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Stalin issued an order that all 'kresowiacy' [Poles living in Soviet- occupied Eastern Poland, today the Western part of the Ukraine and Belarus, as well as some parts of Lithuania] were to be transferred to labor battalions. They were to be stripped of their arms since they were unreliable. The Commissar of my battalion, a construction battalion, was an old Bolshevik, Izaac Yakovlevitch Limanov. He claimed to be a Ukrainian, but whenever he uttered a word, I knew that it had come from the depths of the Talmud. He was an intelligent, well-educated man.
What did we build, then? Well, anti-tank ditches, 'maskirovki', or embankments designed to camouflage airplanes. We didn't have any arms. We were given 800 grams of bread per day, when other battalions, labor battalions, got 400 grams of bread. From Kiev we began to retreat in order to carry out projects in the hinterland. The road got muddy before Kharkov; our automobiles couldn't get through. We got bogged down in one place called Bogodukhov. The Germans had already come as far as Kharkov and we could have fallen into their hands any day. A miracle happened overnight: the temperature fell below freezing and the ground froze; we were able to drive on.
What did we build, then? Well, anti-tank ditches, 'maskirovki', or embankments designed to camouflage airplanes. We didn't have any arms. We were given 800 grams of bread per day, when other battalions, labor battalions, got 400 grams of bread. From Kiev we began to retreat in order to carry out projects in the hinterland. The road got muddy before Kharkov; our automobiles couldn't get through. We got bogged down in one place called Bogodukhov. The Germans had already come as far as Kharkov and we could have fallen into their hands any day. A miracle happened overnight: the temperature fell below freezing and the ground froze; we were able to drive on.
Period
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Michal Friedman