Selected text
We arrived at Orsk, a small town in Chkalovsk (present Orenburg) region. There was a fortress in the town where a harrison deployed. Local population resided in private houses for the most part. Our family lived on the outskirts near a power plant and bakery factory. This was a district of employees of these enterprises.
All of our relatives rented a small room in a private house. We slept on the floor side by side. My mother and I were the last to arrive and the only sport left for us was near the door. We slept with our clothes on and wrapped in everything we could find: blankets, coats or fur coats. But we still woke up in the morning covered with hoar frost. It was end of November and when we came it was severe winter in the Urals already. My mother, her sisters and aunt Lisa went to work at the bakery. They worked in the dried bread shop drying bread for the front. My mother always over fulfilled the standard quantity 20-25%. Everybody worked for the front, for the Victory! For her outstanding performance my mother received a package of dried bread that did help us to survive. It didn’t matter that there was pain in my mother’s fingers and they were bleeding, she continued to work hard. This was my mother’s first job and in evacuation in 1942 she became a trade union member. This is the only document we have confirming that we were in evacuation.
All of our relatives rented a small room in a private house. We slept on the floor side by side. My mother and I were the last to arrive and the only sport left for us was near the door. We slept with our clothes on and wrapped in everything we could find: blankets, coats or fur coats. But we still woke up in the morning covered with hoar frost. It was end of November and when we came it was severe winter in the Urals already. My mother, her sisters and aunt Lisa went to work at the bakery. They worked in the dried bread shop drying bread for the front. My mother always over fulfilled the standard quantity 20-25%. Everybody worked for the front, for the Victory! For her outstanding performance my mother received a package of dried bread that did help us to survive. It didn’t matter that there was pain in my mother’s fingers and they were bleeding, she continued to work hard. This was my mother’s first job and in evacuation in 1942 she became a trade union member. This is the only document we have confirming that we were in evacuation.
Period
Location
Orsk
Russia
Interview
Tsyliya Spivak