Categories: Beginning of the war, Leonida Makhon

What can you recollect about the War? What do you still keep in your memory?

What do I keep in my memory? Well. Shots only. My grandmother and mother told me «Lie down, don’t stand at home, don’t let them see you from outside». The shots were singing there, oh my God, they were backing off. We could see that staying at home. God save us all! It was horrible. We were kids at that time, we were lying on the floor all the time and crying. And then, a sort time afterwards they started to drive out the captured. So mother cut the bread to bits and wrapped it into the tablecloth (we had been baking our own bread for years), also she boiled a huge pot of unpeeled potatoes, as huge as two buckets, and she used to go to the main road. So when she took it to the main road my mother spread it on the ground. And well, those captured came up, they ran and fell down, and the Germans slapped them around. yes… slapped them… Or they were not Germans… the deuce knows… Well. And I remember that they poked my mother and I cried then. Well. So he poked her like that and she cried too. Well. And there were several familiar people among them. My mother’s name was Maryla. So they told: «Mariya, thank you, Mariya». And they continued to go. Oh, and how many people were killed there, very close to our place, on the grassland. Every morning we used to go and check if they were still alive. We were the children then, the teenagers. So we gathered together. My grandmother told us: «Do not go there, do not touch anything, it is forbidden». Well. But we were curious to see if any person was still alive there. You see. This is what we did. Too much. You see. Why we did so…

Researcher: Олег Коляго, старший преподаватель, ГрГУ имени Я. Купалы