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My father found us in end July. When he arrived, he had a military uniform: he served in some logistic unit. He took us to Ufa in Bashkiria and went to the army. We were accommodated in an apartment with two rooms. The owners of the apartment lived in a smaller room and let us a corner with no bed, so we slept on the floor. My mother went to work at a plant and received a worker’s card [editor’s note: the card system was introduced to directly regulate food supplies to the population by food and industrial product rates. During and after the great Patriotic War there were cards for workers, non-manual employees and dependents in the USSR. The biggest rates were on workers’ cards: 400 grams of bread per day]. I went to school for few works. Then winter came. I didn’t have warm clothes and had to quit school. My father had sent us a parcel with clothes, but it was half a year before it arrived. I stayed with my brother and made some soup with beetroots and turnip. We starved. The mistress of the house – a kind Russian woman, gave us some food occasionally. The family of a high-rank official from Kiev lived in another room. He was at the front and his wife and son were having a good life in evacuation. She often threw candy wraps in the garbage. I remember, when she wanted to throw away some soup leftovers, my mother asked her to give it to us. It was meat soup, a delicacy for us. Since then she gave us their leftovers, but she never offered us any food. I remember she said that if her husband was going to die she didn’t want victory and my mother was very angry about it. This was a very hard year. We didn’t have washing facilities and had lice.
In spring 1942 my father came to take us to Nizhniy Tagil. Our life improved a little. We had a room for ourselves and the mistress of the apartment lived in another room. My mother went to work in a dining room and often brought some food from there. I took care of my little brother. He called me mama at times. When he grew up, Roman often said that I was his second mama. My father stayed with us for some time. He received a nice military food ration. In early summer he was sent to Sverdlovsk military political school and before he finished his studies they sent him to the Stalingrad front. Before going there he was given a leave to stay with us few days. I remember one early morning, when my mother left for work, my brother stood up in his little bed, stretched his hands toward our father and said: ‘This is my Papa!’ This was amazing how considerately he pronounced this. My father took him in his hands and kissed him. On that same day he went to the front. In middle August we received a death notification: my father took part in combat action for just a couple of weeks, but they were the hardest days near Stalingrad. I think I will never forget mama’s screaming. Some time later we received a letter that my father wrote before a battle and my mother decided he was alive. She wrote a letter to his unit and received a reply that Yefim Lerman had perished. He perished in that battle, before which he wrote his last letter.
I finished the 6th and 7th forms in a Russian school in Nizhniy Tagil where there were many evacuated children. There were also Jewish children, but I didn’t segregate nationalities then. There were good equal attitudes also. I joined Komsomol in the 7th form. I was an active Komsomol member helping other children with their homework and conducting political information classes. There were already publications in newspapers about fascists’ atrocities against Jews on the occupied territories, and my mother understood that my father’s relatives in Mogilyov perished. I also went to the cinema to the club of the railcar depot where they showed newsreels before a movie. My mother never went with me. She became secluded after my father perished doing everything mechanically.
In 1944 we moved to Kusaroy town near Baku in Azerbaijan where aunt Olga and her two daughters were staying. Grandmother Cherna died in 1942, and my aunt invited us to join with them. My mother obtained a permit required for any moves in the evacuation and we joined Aunt Olga. I became very close with my cousin sisters Zhanna and Sopha. I finished the 8th form there in 1945. I remember Victory Day: how our mothers were crying and so were we – they were mourning for their deceased husbands and destroyed youth and we were crying for our fathers. My mother wanted to stay to live in Azerbaijan, but the climate did not agree with me whatsoever. There was malaria, and I was the only one in the family, who suffered from it. I often felt cold and had attacks of it at exams that I pulled myself together to pass and then came home and to bed.
In spring 1942 my father came to take us to Nizhniy Tagil. Our life improved a little. We had a room for ourselves and the mistress of the apartment lived in another room. My mother went to work in a dining room and often brought some food from there. I took care of my little brother. He called me mama at times. When he grew up, Roman often said that I was his second mama. My father stayed with us for some time. He received a nice military food ration. In early summer he was sent to Sverdlovsk military political school and before he finished his studies they sent him to the Stalingrad front. Before going there he was given a leave to stay with us few days. I remember one early morning, when my mother left for work, my brother stood up in his little bed, stretched his hands toward our father and said: ‘This is my Papa!’ This was amazing how considerately he pronounced this. My father took him in his hands and kissed him. On that same day he went to the front. In middle August we received a death notification: my father took part in combat action for just a couple of weeks, but they were the hardest days near Stalingrad. I think I will never forget mama’s screaming. Some time later we received a letter that my father wrote before a battle and my mother decided he was alive. She wrote a letter to his unit and received a reply that Yefim Lerman had perished. He perished in that battle, before which he wrote his last letter.
I finished the 6th and 7th forms in a Russian school in Nizhniy Tagil where there were many evacuated children. There were also Jewish children, but I didn’t segregate nationalities then. There were good equal attitudes also. I joined Komsomol in the 7th form. I was an active Komsomol member helping other children with their homework and conducting political information classes. There were already publications in newspapers about fascists’ atrocities against Jews on the occupied territories, and my mother understood that my father’s relatives in Mogilyov perished. I also went to the cinema to the club of the railcar depot where they showed newsreels before a movie. My mother never went with me. She became secluded after my father perished doing everything mechanically.
In 1944 we moved to Kusaroy town near Baku in Azerbaijan where aunt Olga and her two daughters were staying. Grandmother Cherna died in 1942, and my aunt invited us to join with them. My mother obtained a permit required for any moves in the evacuation and we joined Aunt Olga. I became very close with my cousin sisters Zhanna and Sopha. I finished the 8th form there in 1945. I remember Victory Day: how our mothers were crying and so were we – they were mourning for their deceased husbands and destroyed youth and we were crying for our fathers. My mother wanted to stay to live in Azerbaijan, but the climate did not agree with me whatsoever. There was malaria, and I was the only one in the family, who suffered from it. I often felt cold and had attacks of it at exams that I pulled myself together to pass and then came home and to bed.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Isabella Karanchuk