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

“ALL FOUR OF US PULLED THAT SLEDGE…”

Zina Prikhodko FOUR YEARS OLD. NOW A WORKER.

The bombing…The earth trembles, our house trembles…

Our house was small, with a garden. We hid in the house, closed the blinds. The four of us sit there: my two sisters, our mama, and me. Mama says that she closed the blinds and now it’s not scary. And we agree that it’s not scary, yet we’re afraid. But we don’t want to upset mama.

…We walked behind the cart, then someone sat us little ones on the bundles. For some reason it seemed to me that if I fell asleep I’d be killed, so I did all I could not to close my eyes, yet they closed on their own. Then my older sister and I decided that we’d take turns: first I’d close my eyes and sleep, then she, and the other one would watch that we weren’t killed. But we both fell asleep and woke up from mama’s cry: “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid!” There was shooting ahead. People shouted…Mama pushed our heads down. But we wanted to look…

The shooting ended. We drove farther on. I saw that people were lying in a ditch beside the road, and I asked mama, “What are those people doing?”

“They’re sleeping,” mama replied.

“Why are they sleeping in a ditch?”

“Because it’s war.”

“Does that mean we’ll sleep in a ditch, too? I don’t want to sleep in a ditch.” I began to fuss.

I stopped fussing when I saw that mama had tears in her eyes.

Where we were walking, where we were riding, of course I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. I remember only the word Azarichi and the wire, which mama didn’t let us get close to. After the war I learned that we wound up in the Azarichi concentration camp. I even went there afterward, to that place. But what could you see there now? Grass, earth…All the usual things. If there’s anything left, it’s only in our memory…

When I talk about it, I bite my hands till they bleed, so as not to cry…

They bring mama from somewhere and lay her on the ground. We crawl up to her—I remember that we crawled, we didn’t walk. We cry, “Mama! Mama!” I beg, “Mama, don’t sleep!” And we’re all bloody, because mama is all bloody. I think we didn’t understand that it was blood and what blood was, but we did realize that it was something terrible.

Trucks came every day, people got into them and went away. We begged, “Mama, dear, let’s go on a truck. Maybe it goes toward where grandma lives?” Why did we remember grandma? Because mama always said that our grandma lived nearby and didn’t know where we were. She thought we were in Gomel. Mama didn’t want to go on those trucks, she pulled us off each time. And we cried, insisted. One morning she agreed…Winter came, we were freezing…

I bite my hands so as not to cry. I can’t hold back the tears…

We rode for a long time and someone told mama, or else she figured it out herself, that we were being taken to be shot. When the truck stopped, we were all told to get off. There was a farmstead there, and mama asked a convoy soldier, “Can we drink some water? My children are asking to drink.” He allowed us to go into the cottage. We went in, and the woman gave us a big mug of water. Mama drank with small sips, slowly, and I thought, “I want so much to eat, why does mama want to drink?”

Mama drank up one mug, asked for another. The woman drew some water, gave it to her, and said that many people are taken to the forest every day and no one comes back.

“Do you have a back door that we could leave by?” mama asked.

The woman pointed—there it is. One door led to the street, the other to the yard. We ran out of the cottage and crawled. I think we didn’t walk but crawled to our grandmother’s house. How we crawled and for how long I don’t remember.

Grandma put us on the stove, and mama on the bed. In the morning mama began to die. We sat there frightened and couldn’t understand: how can mama die and leave us when papa isn’t there? I remember mama calling us over, smiling.

“Children, don’t ever quarrel.”

Why would we quarrel? About what? We had no toys. A big stone was our doll. We had no candy. There was no mama to complain to.

In the morning grandma wrapped mama in a big white sheet and put her on a sledge. All four of us pulled that sledge…

Forgive me…I can’t…I’m crying…