the war my father was summoned to the front. Misha finished secondary school and submitted his documents to the Medical Academy in Leningrad. He went to the front instead and perished there. He was a tankman and had a platoon under his command. Almost all his classmates perished, none of the boys returned from the front. Almost all girls from the class, in which Misha and Broha studied, also perished. Some of them were nurses or radio operators on the front. The rest of them perished during the occupation.
There were many children in the camp. Policemen used to make the rounds of the houses and shoot the children they found. Adults sent us, children, to the nearby ravine to hide - this was within the ghetto area - and told us to hide in the bushes if we saw somebody wearing a black uniform. We played there and it was our escape spot. There was a small wheat field within the barbed wire fencing where we looked for spikelets. There were sugar beets on another field. We dug themit out and ate them. But the best thing was a carrot that we found once.
We weren't allowed to cross the barbed wire fence. Such was our life. In the evening we came back home. I remember one day when we stayed in the house. It must have been in winter or maybe the weather was just really nasty, something like that. Drunken soldiers and policemen were shooting through the windows. Adults told us to hide behind the oven. They [the soldiers] went to the neighboring house, grabbed Rosa, the a 14- year old girl, by her hair and pulled her out somewhere. Later she was found dead. [Editor's note: That was all Efim would tell us about the camp - he said he didn't want to repeat what he had said in his interview with the Shoah Visual History Foundation.]
In 1945 the Soviet army liberated us. We didn't know where to go. There were many people from Chernovtsy that said it was possible to find a place to live in Chernovtsy. We went there. Lisa wrote a letter to our address in Gomel. Our house in Gomel was bombed and destroyed. Our neighbor got this letter. She met aunt Musia at the market and gave her the letter. Aunt Musia wrote Mama that we were alive. Lisa wrote Mama that it was possible to find an apartment in Chernovtsy. This was in 1946 and we lived together ever since. At the beginning of the war my father was summoned to the front. Misha finished secondary school and submitted his documents to the Medical Academy in Leningrad. He went to the front instead and perished there. He was a tankman and had a platoon under his command. Almost all his classmates perished, none of the boys returned from the front. Almost all girls from the class, in which Misha and Broha studied, also perished. Some of them were nurses or radio operators on the front. The rest of them perished during the occupation.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
efim pisarenko