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We reached Djambul, Kazakh SSR, Middle Asia, 2500 kilometers from Kiev. It was overcrowded and we spent a few nights under benches in a park. I went to the employment agency where they told me that there was vacancy of an accountant at the tax commission in the district center of Mikhailovka. A senior inspector came from there to take my mother and me to the town. We were welcomed warmly – we got a delicious lunch and were taken to the apartment where we were to stay.
I was doing well at work and my management valued me high. I was responsible for collection of taxes. Since I was a Komsomol member I was sent to distant villages. I rode on a horse regardless of my invalidity. I went to a distant village – a German colony [13]. German families were deported there from various corners of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s [14]. Of course they didn’t want to pay military taxes to contribute to our victory over Germany.
Chairman of the collective farm [15] gave me a horse-drawn cart and a cabman and I made the rounds of all German houses telling them to come to the meeting. I took the floor at the meeting telling people how important it was to pay the tax to contribute to the victory. One German said, ‘I have no money. I’d rather go to an aryk [artificial channel] and get drowned.’ I replied that since it was hot there was no water in the aryk and he should better find money to pay the tax.
In the morning all families brought money to my office. I packed this money, about 40 thousand rubles, into my military bag that I got from my brother and I took this money to Djambul. The deputy director of the regional inspection office from Kishinev valued me highly and wanted to take me with him after the war.
I was doing well at work and my management valued me high. I was responsible for collection of taxes. Since I was a Komsomol member I was sent to distant villages. I rode on a horse regardless of my invalidity. I went to a distant village – a German colony [13]. German families were deported there from various corners of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s [14]. Of course they didn’t want to pay military taxes to contribute to our victory over Germany.
Chairman of the collective farm [15] gave me a horse-drawn cart and a cabman and I made the rounds of all German houses telling them to come to the meeting. I took the floor at the meeting telling people how important it was to pay the tax to contribute to the victory. One German said, ‘I have no money. I’d rather go to an aryk [artificial channel] and get drowned.’ I replied that since it was hot there was no water in the aryk and he should better find money to pay the tax.
In the morning all families brought money to my office. I packed this money, about 40 thousand rubles, into my military bag that I got from my brother and I took this money to Djambul. The deputy director of the regional inspection office from Kishinev valued me highly and wanted to take me with him after the war.
Period
Location
Djambul
Kazakhstan
Interview
Natan Shapiro