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We ran to the station and actually stormed into a train. 15-20 residents of Krasilov managed to get into a carriage. Those were young men and few women with small children. The train departed. It headed to Dnepropetrovsk. This was on 2 July 1941, 10 days after the Great Patriotic War began. There were many refugees from Western Ukraine in the train. They told us about brutalities of Germans against Jews, although there was no mass massacre at the beginning of the war. One woman gave us a thin blanket and my sister and I slept at night under it. Our trip lasted for about 20 days. We got meals on the way. We arrived at Filonovo station in Stalingrad region in 1500 km from home. We stayed in the railway station building for a few days. Then kolkhoz representatives came to the station looking for workforce. About 12 of us – few from Krasilov, a brother and sister from Zhitomir and a woman with a 20-year-old daughter – went with one of them. We came to Kamenka farm Kruglov district Stalingrad region. This was a distant and backward place. People were very poor and even chairman of the kolkhoz Soloviov wore patched pants. They never saw a plane or a train. They were cossacks [19], Russians and Ukrainians. They had never seen ‘zhydy’ [kikes]. When we arrived all residents gathered to look at us thinking that we were one-eyed or had horns. However, we had a warm reception. We were accommodated in a vacant and empty recently built house. We slept in one room: women in one corner and boys in another. We worked in the kolkhoz [20]. I had a hard and unusual work to do taming young bulls. I worked with Abram Sher from Krasilov. We had to catch young bulls in the steppe and to catch one we had to run about 10 km over feather grass in the steppe. Then we harnessed bulls in the yoke making them pull heavy loads. We were well paid for this work. A month later Abram and other guys of 1923 year of birth were recruited to the army. We lived there until October 1941. When fascists came nearer chairman of the kolkhoz told us to leave if we wanted to save our life. Some time before I wrote aunt Golda in Baku telling her where we were. Aunt Golda replied telling us to come to Baku. In the district town my sister obtained a certificate confirming that she was working in a kolkhoz, but they didn’t include me in this certificate.
Period
Interview
Arkadi Milgrom