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

“I DECORATED IT WITH RED CARNATIONS…”

Mariam Yuzefovskaya BORN IN 1941. NOW AN ENGINEER.

I was born in the war. And I grew up during the war.

And so…We’re waiting for papa to come back from the war…

What did mama not do with me: she shaved my head, rubbed me with kerosene, applied ointments. I hated myself desperately. Felt ashamed. I wouldn’t even go out in the yard. Lice and blisters in the first year after the war…There was no escaping them…

And then the telegram: father is demobilized. We went to meet him at the train station. Mama dressed me up. She tied a red bow to the top of my head. What it was tied to isn’t clear. And she kept yanking my arm: “Don’t scratch yourself. Don’t scratch yourself.” But the itching was unbearable! The cursed bow was about to fall off. And there was this buzzing in my head: “What if my father doesn’t like me? He hasn’t seen me even once.”

But what actually happened was even worse. My father saw me and rushed to me first. But right then…for a moment, for just a moment—but I felt it at once, with my skin, with my whole little body—it was as if he backed away…For a single moment…And it was so hurtful. So unbearably bitter. And when he took me in his arms, I pushed him away with all my might. The smell of kerosene suddenly hit my nose. It had been following me everywhere for a year, I had stopped noticing it. I got used to it. But now I smelled it. Maybe it was because my father had such a nice and unusual smell. He was so handsome compared to me and my exhausted mama. And it stung me to my very soul. I tore off the bow, threw it on the ground, and stepped on it with my foot.

“What are you doing?” my father asked in surprise.

“It’s your character,” laughed mama, who understood everything. She held my father with both hands, and they walked home like that.

At night I called mama and asked her to take me to bed with her. I had always slept with mama…All through the war…But mama didn’t answer, as if she was asleep. I had no one to tell how hurt I was.

Before falling asleep, I firmly decided to run away to an orphanage…

In the morning, my father gave me two dolls. I didn’t have real dolls till I was five. Only homemade rag dolls. My grandmother’s. The dolls that my father brought had eyes that closed and opened, their arms and legs could move, one of them squeaked a word like mama. It seemed magical to me. I treasured them. I was even afraid to take them outside. But I showed them in the window. We lived on the ground floor, all the children in the yard gathered to see my dolls.

I was weak and sickly. I was always unlucky. Either I bruised my forehead, or I cut myself on a nail. Or I would simply fall in a faint. And the children were reluctant to include me in their games. I tried to gain their trust however I could; I invented all sorts of ways. It reached a point where I started fawning on Dusya, the caretaker’s daughter. Dusya was strong, cheerful, everybody liked to play with her.

She asked me to bring out my doll, and I couldn’t resist. However, not at once. I still refused for a little while.

“I won’t play with you,” Dusya threatened me.

That worked on me at once.

I brought out the doll that “spoke.” But we didn’t play for long. We quarreled over something, and it turned into a cock fight. Dusya grabbed my doll by the legs and smashed it against the wall. The doll’s head fell off and the speaking button fell from its stomach.

“Dusya, you’re crazy,” all the children began to cry.

“Why is she giving the orders?” Dusya smeared the tears on her cheeks. “Since she has a papa, she can do anything. Dolls, a papa—all just for her.”

Dusya had neither a father nor any dolls…

Our first Christmas tree was set up under the table. Back then we lived at my grandfather’s. It was pretty cramped. So cramped that the only empty space left was under the big table. That’s where we set up the little Christmas tree. I decorated it with red carnations. I remember very well how fresh and clean the tree smelled. Nothing could overcome that smell. Neither the cornmeal mash that my grandmother cooked, nor my grandfather’s shoe polish.

I had a glass ball. My treasure. I couldn’t find a place for it on the tree. I wanted to hang it in such a way that it shone from wherever you looked at it. I placed it up at the very top. When I went to bed, I took it down and hid it. I was afraid it would disappear…

I slept in a washtub. The tub was made of zinc. It had a bluish sheen with frosty veins. No matter how we scrubbed it after doing laundry, the smell of the ashes we used instead of soap, which was a rarity, lingered. I liked it. I liked to press my forehead to the cold edges of the tub, especially when I was sick. I liked to rock it like a cradle. Then its rumbling would betray me, and I would get scolded. We cherished that tub. It was the only thing we had left from our life before the war.

And then suddenly we bought a bed…With shiny beads on the headboard…All this caused me indescribable excitement! I climbed on it and immediately rolled down on the floor. What? Is it possible? I couldn’t believe that anyone could sleep in such a beautiful bed.

Papa saw me on the floor, picked me up, and hugged me tight. And I hugged him…I put my arms around his neck the way mama did.

I remember how happily he laughed…