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

“OUR MAMA DIDN’T SMILE…”

Kima Murzich TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW A RADIO TECHNICIAN.

Our family…

We were three sisters—Rema, Maya, and Kima. Rema stood for Electrification and Peace, Maya for May 1, Kima for Communist Youth International. Our father gave us these names. He was a Communist. He joined the party when he was young. He brought us up this way. There were many books at home, also portraits of Lenin and Stalin. In the first days of the war we buried them in the shed. The only one I kept for myself was The Children of Captain Grant by Jules Verne. My favorite book. I read and reread it all through the war.

Mama went to the villages near Minsk and exchanged shawls for food. She had a pair of nice shoes. She even took her only dress made of crepe de chine. Maya and I sat and waited for mama: will she come back or not? We tried to distract each other from these thoughts, we remembered how we used to run to the lake before the war, to swim, to lie in the sun, how we danced in school amateur performances. How long the alley was that led to our school. The smell of the cherry preserves mama cooked in the yard on stones…They were so far away now, all these good things. We talked about Rema, our older sister. All through the war we thought she was dead. She left for her work at the factory on June 23 and never came back…

When the war was over, mama sent requests everywhere, searching for Rema. There was an address bureau, there was always a crowd of people there, people were all looking for each other. I kept going there carrying mama’s letters. But there was no letter for us. On her days off mama used to sit by the window waiting for the mail woman to come. But she always went past.

Once mama came back from work. A neighbor called on us. “Dance!” she said to mama—and she held something behind her back. Mama realized that it was a letter. She didn’t dance, she sat down on a bench and couldn’t get up. Or speak.

Our sister was found. She had been evacuated. Mama began to smile. All through the war, until we found our sister, our mama hadn’t smiled…