Decades after the war…
“WHOEVER CRIES WILL BE SHOT…”
Vera Zhdan
FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. NOW A MILKER.
I’m afraid of men…I have been ever since the war…
They held us at gunpoint and led us into the woods. They found a clearing. “No,” says the German, shaking his head. “Not here…” They took us farther. The polizei say, “It would be a luxury to leave you partisan bandits in such a beautiful place. We’ll leave you in the mud.”
They chose the lowest spot, where there was always water. They gave my father and brother shovels to dig a pit. My mother and I stood under a tree and watched. We watched how they dug the pit. My brother took one last shovelful and looked at me: “Hi, Verka!…” He was sixteen years old…barely sixteen…
My mother and I watched how they were shot…We weren’t allowed to turn away or close our eyes. The polizei watched us…My brother didn’t fall into the pit, but bent double from the bullet, stepped forward, and sat down next to the pit. They shoved him with their boots into the pit, into the mud. Most horrible was not that they were shot, but that they were put down into the sticky mud. Into the water. They didn’t let us cry, they drove us back to the village. They didn’t even throw dirt over them.
For two days we cried, mama and I. We cried quietly, at home. On the third day that same German and two polizei came: “Get ready to bury your bandits.” We came to that place. They were floating in the pit; it was a well now, not a grave. We had our shovels with us, started digging and crying. And they said, “Whoever cries will be shot. Smile.” They forced us to smile…I bend down, he comes up to me and looks me in the face: am I smiling or crying?
They stood there…All young men, good looking…smiling…It’s not the dead, but these living ones I’m afraid of. Ever since then I’ve been afraid of young men…
I never married. Never knew love. I was afraid: what if I give birth to a boy…
“DEAR MAMA AND DEAR PAPA—GOLDEN WORDS…”
Ira Mazur
FIVE YEARS OLD. NOW A CONSTRUCTION WORKER.
I should probably tell you about my loneliness. How I learned to be lonely…
One girl, Lenochka, had a red blanket, and I had a brown one. And when the German planes flew over, we lay on the ground and covered ourselves with our blankets. First the red one, then my brown one on top. I told the girls that if the pilot saw brown from above, he would think it’s a stone…
The only memory I have of my mother is how afraid I was to lose her. I knew a girl whose mother had died in a bombing. She cried all the time. My mother took her in her arms and comforted her. Later…we buried my mother in the village, some woman and I…We washed her. She lay there thin as a girl. I wasn’t afraid, I caressed her all the time. Her hair and hands smelled as usual. I didn’t notice where she was wounded. Apparently it was a small bullet wound. For some reason I thought that mama’s bullet wound was small. I once saw small bullets on the road. And I wondered: how can these small bullets kill such a big person? Or even me—I’m a thousand, a million times bigger than them. For some reason, I remember that million, it seemed to me that it was very, very much, so much it was impossible to count. Mama didn’t die immediately. She lay in the grass for a long while and kept opening her eyes: “Ira, I have to tell you…”
“Mama, I don’t want to…” It seemed to me that if she told me what she wanted, she’d die.
When we washed my mother, she lay in a shawl with her big braid. Like a girl…That’s how I see her today. I’m already twice her age; she was twenty-five. I now have a daughter that age, and she even looks like my mother.
What’s left in me from the orphanage? An uncompromising character. I don’t know how to be gentle and careful with words. I’m unable to forgive. My family complains that I’m not very affectionate. Can one grow up affectionate without a mother?
At the orphanage, I wanted to have my own personal cup, that would be mine alone. I’ve always been envious: people have kept some belongings from their childhood, but I don’t have any. Nothing of which I could say: “This is from my childhood.” I wish I could say that, sometimes I even make it up…Other girls grew attached to our house mistresses, but I liked our nannies. They were more like our imaginary mamas. The house mistresses were strict and orderly, but the nannies were always bedraggled and grouchy like at home. They might spank us, but never painfully. Maternally. They washed us, did laundry for us in the bathhouse. We could sit on their laps. They touched our naked bodies—and that only a mama could do, so I understood. They fed us, treated our colds as they knew how, and wiped our tears. When we were in their hands, it wasn’t an orphanage anymore, but started to be a home.
I often hear people say, “My mother” or “My father.” I don’t understand—why mother and father, as if they were strangers? It should only be mama or papa. And if mine were alive, I would call them “dear mama” and “dear papa.”
Those are golden words…
“THEY BROUGHT HER BACK IN PIECES…”
Valya Zmitrovich
ELEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW A WORKER.
I don’t want to remember…I don’t want to, I never want to…
We were seven children. Before the war, mama laughed: “The sun is shining, the children are growing.” The war began—she cried: “Such an evil hour, and children all over the place like beans…” Yusik was seventeen years old, I was eleven, Ivan nine, Nina four, Galya three, Alik two, and Sasha was five months old. A baby, nursing and crying.
At the time I didn’t know, only after the war people told me that our parents were connected with the partisans and with our prisoners of war who worked in the dairy plant. My mother’s sister worked there, too. I remember one thing: some men were sitting at night in our house, and apparently the light seeped through the window, though it was curtained with a thick blanket. A shot rang out—straight through the window. Mama grabbed the lamp and hid it under the table.
Mama was cooking us something with potatoes. She could do anything with potatoes—as they now say, a hundred dishes. We were preparing for some celebration. I remember it smelled delicious in the house. And my father was cutting clover by the forest. The Germans surrounded the house and ordered, “Come out!” Mama came out with us, three children. They started beating mama. She shouted, “Children, go inside!”
They stood her up against the wall under the window, and we stood in the window.
“Where is your oldest son?”
Mama answered, “Digging peat.”
“Let’s go there.”
They pushed mama into the truck and got in themselves.
Galya ran out of the house and shouted, asking to go with mama. They threw her into the truck along with mama. And mama shouted, “Children, go inside…”
Papa came running from the field. Apparently someone had told him. He grabbed some papers and ran after mama. And he also shouted to us, “Children, go inside.” As if the house would save us, or mama was there. We waited in the yard…In the evening we climbed up, some on the gate, some in the apple tree: aren’t our papa and mama, sister and brother coming back? We saw people running from the other end of the village: “Children, leave your house and run away. Your family is gone, and they’re coming for you…”
We crawled through the potato field to the swamp. We sat there for the night. The sun rose: what should we do? I remembered that we forgot the little one in her crib. We went to the village, took the little one; she was alive, just turned blue from crying. My brother Ivan says, “Feed her.” What should I feed her with? I didn’t have breasts. But he was afraid she would die, and asked: “Try…”
Our neighbor came. “Children, they’ll be searching for you. Go to your aunt’s.”
Our aunt lived in another village. We said, “We’ll go and find our aunt, but you tell us, where
are our mama and papa, and our sister and brother?”
She told us that they had been shot. They were lying in the woods…
“But you mustn’t go there, children.”
“We’ll go to say goodbye on our way out of the village.”
“You mustn’t, children…”
She led us out of the village, but didn’t let us go where our family lay.
Many years later, I learned that my mother had had her eyes torn out, her hair pulled out, her breasts cut off. They set German shepherds loose on little Galya, who was hiding under a fir tree and wouldn’t come out. They brought her back in pieces. Mama was still alive, she understood everything…It was all right in front of her…
After the war, I was left with my little sister Nina, just the two of us. I found her with some strangers and took her to live with me. We went to the district committee: “Give us a little room, the two of us will live there.” They gave us a corridor in the worker’s dormitory. I worked in a factory, Nina studied at school. I never called her by her name, always just “Little Sister.” She’s all I have. The only one.
I don’t want to remember. But I need to tell people about my misfortune. It’s hard to weep alone…
“THE CHICKS HAD JUST HATCHED…I WAS AFRAID THEY’D BE KILLED…”
Alyosha Krivoshey
FOUR YEARS OLD. NOW A RAILROADMAN.
My memory…The only one…The chicks had just hatched. Small and yellow, they ran around the floor, came to my hands. During the bombing, my grandmother gathered them on a sieve.
“How about that: war—and chicks.”
I was afraid the chicks would be killed. I still remember how I cried because of that fear. Bombing…Everybody ran to hide in the cellar, but I wouldn’t leave the house. I was holding the chicks…Grandmother took the sieve with us, then I went. I went and counted: one chick, two, three…There were five of them…
I counted the bombs. One fell, two…seven…
That’s how I learned to count…
“KING OF CLUBS…KING OF DIAMONDS…”
Galina Matuseeva
SEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW RETIRED.
A man is born…
Beside him sit two angels, and they lay out his fortune. They prescribe the years of his life, whether his path will be long or short. And God watches from above. He sent the angels to welcome the new soul. To say that He is there.
My good one…I can see from someone’s eyes whether the person is happy or not. I won’t walk up to just anyone in the street and stop him: “Young, handsome, may I ask you?” People run, run, and I choose one from the crowd, as if I recognize him. I feel something in my chest, I feel warm, and the words appear. The heat of speech. I start speaking…I tell his fortune…I lay out my cards, and everything is in the cards: what was and what will be, and how the soul will rest, and what it will take with it. It will go back where it came from—to heaven. The cards will show…Man is proud, but his fortune is written in the heavens beforehand. There is a text there…But each one reads it in his own way…
We’re Gypsies…Free people…We have our own laws, Gypsy laws. Our home is where we live, and where our heart is glad. For us anywhere is home. Anywhere under the sky. My father taught me so, and my mother taught me. The kibitka sways, shakes along the roads, and mama reads me our prayers. She sings. Gray…the color of the road, the color of dust…the color of my childhood…My good one, have you ever seen a Gypsy tent? Round and high as the sky. I was born in one. In the forest. Under the stars. From the day I was born, I’ve had no fear of night birds and animals. I learned to dance and sing by the bonfire. You can’t imagine the Gypsy life without singing; each of us sings and dances—it’s like speaking. The words of our songs are tender. Devastating…When I was little I didn’t understand them, but I still cried. Such words…They creep into the human heart, they tease it. Lull it. Tease it with the road. Freedom. Great love…No wonder they say the Russian people die twice: once for the Motherland, the second time from listening to Gypsy songs.
My good one, why do you ask so many questions? I’ll tell you myself…
I saw happiness in my childhood. Believe me!
In summer we lived in a camp together. One family. We always stopped near a river. Near a forest. In a beautiful place. In the morning, the birds sing, and my mama sings. She wakes me up. And in winter, we sought out people’s apartments—back then people were pure gold. Good-hearted. We lived well with them. But for as long as there was snow on the ground, we waited for spring. We took care of our horses. Gypsies look after horses like children. In April…At Easter we bowed to the good people and prepared for the road. Sun, wind…We live for the day. Today there’s happiness—someone hugs you at night, or the children are healthy and well fed—and you’re happy. But tomorrow is a new day. Mama’s words…Mama didn’t teach me much. If a child is from God, there’s no need to teach him much, he learns on his own.
That’s how I grew up…My short-term happiness. Gypsy happiness…
I woke up one morning from the talking. From the shouting.
“War!”
“What war?”
“With Hitler.”
“Let them fight. We’re free people. Birds. We live in the woods.”
Then the planes came flying. They shot the cows in the field. Smoke rose into the sky…In the evening, mama’s cards laid themselves out in such a way that she clutched her head and rolled in the grass.
Our camp stood still. Didn’t move. I was bored. I liked the road.
One night an old Gypsy woman came to the fire. Wrinkled like dry dirt under the sun. I didn’t know her, she was from another camp. From far away.
She told us, “In the morning they surrounded us. On good, well-fed horses. Their manes were shiny, their horseshoes strong. The Germans sat in their saddles, and the polizei pulled the Gypsies out of their tents. They pulled off their rings, tore off their earrings. All the women had their ears covered with blood and their fingers dislocated. They stabbed the featherbeds with bayonets. Looking for gold. Afterward, they began to shoot…
“One little girl asked them, ‘Misters, don’t shoot. I’ll sing you a Gypsy song.’ They laughed. She sang for them, danced, then they shot her…The whole camp. The entire camp was wiped out. They set the tents on fire. Only the horses were left. Without people. They took away the horses.”
The bonfire burns. The Gypsies are quiet. I’m sitting next to mama.
In the morning—packing up: bundles, pillows, pots fly into the kibitka.
“Where are we going?”
“To the city,” mama answers.
“Why the city?” I was sorry to leave the river. The sun.
“The Germans ordered it…”
We were allowed to live on three streets of Minsk. We had our own ghetto. Once a week the Germans showed up and checked us according to their list: “Ein Zigeuner…Zwei Zigeuner…” My good one…
How did we live?
Mama and I went from village to village. We begged. One would give us some wheat, another corn. They all invited us in: “Ah, Gypsy woman, come in. Tell my fortune. My husband is at the front.” The war separated people from each other, they all lived apart. Waiting. They wanted to have hope.
Mama told fortunes. I listened…King of clubs, king of diamonds…A black card—Death. The ace of spades. The seven…The white king—burning love. The black king of spades—a military man. The six of diamonds—a future journey…
My mother came out of the yard smiling, but on the road she cried. It’s terrible to tell people the truth: your husband is dead, your son is no longer among the living. The earth has taken them, they are—there. The cards bear witness…
We stayed overnight in a house. I didn’t sleep…I saw how, at midnight, the women let loose their long braids and told fortu
nes. Each one opened the window, tossed grain into the dark night, and listened to the wind: if the wind is quiet—the promised one is alive, but if it howls and beats on the window, then don’t wait for him, he won’t come back. The wind howled and howled. It beat on the windowpane.
People never loved us the way they did during the war. During the hard times. Mama knew spells. She could help men and animals: she saved cows, horses. She spoke to them all in their own language.
There were rumors: one camp was shot up, then another…A third was taken to a concentration camp…
The war ended, we rejoiced together. You meet someone and embrace him. There were few of us left. But people still told fortunes and read cards. In the house, under the icon, lies a death notice, but the woman still asks, “Oh, Gypsy woman, tell my fortune. What if he’s alive? Maybe the clerk made a mistake?”
Mama told her fortune. I listened…
For the first time I told the fortune of a girl at the market. She drew “great love.” A lucky card. And she gave me a ruble. I had given her happiness, if only for a moment.
My good one, you, too, be happy! May God be with you. Tell people about our Gypsy fate. People know so little…
Taves bahtalo…God be with you!
“A BIG FAMILY PHOTOGRAPH…”
Tolya Chervyakov
FIVE YEARS OLD. NOW A PHOTOGRAPHER.
If something has stayed in my memory, it’s like a big family photograph…
My father is in the foreground with his rifle, wearing an officer’s cap. He wore it even in winter. The cap and the rifle are outlined more clearly than my father’s face. I really wanted to have my own cap and rifle. A little boy!
Next to my father—mama. I don’t remember her from those years, but instead I remember what she used to do: she was constantly laundering something white; she smelled of medicine. Mama was a nurse in a partisan brigade.
Last Witnesses Page 21