Tag #148316 - Interview #95114 (Lazar Sherishevskiy)

We went to Stalingrad [present Volgograd, about 1000 km south of Moscow] in September 1941. There were numbers of people evacuated from Western Ukraine and Moldavia that had been recently annexed to the USSR.  I saw religious Jews wearing black hats and payes. I didn’t talk to them, not knowing the language they spoke. We were accommodated at a stadium. The town authorities suggested that people went to kolkhozes [30] to work and live there. We joined one group and went to a big village of Basovy Khutora near Kursk. They grew water melons. We were accommodated in local houses and I noticed there were no icons or crosses in them.