Tag #118483 - Interview #78080 (Isroel Lempertas)

Our lyceum was declared a secondary school and the 7th grade of lyceum was the 9th grade at school. Other than that things were the same. I entered Komsomol organization [15]. I was rather active- conducted meetings, called upon people to support soviet regime, drew wall posters. One year with the Soviets went by very quickly. On the 21st of June 1941 we had school- leavers party at school. I came home late and did not stay in bed for a long time. Early in the morning we heard the roaring of the planes. The town was bombed. The Great Patriotic War was unleashed. People were panicking, trying to escape, abandoning their houses. Some Jews thought that Germans would do them no harm and decided to stay. Our family did not have a dilemma- to stay or not to stay. By the evening of the Sunday, 22nd of June we left the town on foot. There were four of us - the families of aunt Shifra and mother's younger sister Rahil. People were fleeing. There were crowds of fugitives on the road with suitcases, rucksacks and bales. The road was bombed and I saw death for the first time. Not all people got up after the bombing was over. Retreating units of the Soviet Army walked along with us. We had walked for couple of days until we reached Latvian border and stayed for couple of days at some train station in Latvia waiting for a train. We had a problem with food. We did not take much with us and we ran out of food pretty soon. Father and uncle Aba Metz exchanged our things with products and our family managed to get by couple of days. Then we managed to get on the train heading to Riga. Upon our arrival we were placed at some school, where evacuation point was organized. We slept in a large hall on the floor. In the afternoon all evacuees were given some soup or porridge and bread. The situation was rather unusual mildly to say. By 1940 we had lived in bourgeois Lithuania and were used to relative comfort. We decided to stick together as it was easier to overcome trouble with the support of kin, which was really precious under those circumstances. In a day or two Jacob Rier, husband of aunt Rahil insisted that we should stop by in Sauspils and take a rest in the place of his relatives and wait for the stir to end. He was not used to the complications and aunt Rahil obeyed her husband. We said goodbye to her and their little Rozochka. At that time we did not know that we would never see them again.