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

“DON’T GIVE SOME STRANGER PAPA’S SUIT…”

Valera Nichiporenko EIGHT YEARS OLD. NOW A BUS DRIVER.

This was already in 1944…

I was probably eight years old. I think I was eight…We knew by then that we had no father. Others waited. They had received death notices, but they still waited. But we had a trustworthy sign. A proof. A friend of our father’s sent his watch. To his son…To me…That was my father’s request to him before dying. I still have that watch, I cherish it.

The three of us lived on my mother’s small salary. We got by on bread and water. My sister fell ill. She was diagnosed with open tuberculosis. The doctors told mama that she needed good food, she needed butter. Honey. And that every day. Butter! For us it was like gold. Solid gold…Something unbelievable…At market prices mama’s salary was enough for three loaves of bread. And for that money you could buy maybe two hundred grams of butter.

We still had my father’s suit. A good suit. We took it to the market with mama. We found a buyer, found him quickly. Because the suit was fancy. My father bought it just before the war and hadn’t gotten to wear it. The suit had hung in the closet…Brand-new…The buyer asked the price, bargained, and gave mama the money, and I started yelling for the whole market to hear, “Don’t give some stranger papa’s suit!” A policeman even came up to us…

Who can say after that, that children weren’t in the war? Who…