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It was a long trip. The train stooped near Penza in Russia, 1500 kilometers from home. We were ordered to get off the train since it was supposed to take the wounded soldiers from the front. The locals took us to their villages on their carts. My mother and I and another family stayed overnight in a ‘kibitka’ [a hut] without windows or doors. We were given half a loaf of bread. It was cold at night and we were scared of the wolves howling.
We stayed there two or three days before I went to look for a job or a place to stay. I found a place to live in the village of Olenevka, Kondylskiy district, Penza region. There was a big Soviet farm some five kilometers from the village where I was hired as an accountant. My mother worked helping with the weeding of beetroots in the village. She was used to hard manual worked and she was doing all right.
I met Joseph Koenigsman, a Jew from Estonia, a veterinary, in the village. Doctors had advised his wife to change the climate and they moved to the southern steppes around 1939, after the Baltic Republics joined the USSR [12]. I worked and stayed overnight in the office. Joseph visited me every evening. We read newspapers and discussed news from the front.
Once he came to the office and told me to take my pillow and blanket and move to his house. His family was kind to me and when they heard that my mother was in the village they told me to bring her to their apartment. They kept livestock: chicken, geese and ducks and we had plenty of food.
Every evening after work I brought some bread to the station hoping to meet someone that could give me some information about my sister. I didn’t meet anyone, but just gave this bread to other people that were going into evacuation.
In October 1941 the fascists came close to Moscow. We decided to move farther to the east – to Middle Asia. Our landlords, Joseph and Linda, were in Penza – Linda was injured when she fell from the cart on the way and was taken to hospital. Joseph was with her to take care of her.
My employers felt reluctant to let me leave work, but I explained that I had to find my cousin and her children. I wrote a warm thankful letter to our landlords. We locked the house and left.
We stayed there two or three days before I went to look for a job or a place to stay. I found a place to live in the village of Olenevka, Kondylskiy district, Penza region. There was a big Soviet farm some five kilometers from the village where I was hired as an accountant. My mother worked helping with the weeding of beetroots in the village. She was used to hard manual worked and she was doing all right.
I met Joseph Koenigsman, a Jew from Estonia, a veterinary, in the village. Doctors had advised his wife to change the climate and they moved to the southern steppes around 1939, after the Baltic Republics joined the USSR [12]. I worked and stayed overnight in the office. Joseph visited me every evening. We read newspapers and discussed news from the front.
Once he came to the office and told me to take my pillow and blanket and move to his house. His family was kind to me and when they heard that my mother was in the village they told me to bring her to their apartment. They kept livestock: chicken, geese and ducks and we had plenty of food.
Every evening after work I brought some bread to the station hoping to meet someone that could give me some information about my sister. I didn’t meet anyone, but just gave this bread to other people that were going into evacuation.
In October 1941 the fascists came close to Moscow. We decided to move farther to the east – to Middle Asia. Our landlords, Joseph and Linda, were in Penza – Linda was injured when she fell from the cart on the way and was taken to hospital. Joseph was with her to take care of her.
My employers felt reluctant to let me leave work, but I explained that I had to find my cousin and her children. I wrote a warm thankful letter to our landlords. We locked the house and left.
Period
Year
1941
Location
Penzenskaya oblast'
Russia
Interview
Natan Shapiro