Tag #115113 - Interview #78047 (Eva Ryzhevskaya)

Only later on, in the year 1943 when our troops had liberated Dnepropetrovsk oblast, I asked the regiment commander for a leave to go home and find out about my parents. I was given a truck and went to Pismennoye. I was told by the neighbor that the Germans had taken my family away. There was only one Jewish family in the village: I mean our entire family, including my father's brothers and their families. The whole family was arrested and kept in some sort of jail. There were about 30 of them. Then the Germans took them somewhere, and there was no trace left. They must have been shot, but it is not known where and when. Before the arrest, my parents had brought the pictures and most precious things to the neighbors, including the Singer sewing machine, and asked them to give them to me. Of course, I couldn't take anything but the pictures. I left the rest of the things with the neighbors, as I came there for just a couple of hours to clear things up and then went back to the front. There was nothing I could do, just mourn over my kin. During the relocation of our hospital, when the war was about to end, somebody stole my backpack with some personal things, photographs and the last letter from my parents.