Tag #153140 - Interview #78138 (Ida Kristina)

Mirzachul was a small town with a population of 7,000 consisting of half- ignorant Uzbek people. Many people were in evacuation there, but there were no arrangements made for us. Some locals were sympathetic with us, others were indifferent. Uzbeks didn't speak Russian and we couldn't speak their language, so we didn't mix. We rented a small room of nine or ten square meters and a kitchen in a pise-walled hut. Shortly afterwards Riva's husband, David, joined us. He had passed by Kharkov on his way to evacuation. He told us that he saw Grandfather Samuel before leaving Chernigov and and offered my grandfather to go with him, but my grandfather refused. We lived in this small room together: our family of ten people and the Shehtmans - there were four of them. We slept on the floor in the kitchen and in the room. Somebody slept on the table. My mother and father slept on the only bed in there.

David became the director of the district industrial association and helped my sisters and me getting employment. My sisters and I worked in a special cardboard shop. We applied a special casein mixture on carton sheets and dried them. Later this carton was used to make filling for bullets, I think. I received 600 grams of bread per day with my worker card and 400 grams for the child.