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

“THE LITTLE TRUNK WAS JUST HIS SIZE…”

Dunya Golubeva ELEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW A MILKER.

War…But we still had to plow…

Mama, my sister and brother went to the fields to sow linseed. They drove off, and an hour later, not more, women came running: “Your people have been shot, Dunya. They’re lying in the field…”

My mother lay on a sack, and the grain was pouring out of it. There were many, many little bullet holes…

I remained alone with my little nephew. My sister had recently given birth, but her husband was with the partisans. It was me and this little boy…

I didn’t know how to milk the cow. She was bellowing in the stable, she sensed that her mistress was gone. The dog howled all night long. So did the cow…

The baby clung to me…He wanted my breast…Milk…I remembered how my sister fed him…I pulled out my nipple for him, he sucked and sucked and fell asleep. I had no milk, but he got tired and fell asleep. Where did he catch cold? How did he get sick? I was little, what did I know? He coughed and coughed. We had nothing to eat. The polizei had already taken away the cow.

And so the little boy died. Moaned and moaned and died. I heard it grow quiet. I lifted the little sheet. He lay there all black, only his little face was white, it remained clean. A white little face, the rest completely black.

Night. Dark windows. Where to go? I’ll wait till morning, in the morning I’ll call people. I sat and wept, because there was no one in the house, not even that little boy. Day was breaking. I put him in a trunk…We had kept our grandfather’s trunk, where he stored his tools; a small trunk, like a box. I was afraid that cats or rats would come and gnaw at him. He lay there, so small, smaller than when he was alive. I wrapped him in a clean towel. A linen one. And kissed him.

The little trunk was just his size…