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

“IN THE CEMETERY THE DEAD LAY ABOVE GROUND…AS IF THEY’D BEEN KILLED AGAIN…”

Vania Titov FIVE YEARS OLD. NOW A SPECIALIST IN LAND RECLAMATION.

Black sky…

Fat black airplanes…They roar down very low. Just over the earth. That’s war. As I remember it…I remember separate glimpses…

There was a bombardment, and we hid in the garden behind the old apple trees. All five of us. I had four brothers, the oldest one was ten. He taught us how to hide from the planes—behind the big apple trees, where there were lots of leaves. Mama rounded us up and led us to the cellar. It was frightening in the cellar. Rats with small piercing eyes that glowed in the dark lived there. They glowed with an unnatural brightness. And the rats kept squeaking all night. They frolicked.

When the German soldiers came to our cottage, we hid on the stove.^*1 Under some old rags. We lay with our eyes closed. From fear.

They burned our village. Bombed the village cemetery. People went running there: the dead lay above ground…They lay there as if they’d been killed again…Our grandfather, who had died recently, lay there. They were reburied…

During the war we played “war.” When we were tired of playing “Whites and Reds” or “Chapaev,”^*2 we played “Russians and Germans.” We fought. Took prisoners. Shot them. Put on soldiers’ helmets, our own and German ones. Helmets lay about everywhere—in the woods, in the fields. Nobody wanted to be a German, we even squabbled over it. We played in real dugouts and trenches. We fought with sticks, or hand-to-hand. Our mothers scolded us…

That surprised us, because earlier…before the war…they didn’t scold us for that…

*1 The traditional Russian tile stove was a large and complex structure that served for heating, cooking, and washing, and even included shelves for sleeping.

*2 The Whites were Russian forces loyal to the emperor during the revolution. Vasily Chapaev (1887–1919) was a distinguished Red Army commander during the Russian Civil War.