Last Witnesses

by Svetlana Alexievich

  My little brother and I are there somewhere. He was always sick. I remember him—red, his whole body covered with scabs. He and mama both cry at night. He from pain, mama from fear that he will die.

  And then, in the big peasant cottage which housed mama’s hospital, I see women carrying mugs. The mugs contain milk. They pour the milk into a bucket, and mama bathes my brother in it. My brother doesn’t cry that night, he sleeps. For the first night…In the morning, mama says to my father, “How will I repay the people?”

  A big photograph…One big photograph…

  “AT LEAST LET ME POUR SOME LITTLE POTATOES IN YOUR POCKETS…”

  Katya Zayats

  TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW A WORKER ON THE KLICHEVSKY STATE FARM.

  Grandma chases us away from the windows…

  But she looks out and tells mama, “They found old Todor in the shed…Our wounded soldiers were there…He brought them his sons’ clothes; he wanted them to change so the Germans wouldn’t recognize them. They shot the soldiers in the shed, and brought Todor to his yard and ordered him to dig a pit near the house. He’s digging…”

  Old Todor was our neighbor. Through the window we could see him digging a pit. He finished digging…The Germans took away his shovel, yelled something at him in their own language. The old man didn’t understand or didn’t hear because he had long been deaf. Then they pushed him into the pit and made signs for him to get on his knees. And they buried him alive…On his knees…

  Everyone became frightened. Who are they? Are they even human? The first days of the war…

  For a long time we avoided old Todor’s house. It seemed to everyone that he was shouting from under the ground.

  They burned our village so that only dirt was left. Only stones in the yards, and even they were black. There was no grass left in our garden. It was burned up. We lived by charity—my little sister and I went around to other villages, asking people, “Give us something…”

  Mama was sick. Mama couldn’t go with us, she was ashamed.

  We would come to a cottage.

  “Where are you from, children?”

  “From Yadrenaya Sloboda. They burned us out.”

  They would give us a bowl of barley, a piece of bread, an egg…I thank them all, they all gave something.

  Another time we’d cross the threshold, the women would wail loudly, “Oh, children, how many are you? This morning two pair came by.” Or: “Some people just left. We don’t have any more bread, let me at least pour some little potatoes in your pockets.”

  They wouldn’t let us leave the cottage empty-handed. They’d give something, if only a bunch of flax, and by the end of the day we’d have gathered a whole sheaf of flax. Mama spun it herself, she wove it. At the swamp she dyed it black with peat.

  My father came home from the front. We started building a cottage. There were just two cows left in the whole village. The cows carried the wood. We did, too. Also on our backs. I couldn’t carry logs bigger than myself, but if one was my size, I would drag it.

  The war didn’t end soon…They count it as four years. There was shooting for four years…And how many years to forget?

  “A IS FOR APPLE, B IS FOR BALL…”

  Fedya Trutko

  THIRTEEN YEARS OLD. NOW BRANCH DIRECTOR OF A LIMESTONE FACTORY.

  Here’s the story…

  Just two days before the war, we took mama to the hospital. She was gravely ill. The hospital was in Brest. We never saw our mama again.

  Two days later the Germans entered the city. They drove the patients out of the hospital, and those who couldn’t walk they took away somewhere. Among them, people told me, was my mother. They were shot somewhere. But where? How? When? I never learned, there was no trace left.

  The war found my sister, my father, and me at home in Bereza. My brother Volodya was studying at the school of highway engineering in Brest. My other brother, Alexander, graduated from the Red Navy School in Pinsk and worked there as a mechanic on a steamship.

  Our father—Stepan Alekseevich Trutko—was deputy chairman of the Bereza district executive committee. He was given the order to evacuate with documents to Smolensk. He came running home. “Fedya, grab your sister and go to your grandfather’s in Ogorodniki…”

  We arrived at my grandfather’s farm in the morning, and that night my brother Volodya knocked on the window. He had walked for two days and nights from Brest. In October, Alexander showed up at the farm. He told us that the steamship on which he was sailing to Dnepropetrovsk had been bombed. All survivors were taken prisoner. Several people escaped, among them our Alexander.

  We all rejoiced when the partisans came to my grandfather’s—let’s go with them! We’ll take revenge!

  “How many grades have you finished?” asked the commander, when we were brought to him.

  “Five.”

  I heard the order: “Leave him in the family camp.”

  My brothers were given rifles, and I was given a pencil for schoolwork.

  I was already a Young Pioneer by then. It was my best card, that I was a Pioneer. I asked to join a combat unit.

  “We have fewer pencils than rifles,” laughed the commander.

  War was all around, but we studied. Our school was called “the green school.” There were no desks, no classrooms, no textbooks; there were only students and teachers. We had one ABC for everybody, one history book, one problem book in arithmetic, and one grammar book. No paper, chalk, ink, or pencils. We cleared a meadow, scattered sand over it, and that was our “blackboard.” We wrote on it with little twigs. In place of notebooks, the partisans brought us German leaflets, old wallpaper, and newspapers. They even found us a school bell somewhere. We were very pleased with it. Can it be a real school, if no bell rings? We had red neckerchiefs.

  “Air raid!” shouts the sentry. The meadow empties.

  And after the bombing, the lesson continues. The first graders write on the sand with their twigs: “A is for apple, B is for ball…”

  We made a big standing abacus out of sticks and stones. We cut out several wooden alphabet sets. We even had physical education. We equipped the playground with a crossbar, a racetrack, a pole vault, and circles for grenade throwing. I threw grenades the farthest of all.

  I finished sixth grade and said firmly that I would go to seventh grade after the war. They gave me a rifle. Later I got hold of a Belgian carbine; it was small and light.

  I learned to be a good shot…But I forgot my math…

  “HE GAVE ME AN ASTRAKHAN HAT WITH A RED RIBBON…”

  Zoya Vasilyeva

  TWELVE YEARS OLD. NOW A PATENT ENGINEER.

  There was so much joy in me before the war! Happiness! And that saved me…

  I enrolled in the dance school at our Opera and Ballet Theater. The school was experimental, they chose the most talented children. And I had a letter of recommendation from the famous Moscow director Galizovsky.*1 In 1938 there was a parade of athletes in Moscow, and I was in it. We were sent there by the Minsk Palace of Pioneers. Blue and red balloons were released in the sky…We walked in a column…Galizovsky was the main director of this parade, and he noticed me.

  A year later he came to Minsk, found me, and wrote a letter to Zinaida Anatolievna Vasilyeva, a people’s artist…Our Belarusian celebrity…At the time, she was organizing a dance school. I delivered the letter. I really wanted to read what was written in it, but I forbade myself. Zinaida Anatolievna lived in the Hotel Evropa, not far from the conservatory. Since I did it all in secret from my parents, I was in a big hurry when leaving home. I ran down the street barefoot, and only then put my sandals on. I didn’t change clothes. If I had put on something fancy, mama would have asked, “Where are you going?” And my parents didn’t want to hear anything about any ballet; they were absolutely against it. Categorically.

>   I gave the letter to Zinaida Anatolievna, she read it and said, “Get undressed. Let’s see your arms and legs.” I froze in horror: how can I take off my sandals, when my feet are so dirty? I evidently had such a look on my face that she understood everything. She handed me a towel, pulled up a chair by the sink…

  They enrolled me in the school. Out of twenty, only five people were kept. A new life began: classics, rhythmics, music…I was so happy! Zinaida Anatolievna loved me. And we all loved her. She was our idol, our divinity. No one in the world was as beautiful as she was. In 1941, I already danced in the ballet The Nightingale, by Kroshner.*2 I was assigned to dance the Little Cossack in the second act. We even had time to present it at the Ten Days of Belarusian Art in Moscow. It was a success. I also danced as a little chick in our school premiere, in the ballet Chicks. There was a big mother hen, and I was the littlest chick.

  After the Ten Days in Moscow, we were awarded passes to go to the Pioneer summer camp near Bobruisk. There, too, we performed our “chicks.” As a gift, they promised to bake us a huge cake. They baked it on the 22nd of June…

  In token of solidarity with Spain, we wore little forage caps, my favorite headpiece. I immediately put it on when the children shouted “War!” On the road to Minsk, I lost my little cap…

  In Minsk, my mother embraced me on the doorstep, and we ran to the station. We lost each other during a bombardment. I didn’t find my mother and sister; I got on the train without them. In the morning, the train stopped at Krupki and didn’t go any farther. People went to the village houses, but I felt shy, because I was without my mother, alone. In the evening, I finally went into a house and asked for something to drink. They gave me milk. I raised my eyes from the cup to the wall and saw—my young mama in a wedding dress. And I shouted, “Mama!” The old man and woman started questioning me: “Where are you from? Who are you?” Such things can only happen in times of war—I found myself at my great-uncle’s, the brother of my father’s father, whom I had never seen. Of course, he didn’t let me go anywhere. Such miracles!

  In Minsk I had danced the “chicks,” and now I had to guard them, so that the magpies wouldn’t snatch them. Chicks are nothing, but I was afraid of geese. I was afraid of everything, I was even afraid of the rooster. I first showed courage when I went herding the geese. The male goose was smart, he realized I was scared of him, he hissed and tried to pull my skirt from behind. I had to playact in front of my new friends, who from their childhood hadn’t been afraid either of geese or of the rooster. I was also very scared of thunderstorms. If I saw a thunderstorm coming, I immediately made up some excuse and ran into the first house I found. And there was no scarier sound than the clap of thunder. Though I had already seen bombings…

  I liked the village people, their kindness; everybody called me “the wee one.” I remember I was very interested in the horse. I loved to ride him, and my great-uncle let me. He would snort, wave his tail, and above all he obeyed me: I’d give a tug with my right hand, he knew he had to turn that way, if with the left, then to the left.

  I asked my great-uncle, “Take me to mama on the horse.”

  “Once the war is over, I’ll take you.” My great-uncle was sullen and strict.

  I arranged an escape. A girlfriend of mine led me out of the village.

  At the station I climbed into a freight car, but I was chased out. I climbed into some truck and sat to the side. A scary memory: a German man and woman got in, there was a polizei with them, and I was there, but they let me be. On the road, they began asking questions, “Where did you study? What grade were you in?”

  When I told them I also studied at the ballet school, they didn’t believe me. Right there in the truck I showed them my “chick.” And had I studied a foreign language?

  In fifth grade we had started studying French; it was all still fresh in my memory. The German woman asked me something in French, and I answered. They were amazed that they had picked up a girl in a village who was in fifth grade, studied at a ballet school, and even knew French. They were doctors, as I understood, educated people. They had been told that we were savages. Subhumans.

  It seems ridiculous now: I was afraid of a rooster, but when I saw the partisans in their Astrakhan hats, sword belts, with stars and machine guns, I said, “Misters, I’m brave. Take me with you.” In the partisan unit, all my dreams were crushed, because I sat in the kitchen peeling potatoes. Can you imagine the mutiny in my soul? For a week I was on duty in the kitchen. Then I went to the unit commander: “I want to be a real fighter.” He gave me an Astrakhan hat with a red ribbon, but I just wanted a rifle. I wasn’t afraid to die.

  I returned to mama with the medal Partisan of the Patriotic War, second degree. I went to school and forgot about everything. I played field hockey with the girls, rode a bike. One time, I fell into a bomb crater on my bike, got hurt, saw the blood, and remembered—not the war, but my ballet school. How am I going to dance now? Zinaida Anatolievna Vasilyeva will return soon, and I have an injured knee…

  Only I didn’t go back to ballet school. I went to work in a factory, I had to help mama. But I wanted to study…When my daughter was in the first grade, her mama was in the tenth. At night school.

  My husband offered me a ticket to the ballet. I sat and cried through the whole performance…

  *1 The correct spelling (i.e., pronunciation) is Goleizovsky. Kasyan Goleizovsky (1892–1970) was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer who made his name in the avant-garde of the 1920s. He had a marked influence on George Balanchine.

  *2 The composer Mikhail Kroshner (1900–1942) was born in Kiev and studied in Minsk. He composed in many forms. The ballet The Nightingale (1939) is his most well-known work.

  “AND I FIRED INTO THE AIR…”

  Anya Pavlova

  NINE YEARS OLD. NOW A COOK.

  Oh, my soul is going to ache…To ache again…

  The Germans dragged me into the barn…Mama ran after me, tearing her hair. She screamed, “Do whatever you want with me, just don’t touch my child.” I had two younger brothers. They shouted, too…

  We were from the village of Mekhovaya, in the Orel region. From there we were driven on foot to Belarus. From one concentration camp to another…When they wanted to take me away to Germany, mama padded her belly and put my little brother in my arms. That’s how I survived. I was removed from the list.

  Oh! Today my soul won’t be still all day and all night. I’m moved, stirred…

  Dogs tore children apart…We sat over a torn-up child waiting for his heart to stop. Then we covered him with snow…That would be his grave till spring…

  In 1945…after the Victory…mama was sent to build a health center here in Zhdanovichi. I went with her. And so I stayed here. I’ve been working in the health center for forty years…Since the first stone I’ve been here; it all rose up before my eyes. They gave me a rifle, ten German prisoners, and I led them to work. The first time I brought them, women surrounded us: one with a stone, another with a shovel, yet another with a stick. And I ran around the prisoners with my rifle and shouted, “Good women! Don’t touch them…Good women, I signed papers for them. I’ll shoot!” And I fired into the air.

  The women cried, and I cried. And the Germans stood there. Never raised their eyes.

  Mama never once took me to the military museum. One time she saw me looking at a newspaper with photographs of people who had been shot—she took it away and scolded me.

  To this day there isn’t a single book about the war in our house. And I’ve been living without mama for a long time now…

  “MY MOTHER CARRIED ME TO FIRST GRADE IN HER ARMS…”

  Inna Starovoitova

  SEVEN YEARS OLD. NOW AN AGRONOMIST.

  Mama kissed us and went away…

  The four of us were left in the hut: the younger ones—my little brother,
my two cousins—and me, the oldest one, seven years old. It wasn’t the first time we were left alone, and we had learned not to cry, to behave quietly. We knew our mama was a scout, she had been sent on a mission, and we had to wait for her. Mama had taken us away from the village, and we now lived together with her in a partisan family camp. It had long been our dream! And now—our happiness.

  We sit and listen: the trees rustle, women are doing laundry nearby, scolding their children. Suddenly a call: “Germans! Germans!” Everybody runs out of their huts, calling children, fleeing farther into the forest. But where should we run, alone, without mama? What if mama knows that Germans are coming to the camp, and she’s running to us? Since I’m the oldest, I order, “All of you keep quiet! It’s dark here, and the Germans won’t find us.”

  We lay low. We became completely silent. Someone looked into the hut and said in Russian, “Whoever is in there, come out!”

  The voice was calm, and we came out of the hut. I saw a tall man in a green uniform. “You have a papa?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “And where is he?”

  “He’s far away, at the front,” I revealed. I remember the German even laughed.

  “And where is your mama?” he asked next.

  “Mama left on a mission with the partisans…”

  Another German came, he was in black. They discussed something, and that one, the one in black, showed us with his hand where to go. There stood the women with children who hadn’t managed to escape. The black German pointed his machine gun at us, and I understood what he was about to do. I didn’t even have time to shout and embrace the younger ones…