At the beginning of July my father volunteered to the front.
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raissa smelaya
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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.
We, three women and four children, evacuated on 14th July, 1941. I was 13 and the other children were under five years of age. We had little luggage and food with us. We didn't think we would be leaving for long. My mother took my sister Maya's doll, but she left her winter coat at home. I can't remember how long our trip lasted. I guess we were on the way for several weeks. The train was overcrowded, but at least it was a passenger train with sleeping berths and a toilet. When the train stopped my mother and aunt got off to get some food. We were starving. I got off the train to get some water and was always afraid that the train would leave without me.
There was a horrible air raid near Dnepropetrovsk. German planes were flying so low that we could see the pilots. We got out of the train and ran to a mound. Fortunately, only two railcars were destroyed and the locomotive wasn't damaged.
We reached the village of Nikolskoye village, Enataevsk district in Stalingrad region, 900 kilometers from Kiev. We got accommodation in a local house. The owners of the house, Dunia and Vania, were very nice Russian people. They accommodated us and gave us food. Once a funny thing happened. Another train with evacuated people arrived and they invited us to go take a look at the Jews that arrived on this train. My mother replied, 'You needn't go there. Just look at us'. Our landlords were shocked to hear that we were Jews. It turned out they had never seen Jews before and they thought Jews looked different from other people.
I went to work at the collective farm 17. We worked in the field picking potatoes and making shieves. My mother and Hanne also worked and Polina took care of the children.
German troops were approaching and we had to move on. We got to Astrakhan in Middle Asia by train and from there to Makhachkala across the Caspian Sea. From Makhachkala we went to Kazakhstan by train covering in total over 3,500 kilometers to the East. Those were freight trains that we went by. People put luggage, newspapers and even straw onto the floor to sleep at night. The railcar was stuffed with people. One of the boys in our railcar fell ill with measles. It was impossible to stay intact in such insanitary conditions and soon all children contracted measles including our little ones. My sister Maya, who was two years old, and Hanne and Polina's children died on this train. Polina's son had dystrophy. Almost at every station a cart came to the train to collect the dead. We don't know where the children were buried.
We reached Djusaly station, Karmakcha district in Kazakhstan. We were taken to the town of Karmakchi on a coach. Polina went to the military registry office to volunteer to the front. She perished in action in 1943.
My mother, Hanne and I stayed in Karmakchi. We got accommodation in a local Kazakh house. We lived three horrible years in a small dark room. The owners of the house treated us nicely and with understanding though.
Kamakchi was a small town typical for Middle Asia, with narrow streets and small clay houses. There were no trees in the streets due to the desert climate and sand soil. There were wells in the streets but the water was deep down in the well. There were irrigation streams - aryks - in some streets. Children used to have a bath in them. The locals spoke Kazakh. Only few of them could speak Russian.
I went to work at the military mechanic plant that was evacuated from Central Russia. I worked at the foundry that manufactured blanks for shell frames. When a blank got cold I had to remove all burrs and scars. We worked in two shifts: the first shift from 7am to 7pm and the second shift from 7pm to 7am. I received a worker's card for one kilo of bread. The bread was heavy and sticky and one kilo wasn't that much. My mother and Hanne received cards of non-manual workers for 300 grams of bread. They were nurse attendants in hospital. Workers at the plant got a bowl of soup and cereal at the canteen. I took soup home in a jar. My mother added some water to it and had it with Aunt Hanne. I was growing up and didn't have enough food. We didn't have any clothes to exchange for food. We were on the edge of survival throughout the three years in evacuation. I had dystrophy. Once I found potato peels in a pile of garbage. I brought them home. My mother washed and boiled them and we ate them. Sometimes we received bran per coupons. My mother added boiling water to it to make a meal for us.
There was a school at the plant. There were many teenage workers at the plant that needed to attend school. The school worked in two shifts. I attended classes after work and finished the 7th and 8th grades in evacuation. Later I got a job at the district health department - in the document control section.
Some Chechen people were deported to the town where we lived [forced deportation to Siberia] 18. Most of them were ill with typhoid and malaria. Those Chechens were such bandits. When they came to Karmakchi we were afraid of going outside and had to lock all doors, even though there was nothing to steal from us. The health department sent me to make a list of those Chechens. I contracted spotted and enteric fever from them. Later I developed relapsing fever. If it hadn't been for my mother, who worked in hospital and attended to me, I could have died any moment. There were no medications or food. Fortunately, my mother didn't contract the fever from me. Well, however hard life was I don't remember any conflicts or disagreements associated with the issue of nationality or any other issues. People were united and believed in victory. We all tried to support and help one another. There were Jews among them, but I don't know if they observed Jewish traditions.
My mother corresponded with my father. He sent us cards with the address of his field post. Once my mother's letter was returned and there was a stamp saying, 'Addressee left' on it, but soon we received the notification that my father was missing. And almost immediately afterward we received his death notification. This happened in 1942. My father had volunteered to the front when he could have gone with us but he thought that it was his duty to defend our motherland. People believed in the Soviet people and the Party. Soldiers marched into battles in the name of Stalin because they trusted him. They won because they believed.
In November 1943 we learned that the Soviet troops had liberated Kiev. Aunt Hanne left for home immediately. She wrote us about our relatives that had been exterminated in Babi Yar. Our neighbors told her about them. Other people lived in my grandparents' apartment. Aunt Hanne rented a corner in a room and was working on getting back the apartment. She got it back after a trial.
I finished eight years of lower secondary school. There was a college of film operators in Kiev. I wrote a covering letter and attached my school certificate with all highest grades in it. They replied that I was admitted and sent me an invitation to come to Kiev to study at the college. This invitation was a pass for us to return to Kiev. In summer 1944 my mother and I went to Kiev. Our return trip was less difficult. Besides, we were used to hardships after our life in evacuation.
Kiev had suffered a lot from bombing. Kreschatik was all in ruins, but our house wasn't destroyed. High-rank military lived in it. Upon arrival I obtained a certificate from our residential agency to confirm that we had lived in this building before the war. We had a certificate saying that our father had perished at the front and a certificate stating that we had worked in evacuation. There was also evidence from our neighbors that we had lived in this apartment and my mother's passport with a stamp that included our home address in Kiev. However, we didn't get our room back. We didn't even get back our belongings that we had left in the apartment when we left. Hanne and we settled down in my grandparents' room.
Kiev had suffered a lot from bombing. Kreschatik was all in ruins, but our house wasn't destroyed. High-rank military lived in it. Upon arrival I obtained a certificate from our residential agency to confirm that we had lived in this building before the war. We had a certificate saying that our father had perished at the front and a certificate stating that we had worked in evacuation. There was also evidence from our neighbors that we had lived in this apartment and my mother's passport with a stamp that included our home address in Kiev. However, we didn't get our room back. We didn't even get back our belongings that we had left in the apartment when we left. Hanne and we settled down in my grandparents' room.
Victory Day 19 on 9th May 1945 was such a happy day! People seemed to have forgotten about their hardships and losses for the time being. Everybody went to the streets exchanging hugs and kisses, greeting each other, singing and crying.
My mother went to work as a dressmaker at a shop near our house.
I studied at the Cinematography College and in the meantime I finished a higher secondary evening school and received a certificate. In college I joined the Komsomol 20. I was very happy about it. I still have my Komsomol membership certificate.
I couldn't find a job upon finishing college: most of the cinemas had been destroyed during the war. I went to work as an assistant accountant at the shoe factory where my father's brother Jacob had worked before the war. I had a training period and learned to operate calculators promptly.
I found my school friends that had survived and returned to Kiev. We went to the cinema and dance parties together; we were young and wanted to enjoy life.
My mother's younger brother Naum, who had finished a flying school before the war, also returned from the front. He was a fighter pilot throughout the war.
, Ukraine
In 1945 my mother's brother David returned from the front.
Naum lived in Kiev and was a lecturer at Kiev Air Force College.
My mother's older sister Shura returned from evacuation in the Ural where she was with her two daughters. Her husband Michael also returned from the front. They managed to get their apartment back and lived there all their life.
None of them was buried in the Jewish cemetery. They didn't observe Jewish traditions after the war.
In the late 1940s we began to face anti-Semitism. This was a hard period: there was lack of food products and there were long queues in stores for any kind of food. I remember the flour sale in a store. A lame handicapped man came to the store and brandishing his stick began to yell that zhydy [abusive name for Jews in the Soviet Union] should leave the queue since none of them had been at the front. In general, people had a very aggressive attitude towards Jews. Most of them were sure that Jews had been sitting in the rear during the war and that none of them had struggled at the front.
I got married at the beginning of 1948. A friend of mine who worked at the Fire Department of Kiev invited me to a party at her workplace. Leonid Yakovenko, the head of the Investigation Department, asked me to dance the whole evening. Shortly afterwards he became my husband.
My mother took it easy that Leonid was a Ukrainian man. What mattered to her was that he had an apartment because I was poor and miserable.
We had a civil ceremony at the registration office. My mother and her sisters bought a big goose; it was their wedding gift. In the evening my mother arranged a wedding dinner for us. We had roasted goose and a bottle of wine. My aunts and my friend Zina, who had introduced me to my husband, came to the wedding.