Tag #144652 - Interview #78189 (itsik margolis)

That is how we left for Kazakhstan, the Almaty region, Taldykurgan district. We went to live on a collective farm called Belokamenka. Ukrainians used to live there. A very beautiful place, especially in the spring. High mountains, as I remember, near the Chinese border. Mother fell ill with dysentery there and died in a hospital in 1943. And before that, Father was taken away, drafted into the labor army [13]. I don't know how that happened, but my sister says he said something wrong, something against the Soviets, presumably that we had a better life in independent Latvia or something like that. Later he was shot [14]. I was still there when Father was arrested and taken to the labor army. That was about 1942 or the beginning of 1943.