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On the first day of the war, on 22 June I came to the military registry office, but they said: ‘You are in category 2 reserves and we will call you’. Our army was retreating, but we believed that it was just a maneuver: that we shall ensnare Hitler, encircle him and then give them a sharp blow. However, our morale supervisor said to me: ‘It’s a great tragedy. All planes are destroyed on land. Our troops are retreating. It’s not a trap for Hitler, it’s serious'. On 1 July the recreation center was closed and I returned to Kiev.
A few days before the war began my brother Roman finished the 9th grade. He was to turn 17. In the first days of July all boys from Kiev, born before 1925, were sent to Donetsk region, 500 km east of Kiev, to the mines. We bought Roman and dark blue coat before the war. I bundled it and tied with a belt. I put it over his shoulder and here he burst into tears: he had an inner feeling that we were never to see each other again.
Those boys were taken into a shaft. They took away their passports. They had to work hard and many of them ran away including Roman. He went to work as a tractor operator in a kolkhoz29. In autumn 1941 German troops came near when Roman was asleep. They knew in the village that he was a Jew. Someone woke him up and gave him a white horse. He ran away. He took a train to Tashkent in Central Asia in 300 km from home. He was sitting by a wall in Tashkent being exhausted and starved. An evacuated doctor from Kiev saw him on her way to work. He told her his story and she took him with her. When he felt better he went to the military registry office to be sent to the front. He was so thin that the commission decided he was ill. However, he stood his ground and they sent him to a military school in Ashkhabad (today Turkmenistan).
A few days before the war began my brother Roman finished the 9th grade. He was to turn 17. In the first days of July all boys from Kiev, born before 1925, were sent to Donetsk region, 500 km east of Kiev, to the mines. We bought Roman and dark blue coat before the war. I bundled it and tied with a belt. I put it over his shoulder and here he burst into tears: he had an inner feeling that we were never to see each other again.
Those boys were taken into a shaft. They took away their passports. They had to work hard and many of them ran away including Roman. He went to work as a tractor operator in a kolkhoz29. In autumn 1941 German troops came near when Roman was asleep. They knew in the village that he was a Jew. Someone woke him up and gave him a white horse. He ran away. He took a train to Tashkent in Central Asia in 300 km from home. He was sitting by a wall in Tashkent being exhausted and starved. An evacuated doctor from Kiev saw him on her way to work. He told her his story and she took him with her. When he felt better he went to the military registry office to be sent to the front. He was so thin that the commission decided he was ill. However, he stood his ground and they sent him to a military school in Ashkhabad (today Turkmenistan).
Period
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Leonid Kotliar