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

“ALL I HEARD WAS MAMA’S CRY…”

Lida Pogorzhelskaya EIGHT YEARS OLD. NOW A DOCTOR OF BIOLOGY.

All my life I’ll remember that day…The first day without papa…

I wanted to sleep. Mama got us up early in the morning and said: “It’s war!” Who could sleep? We were getting ready to leave. There was no fear yet. We all looked at papa, and papa was calm. As always. He was a party worker. Each of you, mama said, has to take something along. I couldn’t choose anything to take, but my younger sister took a doll. Mama carried our little brother. Papa caught up with us when we were already on our way.

I forgot to tell you that we lived in the town of Kobryn. Not far from Brest. That was why the war reached us on the very first day. We had no time to collect our senses. The adults almost didn’t talk, they walked silently, rode on horseback silently. It was becoming frightening. People are walking, many people, and all of them silent.

When papa caught up with us we calmed down a little. In our family papa was the head in everything, because mama was very young, she had married at the age of sixteen. She didn’t even know how to cook. But papa was an orphan, he knew how to do everything. I remember how we loved it when papa had time and could prepare something tasty for us. It was a feast for everybody. Even now I think there’s nothing tastier than the farina that papa used to cook. All the while we rode without him we waited for him. To remain in the war without papa—that we couldn’t imagine. That’s the sort of family we were.

Our wagon train was big. It moved slowly. Occasionally everybody stopped and looked at the sky. Searching for our planes…Searching in vain…

At midday we saw a column of some sort of soldiers. They were on horseback and dressed in new Red Army uniforms. Well-fed horses. Big. Nobody guessed that these were saboteurs. We decided: they’re our men. And rejoiced. Papa came out to meet them, and I heard mama’s cry. I didn’t hear the shot…Only mama’s cry: “A-a-a…” I remember that these soldiers didn’t even dismount…When mama cried out, I broke into a run. Everybody ran somewhere. We ran silently. I only heard how mama cried. I ran till I got tangled and fell in the tall grass…

Our horses stood there till evening. Waiting. And we all returned to that place when it was getting dark. Mama sat there alone and waited. Somebody said, “Look, she’s turned gray.” I remember the adults digging a hole…pushing me and my sister: “Go. Take leave of your father.” I went two steps and couldn’t go farther. Sat down on the ground. My little sister sat next to me. My brother slept, he was very little and didn’t understand anything. Mama lay on a cart unconscious; we weren’t allowed to go to her.

So none of us saw my father dead. Or remembered him dead. Whenever I remembered him, I always saw him in a white uniform jacket. Young and handsome. Even now, and now I’m already older than our papa.

In the Stalingrad region, where we were evacuated, mama worked on a kolkhoz. Mama, who didn’t know how to do anything, didn’t know how to weed vegetables, couldn’t tell oats from wheat, became a top worker. We had no papa, and there were others who had no papa. Some others had no mama. Or brother. Or sister. Or grandfather. But we didn’t feel we were orphans. Everybody pitied us and took care of us. I remember Aunt Tanya Morozova.^* Her two children had been killed, she lived alone. And she gave us all she had, as our mama did. She was a total stranger, but over the time of the war she became our family. My brother, when he grew up a bit, used to say that we had no papa, but instead—two mamas: our own and Aunt Tanya. That’s how all of us were growing up. With two or three mamas.

I also remember how we were bombed on the way to evacuation, and we ran to hide. We didn’t run to hide with mama, but to the soldiers. When the bombing was over, mama scolded us for running away from her. But still, as soon as there was another bombing, we ran to the soldiers.

When Minsk was liberated, we decided to go back. Home. To Belarus. Our mama was a native of Minsk. But when we got off at the Minsk train station, she didn’t know where to go. It was a different city. Only ruins…Crushed stone…

Later I studied in the Goretsk agricultural academy…I lived in a dormitory, there were eight girls in our room. All orphans. No one selected us specially or gathered us together—there were many of us. More than one roomful. I remember how we all shouted during the night…I might just leap out of my cot and start banging on the door…Trying to go somewhere…The girls would catch me. Then I’d begin to cry. They would do the same. The whole room would cry together. And in the morning we would have to go to class and listen to the lectures.

Once I met a man in the street who looked like papa. I followed him for a long time. Since I hadn’t seen my papa dead…

* Russians (and others) use the terms aunt and uncle loosely, referring to neighbors or people one is close to, or to grown-ups in general.