Last Witnesses Read online

  “You’ll help the German people to defeat Bolshevism.”

  “I want to go to mama.”

  “You’ll live in a house under a tile roof and eat chocolate candy.”

  “To mama…”

  O-o-oh! If people had known their fate, they wouldn’t have survived till morning.

  They loaded us and the train left. We rode for a long time, but I don’t know how long. In my car everybody was from the Vitebsk region. From different villages. They were all young and some, like me, were children. They asked me, “How did you get caught?”

  “At a dance.”

  I kept fainting from hunger and fear. I lie there. I close my eyes. And then for the first time…there…I saw an angel…The angel was small, and his wings were small. Like a bird’s. I see that he wants to save me. “How can he save me,” I thought, “if he’s so small?” That was the first time I saw him…

  Thirst…We all suffered from thirst, we wanted to drink all the time. Everything inside was so dry that my tongue came out and I couldn’t push it back in. During the day we rode with our tongues hanging out. With open mouths. During the night it was a little easier.

  I’ll remember it all my life…I’ll never forget it…

  We had buckets in the corner, where we did our number one during the ride. And one girl…She crawled to these buckets, put her arms around one of them, bent over it and began to drink. She drank in big gulps…Then she began to vomit…She would vomit and again crawl to the bucket…Again she would vomit…

  O-o-oh! If people had known their fate beforehand…

  I remember the town of Magdeburg…Our heads were shaved there and our bodies smeared with some white solution. As a prophylactic. My body burned from this solution, from this liquid, as if it was on fire. The skin peeled off. God spare us! I didn’t want to live…I no longer felt sorry for anybody: neither for myself, nor for mama and papa. You raise your eyes—they’re standing around. With their dogs. German shepherds have frightening eyes. Dogs never look you straight in the eye, they always look away, but these did. They looked us straight in the eye. I didn’t want to live…I was there with a girl I had known, and she had been taken with her mama, I don’t know how. Maybe her mama jumped into the truck with her…I don’t know…

  I’ll remember it all my life…I’ll never forget it…

  This girl stood there and cried, because when they rounded us up for the prophylactic, she lost her mama. Her mama was young…a beautiful mama…We were always in the dark during the ride, no one opened the doors for us, they were freight cars, without windows. So during the ride she didn’t see her mama. For a whole month. She stood there crying and some old woman, her head also shaven, reached out to her, wanted to caress her. She ran away from that woman until she called out: “Daughter dear…” Only by the voice did she realize she was her mama.

  O-o-oh! If…If we had known…

  We were hungry all the time. I don’t remember where I was, where they took me. The names of the places…from hunger we lived as if asleep…

  I remember carrying some boxes in a cartridge and gunpowder factory. Everything there smelled of matches. The smell of smoke…There was no smoke, but it smelled of smoke…

  I remember milking cows at some German farmer’s. Splitting wood…Twelve hours a day…

  We were fed potato peels, turnips, and were given tea with saccharine. My workmate, a Ukrainian girl, took my tea from me. She was older…stronger…She said, “I’ve got to survive…My mama’s alone at home.”

  In the fields she sang beautiful Ukrainian songs. Very beautiful.

  I…in one evening…I can’t tell everything in one evening. I won’t have time. My heart won’t stand it.

  Where was it? I don’t remember…But this was already in the camp…I evidently wound up in Buchenwald…

  We unloaded the trucks of dead people there and stacked them up in layers: a layer of dead people, a layer of tarred railway ties. One layer, another layer…and so from morning to night we prepared bonfires. Bonfires of…well, obviously…of corpses…There were some living people among the dead, and they wanted to tell us something. A few words. But we weren’t allowed to stay next to them…

  O-o-oh! Human life…I don’t know if it’s easy for a tree to live, or for all the living creatures that man has tamed. Cattle, birds…But about human beings I know everything…

  I wanted to die, I wasn’t sorry for anybody anymore…I was getting ready—was at the point of looking for a knife. My angel came flying to me…It was more than once…I don’t remember what his words of comfort were, but they were tender words. He reasoned with me for a long time…When I told other people about my angel, they thought I had lost my mind. I had no one around me that I knew, there were only strangers. No one wanted to get acquainted with anyone else, because tomorrow one or the other would die. Why get acquainted? But at some point I came to love a little girl…Mashenka…She was blond and gentle. She and I were friends for a month. In a camp a month is a whole lifetime, an eternity. She came to me first.

  “Have you got a pencil?”

  “No.”

  “And a piece of paper?”

  “No again. What do you need it for?”

  “I know I’ll die soon, and I want to write a letter to my mother.”

  We weren’t allowed to have any pencils or paper in the camp. But we found some for her. Everybody liked her—so blond and gentle. Such a gentle voice.

  “How are you going to send the letter?” I asked.

  “I’ll open the window during the night…And give the pages to the wind…”

  She was probably eight years old, maybe ten. How can you tell by the bones? There were walking skeletons there, not people…Soon she fell ill, couldn’t get up and go to work. I begged her…On the first day I even dragged her as far as the door. She clung to the door, but couldn’t walk. She lay for two days, and on the third they came and took her away on a stretcher. There was only one way out of the camp—through the chimney…Straight to heaven…

  I’ll remember it all my life…I’ll never forget it…

  At night she and I talked.

  “Does an angel come to you?” I wanted to tell her about my angel.

  “No. Mama comes to me. She always wears a white blouse. I remember this blouse she had with cornflowers embroidered on it.”

  In the fall…I survived till the fall. By what miracle, I don’t know…In the morning we were driven to work in the field. We harvested carrots, cut cabbages—I liked this work. It had been long since I went to the fields or saw anything green. In the camp you didn’t see the sky, you didn’t see the ground, because of the smoke. The chimney was tall, black. Smoke came out of it day and night…I saw a yellow flower in the field. I’d already forgotten how flowers grow. I caressed this flower…The other women also caressed it. We knew that ashes from our crematorium were brought here, and we all had our dead. A sister, or a mother…I had Mashenka…

  If I’d known I would survive, I would have asked her mama’s address. But I didn’t think I would…

  How did I survive, after dying a hundred times? I don’t know…It was my angel who saved me. He persuaded me. He appears even now. He likes nights when the moon shines brightly through the window. White light…

  Aren’t you afraid to be with me? To listen to me?…

  O-o-oh…

  * For lack of palm fronds, Russians traditionally carry pussy willow branches in the services of Palm Sunday.

  “DIG HERE…”

  Volodia Barsuk

  TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF THE SPARTAKUS ATHLETIC SOCIETY OF THE BELORUSSIAN REPUBLIC.

  We joined the partisans at once…

  Our whole family: papa, mama, my brother, and me. My brother was older. They gave him a rifl
e. I envied him, and he taught me to shoot.

  Once my brother didn’t come back from a mission…For a long time mama refused to believe he was dead. Our unit received information that a partisan group surrounded by the Germans had blown themselves up with an antitank mine so as not to be taken alive. Mama suspected that our Alexander was there. He hadn’t been sent with that group, but he could have met them. She went to the unit commander and said, “I sense that my son is lying with them. Allow me to go there.”

  She was given several fighters, and we went. And here is a mother’s heart for you! The fighters began to dig in one place, but my mama pointed to another: “Dig here…” They began to dig and found my brother. He was no longer recognizable, he was all black. Mama recognized him by a scar from appendicitis and by the comb in his pocket.

  I always remember my mama…

  I remember how I smoked for the first time. She saw it and called my father: “Look what our Vovka is doing!”

  “What is he doing?”

  “Smoking.”

  Father came up to me, looked.

  “Let him smoke. We’ll sort it out after the war.”

  During the war we recalled all the time how we lived before the war. We lived all together, several related families in one big house. We lived cheerfully and amiably. On payday Aunt Lena bought a lot of pastry and cheeses, gathered all the children, and treated them. She was killed, along with her husband and her son. All my uncles were killed…

  The war ended…I remember my mama and me walking down the street. She was carrying some potatoes she had been given at the factory where she worked. A German prisoner came to us from the ruins of a building.

  “Mutter, bitte, Kartoffel…”

  Mama said, “I won’t give you anything. Maybe you killed my son.”

  The German was taken aback and said nothing. Mama went on…Then she turned back, took out a few potatoes, and gave them to him.

  “Here, eat…”

  Now I was taken aback…What is it? During the winter we took rides several times on frozen German corpses. They could be found outside town long after the war. We used them as sleds…You could kick the dead man with your foot. We jumped on them. We went on hating them.

  Mama taught me…That was my first postwar lesson in love…

  “GRANDPA WAS BURIED UNDER THE WINDOW…”

  Varya Vyrko

  EIGHT YEARS OLD. NOW A WEAVER.

  I remember winter, cold winter. In winter our grandfather was killed.

  They killed him in our courtyard. By the gate.

  We buried him under our window…

  We weren’t allowed to bury him in the cemetery, because he had hit a German. Polizei stood by our gate and didn’t let anyone come to us. Neither relatives nor neighbors. Mama and grandma themselves knocked together a coffin out of some boxes. They themselves washed grandpa, though relatives are not supposed to wash the body. It should be done by strangers. That’s our custom. I remember this being discussed at home…They lifted the coffin. Carried it to the gate…The polizei shouted, “Turn back! Or else we’ll shoot you all! Bury him in your kitchen garden like a dog.”

  And so for three days…They go to the gate, and are sent back. Driven back…

  On the third day grandma began to pick at the ground under the window…It was minus forty outside, grandma remembered all her life that it was minus forty. It’s very difficult to bury a man when it’s so cold. I was seven then, no, probably, already eight, and I helped her. Mama pulled me out of the hole, in tears.

  There…in the place where grandpa was buried, an apple tree grew. It stands there instead of a cross. It’s already old…

  “…AND THEY TAMPED IT DOWN WITH THE SHOVELS, SO IT LOOKED PRETTY.”

  Leonid Shakinko

  TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW AN ARTIST.

  How they shot us…

  They drove us all to the brigadier’s cottage…The whole village…A warm day, warm grass. Some stood, and some sat. The women wore white kerchiefs, the children were barefoot. People always gathered together at this place on festive occasions. Sang songs. The first day of harvest, the last day of harvest. Then, too, some stood, and some sat. Village meetings were held.

  Now…no one wept…no one spoke…Even then it struck me. I had read that people usually cry or shout in the face of death—I don’t remember a single tear…Recalling it now, I’m beginning to think—maybe in those moments I became deaf and didn’t hear anything? Why were there no tears?

  The children huddled in a separate little flock, though no one separated us from the grown-ups. For some reason our mothers didn’t keep us next to them. Why? To this day I don’t know. Usually we boys weren’t very friendly with the girls. The normal thing was: if it’s a girl, she’s got to be hit, or her braids pulled. Here everybody clung to each other. You understand, even the yard dogs didn’t bark.

  Several steps away from us a machine gun was set up. Next to it two SS soldiers sat, began talking calmly about something, joking, and even laughing.

  I remember precisely these details…

  A young officer came up. And an interpreter translated, “Mister officer orders that you give the names of those who have connections with the partisans. If you keep silent, we’ll shoot you all.”

  People went on standing or sitting where they stood or sat.

  “In three minutes you’ll be shot,” the interpreter said and stuck up three fingers.

  Now I was looking at his hand all the time.

  “Two minutes—and you’ll be shot…”

  People pressed closer to each other, they said things to each other, not in words, but by the movements of hands, of eyes. I, for instance, clearly imagined that we would be shot and that would be the end of us.

  “One last minute—and you’re kaput…”

  I saw a soldier release the lock, load the cartridge belt, and take the machine gun in his hands. Some were two yards away, some ten…

  They counted off fourteen of those who stood nearest. Gave them shovels and ordered them to dig a hole. And we were driven closer, to watch them dig…They dug very quickly. Dust flew. I remember that the hole was big, deep, a full human height deep. Such holes are dug for a house, for a foundation.

  They shot three people at a time. They stood them at the edge of the hole and fired point-blank. The rest of us watched. I don’t remember parents saying farewell to their children or children to their parents. One mother raised the skirt of her dress and covered her daughter’s eyes. But even the little children didn’t cry…

  They shot fourteen people and began to fill up the hole. Again we stood and watched them cover the hole with earth, trample it with boots. And they patted it down with the shovels, so it looked pretty. Neat. You understand, they even rounded the corners, so it looked clean. One older German wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, as if he was working in a field. A little dog ran up to him…No one knew where it came from. Whose dog it was. He petted it…

  Twenty days later we were allowed to dig up the dead. To have the family take and bury them. Then the women did cry, the whole village wailed. Lamented.

  Many times I’ve stretched a canvas. I wanted to paint that…But something else came out: trees, grass…

  “I’LL BUY MYSELF A DRESS WITH A LITTLE BOW…”

  Polia Pashkevich

  FOUR YEARS OLD. NOW A DRESSMAKER.

  I was four years old…I never thought about war…

  But this is how I pictured war: a big black forest, and there’s some sort of war in it. Something scary. Why in the forest? Because in fairy tales the most scary things happened in the forest.

  More and more troops kept passing through our Belynichi, and I didn’t understand then that this was a retreat. We were being abandoned. I remember many military men in the house.
They held me in their arms. Pitied me. Wanted to give me a treat, but didn’t have anything. In the morning, when they went away, there were many cartridges left on the windowsills and everywhere. And torn-off red badges. Decorations. I played with them…I didn’t understand what these toys were…

  And here is something my aunt told me…When the Germans entered our town, they had a list of the Communists. My father was on it and the teacher who lived across the street from us. They had a son who was my friend, we called him Igrushka, “Toy.” His name was probably Igor, so I think now. Because I have the memory of this name or nickname, Igrushka. Our fathers were taken away together…

  In front of my eyes…mama was shot down in the street. When she fell, her overcoat opened, it became red, and the snow around mama became red…

  Then we were kept for a long time in some shed. It was very frightening, we wept, we shouted. I had a sister and a brother, two and a half, and one year old. I was four, I was the oldest. We were little, but we already knew that, when there was shelling, it wasn’t planes dropping bombs, but artillery. We could tell by the sound whether or not it was one of our planes coming, and whether the bomb would fall near us or far off. It was frightening, very frightening, but you covered your head, and then it wasn’t. The main thing was not to see anything.

  Later we went somewhere on a sledge, all three of us, and in a village women took us to their cottages one by one. No one took my little brother for a long time, and he cried, “What about me?” My sister and I were afraid they would separate us and we’d no longer be together. We had always lived together.

  Once I was almost eaten by a German shepherd. I was sitting by the window. The Germans came down the street with two big German shepherds. One of them dashed at my window and broke the glass. Someone snatched me from the windowsill, but I was so frightened that from that day on I began to stutter. Even now I’m afraid of big dogs.