Tag #154438 - Interview #97841 (Hertz Rogovoy )

Mother did not work before father’s exile. When my mother and I were left on our own, she found a job in some sort of workshop. I do not know what her job was like. The most important that she was paid. Of course we lived from hand to mouth. The most jovial event for me was when mother took me to the market, which was located close to our house, and bought me a big rice patty. It was a real feast! We were starving. But my mother strove to support me. It is the most delighted recollection from those times, but there are others. I remember there was a tram line near our house. The trams were remade from horse chaises. There were no doors, and the steps were along entire train. I remember that there were very many homeless children. At that time streets started being asphalted. There were large cauldrons, where asphalt and pitch were melted. The melted mass was ladled and rolled manually with the rollers. In the evenings when the workers left, vagrants were warming in the cauldrons. I remember the famine of 1932-33 [famine in Ukraine] 21. There were a lot of peasants in Podol, who left villages for the city, trying to survive from starvation. Their bodies were swollen from famine. Some of them could not walk, stretching their hands for alms, others kept lying, without being able even ask for alms. In the morning there were found corpses of people who died by hunger. They were taken away. I remember that near our house the columns of ’dispossessed’ [Kulaks] 22 went by being escorted by militia. Militiamen were in blue caps with red bands, carrying pistols in their hands. I remember the first loud-speaker in our house, a big black wall plate.