Tag #146806 - Interview #92368 (Lyudmila Kreslova)

Uncle Lyova served in the Tsar’s Army during World War I and in 1916 he was taken prisoner by the Germans. The Germans treated him very well. Thus, when we were evacuated from Vitebsk in 1941, he told Father, ‘I can speak German, I have been in German captivity, I won’t go with you, I want to stay.’ So he stayed with his family and of course they all perished. His wife Rosa perished too. They had very beautiful children: daughter Ida – the eldest, daughter Zina and son Daniil. When the war broke out, Daniil was ten years old. Ida had snow-white marble-like skin. She was born in 1924. We were neighbors with this family, our house was near theirs. We were coevals, played with them and went to the same school. It’s a pity there are no pictures of them. Uncle Lev worked as a shoe supplier at the shoe factory in Vitebsk, I forgot its name. Rosa was a Jewess and worked as a pharmacist in a drugstore. Lev and Rosa with their two daughters were buried alive not far from Vitebsk together with all the Jews, who were driven to that terrifying place.