Tag #155258 - Interview #77999 (larissa rozina)

Kiev was overwhelmed with panic and Papa didn't want to wait until his enterprise began orderly evacuation. He said that if he were to go to the army, Mama wouldn't leave Kiev, but would be waiting for news from him. Papa wanted his family out of Kiev. He read anti-fascist books and had a very clear idea of what fascism was like. So, we packed and walked to Brovary [a small town on the outskirts of Kiev]. At Brovary railway station we saw the announcement that men of Papa's age, 46, were to join the army. He went to the supervisor of the train that was evacuating a children's home and asked him to take his family on the train. We left on this train: Mama, my four-year-old sister Lena, Mama's sister Anna, her husband Haim, their two sons and me; I was ten. My father returned to Kiev, destroyed all photographs and documents - they were important to him and he couldn't allow anybody else to have them - and went to the military registration office.