Tag #146455 - Interview #103743 (Clara Shalenko)

We were accommodated in a hut in the woods near the village. The only food we had were pickled mushrooms in a barrel. Later chairman of the collective farm of the village accommodated us in the house of Julia, a village woman whose husband was at the front. There were a number of us: five children and my aunt and uncle. We got a job – we picked raspberries. I got a horse and a cart to transport boxes with raspberries to the collective farm. There was lack of food. Julia made pies stuffed with onions from dark flour and this was the food we had. We didn’t have winter clothing and villagers were so poor that they didn’t have any clothes to share with us. The only support the chairman of the collective farm could provide was to help us move from there.