Last Witnesses : An Oral History of the Children of World War II

“SUCH PRETTY GERMAN TOYS…”

Taisa Nasvetnikova SEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW A TEACHER.

Before the war…

How I remember myself…Everything was good: kindergarten, children’s theater, our courtyard. Girls and boys. I read a lot, was afraid of worms and loved dogs. We lived in Vitebsk. Papa worked in construction management. Of my childhood I remember most of all how papa taught me to swim in the Dvina.

Then there was school. The impression I have kept from school is: very wide stairs, a transparent glass wall, and lots of sun, and lots of joy. The feeling was that life is a feast.

In the first days of the war papa left for the front. I remember saying goodbye to him at the train station…Papa kept telling mama that they’d drive the Germans away, but he wanted us to evacuate. Mama couldn’t understand why. If we stayed at home, he would find us sooner. At once. And I kept repeating, “Papa dear! Only come back soon. Papa dear…”

Papa left, and a few days later we also left. On the way we were bombed all the time. Bombing us was easy, because the trains to the rear ran just five hundred yards apart. We traveled light: mama was wearing a sateen dress with white polka dots, and I a red cotton jumper with little flowers. All the adults said that red was very visible from above, and as soon as there was an air raid and we rushed for the bushes, they covered me with whatever they could find so that my red jumper wouldn’t be seen. Otherwise I was like a signal light.

We drank water from swamps and ditches. Intestinal illnesses set in. I also fell ill. For three days I didn’t regain consciousness…Afterward mama told me how I was saved. When we stopped in Briansk, a troop train arrived on the next track. My mama was twenty-six, she was very beautiful. Our train stood there for a long time. She got out of the car and an officer from that train complimented her. Mama said, “Leave me alone, I cannot look at your smile. My daughter is dying.” The officer turned out to be a field paramedic. He jumped into our car, examined me, and called his comrade: “Quickly bring tea, rusks, and belladonna.” Those soldiers’ rusks…a quart bottle of strong tea, and a few belladonna pills saved my life.

Before we reached Aktyubinsk the whole train had been sick. We children were not allowed where the dead and killed lay; we were protected from that sight. We only heard the conversations: so many buried here, and so many there…Mama would come with a very pale face, her hands trembled. And I kept asking, “Where did these people go?”

I don’t remember any landscapes. That’s very surprising, because I loved nature. I only remember the bushes we hid under. The ravines. For some reason it seemed to me that there was no forest anywhere, that we traveled only through fields, through some sort of desert. Once I experienced fear, after which I wasn’t afraid of any bombing. We hadn’t been warned that it would be a short stop of ten or fifteen minutes. The train started and I was left behind. Alone…I don’t remember who picked me up…I was literally thrown into the car…Not our car, but the one before the end. For the first time I had a scare that I would be left alone and mama would go off. While mama was near me, I wasn’t afraid. But here I went mute with fright. And until mama came running to me and threw both arms around me, I was mute, and no one could get a word out of me. Mama was my world. My planet. When I had pain somewhere, I would take mama’s hand and the pain would go away. At night I always slept next to her, the closer the less fear there was. If mama was near, it seemed that everything was as it used to be at home. You close your eyes—there isn’t any war. Only mama didn’t like to talk about death. And I kept asking her…

From Aktyubinsk we went to Magnitogorsk, where papa’s brother lived. Before the war they had been a big family, with many men, but when we arrived there were only women in the house. All the men had gone to the war. At the end of 1941 two death notices came—my uncle’s sons had been killed…

Of that winter I also remember chicken pox, which everybody at school came down with. And red trousers…Mama got a length of dark red flannelette for her coupons, and she made me a pair of trousers. The children teased me: “Fancy pants, go back to France.” I was very hurt. A bit later we got galoshes for our coupons. I tied them up and ran around. They rubbed at my little bones, and I had to put something under the heels so that the heels were higher, to avoid getting blisters. The winter was so cold that my hands and feet kept freezing. The heating system at school often broke down, the water on the floor in the classroom turned to ice, and we could slide between the desks. We sat there in our coats and mittens, only we cut the tips off so that we could hold a pen. I remember that we were forbidden to offend and tease those whose papas had been killed. For that we were severely punished. We also all read a lot. As never before or after…We read all the children’s books, all the adolescent books. They started giving us adult books. The other girls were afraid…even the boys didn’t like the pages where death was written about and skipped over them. But I read them.

Heavy snow fell. All the children ran outside and made a snowman. I was perplexed: how was it possible to make a snowman and be happy, if there was a war?

The adults listened to the radio all the time; they couldn’t live without the radio. Neither could we. We rejoiced at every salute fired off in Moscow, we were excited over each piece of information: how are things at the front? In the underground? Among the partisans? Films were produced about the battles of Stalingrad and Moscow, and we watched them fifteen or twenty times. If they showed them three times in a row, we watched them three times in a row. The films were shown at school, there was no special movie theater, they showed them in the corridor with us sitting on the floor. We sat for two or three hours. I memorized death…Mama scolded me for that. She consulted doctors about why I was like that…Why was I interested in such an unchildlike thing as death? How to teach me to think about children’s things…

I reread fairy tales…Children’s fairy tales…Again, what did I notice? I noticed how much killing there was in them. A great deal of blood. That was my discovery…

At the end of 1944…I saw the first German prisoners…They walked in a wide column down the street. I was struck that people came up to them and gave them bread. I was so struck that I ran to mama at work to ask: why do our people give the Germans bread? Mama said nothing, but only wept. Then I also saw my first dead man in a German uniform. He was marching in the column and fell down. The column paused, then moved on, and next to him one of our soldiers was stationed. I ran to them…I was drawn to look at death close up, to be near it. Whenever the radio announced enemy losses, we always rejoiced…But now…I saw…The man was as if asleep…He didn’t even lie down, but sat huddled up, with his head leaning on his shoulder. I didn’t know: should I hate him or pity him? He was the enemy. Our enemy! I don’t remember if he was young or old. He was very tired. Because of that it was hard for me to hate him. I told mama about that, too. And again she wept.

On May 9 we woke up in the morning, because by the entrance someone was shouting loudly. It was still very early. Mama went to find out, and came running back bewildered: “Victory! Can it be Victory?” This was so unexpected: the war ended, such a long war. Some wept, some laughed, some shouted…Those who had lost their loved ones wept, but still they rejoiced, because even so it was Victory! One had a handful of grain, another some potatoes, yet another some beets—it was all taken to one apartment. I’ll never forget that day. That morning…By evening it was already not the same…

During the war everybody spoke softly for some reason, even in a whisper as it seemed to me, but now suddenly everybody began to speak loudly. We were with the grown-ups all the time, they gave us good things, caressed us, told us to go out: “Go outside. Today is a holiday.” Then they called us back. We had never been embraced and kissed so much as on that day.

But I was a lucky one, my papa came back from the war. Papa brought beautiful children’s toys. German toys. I couldn’t understand how such beautiful toys could be German…

I tried to talk about death with papa, too. About the bombings, when mama and I were evacuated…How our dead soldiers lay along both sides of the road. Their faces were covered with branches. Flies buzzed over them…Huge swarms of flies…About the dead German…I told him about my friend’s papa, who came back from the war and died a few days later. Of a heart attack. I couldn’t understand: how could someone die after the war, when everybody was happy?

Papa said nothing.