Tag #126297 - Interview #83377 (Nina Khlevner )

Soon after that, on 22nd June 1941 the Great Patriotic War broke out. Father went to the military registration and enlistment office and wrote an application, asking to be accepted to the army as a volunteer. Father immediately left for the frontline. We received letters from him for about three months. The last letter from him stamped ‘Pereslavl’ [a small town near Kiev] was dated 28th September 1941. Later we got no messages from him. I continued to write letters, until my postcard was returned with a piece of paper attached, which said that there existed no such military unit. He was missing. We don’t know what happened with him. Later we got an official notification, stating that he was reported missing in October 1941. Apparently, he perished in encirclement [Germans surrounded and destroyed five Russian armies near Kiev in September 1941. The Red Army lost 1 million persons altogether then, killed and imprisoned].