Categories: Wartime, Ira Motolyga

I forgot to tell you that she was thin; she wore shoe size 42 and was about two meters tall. She was very strong. She was such a village-like grandmother. She mowed with a scythe and reaped the harvest. She could do all these things. She hand stitched. And in general, she was such a skilful grandmother. So we started our way. The road to Smolensk had been bombed, so we went to Smolensk on foot. My elder sister, she was born in the year of 37, so how old was she … and also my aunt’s son was born in the same year, they were going on foot all the time. Mother said that they had corns like plums on the feet. I was still small, they carried me. So, my aunt was pregnant but she was carrying me, she tied something up to herself and put me into it. I was so fat and all the way my aunt was carrying me and saying, she was telling me about that all her life that she told me «I was saying all my life «Drop dead!». I am tired of you! You are so heavy! And you are still asking to eat!» So this is what she told me. She said that the sun was unbearable. She hadn’t remembered such heat ever. Lo and behold! And I was very pale; I had such a pale face. I had lots of blisters. These blisters are still visible. She said I had such blisters, and I had fever heat, and all the time I was touching her face and asking something to eat. And she said to me, «Drop dead!» And then when they arrived at Smolensk there were landing troops there. Grandmother told that they started off landing troops. And we lied down in a ditch and were waiting. But they went down and we were not touched. Then the train arrived, the train was crammed full. And she said that a man came up to them, the man who worked at the station and said, «If you don’t catch this train you will die». Grandmother told further. They came up to the carriage. And what my mother used to tell sends shivers down the spine. She said that they came up to the carriage, but nobody opened the door, all the carriages were full of people. Our grandma Khava, her name was Khava, pulled the handle the way that two men fell backwards. And she stood like this and until she hadn’t packed us into this carriage she didn’t close the door. And she had such a cane and a man or a machinist or who I don’t know told, «I won’t drive the train this way». She edged way through the crowd to him and said, «Drive the train or I will kill you! I will kill you with one hand!» So, you see what strong she was. She saved us this way. And later on she told that when there was bombing they lied down; our mother told us such a story that there was a dead woman lying and a small child was crawling around, it was suckling. Our grandmother Khava couldn’t overpass, she took this child and we altogether took the train, and the child was with us too. She chewed some pieces of bread and gave the child. And we were small too. But we reached. We were somewhere ... i don’t know, in one word we were in evacuation in Bashkiriya. There they even didn’t know who the Jews were. They didn’t know such a nation.

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Researcher: Наталья Иващенко, кандидат исторических наук, ГрГУ им. Я. Купалы, Светлана Силова, кандидат исторических наук, доцент, ГрГУ им. Я. Купалы