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We returned to our house and our life was gradually coming into its routine. Of course, it was still hard, but we didn’t feel it. We were happy that we didn’t have to be afraid of air raids, Germans or camps. Schools opened in April. I returned to my school. I was the only Jew in my class, but I faced no anti-Semitism. Everybody tried to support me. We didn’t have vacation that summer studying to catch up with what we had missed at school.
We received a letter from my younger brother Mikhail with whom we had no contacts through the whole period of occupation. He was looking for us and wrote my father’s brother Froim, who gave us his letter. Mama could hardly write, and I wrote letters for my brother. Mama began to receive allowances per my brother’s military certificate. My brother wrote us that at the beginning he was sent to an artillery school. In 1942 he was sent to the front as a lieutenant, in 1944 he was promoted to the rank of captain and had a machine gun company under his command. We received the last letter from Mikhail’s aide in July 1944. He wrote that Mikhail perished in Austria on 25 June 1944. He was inspecting the positions, when a shell splinter wounded him on the head. His aide wrote us that Mikhail was a nice person and a good commanding officer and that we could be proud of him. Soon afterward we received a letter from the military unit where Grigoriy had served. They wrote us that my older brother Grigoriy disappeared near Stalingrad. There were three of us left: mama, my sister and I. If it had not been for my mother, we would not have survived. Mama altered clothes or made new clothes, which Froim sell at the market.
In 1946 I finished the 5th form at school. That year our school was disbanded. There were only 13 of 30 schoolchildren left in my class: some perished during the war, others had to go to work to support themselves and their families, and authorities decided to bring two schools together. I thought I it was time for me to support mama, and went to work as a lab assistant at the buttery and went to the 6th form in the evening school where my cousin Riva was a mathematic teacher. Of course, it was hard to study and work but I felt better supporting my mother. I joined Komsomol 27 in the evening school.
We received a letter from my younger brother Mikhail with whom we had no contacts through the whole period of occupation. He was looking for us and wrote my father’s brother Froim, who gave us his letter. Mama could hardly write, and I wrote letters for my brother. Mama began to receive allowances per my brother’s military certificate. My brother wrote us that at the beginning he was sent to an artillery school. In 1942 he was sent to the front as a lieutenant, in 1944 he was promoted to the rank of captain and had a machine gun company under his command. We received the last letter from Mikhail’s aide in July 1944. He wrote that Mikhail perished in Austria on 25 June 1944. He was inspecting the positions, when a shell splinter wounded him on the head. His aide wrote us that Mikhail was a nice person and a good commanding officer and that we could be proud of him. Soon afterward we received a letter from the military unit where Grigoriy had served. They wrote us that my older brother Grigoriy disappeared near Stalingrad. There were three of us left: mama, my sister and I. If it had not been for my mother, we would not have survived. Mama altered clothes or made new clothes, which Froim sell at the market.
In 1946 I finished the 5th form at school. That year our school was disbanded. There were only 13 of 30 schoolchildren left in my class: some perished during the war, others had to go to work to support themselves and their families, and authorities decided to bring two schools together. I thought I it was time for me to support mama, and went to work as a lab assistant at the buttery and went to the 6th form in the evening school where my cousin Riva was a mathematic teacher. Of course, it was hard to study and work but I felt better supporting my mother. I joined Komsomol 27 in the evening school.
Period
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Riva Pizman Biography