Tag #116262 - Interview #100288 (Eta Gurvichuyte )

Sister Anna had worked in Vilnius for couple of months. It became part of Lithuania [Annexation of Vilnius to Lithuania] [16], so I did not know anything about her. Brother and his pregnant wife Sonya, going on the seventh month, left with evacuated textile factory literally without anything. They both were in evacuation. They even had no time to take money, documents or some of their things. Haim and I together with the Kaunas group left the town. I did not have a new Soviet passport, so I took only an ID , some money and things. We could not carry a lot. Besides, we believed Soviet propaganda and thought that the fascists would be banished in couple of days. For couple of days we had been walking along a highway towards Latvia. There were a lot of people on the road- walking, going in a cart or by car. We went several tens of kilometers in a truck and then again we had to walk. On the third day of our trip fascist planes appeared and started bombing the columns of people- peaceful people. Finally we reached Latvia. There we managed to get on the train. We went for couple of kilometers and stopped. We saw bombed cars and cadavers of people in front of us. We heard the moans of the wounded. The train, the saw, was destroyed by bombing. We helped remove the shambles. It was scary. We had been on the road for about three weeks. They gave boiled water at the stations. Sometimes they gave bread and warm food- porridge and cabbage soup.