Tag #149209 - Interview #96343 (Raisa Roitman)

At 12am on 22nd June we found out about the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War from Molotov’s speech [21]. That was the last time I saw Nahman before leaving for evacuation. As it turned out, he was drafted into the Soviet army [22] in the first days of the war. There was panic at home. Father insisted on evacuation, Mother still had doubts whether to leave or not to leave. On 8th August the town was bombed for the first time. We stayed in the town for another week. Almost all the Jews left for the evacuation – some people left on carts, others went on foot. Some Jews, especially the elderly ones, weren’t in a haste to leave as they thought that the Germans would do no harm to them.

On 16th July my parents decided to leave, right after Kishinev was occupied.