Tag #146247 - Interview #100173 (Rosa Linger)

In summer 1942 military censorship was transferred to Karelian front. I could not be transferred as I had a small child. I was offered to go through training in NKVD intelligence instead of working as a censor. The training was to last half a year and then I was promised to be given a military rank, promoted and offered a job in the rear. Of course, mother was appalled. But I cried saying that I had to take a chance to learn anything. I was sent to NKVD school in Gorky. Mother stayed in Kirov with Sarah and little Ilia. Sarah went to school, mother was at home с my son. They received food cards [25], but they were not enough, of course. I got allowance as a cadet of NKVD school, and sent it to my mother. All cadets were girls and young women.  Men were in the lines. We were taught the methods of counterintelligence rather than reconnaissance. We had studied there for four months, and there was an order of the commander to send everybody to the lines. What were we to do ? Some ladies had to leave children in orphanages. We were promised that we would come back , and here we were to be drafted in the lines, and no objections were accepted. I knew that there was a Lettish division [26] in the vicinity of Gorky and I asked to send me there. The commander sent a request in Moscow and I was permitted to go to that military unit. I came there, found the headquarters and introduced myself. They were happy to see me as they needed cryptographer, we were taught cryptography at school as well. I was good for me to be in the rear, not far from my family – only twenty four hours in a car on a highway. I did not stay there for a long time.