Tag #149947 - Interview #90532 (Grigoriy Fihtman)

I remember the beginning of the Great Patriotic War very well. My father managed to go to work as a shop assistant in a store. He worked in it few months. He worked hard. It happened so that on 22 June my father skipped breakfast before going to work. My mother packed his breakfast and asked me to take it to my father. Hs store was in the center of the town near the railway station. I ran there at about 12 o’clock noon. There were people gathering near a radio on a post and I came nearer as well.  I had finished the 7th grade by then, and was a big boy. I heard Molotov’s [8] speech. I ran into the store. There was a long line as usual at it is hard to think about it even now.

I ran home and told my mother about the war and she thought about my brother in Brest. She turned into a stone from sorrow.  Whatever was said in the next days she had only one concern: «Abrasha [affectionate from Abram] is in Brest!’ She didn’t eat or sleep: ‘Abrasha is in Brest!’  Zhmerinka was bombed literally one day after the war began.