Last Witnesses

by Svetlana Alexievich

  There was such silence, or maybe my ears got blocked and it seemed to me that it was quiet, that everything died down. Suddenly, amid this silence, laughter rang out. Such young belly laughter…Young Germans were standing nearby, watching it all and laughing. I don’t remember how I got home with my sister, how I dragged her back. Children obviously grew up quickly then. She was three years old, but I could see that she understood everything, kept quiet and didn’t cry.

  I was afraid to walk in the street, and for some reason I felt calmer when I walked through the ruins. One night, Germans broke into the house and began shaking us. Get up. I slept with my sister, mama with my grandmother. They led us all outside, didn’t allow us to take anything (and it was the beginning of winter), loaded us into trucks, and drove us to the train.

  Alytus was the name of the Lithuanian town where we wound up a few weeks later. At the station they arranged us in ranks and led us away. On the road we met some Lithuanians. They most likely knew where we were being taken. One woman came up to mama and said, “They’re taking you to the death camp. Give me your girl, I’ll save her. If you survive, you’ll find her.” My sister was pretty, everyone pitied her. But what mother would give up her child?

  At the camp, they immediately took our grandmother from us. They said that the elderly were transferred to another barrack. We waited for our grandmother to give us a sign of life, but she disappeared. Later it somehow became known that, in the first days, all the old people had been taken to the gas chamber. After my grandmother, one morning they took away my sister. Before that, a few Germans went through the barracks and listed the children. They chose the pretty ones, especially those who were blond. My sister had blond curly hair and blue eyes. They didn’t list all of them, but specifically those. They didn’t take me, I was dark haired. The Germans patted my sister on the head, they really liked her.

  They would take my sister away in the morning and bring her back in the evening. She faded more with each passing day. My mother questioned her, but she didn’t say anything. Either they were scared, or they were given something, some pills, but she didn’t remember anything. Later we learned that they were taking their blood. Apparently they took a lot of their blood, because after a few months my sister died. She died in the morning. When they came again for the children, she was already dead.

  I was very fond of my grandmother, because I always stayed with her when papa and mama went to work. We hadn’t seen her die and we all hoped she was alive. But my sister died right beside us…She lay there as if alive…Beautiful…

  In the barrack next to ours lived women from Orel. They wore fur coats, bell-shaped fur coats; each of them had many children. They drove them out of the barracks, lined them up by six, and forced them to march with their children. The children clung to them. They even played some music…If one woman didn’t keep pace with the rest, they beat her with a whip. They beat her, and yet she went on, because she knew if she fell, she would be shot and her children would be shot. Something rose in my chest when I saw how they got up and walked. In their heavy fur coats…

  The adults were sent off to labor. They had to take logs from the Neman River and drag them to the bank. Many died there in the water. Once the commandant grabbed me and put me in the group that was supposed to go to labor. Then an old man ran out of the crowd, pushed me away, and took my place. In the evening, when my mother and I wanted to thank him, we didn’t find him. They told us he died in the river.

  My mother was a teacher. She said repeatedly, “We must remain human.” Even in hell she was trying to keep some habits from home. I don’t know where or when she washed them, but I always wore clean, laundered clothes. In winter she washed them with snow. She would take all my clothes off, and I would sit on the bunk under a blanket while she did the laundry. We only had what we were wearing.

  Still, we celebrated our holidays…We saved something to eat for that day. A piece of boiled beet. Or a carrot. My mother tried to smile on that day. She had faith that our soldiers would come. Thanks to that faith, we survived.

  After the war, I went straight into fifth grade, not first grade. I had grown. But I was very reserved, I avoided people for a long time. All my life I’ve liked solitude. People were a burden to me, I had trouble being with them. I kept something inside that I couldn’t share with anyone.

  Mama, of course, noticed how I had changed. She tried to distract me. She invented holidays, and never forgot my birthday. We always had guests, her friends. She herself invited my friends. It was hard for me to understand. She was drawn to people. And I didn’t realize how much mama loved me.

  She still saves me with her love…

  “I REMEMBER THE BLUE, BLUE SKY…AND OUR PLANES IN THAT SKY…”

  Pyotr Kalinovsky

  TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW A CIVIL ENGINEER.

  Before the war…

  I remember that we studied war. We prepared. We learned to shoot, to throw grenades. Even the girls. Everybody wanted to earn the Voroshilov Sharpshooter badge, we were burning with desire. We sang the song “Granada.” The words were beautiful, about a hero going to war “to return their land to the peasants of Granada.” To pursue the cause of the revolution. The worldwide revolution! Yes, that was who we were. Those were our dreams.

  In childhood I composed stories myself. I learned to read and write early. I was a gifted boy. I think mama wanted me to become an actor, but my dream was to learn to fly, to wear a pilot’s uniform. That, too, was a sign of the times. For instance, before the war I never met a boy who didn’t dream of becoming a pilot or a sailor. We wanted either the sky or the sea. The whole globe!

  Now imagine what it was like for me…for our people…What it was like for us, when we saw Germans in our own town. On our own streets. I cried. When night fell, people closed their blinds, and they cried behind their closed windows.

  Papa joined the partisans…Our neighbors across the street put on their white embroidered shirts and greeted the Germans with bread and salt. They were filmed.

  When I first saw our people hanged, I ran home: “Mama, our people are hanging in the sky.” For the first time I was afraid of the sky. After that incident, my attitude toward the sky changed, I became wary of it. I remember that the people were hanging very high, but maybe it seemed like that because of the fear. Hadn’t I seen dead people on the ground? But it didn’t frighten me like that.

  Soon papa came back for us…Then we left together…

  One partisan post, a second…And suddenly we hear Russian songs all through the forest. I recognize the voice of Ruslanova.* The brigade had a gramophone and three or four records completely worn out from frequent playing. I stood there dumbfounded and couldn’t believe that I was with the partisans, and they sang songs there. For two years I had lived in a town occupied by Germans. I had forgotten how people sang. I had seen how they died…How they were scared…

  In 1944 I took part in the Minsk partisan parade. I was at the right-hand end of the rank; they put me there so I could see the tribune. “You’re not grown up yet,” said the partisans. “You’ll get lost among us and won’t see anything, and you have to remember this day.” There was no photographer with us. It’s a pity. I can’t remember how I looked then. I’d like to know…To see my face…

  I don’t remember the tribune. I remember the blue, blue sky. And our planes in that sky. We had been waiting for them, waiting all through the war…

  * Lidia Ruslanova (1900–1973) was a Ukrainian-born singer who became widely popular for her renditions of Russian folk songs and performed all over Russia.

  “LIKE RIPE PUMPKINS…”

  Yakov Kolodinsky

  SEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW A TEACHER.

  The first bombardment…

  They began dropping bombs…We dragged pillows, clothing into the garden, under the cherry tree; the pillows were big, we cou
ldn’t be seen behind them, only our legs stuck out. The planes flew away, and we dragged everything back into the house. And so it went several times a day. Later we already didn’t care about anything, our mother just gathered us children, and we left everything else behind.

  That day…I believe I’ve added something from what my father told, but I remember most of it myself. In the morning…Mist in the garden. The cows had already been taken out. My mother woke me up, gave me a mug of warm milk. It was nearly time to go to the fields. My father was riveting the scythe.

  “Volodya.” A neighbor knocked at the window, calling my father. He went outside. “We’d better run for it…The Germans are going through the village with a list. Somebody reported all the Communists. They’ve taken the teacher…”

  They both scrambled through the kitchen gardens into the forest. After a while, two Germans and a polizei came into our house.

  “Where is the man?”

  “He’s gone haymaking,” answered my mother.

  They went through the house, looked around, didn’t touch us, and left.

  The blue morning haze was still hanging outside. Chilly air. Mama and I watched from behind the gate: a neighbor was pushed out into the street, they were tying his hands, the teacher was taken, too…They tied everybody’s hands behind their backs and stood them two by two. I had never seen a man tied up. I began to shiver. My mother chased me away: “Go into the house, put on your jacket.” I stood there in my shirt, trembling all over, but didn’t go into the house.

  Our house stood right in the middle of the village. They gathered everybody there. It all happened quickly. The prisoners were standing, their heads bowed. They counted them according to their list, and led them outside the village. There were many village men and the woman teacher.

  The women and children ran after them. They were led quickly. We were left behind. We ran up to the last barn and heard gunshots. People started falling, falling and getting back up. They executed them quickly and were about to leave. One German on a motorcycle turned around and drove all over those dead people. He had something heavy in his hands…Either a bludgeon or a crank from his motorcycle…I don’t remember…Driving slowly, without getting off of the motorcycle, he smashed all of their heads…Another German wanted to finish them off with his gun; but the first one waved his hand as if to say no need. They all drove off, but he didn’t drive off until he had smashed everyone’s head. I had never heard the sound of cracking human bones…I remember that they cracked like ripe pumpkins, when my father split them with an ax and I scraped out the seeds.

  I got so scared that I abandoned mama and everybody and ran off somewhere. Alone. I didn’t hide in a house, but for some reason in a barn; mother looked for me for a long time. I couldn’t utter a word for two days. Not a sound.

  I was afraid to go outside. I saw through the window a man carrying a board, a second an ax, and a third a bucket. The boards were trimmed, the smell of freshly planed wood was in every yard, because in almost every yard there was a coffin. Even now I get a lump in my throat from that smell. To this day…

  In the coffins lay people I knew. None had their heads. Instead of their heads, something wrapped in a white cloth…Whatever could be found…

  …My father came back with two partisans. It was a quiet evening, the cows had been brought in. It was time for bed, but my mother prepared us to set out. We put on our suits. I had two other brothers—one was four years old, the other nine months old. I was the biggest. We got to the forges, stopped there, and my father looked back. I also looked back. The village no longer looked like a village, but like a dark, unknown forest.

  Mama carried my little brother. My father carried the bundles and my middle brother. And I couldn’t keep up with them. A young partisan said, “Put him on my back.”

  So he carried his machine gun and me…

  “WE ATE…THE PARK…”

  Anya Grubina

  TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW AN ARTIST.

  I lose my voice when I tell about this…My voice dies…

  We arrived in Minsk after the war. But I’m a Leningrad girl. I survived the siege there. The siege of Leningrad…When the whole city, my dear and beautiful city, was starving to death. Our papa died…Mama saved her children. Before the war, she had been a “firebrand.” My little brother Slavik was born in 1941. How old was he when the siege began? Six months, just about six months…She saved this little one, too…All three of us…But we lost our papa. In Leningrad, everybody lost their papa, the papas died sooner, but the mamas stayed alive. I guess they couldn’t die. Otherwise who would have been there for us?

  When the ring of the siege was broken through, we were taken out on the “road of life” to the Urals, to the city of Karpinsk. The children were saved first. Our entire school was evacuated. On the road, everybody talked constantly about food, about food and parents. In Karpinsk we immediately rushed to the park; we didn’t stroll in the park, we ate it. We especially liked larch, its fluffy needles—they’re so delicious! We ate the young shoots from small pine trees, we nibbled grass. From the time of the siege, I knew about every kind of edible grass; in the city people ate all that was green. In the parks and the botanical garden, the leaves were already gone in the spring. But in the park of Karpinsk there was a lot of wood sorrel, also called hare cabbage. This was in 1942. In the Urals, too, there was hunger, but not as terrible as in Leningrad.

  In the orphanage I was in, which housed only Leningrad children, they weren’t able to feed us. For a long time they couldn’t feed us enough. We sat in the classroom chewing paper. They fed us sparingly…I sat at the table, it was breakfast. And I saw a cat. A live cat…I jumped up from the table: “A cat! A cat!” All the children saw it and started chasing it: “A cat! A cat!” The house mistresses were all local, they looked at us like we were crazy. In Leningrad there were no living cats left…A living cat—that was a dream. A whole month’s worth of food…We told them, but they wouldn’t believe us. I remember many caresses. Hugs. Nobody raised their voice until our hair grew back after the journey. Before leaving, we were all given a close crop, boys and girls alike, but some lost their hair from starvation. We didn’t play, didn’t run. We sat and looked. And we ate everything…

  I don’t remember who in the orphanage told us about the German prisoners…When I first saw a German…I already knew he was a prisoner, they worked outside the city, in the coal mines. To this day I still don’t understand why they came rushing to our orphanage, precisely the Leningrad one.

  When I saw him…that German…He didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask. We had just finished our lunch, and I obviously still smelled of food. He stood next to me and sniffed the air, his jaw involuntarily moving, as if he was chewing something, and he tried to prevent it with his hands. To stop it. But it went on moving. I couldn’t look at a hungry person at all. Absolutely not! We all had this sickness…I ran and called the girls. Somebody had a leftover piece of bread, and we gave it to him.

  He kept thanking us.

  “Danke schön…Danke schön…”

  The next day he came to us with his comrade. And so it went…They walked in their heavy wooden clogs. Thump-thump…When I heard that thump, I ran outside…

  We already knew when they would come, we even waited for them. We ran outside with anything we happened to have. When I was on duty in the kitchen, I kept my entire daily piece of bread for them, and in the evening I scraped the pans. All the girls kept something for them; I don’t remember if the boys did. Our boys were constantly hungry, they never had enough to eat. The house mistresses scolded us, because the girls also fainted from hunger, but we still secretly kept food for those prisoners.

  In 1943 they no longer came to us, in 1943 things were easier. There wasn’t as much hunger in the Urals. We had real bread in the orphanage, they gave us plenty of kasha. But to this
day, I still can’t look at a hungry man. The way he stares…He never stares straight, always somewhere to the side…Recently they showed refugees on television…Somewhere, again, there is war. Shooting. Hungry people standing in lines with empty bowls. With empty eyes. I remember those eyes…I ran to the other room, I was in hysterics…

  In the first year of our evacuation, we paid no attention to nature, everything about nature evoked a single desire—to taste it: is it edible? Only after a year did I notice how beautiful nature was in the Urals. The wild fir trees, tall grass, whole forests of bird cherry. Such sunsets! I began to draw. I had no paint, so I drew with a pencil. I drew postcards. We sent them to our parents in Leningrad. Most of all I loved to draw bird cherry trees. Karpinsk smelled of bird cherry.

  For many years now, I’ve been obsessed with the desire to go there. I have a great wish to see whether our orphanage is still standing…It was a wooden building—has it survived in the new life? What has become of the city park? I’d like to go there in the spring, when everything is in bloom. Now I can’t imagine eating handfuls of bird cherries, but we did eat them. We even ate them when they were still green. Bitter.

  After the siege…I know that a man can eat anything. People even ate dirt…At the market, we could buy dirt from the destroyed and burned-down Badayev warehouses; dirt with sunflower oil spilled on it was particularly valued, or dirt soaked in burned jam. Those two were expensive. Our mama could only afford the cheapest dirt, which barrels of herring had stood on. That dirt only smelled of salt, but didn’t contain any salt. Only the smell of herring.

  To find joy in flowers…New grass…Simply find joy in them…It took me some time to learn…