Tag #152858 - Interview #78029 (Bella Kisselgof)

I have clear memories of the first day of the war. Germans began bombing Donbass almost immediately. It was of strategic interest to them, being the center of the USSR coal industry. The war began on Sunday morning, June 22, 1941. (Editor's note: On June 22, 1941 at 5 o'clock in the morning fascist Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring a war. On this day the Great patriotic War began.) It was a warm day, and my mother was taking a bath in our summer kitchen in the yard. When the bombs were falling she ran out of there covered in soapsuds. The bombings never stopped. We lived across the street from the metallurgical plant which was constantly bombed. The bombing was frightening. Then bomb-proof shelters were constructed, and people hid there during the air raids. People began to panic. Nobody knew what was going on.