Tag #153986 - Interview #94321 (Mira Markovna Mlotok)

In winter I went to Sverdlovsk springtime 1942. It was a very snowy winter. I could not cross the street before it was cleansed from snow. I learned that the Kiev Conservatoire had been evacuated to Sverdlovsk. The teachers recognized me and treated me well. I rented a part of a room. We studied in the premises of the Sverdlovsk Conservatoire. It was a wonderful building downtown, on Lenin Street. We had a life full of music. Famous pianists, actors, singers and musicians came there. We, students, performed in hospitals. We had to smile there. We were looking at those wounded soldiers wrapped in bandages, our souls cried out, but we had to sing and smile to them. Especially if we met somebody from Ukraine, we became like relatives to one another and tried to do whatever that other person desired from you. The military who formed tank divisions in Sverdlovsk came together in the Officers’ House. We performed a concert to them as well. And the next morning, we went to see them off, and when we were at the train station; it was very cold and frosty and we should not have sung, but we sang anyway. There were different people, including the Jews. But there was no anti-Semitism.