Tag #152157 - Interview #78238 (maya kaganskaya)

Our family didn't have any doubts about evacuation. We watched films about the brutality of fascists, such as Professor Mamlock 29 and others, and were aware of Hitler's plans about Jews. In early July our family began preparations for evacuation. Uncle Moshe was appointed director of a mine in Lugansk [about 1,500 km from Kiev in the southeast of Ukraine]. My family thought it was far enough in the rear and decided to send me there with his family. Uncle Moshe only had space for one person in the car. My mother said that she would stay in Kiev and if Germans invaded it she would join the underground movement and that she would feel better if I went with my uncle. We left on 3rd July, but we weren't allowed to leave Kiev since all roads were closed and civil vehicles weren't allowed to leave. We returned home. There was panic in Kiev and people tried to find any way to leave. Trains were overcrowded. Many people went by boats or barges down the Dnieper, which was continuously being bombed.

My grandfather and my uncles Nochim and Moshe found a way out. They bought a cart and two horses and made a booth on the cart so it looked like a gypsy wagon. When we all boarded this wagon: my mother and I, my grandfather, Uncle Nochim and his wife and daughter and Uncle Moshe with his family - the horses could hardly pull the wagon. When we had to ascend a street in Podol the wagon fell apart and we had to return home. The men started working on our means of transportation and we started on our way again on 15th July. In the evening we reached the town of Borispol, 30 kilometers from Kiev. There was a military airfield in this town. We stayed overnight there watching our horses at night. I took my turn when it was my time to watch them. In the morning we moved on. After we covered about ten kilometers some military took away one horse from us - this happened near Baryshevka. They gave us a letter confirming that it was their obligation to return it to us after the war.