Tag #153006 - Interview #78263 (Michael Kotliar)

My parents, my two brothers, my sister an me got on a train. They were only freight railcars for the transportation of cattle but it didn't matter at that time. We were running away from the Germans. The train was bombed several times on the way. It stopped and we got off to hide. We had no food, clothing or documents with us. Whenever the train stopped at a station and there was another train with soldiers going to the front we got some of their food - soup or cereals - that they shared with us. We came to a village in Stalingrad region [500 km from Beltsy]. Evacuated people got accommodation in the houses of the villagers. We were all involved in harvesting. Younger children were picking spikelets falling from a combine harvester. Then the Germans were approaching Stalingrad, and we got on our way again. We arrived at Fergana lowlands in Uzbekistan after covering a distance of 2,000 kilometers from Stalingrad. We were sent to a kishlak [Uzbek for a village] in the mountains in Middle Asia. It was a small village with very few houses. We were accommodated in a mud house with two rooms and a small kitchen with a stove. The Uzbeks treated us kindly. They sympathized with us and tried to help.