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

“WE KISSED THEIR HANDS…”

David Goldberg FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. NOW A MUSICIAN.

We were preparing for a celebration…

That day we were supposed to solemnly open our Pioneer camp “Talka.” We invited some border patrol soldiers, and in the morning went to the forest to get some flowers. We published a festive issue of the camp newspaper, decorated the entrance arch. The place was wonderful, the weather fine. We were on vacation! We were so happy that even the noise of the airplanes we heard all morning didn’t alarm us.

Suddenly we were asked to line up, and they informed us that in the morning, while we were asleep, Hitler had attacked our country. In my mind war was connected with the events of Khalkhyn Gol,^* it was something distant and brief. There was no doubt about our army being invincible and indestructible, our tanks and airplanes were the best. All this we had heard at school. And at home. The boys were confident, but many girls cried a lot and were frightened. The older children were charged with going around the units and calming everybody, especially the little ones. In the evening the boys who were already fourteen or fifteen years old were handed small caliber rifles. Great! In fact, we became very proud. Held our heads high. There were four rifles in the camp. We took turns standing guard three at a time and protecting the camp. I even liked it. I went to the forest with this rifle to see if I was afraid or not. I didn’t want to turn out to be a coward.

For several days we waited for them to come for us. No one came, and we ourselves went to the Pukhovichi station. We stayed there for a long time. The stationmaster said there wouldn’t be any trains from Minsk, that there was no connection. Suddenly one of the children came running and shouted that there was a very heavy train pulling in. We got onto the tracks…First we waved our hands, then we took off our red neckerchiefs. We waved our red neckerchiefs to stop the train. The engineer saw us and started showing desperately with his hands that he couldn’t stop the train—that he wouldn’t be able to start it afterward. “Throw the children onto the flatcars if you can!” he shouted. Some people sitting on the flatcars also shouted to us, “Save the children! Save the children!”

The train slowed down a little. Wounded men reached down from the flatcars to pick up the little children. All the children were put onto this train. It was the last train from Minsk…

We rode for a long time. The train moved slowly, we could see very well…Dead people lay on the embankment, arranged neatly like railway ties. This has stayed in my memory…They bombed us, and we shrieked, and the shrapnel whizzed. At the stations some women fed us—they knew from somewhere that a train with children was coming—and we kissed their hands. A nursing baby turned up among us. His mother had been killed in the shelling. And a woman at the station saw him and took off her kerchief to use as a diaper…

That’s it! Enough! I’m too agitated. I shouldn’t get agitated, I have a bad heart. I’ll tell you in case you don’t know: those who were children during the war often died before their fathers who fought at the front. Before the former soldiers. Before…

I’ve already buried so many of my friends…

* In 1939 Soviet forces fought a series of battles against the Japanese on the border of Mongolia. The conflict was named for the river Khalkhyn Gol, which flowed through the battlefield.