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

“EVERYBODY WANTED TO KISS THE WORD VICTORY…”

Anya Korzun TWO YEARS OLD. NOW A ZOOTECHNICIAN.

I remember how the war ended…May 9, 1945…

Women came running to the kindergarten.

“Children, it’s Victory! Victory-y-y-y!”

Everybody laughed and cried. Cried and laughed.

They all began kissing us. Women we didn’t know…Kissing us and crying…Kissing…We turned on the loudspeaker. Everybody listened. But we were little, we didn’t understand the words, we understood that joy came from up there, from the black dish of the loudspeaker. The grown-ups picked some of us up…the others climbed by themselves…they climbed on each other like a ladder, only the third or fourth one reached the black dish and kissed it. Then they traded places…Everybody wanted to kiss the word Victory…

In the evening there were fireworks. The sky lit up. Mama opened the window and burst into tears.

“Little daughter, remember this all your life…”

When my father came home from the front, I was scared of him. He would give me candy and ask, “Say ‘papa’…”

I would take the candy, hide with it under the table, and say, “Mister…”

I had no papa during the war. I grew up with mama and grandma. With my aunt. I couldn’t imagine what a papa would do in our home.

He’d come with a rifle…