Tag #155163 - Interview #77971 (raissa smelaya)

The enterprise where my mother' sister Hanne worked evacuated. Her husband Michael was at the front. Hanne and her family lived with my grandparents. When lists of people for evacuation were developed at her enterprise Hanne had my mother, my sister Maya and me, Polina and her child and my grandmother and grandfather enrolled. My grandparents refused to evacuate. They said that they weren't afraid of the Germans and didn't believe what people said about their brutalities. Besides, they were too old to leave their home. And they stayed. My mother's older sister, Shura, and her two daughters evacuated to the Ural with the plant where Shura's husband was working. She also tried to convince her parents go with her, but in vain. My mother's brother, Munia, also stayed in Kiev. He was responsible for all the preparations at the factory for evacuation. After the war we got to know that on 29th September 1941 my grandmother, grandfather and Uncle Munia were shot by fascists in Babi Yar.