Tag #116385 - Interview #78774 (Fania Brantsovskaya)

On 22nd June the bombings started. My parents and many other people thought it was another emergency training, common at the time. My parents had bags packed with everything necessary in case of an emergency. We grabbed them and went to the basement. On that day my uncle Finskiy, who was the director of a leather factory, brought a wagon to pick us. We talked and decided that my father and I were going: my father wanted to go to the Soviet army and I was a Komsomol member and was sure I simply had to go. We decided that my mother and sister could stay at home. It never occurred to us that the fascists could do any harm to a woman and a girl. In a hurry I grabbed my hot water bottle: I had had a kidney surgery earlier and never went out without a hot water bottle. We were going on a horse-drawn wagon and this was a horrible exodus. The retreating Red army trucks were passing us. We begged them to take us with them and I even showed my Komsomol membership certificate, but they were just passing by. There were many dead people on the road. I thought there could be nothing worse than what we were going through, but it was all just ahead of us.