Selected text
In 1940 my parents sold our apartment and bought a house. It was a modest house, but there was a kitchen garden and a garden close to it. There was electricity in the house, but there was no gas and we stoked the stove with coal. The toilet was in the yard, but this was so common in Makeevka that we didn’t consider it a discomfort. There was also a radio in the house. We often listened to concerts and literary readings in the evening. Shortly before the war we got a record player and I was very fond of listening to records. I liked Soviet songs such as ‘How spacious is my country’, ‘March of enthusiasts’, etc. [Well-known Soviet patriotic and Communist songs.]
We heard about the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on the radio. There were crowds of people near street radios at noon of 22nd June 1941 listening to the frightening words by Molotov [17] about the beginning of the war. This was one day before I received my certificate for finishing my 9th year at school. After about ten days our relatives from Bessarabia arrived: my mother’s brother and sister, their children and husbands, in-laws, neighbors and acquaintances. They arrived on horse-driven carts and there wasn’t enough space in the yard for all of them to park. They were tired and exhausted and after having a meal they fell asleep on the floor. They were telling horrible details of the brutalities of Nazis and about their escape. Our relatives didn’t stay long but soon continued their way to the East by train. Nuchim and Maria were recruited to the army on the first days of the war. Maria came to say goodbye, but my stepbrother didn’t even get a chance to see us before he left.
My parents, my younger brother and I packed, ready to evacuate. My mother made rucksacks from pillowcases for us into which we put our underwear, clothes, a few textbooks and our favorite books. There were air raids and a curfew was introduced in the town. My father made a shelter in the yard where we were hiding during air raids. We only managed to leave in October 1941. Our distant relative, the one that once helped my father and brother to find a job in Makeevka, helped us to evacuate. He worked at a large metallurgical plant and we managed to evacuate to the Ural with this plant. We traveled in a freight train with a stove in our railcar. We had food to last two weeks, at the maximum. We didn’t believe we would be gone for long. We didn’t have many essential things. We didn’t have cups or all the necessary clothes. At stations we sometimes got some cereal or soup. Our fellow travelers even managed to cook some food on the stove. It was good that we had enough dried bread. During air raids on our way the train stopped and we scattered around. For some reason I was scared most about seeing dead horses in the fields. I was very afraid from then on.
We heard about the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on the radio. There were crowds of people near street radios at noon of 22nd June 1941 listening to the frightening words by Molotov [17] about the beginning of the war. This was one day before I received my certificate for finishing my 9th year at school. After about ten days our relatives from Bessarabia arrived: my mother’s brother and sister, their children and husbands, in-laws, neighbors and acquaintances. They arrived on horse-driven carts and there wasn’t enough space in the yard for all of them to park. They were tired and exhausted and after having a meal they fell asleep on the floor. They were telling horrible details of the brutalities of Nazis and about their escape. Our relatives didn’t stay long but soon continued their way to the East by train. Nuchim and Maria were recruited to the army on the first days of the war. Maria came to say goodbye, but my stepbrother didn’t even get a chance to see us before he left.
My parents, my younger brother and I packed, ready to evacuate. My mother made rucksacks from pillowcases for us into which we put our underwear, clothes, a few textbooks and our favorite books. There were air raids and a curfew was introduced in the town. My father made a shelter in the yard where we were hiding during air raids. We only managed to leave in October 1941. Our distant relative, the one that once helped my father and brother to find a job in Makeevka, helped us to evacuate. He worked at a large metallurgical plant and we managed to evacuate to the Ural with this plant. We traveled in a freight train with a stove in our railcar. We had food to last two weeks, at the maximum. We didn’t believe we would be gone for long. We didn’t have many essential things. We didn’t have cups or all the necessary clothes. At stations we sometimes got some cereal or soup. Our fellow travelers even managed to cook some food on the stove. It was good that we had enough dried bread. During air raids on our way the train stopped and we scattered around. For some reason I was scared most about seeing dead horses in the fields. I was very afraid from then on.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Fira Usatinskaya Biography