Tag #149563 - Interview #102205 (David Wainshelboim)

Several days later Kishinev was bombed. My father was waiting for the official evacuation to be arranged by the Ministry of Health, but our departure was delayed. My father hired a wagon, we loaded our luggage on it, whatever we could pack: food, water, warm clothes. My mother, father, grandmother, my sister and I departed. I remember a long line of wagons and people, consisting of civilians and the retreating Soviet forces. We were bombed on the way, and then people scattered around in the fields of sunflower and corn. Only Grandmother Sarrah stayed in the wagon, refusing to leave it. So we walked for about a week till we reached Krivoy Rog [today Ukraine, 370 km from Kiev, 300 km from Kishinev]. My father paid the cabdriver. We stayed a few days at the railway station, waiting for a train to the east till we managed to board an open train loaded with iron ore. This iron ore was to be delivered to a metallurgical plant in Lugansk region. We arrived in the town of Alchevsk [today Ukraine, about 780 km from Kishinev, 680 km from Kiev].