Tag #151016 - Interview #78412 (Frieda Portnaya)

In the middle of June 1941 my mother and I went to stay at Aunt Manya’s in Korostyshev for few days. She wanted to leave me there for the summer vacation. My brother Mikhail stayed in Kiev as he was taking his final exams at school. We were at Korostyshev when we head about the beginning of the war. I didn’t quite understand what it was all about, but I got scared looking at the adults. My mother and Aunt Manya were sobbing, listening to foreign minister Molotov’s speech. My mother tried to rush back to Kiev immediately, but the buses were not running, and panic burst out. We stood on the road for a long while until we got a ride to Kiev on a truck filled with soldiers.