Selected text
In autumn 1942 there were frequent bombings of Astrakhan. There were oil tanks burning around. Fuel was shipped to the front from Astrakhan. It was not safe to stay there. My father’s brother Pyotr was commanding officer of a squadron and teacher at a pilot school after he was wounded. The school was in the Ural, in Chkalovsk town (present Orenburg) in 2000 km from Kiev. He sent us documents to move to him. I remember that we traveled across the Caspian Sea on a bare to Gurievsk in 720 km from Astrakhan and from there we took trains to get to Orenburg. We stayed with uncle Pyotr’s family and my mother went to work as accountant.
Here was the issue of my going to school again. I said: ‘I am not going to school’. Pyotr’s wife Yelena had a strong character. She attacked my mother ‘What kind of a name is this? Sarra is written on all fences. This doesn’t make other children feel friendlier’. She asked me ‘What name do you like?’ and I said ‘Irina’. I knew Irina in my former school and she had such beautiful plates. Yelena went to school and said ‘You’ve got the wrong name of a girl. Please change Sarra to Irina. Sarra is a mistake’. They changed my name and my family convinced me that nobody would know I was a Jew. I studied very well and got along well with my schoolmates. We received letters from my father and always waited for them. He was 40 when he went to the front. He had gout and after a year of service he was released from his front line service. He had lost many friends and grieved after them a lot. He was a great person with a great heart. He was very kind. He continued his army service as cattle supplier.
My mother corresponded with her former colleagues from hospital. By the end of 1943 the hospital moved to Taganrog, a Russian town on the border with Ukraine, in 800 km from Kiev. My mother got an offer to return to the hospital and she accepted it gladly. We returned to Nezhin in 1944. About this time my grandmother and grandfather returned from evacuation in Tatarstan. Our neighbors and acquaintances were happy to see us again, I recall. They helped us with food, although they didn’t have much. I gratefully recall a bag of beans and some potatoes that our acquaintances brought from a village. There were Assyrian tenants living in our house since wartime and my grandfather thought it was not proper to make them move out. They lived in a wing of the house. It didn’t make us very comfortable. They were noisy people with their own traditions, but my grandfather and father were patient with them. I received my first lessons of humanity and tolerance. Nobody ever told them to get out.
Shortly after we returned, in 1944 my grandfather Mindel’s second wife Miriam died of diabetic coma. The war was still on, our house was cold and she didn’t survive. I remember her funeral in the Jewish cemetery. She was buried according to Jewish traditions. She was wrapped in white cloth. There were four planks, on top, at bottom and on each side and the cloth was wrapped around. I was terrified to see my grandfather doing this. Then men took this out of the house and then to the cemetery. I stayed at home. My grandfather then sat on the floor taking off his shoes and the others were cutting his clothes. There was no synagogue in Nezhin. On Friday and Saturday old men gathered in my grandfather’s room to pray. Matzah was baked in our house and we, children, took part in the process. Then matzah flour was made from matzah and there were dishes with dumplings.
Here was the issue of my going to school again. I said: ‘I am not going to school’. Pyotr’s wife Yelena had a strong character. She attacked my mother ‘What kind of a name is this? Sarra is written on all fences. This doesn’t make other children feel friendlier’. She asked me ‘What name do you like?’ and I said ‘Irina’. I knew Irina in my former school and she had such beautiful plates. Yelena went to school and said ‘You’ve got the wrong name of a girl. Please change Sarra to Irina. Sarra is a mistake’. They changed my name and my family convinced me that nobody would know I was a Jew. I studied very well and got along well with my schoolmates. We received letters from my father and always waited for them. He was 40 when he went to the front. He had gout and after a year of service he was released from his front line service. He had lost many friends and grieved after them a lot. He was a great person with a great heart. He was very kind. He continued his army service as cattle supplier.
My mother corresponded with her former colleagues from hospital. By the end of 1943 the hospital moved to Taganrog, a Russian town on the border with Ukraine, in 800 km from Kiev. My mother got an offer to return to the hospital and she accepted it gladly. We returned to Nezhin in 1944. About this time my grandmother and grandfather returned from evacuation in Tatarstan. Our neighbors and acquaintances were happy to see us again, I recall. They helped us with food, although they didn’t have much. I gratefully recall a bag of beans and some potatoes that our acquaintances brought from a village. There were Assyrian tenants living in our house since wartime and my grandfather thought it was not proper to make them move out. They lived in a wing of the house. It didn’t make us very comfortable. They were noisy people with their own traditions, but my grandfather and father were patient with them. I received my first lessons of humanity and tolerance. Nobody ever told them to get out.
Shortly after we returned, in 1944 my grandfather Mindel’s second wife Miriam died of diabetic coma. The war was still on, our house was cold and she didn’t survive. I remember her funeral in the Jewish cemetery. She was buried according to Jewish traditions. She was wrapped in white cloth. There were four planks, on top, at bottom and on each side and the cloth was wrapped around. I was terrified to see my grandfather doing this. Then men took this out of the house and then to the cemetery. I stayed at home. My grandfather then sat on the floor taking off his shoes and the others were cutting his clothes. There was no synagogue in Nezhin. On Friday and Saturday old men gathered in my grandfather’s room to pray. Matzah was baked in our house and we, children, took part in the process. Then matzah flour was made from matzah and there were dishes with dumplings.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Irina Lopko