Tag #154744 - Interview #103607 (Riva Pizman Biography)

In 1939 Hitler’s armies attacked Poland. Then the Finnish campaign 23 began. I remember this well since my parents were very concerned: it was about time my brothers were to go to the army.  When the war was over, we all sighed with relief. My older brother Grigoriy was recruited to the army in 1940. In March 1941 my brother Mikhail was to go to the army. Some time before mama went to the military registry office to ask the commander to let one son stay at home considering that my father was paralyzed. The commander promised my mother that Grigoriy would be demobilized in June-July being the breadwinner in the family, but Mikhail had to go to the army. Before going to the army Mikhail bought me my first winter coat from thick coffee-colored woolen fabric. He wrote us from the army, ad in each letter he added few words for me. He told me to study well at school and that he would work to help me to finish in college, when he returned, but this was not to be. 
 
 
I remember the Sunday of 22 June 1941 [Great Patriotic War] 24. It was a warm and sunny day. I was playing with my friends outside, when mama came out and told us that the radio had just announced Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Since we didn’t have a radio, I think our neighbors told mama about the war. I got very scared for my two brothers.  My older brother was immediately sent to the front. The town was bombed for the first time on 23 June. We lived near the railway station, and German planes started bombing the railroad track. The shell splinters broke the window and flew into the corridor, but other than that, the house was not damaged.