Selected text
My father obtained a wagon for evacuation in his Communtrans. We went with aunt Hana, uncle Yuda’s wife, with their children, and some older woman from father’s work and her crazy daughter that had just gave birth to a baby. They sat on a wagon and walked behind it. On the first evening we got in an air raid. We unharnessed the horse and hid away in the corn fields. A kolkhozniki [from a collective farm] [11] shouted to us ‘Are there many more zhydy going with you?’ We were afraid of them. We harnessed the horse in the morning and continued on our way. When we climbed a hill we saw Kremenchug on fire. In a big village on our way we bumped into a military unit. Its commanding officer told us to leave immediately since Germans had their landing troops around and we might get into encirclement. We left with another group of refugees walking in their winter clothes on carrying their luggage. We picked apples and other fruit on the trees lining the road. Once we picked watermelons in a field. In one village a Russian woman gave us borsch with chicken meat and gave us pickled cucumbers and a piece of bread to go. My mother said then: ‘There are different fishes in a river and there are different people in the world: kind and wicked’.
We came to the railway station in Poltava during another air raid. There were crowds of people and no trains. In the evening a train arrived and we managed to get into it. At night the train stopped in the middle of nowhere and we were ordered to get off. Someone said that chief of the train turned out to be an indecent and irresponsible man. Then another train approached: there were no light indicators on it. We blocked the track, it stopped and a military chief came out wearing his slippers. When he heard what it was about he allowed us to get in. We arrived in Kharkov. The railway station was like an ant house. People were sleeping on asphalt. My mother got through the crowd to commandant of the station. She explained that we were a family of a military and that we had evacuation permits and tickets. The commandant took us to a maintenance train. We arrived at Kinel near Kuibyshev where we waited for a train to Tashkent. Back in Poltava uncle Yuda joined us. He and Hana and the children got into a train for the people going in evacuation and we got a promise to be put on a passenger train as a family of a military. My mother gave Hana all money she received by her certificate since Hana had her two children to take care of. She didn’t have a kopeck left. It turned out later that they got meals on the way while we didn’t have any provisions as far as Tashkent. In our compartment there was a mother and her son. They borrowed our copper kettle to fetch boiling water and then had tea with sugar and bread and pork fat. They didn’t offer us any and I fainted from smelling food.
In Tashkent we lodged in the summer kitchen of my mother’s sister, Chaya’s accommodation. Yuda’s family settled down in Chirchik in the outskirts of Tashkent. My mother couldn’t find a job and my father went to work in stables. He delivered meals to the boarding school of the conservatory that evacuated from Leningrad. I was 15 years old and our acquaintances helped me to get a job in a shop of Tashkent military regiment where I made bridles. I got allergic to leather: I had fever and terrible itching.
We came to the railway station in Poltava during another air raid. There were crowds of people and no trains. In the evening a train arrived and we managed to get into it. At night the train stopped in the middle of nowhere and we were ordered to get off. Someone said that chief of the train turned out to be an indecent and irresponsible man. Then another train approached: there were no light indicators on it. We blocked the track, it stopped and a military chief came out wearing his slippers. When he heard what it was about he allowed us to get in. We arrived in Kharkov. The railway station was like an ant house. People were sleeping on asphalt. My mother got through the crowd to commandant of the station. She explained that we were a family of a military and that we had evacuation permits and tickets. The commandant took us to a maintenance train. We arrived at Kinel near Kuibyshev where we waited for a train to Tashkent. Back in Poltava uncle Yuda joined us. He and Hana and the children got into a train for the people going in evacuation and we got a promise to be put on a passenger train as a family of a military. My mother gave Hana all money she received by her certificate since Hana had her two children to take care of. She didn’t have a kopeck left. It turned out later that they got meals on the way while we didn’t have any provisions as far as Tashkent. In our compartment there was a mother and her son. They borrowed our copper kettle to fetch boiling water and then had tea with sugar and bread and pork fat. They didn’t offer us any and I fainted from smelling food.
In Tashkent we lodged in the summer kitchen of my mother’s sister, Chaya’s accommodation. Yuda’s family settled down in Chirchik in the outskirts of Tashkent. My mother couldn’t find a job and my father went to work in stables. He delivered meals to the boarding school of the conservatory that evacuated from Leningrad. I was 15 years old and our acquaintances helped me to get a job in a shop of Tashkent military regiment where I made bridles. I got allergic to leather: I had fever and terrible itching.
Period
Year
1941
Location
Tashkent
Uzbekistan
Interview
Malea Veselnitskaya Biography