Tag #151722 - Interview #78100 (Lazar Gurfinkel)

In June 1941 I passed all my exams successfully and obtained my certificate of secondary education. Three days later the war began. On the night of 22nd June my mother and I were woken up by an explosion, followed by many more. I saw a plane flying so low that I could see black crosses with a white stripe. Then a vehicle stopped near our fence. The military in it began to shoot at the plane from anti-aircraft weapons. This happened at 5 o'clock in the morning. We went outside. A military told us to stay calm and that it was just another military training. I went into the street and saw wounded soldiers on a vehicle.

By 9 o'clock the director of the pharmacy told us that the war had begun. I had a radio. I switched it to the Moscow frequency, but there were no announcements. I switched to short waves and heard an announcement in Russian, but I could hear that it wasn't the mother tongue of the speaker. He said, 'Farmers, don't burn your fields or take away your cattle. Such actions will be viewed as sabotage against the German army and punished according to the war laws'. Then another program announced that Adolf Hitler would be on air at 10 o'clock in the morning. I could understand German and listened to his speech. He explained that he decided to attack the Soviet Union and that it was a pre-emptive step, as the Soviet Union had plans to attack Germany. That was all he said.