Month: May 2007

My Family

[This section enlists all of the Alekseev family by name, including some biographical information. – JD]

I was evacuated with my father, Efim Semyonovich Alekseev (1890-1964), and my mother, Marfa Efremovna (1891-1962).

The eldest of all my siblings, Vera (1910-1993), was a mother of two; her husband was a famous Soviet writer, Klavdy Derbenyov; one of their sons, Vadim Derbenyov, subsequently became a well-known Russian film director. Next after her, Peter (1912-1989), was cleared from going into war; instead he worked in the civilian forces and was a member of the MOONO.

The next in line, Dmitry (1914-1943), was a good actor. He took part in the operations at the Khasan Island against the Japanese in 1938. When the Great Patriotic war had started, he went to the army. Although being in the infantry, he often had to go for the intelligence, which occasionally resulted in taking the Nazi prisoners. He was severely wounded in May 1943. The bullet wounded his crotch, and the doctors had to amputate his both legs. He died on the operation table on May 27, 1943. We received a death confirmation on June 22, 1943.

My elder sister, Natalia (1916-1997), joined the secret service in Moscow, which would have become active, had Hitler’s operation against the capital been successful. Natalia was entrusted with several houses in the outskirts of Moscow, which would locate secret groups. She also held the keys to a secret typography, with two sets of fonts, Russian and German. She was in the secret service from October 1941 until February 1943.

Next in line, Leonid (1922-1985), joined the forces after the War had been declared. He went to the Western front in the infantry, and was also severely wounded, but survived. The wound, however, contributed to his death in his early 60s.

My younger brother and the youngest of all of us, Vitaly (born 1928), was evacuated with me. He was in various jobs, but had always loved singing, and was collecting Russian folk songs. He last visited me in Moscow in 2001, and the last we heard of him was that he was living with his children’s relatives in Kazan.

The End of Evacuation, and the Victory (Autumn 1942 — May 9, 1945).

My elder brother Leonid helped us to get a permission to return from evacuation in summer 1942. During a waiting period at one of the railway stations we met the liberators of our home town. A Latvian soldier came up to my Dad and said: ‘Why are your children lying under the bench? The floor is concrete, and it’s so cold’. My father replied: ‘Where else can they lie? All benches are occupied, and they haven’t slept for so many nights’. Then I and my brother crawled from underneath the bench, our mother was left lying on this very typical railway bench. We began to talk, my father went away, and this soldier started paying me compliments. Then he asked me where we were from. I told him that we were evacuees, now returning by permission. ‘Where did you live before evacuation?’ he asked. ‘In Borovsk’, I said. As soon as he heard this, he shouted an officer over to us, a Latvian, too. Together, they explained that their division liberated Borovsk. I later read about this in the press.

In autumn of 1942 we arrived to Yaroslavl. My sister Vera lived in a room in a communal flat and could hardly fit us all, so we had to stay in my aunt’s flat. She was the Head Financier of the Armed Forces Supply Committee (Voentorg-Военторг). She arranged for my father to do carpentry work in several canteens in the city. The rest of us did not work.

In the winter of 1942 Hitler’s troops were attacking Stalingrad, which caused panic in the city. Had Stalingrad been taken, in spring as soon as the ice would melt on the River Volga the Nazis would have entered Yaroslavl. These were extremely tense, difficult days. The checks were carried out every night, with military patrols visiting each and every flat in the city. Nobody would even think of not opening the door to the patrol — vigilance was the prime objective.

We left Yaroslavl in autumn 1943. Our house in Borovsk was burnt by the Nazis. There was no point going back because there was a lack of living spaces in the town, so there was no chance anyone would put us up or rent us a house. We went to stay with my elder brother Pyotr, who lived at Mamontovka Station, not far from Moscow. When we were going from Yaroslavl to Mamontovka, at the Yaroslavsky Railway Station in Moscow we put our basket with bread under the bench, and someone stole it from the other side.

We came to Mamontovka in autumn 1943; the first snow had already fallen. Peter worked in the Moscow Regional Office of the People’s Education (MOONO-МООНО), and he lived on the territory of the Nadezhda Krupskaya Foster Care. We lived there for some time, and then we were given a small derelict house at Klyazma Station, which was a railway station just before Mamontovka. The house had neither doors, nor window frames, but we did not care much. My father was a carpenter, and he very quickly made windows and doors, I even guess they have not ever been changed.

[Note: Lydia and her daughter Olga left the house in 1970. In 2003, the house was still standing].

We met the Victory in Klyazma. The radio had never been turned off, and at three o’clock in the night we heard the signal. We rushed to turn on the black radio plate, and next minute we were hearing the voice of Levitan, who announced a special declaration from the Soviet government. He said that Hitler’s Germany signed the Pact of Capitulation. We ran outside, and the village streets were all full of people, and they were all cheering, and crying, and everyone was very happy.

Evacuation, November 1941 — August 1942.

When we arrived to the village called Murashi, many evacuee families went to the kolkhoz. We could not go because of our disabled mother, so we stayed in the village. Our mother was put into a war hospital, where she spent around two months. At first we did not have any place to live, so we slept in the school’s building, on the floor. Local authorities were very kind to us. But the villagers were extremely hostile. The majority of them were Old Orthodox. I could not say whether they were the suppressed families, or not. My father later explained to me that they must have been people who believed they were treated unjustly. At any rate, they were very well-off. The roofs of all houses were covered with iron, all floors were dyed, which in those times was very expensive to afford. Every house had a hand washer outside. The local people told us later that these were indeed the suppressed families.

From school we were relocated into one such house. But we did not spend much time there. We were not allowed to use water from the home well, so we had to walk half a kilometre to the railway, to collect it. We actually had to cross the railway, which with all climbing up and coming down was a tough journey. But when the winter began, we were melting snow and boiling it to use as drinking water.

Another incident contributed to us leaving that house swiftly. One morning my father went to work. As soon as he went outside, I heard him screaming. I ran out, and saw him with the housekeeper, standing next to a hung cat. The cat was white, with reddish spots. My father was inquiring as to why the housekeeper would be so cruel to the animal. She said: ‘Don’t worry. The cat knows what she did. She stole meat, she was guilty, so she was punished’. The very next day we moved out.

My father found a job as a carpenter at the railways, and we moved in to a small antechamber of a local bath. Despite having no heating, it had electricity. There we lived until we left the Murashi village in August 1942.

One day my father came home and told me and my mum that next day would be the first when conscription will arrive to our town. Next morning we went out. Many women were following their men with cries and prayers, shouting: ‘Our beloved sons, do not fight against the Germans! Shoot the commissars in their backs! Surrender yourself!’ This was in late November — early December 1941. In spring 1942 devastated letters began to arrive, as well as the disabled, armless, legless soldiers.

Then one morning, when we were still sleeping, a woman from the nearby house knocked on our window. My father and I went out to see what she wanted. She stood on the lowest step of the stairs. Immediately, when she saw us, she fell down to her knees and began to beg us to forgive her. Her son had just returned from the front without legs and told her horrendous stories. She nearly forced me to go to get water from the well in her house yard.

In 1942, we worked at the construction site of the Kirov-Kotlas Railway Road. It was a part of the North-Pechora Road, but was later adjoined to the Northern Road. I only had light shoes to wear, and the winter was very severe. The underage were not allowed to work at the railroad, but the brigadiers would let us help them, ‘illegally’. One day we were told a very high official was coming to visit our road, and all underage people (including myself) were hidden away. Later it turned out that this man was the Minister of Railways during the war. I did not work there for long, and in March I became the head of the Community office, where I was responsible for blankets and other household supplies.

Meanwhile, my brother looked after a bread stall, which was owned by two Jewish sisters. He did not tell us, so when my father found out about it, he first was against it because Vitaliy was only young. One of the sisters later came to visit my father to persuade him to allow Vitaliy to work for them. They would sometimes pay him with bread.