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The convoy left the city, and we stayed behind, with some other people who knew it was better to stay. Mohilev-Podolsk was not a concentration camp surrounded by barbed wire, it was a ghetto. In the whole city there were no more Ukrainian Jews, they had all been slaughtered in Odessa and other places [during the Romanian occupation of Odessa] [12]. The few Jews living there had been brought from over the Dnestr. After the convoy left and my parents weren't afraid to come out, my father started to look for a place to live. We found a Ukrainian woman who took us in; she was very poor, and full of lice, she was scratching herself all the time. My clean, beautiful mother was appalled, you can imagine. We stayed there only for a little while, and then we found another place. It was also in the ghetto, in the suburb, but the house belonged to some Ukrainians who were well off, they had a garden, and cows. My parents spoke with the owners, and they took us in. They had a little house near the stables, with a small kitchen, and one room, built on the bare ground. However, it was clean, and that's where we stayed.
My parents paid the rent with a few jewels my mother had been able to save: she had sown them in a small pocket in her suspenders. When they took us out of the train, they had no time to do any bodily search. It's said that the Ukrainians were anti-Semites, but it is not a rule, these people were kind for taking us in; moreover, they didn't ask for a high rent, they didn't insult us, and they gave us some milk or a tomato during summer, because we were starving. The hoziaika, that is the owner [in Ukrainian], had two daughters: they were a little bit older than us, but we made friends, they didn't treat us badly; we even played together sometimes.
We lived only on maize flour, and my mother made a gir, some sort of soup, just boiled water sprinkled with maize flour. [Editor's note: The basic meaning of the Akkadian word 'gir' is a grain of carob seed.] Very rarely we could make maize mush, and my sister, who was always spoiled and fastidious about food, was always the first at the table, to make sure that nobody got a bigger piece. We sometimes had army bread, which gave my sister and I jaundice. Not to mention the subnutrition that gave my sister and I furunculous: we were full of puss, and my poor father washed us and dressed our wounds.
My parents paid the rent with a few jewels my mother had been able to save: she had sown them in a small pocket in her suspenders. When they took us out of the train, they had no time to do any bodily search. It's said that the Ukrainians were anti-Semites, but it is not a rule, these people were kind for taking us in; moreover, they didn't ask for a high rent, they didn't insult us, and they gave us some milk or a tomato during summer, because we were starving. The hoziaika, that is the owner [in Ukrainian], had two daughters: they were a little bit older than us, but we made friends, they didn't treat us badly; we even played together sometimes.
We lived only on maize flour, and my mother made a gir, some sort of soup, just boiled water sprinkled with maize flour. [Editor's note: The basic meaning of the Akkadian word 'gir' is a grain of carob seed.] Very rarely we could make maize mush, and my sister, who was always spoiled and fastidious about food, was always the first at the table, to make sure that nobody got a bigger piece. We sometimes had army bread, which gave my sister and I jaundice. Not to mention the subnutrition that gave my sister and I furunculous: we were full of puss, and my poor father washed us and dressed our wounds.
Period
Location
Mohilev-Podolsk
Ukraine
Interview
Melitta Seiler