Tag #151981 - Interview #93770 (Frida Palanker)

My father wasn’t recruited to the army. At the beginning of the war only young men and professional military were summoned to the front and my father was 46 by the beginning of the war. He was left in reserve as well as other men between 40 and 50 years old. The reservists didn’t have a right to leave Kiev. They were supposed to wait for either recruitment to the front or an order summoning them to the labor front. So my father stayed and my mother, my sisters, my brother and I evacuated on 25 July 1941. It wasn’t an organized process. There was an announcement that those that wanted to evacuate were to come to the reserve railroad spur at Pechersk. We took one suitcase with us and I had my violin with me. Our father took us to the railway station. He was afraid to go with us - he thought he might have been executed as a deserter. We said our good-bye to him and boarded the platform railcars.