Tag #154459 - Interview #97841 (Hertz Rogovoy )

The squadron was replenished and we went to Yelets by train. We stopped there and got off the train, since the railroads were crashed from German bombing. We walked for 300 kilometers or so. From the first days Germans were bombing so hard that we did not have a single field kitchen left. We had nothing to eat. First the sacks with the rye rusks were brought. Tarpaulin sacks for gas masks were attached to our belts. We removed the gasmasks and filled the sacks with the rusks. But these reserves did not last long. We were constantly hungry. We shot the crows and cooked them in fire. There were a lot of carcasses of huge German horses on the ground. We crawled to them, cut a piece and then boiled it. The carcasses were decomposing, producing a terrible stench. Nonetheless we ate that concoction. Sometimes we found potatoes and beets in the villages. It was a feast for us. I could not eat uncooked potatoes, others ate it raw. In Kursk oblast, that we went through, there were no safe villages. That oblast was divided, in some villages there were partisans, in others politsai [Russian for betrayers who joined the Nazi-run militia]. Politsai burnt partisan villages [villages controlled by partisans], and partisans in its turn burnt politsai villages [villages controlled by politsai]. It was difficult to find a place to spend a night. We were really lucky if we could find cellars, where vegetables were stored for winter. That was the place to stay overnight. We often slept straight on the snow. Filth and lice were absolutely unbearable. We could not even think of a bath. We were exhausted. We had to walk only at night as in the daytime there were bombings. The columns stretched, people lacked behind. Once I walked by half asleep and fell asleep. I woke up in the car of the commander of our division, the general. It turned out that I was hit by his car. I did not remember all that. The general asked me: ‘What‘s up with you, son?’ I could not remember anything, it all happened in my dream. The general took me to the place, where our squadron was located, and gave me a piece of pig’s fat and a loaf of bread. Of course I shared with my friends. But I found out in horror that I had lost my gun. Probably it happened when I was hit by car. If somebody lost his weapon, he was shot immediately in spite of the military merits. I was scared, I just had one thought –how to save my life. We walked in a column by burned hay storage. There was a fire in the center, and the soldiers were sitting around it. The weapon was placed along the wall. I crawled to the storage, saw the gun and stole it. I wanted to remain alive. And in a day, we walked by battle sites, where the weapons were piled …