From Bucharest to an Arctic Barrack

I was born in Romania, in Bucharest. For me the catastrophe began earlier than it did in the Soviet Union. In June 1940 the border between Romania and the Soviet Union was opened for twenty four hours. In Romania people said that there freedom, brotherhood, and joy reigned, so our family of eight decided to go to the Soviet Union. We came to the city of Stalino-Donets, surrounded by steppe and mines.

In 1941 the war between Germany and the USSR began. My mother's brothers went to the front as volunteers and later went missing. My father worked in Stalino. We fled in the very last freight train into the Molotov region. On the road we were bombed constantly. A train of wounded soldiers that had passed shortly before us was destroyed. We ran in terror wherever our eyes led us, and around us only the steppe, with nowhere to take cover.

“The war ended, but the antisemitism remained. The country of brotherhood, joy, and freedom never came to be.”

At last we arrived in the town of Gubakha. My father got work at a mine. He was a tailor, and clothes had to be sewn for the front. Without knowing the language, communicating with the local people, he managed to organize a sewing workshop. They sewed clothes for the front, and bedding for the hospitals.

We were given a room in a barrack. The frosts went down to forty below. It was very cold and very hungry. We went to the train station to gather frozen potatoes that fell from the freight cars, and to gather coal. I remember how everyone was distraught when our mother's bread card was stolen.

My grandfather and grandmother died of hunger. In the village where we lived only we were Jews. The rest were exiled Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Banderites. We were not loved, and they always found a reason to humiliate or torment us.

The war ended, but the antisemitism remained. To our sorrow, the country of brotherhood, joy, and freedom never came to be.

Now I live in Israel, in my own country. But around our country are many enemies, and one needs much strength to overcome them.