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I remember very well how the radio broadcast announcing the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on 22nd June 1941. At 2 o’clock in the morning on 23rd June a courier delivered a subpoena to the military registry office to my home. I was to be at the registry office in the Water Engineering College the following morning. Three days later we went to a military camp at some location in Odessa region by a passenger train.
On 30th August our unit was formed and we went to the front line near Uman [Cherkassy region] on trucks. Our group stopped in a small forest by the side of the road before Uman. Fascists began to fire at us. Some of my comrades were wounded and some were killed. Intelligence officers of our military unit said they saw the general that was commander of our unit surrender to fascists.
We moved closer to the front line and took our position in a glen. A day later another commanding officer arrived and an intelligence officer reported the general’s surrender to him. He couldn’t believe it was true, but then all ten officers confirmed that it had happened right before their eyes. The commanding officer ordered us to change our positions and thus, we avoided many casualties. The traitor general knew our positions and soon German planes bombarded the glen.
I and a few other craftsmen were ordered to join a logistic unit in the army headquarters. A junior lieutenant ordered us to line up and began to ask questions: ‘Are there any carpenters?’ – I made a step forward and someone else did. ‘Bricklayers? Roofers? Armorers?’ In total he put together a group of ten craftsmen.
We crossed the Bug River. I was a joiner in a field engineering unit at the front under command of Budyonny. [Marshal Semyon Budyonny – one of the most famous Bolshevik Cavalry Commanders of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1920. Budyonny was one of the first five Soviet Marshals, and one of only two of them, who survived Stalin’s purges. In 1941-42 he was commanding officer of the southwestern and northern Caucasian directions]. He was appointed by Stalin, but he didn’t last as a commander.
We were retreating to Novorossiysk [700 km from Odessa] where I joined Primorskaya army and stayed there until the end of the war in Northern Caucasus and then in the Crimea. I was wounded twice. For me the war ended in Simferopol in 1945. I was first sergeant.
During the Great Patriotic War I corresponded with my family. I knew that my father and my sisters with their children evacuated to Kazakhstan. I don’t remember in what town they resided. Shyfra’s son Roma died at the age of five in evacuation. After the war my father, Shyfra, Milia and the children returned to Mayaki, repaired the house and continued living there.
On 30th August our unit was formed and we went to the front line near Uman [Cherkassy region] on trucks. Our group stopped in a small forest by the side of the road before Uman. Fascists began to fire at us. Some of my comrades were wounded and some were killed. Intelligence officers of our military unit said they saw the general that was commander of our unit surrender to fascists.
We moved closer to the front line and took our position in a glen. A day later another commanding officer arrived and an intelligence officer reported the general’s surrender to him. He couldn’t believe it was true, but then all ten officers confirmed that it had happened right before their eyes. The commanding officer ordered us to change our positions and thus, we avoided many casualties. The traitor general knew our positions and soon German planes bombarded the glen.
I and a few other craftsmen were ordered to join a logistic unit in the army headquarters. A junior lieutenant ordered us to line up and began to ask questions: ‘Are there any carpenters?’ – I made a step forward and someone else did. ‘Bricklayers? Roofers? Armorers?’ In total he put together a group of ten craftsmen.
We crossed the Bug River. I was a joiner in a field engineering unit at the front under command of Budyonny. [Marshal Semyon Budyonny – one of the most famous Bolshevik Cavalry Commanders of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1920. Budyonny was one of the first five Soviet Marshals, and one of only two of them, who survived Stalin’s purges. In 1941-42 he was commanding officer of the southwestern and northern Caucasian directions]. He was appointed by Stalin, but he didn’t last as a commander.
We were retreating to Novorossiysk [700 km from Odessa] where I joined Primorskaya army and stayed there until the end of the war in Northern Caucasus and then in the Crimea. I was wounded twice. For me the war ended in Simferopol in 1945. I was first sergeant.
During the Great Patriotic War I corresponded with my family. I knew that my father and my sisters with their children evacuated to Kazakhstan. I don’t remember in what town they resided. Shyfra’s son Roma died at the age of five in evacuation. After the war my father, Shyfra, Milia and the children returned to Mayaki, repaired the house and continued living there.
Period
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Isaac Klinger