Last Witnesses Page 4

  These pictures, these lights. My riches. The treasure of what I lived through…

  No one believes me, even mama didn’t believe me. After the war, when we began to remember, she kept wondering, “You couldn’t recall that yourself, you were little. Somebody told you…”

  No, I myself remember…

  Bombs are exploding, and I’m clutching at my older brother: “I want to live! I want to live!” I was afraid to die, though what could I have known about death? What?

  I myself…

  Mama gave me and my brother the last two potatoes, and just looked at us. We knew that those potatoes were the last ones. I wanted to leave her…a small piece…And I couldn’t. My brother also couldn’t…We were ashamed. Terribly ashamed.

  No, I myself…

  I saw our first soldier…I think he was a tankist, I can’t say exactly…I ran to him: “Papa!” He lifted me to the sky: “Sonny!”

  I remember everything…

  I remember the adults saying, “He’s little. He doesn’t understand.” I was surprised: “They’re strange, these adults, why have they decided that I don’t understand anything? I understand everything.” It even seemed to me that I understood more than the adults, because I didn’t cry and they did.

  The war is my history book. My solitude…I missed the time of childhood, it fell out of my life. I’m a man without a childhood. Instead of a childhood, I have the war.

  The only other shock like that in my life came from love. When I fell in love…Knew love…

  “THROUGH A BUTTONHOLE…”

  Inna Levkevich

  TEN YEARS OLD. NOW A CONSTRUCTION ENGINEER.

  In the first days…From early morning…

  Bombs were exploding over us…On the ground lay telephone poles and wires. Frightened people ran out of their houses. They ran out to the street, constantly warning each other, “Watch out—there’s a wire! Watch out—there’s a wire!” so that no one would get snared and fall. As if that was the most terrible thing.

  In the morning of June 26 mama still handed out the salaries, because she worked as an accountant at a factory, but by evening we were already refugees. As we were leaving Minsk, we saw our school burn. Flames raged in every window. So bright…So…so intense, right up to the sky…We wept that our school was burning. There were four of us, three went on foot, and the fourth “rode” in mama’s arms. Mama was nervous, because she took the key, but forgot to lock the apartment. She tried to stop the cars, cried and begged, “Take our children, and we’ll go and defend the city.” She refused to believe that the Germans were already in the city. That the city had surrendered.

  Everything that was happening before our eyes and with us was frightening and incomprehensible. Especially death…Pots and pans lay about around the killed people. Everything was burning…It seemed as if we were running over burning coals…I always made friends with boys, and was myself a tomboy. I was interested to see how the bombs came flying, how they whined, how they fell. When mama shouted, “Lie down on the ground!” I peeked through a buttonhole…What was there in the sky? And how were people running…Something was hanging from a tree…When I realized that this something was a man, I was stunned. I closed my eyes…

  My sister Irma was seven; she carried a Primus stove and mama’s shoes. She was terribly afraid to lose those shoes. They were new, of a pale-rose color, with a faceted heel. Mama had taken them by chance, or maybe because they were her most beautiful thing.

  With the key, and with the shoes, we soon returned to the city, where everything had burned down. Soon we began to starve. We gathered goosefoot and ate it. Ate some sort of dry flowers! Winter was coming. Fearing the partisans, the Germans burned a big kolkhoz*1 orchard outside the city, and everybody went there to cut some wood from the stumps, to have at least a little. To heat the stove at home. We made liver out of yeast: we fried yeast in a pan and it acquired the taste of liver. Mama gave me money to buy bread at the market. An old woman there was selling kid goats, and I imagined that I’d save the whole family by buying a kid. The kid would grow up—and we’d have a lot of milk. So I bought the kid, paying all the money mama had given me. I don’t remember mama scolding me, but I do remember us sitting hungry for several days: we had no money. We cooked some sort of mixture to feed the kid, and I took him with me to bed, to keep him warm, but he was cold anyway. Soon he died. This was a tragedy. We wept very much, didn’t want mama to take him away. I wept the most, considering myself guilty. Mama took him away by night, and told us that the mice ate the kid.

  Yet under the occupation we celebrated all the May and October holidays.*2 Our holidays! Ours! We always sang songs, our family all liked to sing. We could eat potatoes in skins, maybe one piece of sugar for us all; still on that day we tried to prepare something a bit better than usual, even if the next day we’d go hungry—we still celebrated all the holidays. In a whisper, we sang mama’s favorite song: “The morning paints in tender hues / The ancient Kremlin walls…” That was a must.

  A neighbor baked some little pies to sell and offered them to us: “Take them wholesale, and go and sell them piecemeal. You’re young, light-footed.” I decided to do it, because I knew how hard it was for mama alone to feed us. The neighbor brought the pies, my sister Irma and I sat and looked at them.

  “Irma, don’t you think that this pie is bigger than that one?” I said.

  “Seems so…”

  You can’t imagine how I wanted to try a little piece.

  “Let’s cut a tiny bit, and then go selling.”

  We sat like that for two hours till there was nothing to take to the market. Then the neighbor started making candy, the kind they stopped selling in the stores for some reason. She gave some to us to go and sell. Again Irma and I sat over them.

  “One is big, bigger than the others. Let’s lick it a little bit, Irma.”

  “Let’s…”

  We had one coat for the three of us, one pair of felt boots. We often stayed home. We told fairy tales to each other…read some books…But that wasn’t interesting. The interesting thing was to dream how the war would end and we’d live after that. Eating only pies and candy.

  When the war was over, mama put on a little crepe de chine blouse. I don’t remember how it was she still had it. We had exchanged all nice things for food. This blouse had black cuffs, and mama unstitched them so that there was nothing dark, only light.

  We went to school at once and from the first days began to learn songs for a parade.

  *1 Kolkhoz was a Soviet acronym for “collective farm.”

  *2 May 1 is International Workers’ Day, also known as Labor Day or May Day, adopted at the Second Socialist International in 1889, in part to commemorate the Haymarket massacre in Chicago on May 4, 1886. The October holiday commemorated the start of the Bolshevik Revolution on October 25, 1917 (November 7 by the Gregorian calendar).

  “ALL I HEARD WAS MAMA’S CRY…”

  Lida Pogorzhelskaya

  EIGHT YEARS OLD. NOW A DOCTOR OF BIOLOGY.

  All my life I’ll remember that day…The first day without papa…

  I wanted to sleep. Mama got us up early in the morning and said: “It’s war!” Who could sleep? We were getting ready to leave. There was no fear yet. We all looked at papa, and papa was calm. As always. He was a party worker. Each of you, mama said, has to take something along. I couldn’t choose anything to take, but my younger sister took a doll. Mama carried our little brother. Papa caught up with us when we were already on our way.

  I forgot to tell you that we lived in the town of Kobryn. Not far from Brest. That was why the war reached us on the very first day. We had no time to collect our senses. The adults almost didn’t talk, they walked silently, rode on horseback silently. It was becoming frightening. People are walking, many people, and all of them silent.
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br />   When papa caught up with us we calmed down a little. In our family papa was the head in everything, because mama was very young, she had married at the age of sixteen. She didn’t even know how to cook. But papa was an orphan, he knew how to do everything. I remember how we loved it when papa had time and could prepare something tasty for us. It was a feast for everybody. Even now I think there’s nothing tastier than the farina that papa used to cook. All the while we rode without him we waited for him. To remain in the war without papa—that we couldn’t imagine. That’s the sort of family we were.

  Our wagon train was big. It moved slowly. Occasionally everybody stopped and looked at the sky. Searching for our planes…Searching in vain…

  At midday we saw a column of some sort of soldiers. They were on horseback and dressed in new Red Army uniforms. Well-fed horses. Big. Nobody guessed that these were saboteurs. We decided: they’re our men. And rejoiced. Papa came out to meet them, and I heard mama’s cry. I didn’t hear the shot…Only mama’s cry: “A-a-a…” I remember that these soldiers didn’t even dismount…When mama cried out, I broke into a run. Everybody ran somewhere. We ran silently. I only heard how mama cried. I ran till I got tangled and fell in the tall grass…

  Our horses stood there till evening. Waiting. And we all returned to that place when it was getting dark. Mama sat there alone and waited. Somebody said, “Look, she’s turned gray.” I remember the adults digging a hole…pushing me and my sister: “Go. Take leave of your father.” I went two steps and couldn’t go farther. Sat down on the ground. My little sister sat next to me. My brother slept, he was very little and didn’t understand anything. Mama lay on a cart unconscious; we weren’t allowed to go to her.

  So none of us saw my father dead. Or remembered him dead. Whenever I remembered him, I always saw him in a white uniform jacket. Young and handsome. Even now, and now I’m already older than our papa.

  In the Stalingrad region, where we were evacuated, mama worked on a kolkhoz. Mama, who didn’t know how to do anything, didn’t know how to weed vegetables, couldn’t tell oats from wheat, became a top worker. We had no papa, and there were others who had no papa. Some others had no mama. Or brother. Or sister. Or grandfather. But we didn’t feel we were orphans. Everybody pitied us and took care of us. I remember Aunt Tanya Morozova.* Her two children had been killed, she lived alone. And she gave us all she had, as our mama did. She was a total stranger, but over the time of the war she became our family. My brother, when he grew up a bit, used to say that we had no papa, but instead—two mamas: our own and Aunt Tanya. That’s how all of us were growing up. With two or three mamas.

  I also remember how we were bombed on the way to evacuation, and we ran to hide. We didn’t run to hide with mama, but to the soldiers. When the bombing was over, mama scolded us for running away from her. But still, as soon as there was another bombing, we ran to the soldiers.

  When Minsk was liberated, we decided to go back. Home. To Belarus. Our mama was a native of Minsk. But when we got off at the Minsk train station, she didn’t know where to go. It was a different city. Only ruins…Crushed stone…

  Later I studied in the Goretsk agricultural academy…I lived in a dormitory, there were eight girls in our room. All orphans. No one selected us specially or gathered us together—there were many of us. More than one roomful. I remember how we all shouted during the night…I might just leap out of my cot and start banging on the door…Trying to go somewhere…The girls would catch me. Then I’d begin to cry. They would do the same. The whole room would cry together. And in the morning we would have to go to class and listen to the lectures.

  Once I met a man in the street who looked like papa. I followed him for a long time. Since I hadn’t seen my papa dead…

  * Russians (and others) use the terms aunt and uncle loosely, referring to neighbors or people one is close to, or to grown-ups in general.

  “WE PLAYED, AND THE SOLDIERS WEPT…”

  Volodia Chistokletov

  TEN YEARS OLD. NOW A MUSICIAN.

  It was a beautiful morning…

  Morning sea. Blue and calm. The first days since my arrival at the Soviet-Kvadge children’s sanatorium on the Black Sea. We heard the noise of the airplanes…I dove into the waves, but there, under the water, the noise could still be heard. We weren’t frightened, but began to play “war,” not suspecting that somewhere war was already going on. Not a game, not a military exercise, but war.

  A few days later we were sent home. Mine was in Rostov. The first bombs were already falling on the city. Everybody was preparing for street fighting: digging trenches, building barricades. Learning to shoot. We children guarded the boxes for storing bottles of explosive mixture, delivering sand and water in case of a fire.

  All the schools were turned into hospitals. Our school No. 70 housed the field army hospital for the lightly wounded. Mama was assigned there. She was allowed to take me along, so that I didn’t stay at home alone. And when there was a retreat, we went wherever the hospital went.

  After one bombing I remember a pile of books among the rubble. I picked one up that was called The Life of Animals, a big book with beautiful pictures. I didn’t sleep all night, reading it, unable to tear myself away…I remember I didn’t take any war books, I didn’t want to read about war. But about animals, about birds…

  In November 1942…The head of the hospital ordered that I be issued a uniform, but to tell the truth, it had to be urgently made over to fit. And they spent a whole month looking for boots for me. So I became the foster child of the hospital. A soldier. What did I do? The bandages alone could drive you crazy. There was never enough of them. I had to launder, dry, and roll them up. Try rolling up a thousand a day! I got the hang of it and did it quicker than the adults. My first rolled up cigarette also came out well…On my twelfth birthday the first sergeant, smiling, handed me a package of shag, as if I was a full-grown soldier. I did smoke it…On the sly from mama. I showed off, of course. Well…it was also scary…I had a hard time getting used to blood. Was afraid of burned men. With black faces…

  After a train transporting salt and paraffin was bombed, the one and the other proved useful. The salt went to the cooks, the paraffin to me. I had to master a skill unspecified in any lists of military professions—making candles. That was worse than the bandages. My task was to make sure the candles burned for a long time, because they were used whenever there was no electricity. Doctors didn’t stop surgery either under the bombs or under shelling. During the night the windows were curtained with sheets or blankets.

  Mama wept, but all the same I dreamed of escaping to the front. I didn’t believe I could be killed. Once I was sent to get bread…We had just set out when artillery shelling began. It was mortar fire. The sergeant was killed, the coachman was killed, and I got a concussion. I lost speech, and when after a while I began to speak again, I stuttered. I still stutter. Everybody was surprised that I was still alive, but I had a different feeling—how could I be killed? I went with the hospital through the whole of Belarus, through Poland…I learned some Polish words…

  In Warsaw…A Czech turned up among the wounded—a trombonist from the Prague Opera. The head of the hospital was glad of him, and when the man began to recover, he asked him to go around the wards and look for musicians. He came to us with an excellent orchestra. He taught me to play the viola, and I taught myself to play the guitar. We played and the soldiers wept. We played merry songs…

  So we reached Germany…

  In the ruins of a German village I saw a child’s bicycle lying about. I was happy. I got on it and rode. It rode so well! During the war I hadn’t seen a single child’s thing. I forgot they existed. Children’s toys…

  “IN THE CEMETERY THE DEAD LAY ABOVE GROUND…AS IF THEY’D BEEN KILLED AGAIN…”

  Vania Titov

  FIVE YEARS OLD. NOW A SPECIALIST IN LAND RECLAMATIO
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  Black sky…

  Fat black airplanes…They roar down very low. Just over the earth. That’s war. As I remember it…I remember separate glimpses…

  There was a bombardment, and we hid in the garden behind the old apple trees. All five of us. I had four brothers, the oldest one was ten. He taught us how to hide from the planes—behind the big apple trees, where there were lots of leaves. Mama rounded us up and led us to the cellar. It was frightening in the cellar. Rats with small piercing eyes that glowed in the dark lived there. They glowed with an unnatural brightness. And the rats kept squeaking all night. They frolicked.

  When the German soldiers came to our cottage, we hid on the stove.*1 Under some old rags. We lay with our eyes closed. From fear.

  They burned our village. Bombed the village cemetery. People went running there: the dead lay above ground…They lay there as if they’d been killed again…Our grandfather, who had died recently, lay there. They were reburied…

  During the war we played “war.” When we were tired of playing “Whites and Reds” or “Chapaev,”*2 we played “Russians and Germans.” We fought. Took prisoners. Shot them. Put on soldiers’ helmets, our own and German ones. Helmets lay about everywhere—in the woods, in the fields. Nobody wanted to be a German, we even squabbled over it. We played in real dugouts and trenches. We fought with sticks, or hand-to-hand. Our mothers scolded us…

  That surprised us, because earlier…before the war…they didn’t scold us for that…

  *1 The traditional Russian tile stove was a large and complex structure that served for heating, cooking, and washing, and even included shelves for sleeping.