Tag #128790 - Interview #92300 (Iyah Dziekovskaya's Biography)

The war began when I was under 10 years of age. On 22 June 1941 we woke up in the morning and co-tenants said: ‘You know, it’s a war’. On the first days of the war e, children, captured a ‘spy’. The man carrying a cabbage in an avoska bag [avoska: a Russian string bag, avoska literally means ‘just in case’] seemed suspicious to us. We captured him and led by our chief Kostia Bazilevich took him to a militia office. He kept telling us: ‘I went out to buy cabbage. What are you doing?’ Of course, the militia sent us out of there. Bombings began. My father snored in his sleep and during intervals between bombings we could clearly hear his snoring.