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I couldn’t wait till my summer vacations when I hoped to find a job to help my parents, but then the war began on 22nd June 1941. Germany attacked the USSR.
We didn’t evacuate. My mother was very conservative. She didn’t want to leave the place. I yelled, ‘Mama, come on… Papa, you see, everybody is leaving!’ My mother said, ‘Can’t you remember our life during the Romanian regime? Where would we go?’ Of course, we knew about the fascists and how they treated Jews, but it was probably my parents’ age that they didn’t care, but they should have thought about me. Well, whatever the reasons, we happened to stay. When the Germans and Romanians occupied Kishinev, an officer of the German army, a Czech man, settled down with us. He talked with my parents. He was a good man. He used to say, ‘Go away, they will kill you!’ An old Jewish man, my father’s acquaintance, who knew German, interpreted for us. He sent his son away and he, his wife and his old grandmother stayed home.
We didn’t evacuate. My mother was very conservative. She didn’t want to leave the place. I yelled, ‘Mama, come on… Papa, you see, everybody is leaving!’ My mother said, ‘Can’t you remember our life during the Romanian regime? Where would we go?’ Of course, we knew about the fascists and how they treated Jews, but it was probably my parents’ age that they didn’t care, but they should have thought about me. Well, whatever the reasons, we happened to stay. When the Germans and Romanians occupied Kishinev, an officer of the German army, a Czech man, settled down with us. He talked with my parents. He was a good man. He used to say, ‘Go away, they will kill you!’ An old Jewish man, my father’s acquaintance, who knew German, interpreted for us. He sent his son away and he, his wife and his old grandmother stayed home.
Period
Year
1941
Location
Kishinev
Moldova
Interview
Polina Leibovich
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