Tag #116702 - Interview #99625 (Dora Feiman)

Iosif was recruited to the army in the first days of the war. My other brothers stayed at home. On the morning of 5thJuly 1941, a boy brought us a note from my parents’ friends. They wrote that they were at the railway station and were on the last train to the rear of Russia, and that if we wanted to escape death we had to pack immediately and go to the station. We didn’t have time to pack or consider. We packed whatever was at hand. We hoped that the war wasn’t going to last long. We were sure that we would be home before winter and took no warm clothes with us. The railway station was crowded. There was a cattle freight train and we squeezed into a carriage. It was awful there. There were small windows high by the ceiling, and there were two-tier plank beds along the walls. The carriage was packed with people who were sitting on their bags and suitcases. Many of our acquaintances stayed in Tartu. They were hoping that by knowing German they would manage somehow. None of them survived the German occupation. 

 

All we knew about our point of destination was that it was in Russia. The train was continuously bombed on the way. During the raids by German planes the train stopped. People jumped off and scattered around trying to hide away. I stayed in the train during such air raids. I thought if I was to die it didn’t matter where I was, in the train or in a trench. And, as a matter of fact, no bomb or splinter hit our carriage.