Tag #143025 - Interview #95735 (Vera Sonina)

I remember from our life in Zaporozhye that there were Jewish pogroms [2]. Once Daddy told us very seriously ‘Children, silence! I forbid you either to cry or to shout or laugh.’ Parents threw all our pillows and feather-beds to the distant room, and placed there younger children (me and Annette). Shura and Slava (our elder sisters) went to the basement. You see, when they pushed me to the feather-bed I was suddenly taken with a fit of laughter, and Daddy allowed me to laugh, but only very quietly. I remember nothing about this pogrom, except my unrestrained laughter. It is so good to be little! I remember one more about Zaporozhye. My sister Zhenya disappeared suddenly. Everyone was nervous, we were running, shouting. Our neighbors shouted to each other ‘Which of them is missing?’ - ‘Zhenya, of course, who else could it be!’ She was a well-known hooligan. And in the meantime I was creeping round the yard. There was a huge stack of fire wood there. It seemed to me similar to a city with streets, lanes, and squares. And there I saw Zhenya sleeping in one of those streets. That scene is still before my eyes, and I do not know the reason: probably, anxiety of adults impressed me.