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

“REMEMBER: 6 PARK STREET, MARIUPOL…”

Sasha Solianin FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. NOW A FIRST-DEGREE WAR INVALID.

I really didn’t want to die…I especially didn’t want to die at dawn…

We are being led out to be shot. We walk quickly. The Germans are in a hurry somewhere, I understood it from their conversation. Before the war I liked German lessons. I even learned several poems of Heine’s by heart. There are three of us—two first lieutenants, prisoners of war, and me. A boy…I was caught in the forest when I was gathering weapons. Several times I escaped, the third time they got me.

I didn’t want to die…

I hear a whisper: “Run for it! We’ll attack the convoy, and you jump into the bushes.”

“I won’t…”

“Why?”

“I’m staying with you.”

I wanted to die with them. Like a soldier.

“We order you: run for it! Live!”

One, Danila Grigorievich Iordanov, was from Mariupol…the other, Aleksandr Ivanovich Ilyinsky, from Briansk…

“Remember: 6 Park Street, Mariupol…You remember?”

“…Street…Briansk…You remember?”

Shooting began…

I started running…I ran…It throbbed in my head: rat-a-tat-tat…remember…rat-a-tat-tat…remember. And out of fear I forgot. I forgot the name of the street and the house number in Briansk.