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

“I WAITED A LONG TIME FOR MY FATHER…ALL MY LIFE…”

Arseny Gutin BORN IN 1941. NOW AN ELECTRICIAN.

On Victory Day, I turned four…

In the morning I started telling everyone that I was already five years old. Not in my fifth year, but five years old. I wanted to grow up. Papa would come back from the war, and I’d already have grown up.

That day the chairman of the kolkhoz summoned the women: “Victory!” He kissed them all. Each one. I was with mama…I rejoiced. And mama cried.

All the children gathered…Outside the village, we set fire to rubber tires from the German trucks. We shouted “Hurray! Hur-ray! Victory!” We beat on the German helmets that we had gathered earlier in the forest. We beat on them like drums.

We lived in a mud hut…I came running to the mud hut…Mama was crying. I didn’t understand why she was crying and not rejoicing on such a day.

It started to rain. I broke a stick and measured the puddles around our hut.

“What are you doing?” people asked me.

“I’m measuring how deep the puddles are. Because papa may come and fall into them.”

The neighbors cried, and mama cried. I didn’t understand what “missing in action” meant. I waited a long time for my father…All my life…