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After I was liberated I didn't have any information about my family. I didn't see my father and thought that he had perished. After the liberation I decided to go home. I didn't know the way and just followed other people. In a village I sat down on a bench to rest when somebody called my name. I looked up and saw my father! It was a happy reunion. We walked on together. We hoped that other members of our family had also survived. I don't know how long it took us to finally get to Dolgoye Pole. My older brother Mayer and my sister Clara were at home. They told us that my mother and younger sister Olga had perished in Auschwitz. My grandfather Eikef and my mother's sisters also perished in Auschwitz and so did my mother's older brother Ignas. He was the strongest man in the village. He could do any hard work. He would have survived in the camp, but when the Germans took his little son to the crematorium my uncle went there with him. They both perished.
Our house had been destroyed during the war. We lived in my grandfather Eikef's house. When my brother and sister came to the village our neighbors told us that they had our belongings. They took our things during the war and when we returned they brought them back to us. People sympathized with us and tried to help. They were kind and supportive. We knew that many former inmates of German camps were arrested in the USSR, but we didn't suffer any oppression. The Soviet power didn't change people's attitudes in our village. It remained a small and quiet village.
My father became a farmer again. My brother studied to be a joiner and then went to work. I was finishing lower secondary school and helped to do chores at home. My brother was very sickly and weak after he returned from the camp. There wasn't enough food or medication. The doctors couldn't help him and Mayer died in 1948. We buried him near our grandmother's grave in the cemetery in Dolgoye Pole. Unfortunately this cemetery was destroyed when a gas pipeline was installed in the 1960s.
Our house had been destroyed during the war. We lived in my grandfather Eikef's house. When my brother and sister came to the village our neighbors told us that they had our belongings. They took our things during the war and when we returned they brought them back to us. People sympathized with us and tried to help. They were kind and supportive. We knew that many former inmates of German camps were arrested in the USSR, but we didn't suffer any oppression. The Soviet power didn't change people's attitudes in our village. It remained a small and quiet village.
My father became a farmer again. My brother studied to be a joiner and then went to work. I was finishing lower secondary school and helped to do chores at home. My brother was very sickly and weak after he returned from the camp. There wasn't enough food or medication. The doctors couldn't help him and Mayer died in 1948. We buried him near our grandmother's grave in the cemetery in Dolgoye Pole. Unfortunately this cemetery was destroyed when a gas pipeline was installed in the 1960s.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
ivan moshkovich