Tag #151024 - Interview #78412 (Frieda Portnaya)

When the Germans approached the Northern Caucasus, we had to flee. We boarded horse-driven wagons and moved along the mountainous roads to Nevinnomyssk. My brother and two girl neighbors were hiding under our clothes, as they could be mobilized for trench excavation. My mother said she wasn’t going to let my brother go. In Makhachkala we didn’t manage to get on the train because there were too many people. My mother was crying and begging the soldiers to take us with them, but they didn’t do so. It turned out for better, though - this train was destroyed by bombs. We reached Makhachkala on the next train. From there we went to Astrakhan by boat. In Astrakhan we sat on the pier for a long time. It was cold as it is in December. There were many Jews from Bessarabia there. They had been on the pier for a long time as they were afraid to leave their luggage. It was here, on this pier in Astrakhan, that for the first time in my life I saw people dying from cold and hunger. In a few days they announced that they would be evacuating the families of soldiers. We were on the lists as the family of an officer. They put us on a train going to Central Asia. It was a long trip. We hardly had any clothes that could be bartered for food. Sonia, the wife of my mother’s brother Iosif, was with us. She had a baby girl named Fiera, after my mother’s sister who had died. Sonia didn’t have any milk. We were starving. At one point, when the train stopped my brother ran to the fields to get some snow and melted it on our little stove. We gave this drink to the baby, but Firochka, the baby, died. Sonia held her, afraid that somebody would take her baby away. Our neighbor who was traveling with us asked her “Why is Fiera so silent? Why isn’t she crying?” and Sonia said “I don’t know. She may be asleep.” The neighbor looked at the baby – Dear Lord! She was dead! And she began to cry saying that Fiera had died. Soldiers came immediately and said they had to take the dead baby to a special car of the train -- many people were dying on the train, and their bodies were taken to a special car. It took my brother some effort to take the dead girl from Sonia. He took her to that car. At one point, the train stooped and all the dead people were buried in a common grave. And our Fierochka stayed there too, in a common grave somewhere, we don’t even know where it is.