Tag #155965 - Interview #90529 (Sally Uzvalova)

On the night of 12 June the silence exploded in women’s screaming and children’s wailing. Richer people and people with average income were taken out of their houses and onto the carts. They didn’t get a chance to take any luggage with them. The carts moved in the direction of the railway station in Floreshty where trains were waiting for them.  I can still remember the tapping of horseshoes on the cobbly pavements of Soroki. It lasted for about 24 hours. People were afraid of looking out of the window or leaving their home. On this day all other members of the family were sent in exile as suspicious elements: my grandmother, my father’s brothers and their families. On 15 June 1941 (editor’s note; 6 days before the beginning of the Great patriotic War) all these people were put on a train with barred windows at the railway station in Floreshty. Inhabitants of Floreshty came to the station to give some food to people on the train, but the convoy took this food away. The train headed to Mogochino village of Krasnoyarsk region, Siberia, in 3500 km from their home. The village was fenced with barbed wire and patrol dogs guarded the area. Every day an orderly called the roll. They lived in dugout houses that they excavated by themselves for two years before barracks were built.  Town people were dying, as they were not adjusted to the severe conditions of the cold climate.  Men went to work at the wood throw. The ones that failed to complete a standard scope were deprived of their miserable ration of food that they also shared with their families.  My grandmother and her son’s wives dug out mice holes and made soup with nettle and mouse meat. They starved to death, swell from hunger, had their feet and hands frost bitten. In 1942 the older brother Itzyk, his wife and 6 children died.  They were buried in a common grave and there was no gravestone installed or no other indication of their personalities. Their exile was for an indefinite period of time.