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

“I REALIZED—THIS WAS MY FATHER…MY KNEES TREMBLED…”

Lenya Khosenevich FIVE YEARS OLD. NOW A DESIGNER.

What has stayed in my memory is color…

I was five years old, but I remember very well…My grandfather’s house—yellow, wooden, some beams on the grass behind the paling. The white sand we played in—as if it was laundered. White as could be. I also remember mama taking me and my little sister to be photographed somewhere in town, and Ellochka crying and me comforting her. The photograph has survived; it’s our only prewar photograph…For some reason I remember it being green.

Then all the memories are in dark colors…If these first ones are in light tones—the green grass, like a light watercolor, and the white sand, and the yellow paling…then later everything is in dark colors. I’m carried somewhere, choking from the smoke, our things are in the street, bundles, for some reason one chair…People are crying. And mama and I go down the street for a long time. I hold on to her skirt. To everybody mama meets, she repeats the same phrase: “Our house has burned down.”

We spend the night in some entryway. I’m cold. I warm my hands in the pocket of mama’s jacket. I feel something cold in it. It’s the key to our house.

Suddenly mama’s not there. Mama disappears, grandma and grandpa remain. I now have a friend two years older—Zhenia Savochkin. He’s seven, I’m five. I’m taught to read with a book of fairy tales by the Grimm brothers. Grandma teaches by her own method, and I can even get a rude flick on the brow from her: “Eh, you!” Zhenia also teaches me. He reads a book and shows me the letters. But most of all I like to listen to the fairy tales, especially when grandma reads. Her voice resembles mama’s. One evening a beautiful woman comes and brings something very tasty. From what she says I understand that mama is alive, and, like papa, is fighting. I’m happy and I shout: “Mama will come back soon!” I want to run outside and share the news with my friend. I get it with a belt from grandma. My grandfather defends me. When they went to bed, I collected all the belts in the house and threw them behind the wardrobe.

I’m hungry all the time. Zhenia and I go to pick rye, which grows right behind the houses. We rub the ears and chew the grains. The field now belongs to the Germans…and so do the ears of rye…We see a car, we run away. An officer in a green uniform with gleaming epaulettes pulls me literally from our gate. He beats me either with a swagger stick or with a belt. I’m petrified with fear and don’t feel any pain. Suddenly I see grandma: “Dear sir, give me back my grandson. In God’s name, I beg you!” Grandma kneels before the officer. The officer leaves, I lie on the sand. Grandma carries me into the house. I can barely move my lips. After that I’m sick for a long time.

I also remember carts going down the street, many carts. Grandpa and grandma open the gates. Refugees come to live with us. After a while they get sick with typhus. They’re taken to a hospital, as it’s explained to me. After some time grandpa gets sick. I sleep with him. Grandma grows thin and barely moves about the room. In the afternoon I go out to play with the boys. I come back in the evening and don’t find either grandpa or grandma at home. The neighbors tell me they have also been taken to the hospital. It frightens me, being alone. I already guess that nobody comes back from the hospital where the refugees—and now my grandparents—have been taken. It’s frightening to live alone in the house. At night the house is big and unfamiliar. Even in the daytime it’s frightening. Grandpa’s brother takes me to live with him. I have a new grandpa.

Minsk is being bombed, we hide in a cellar. When I come out from it, the sun dazzles my eyes, and I go deaf from the roar of the motors. Tanks are moving down the street. I hide behind a post. Suddenly I see a red star on the turret. Ours! I run to our house at once: if our tanks have come, mama has also come! I approach the house—some women with rifles are standing by the porch, they pick me up and begin to ask questions. One of them looks somewhat familiar. She reminds me of somebody. She comes closer to me and embraces me. The other women begin to cry. I shout “Mama!” Then I just collapse…

Soon mama brought my little sister from the orphanage, but she refused to recognize me—she forgot me completely during the war. But I was so glad to have a little sister again.

I came home from school and found my father, who had returned from the war, asleep on the sofa. He was asleep, and I took the papers out of his map case and read them. And I realized—this was my father. I sat and looked at him until he woke up.

My knees trembled all the time…