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I can remember very little of this Turkmenian aul. I remember the sand and snakes. Many of them were poisonous snakes, especially dangerous for us, children. I also remember a small mill that was put into motion by a donkey. They blindfolded this little donkey and he was going in circles all day round. The mill was grinding flour, but it was for the Turkmenians. But it was not the cold or the heat or lack of food that was hard to bear. It was separation from the outer world. We didn’t have a radio. The news was brought by a courier that was bringing food every second week. When my mother heard from him that Kiev was liberated in 1943 she took each and every effort to return home. In early spring 1944 we were standing at the Kiev railway station. We put our luggage consisting of 2 suitcases on the cart and went home on foot. We were going nowhere, as we didn’t know whether our house was there or not. It was there by miracle. All houses around it were destroyed. Or room was occupied by some other people. We lived in the kitchen for a whole month until we got the right to move into our room through the court. Our room was empty. Our next door neighbor was a Russian family and they took away our possessions during the war. My mother went to court and managed to get back her sawing machine. The neighbors threatened my mother to kill her and her children, and my mother was scared. But this was the only way out. We wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t been for the sawing machine. My mother went to the market to buy old shabby clothes. She altered and patched them and sold them at the market. This was her only earning until she got a job at the garent factory. One Jewish family living in our house before the war went to the Babiy Yar. Another Jewish family returned after the war but they were living at a different place. We were the only Jewish family left in this house. I can’t say that were treated well. I never heard any Yiddish, only when my mother was humming a lullaby in our room.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Ella Lukatskaya