Two Oxen and a Cart

Episodes of fleeing the Nazis, 1942.

“We crossed the Salsk steppes and Kalmykia, more than six hundred kilometers, sometimes through deserted places where food was almost impossible to find.”

At the time of the German offensive of 1942 in the Rostov region, our family lived on a farmstead near the village of Bolshaya Orlovka.

On the very last day, when almost the entire district was already taken by German troops, the family by chance acquired a cart with two oxen and was able to flee, with a small store of food.

During the flight the family managed to cross the Salsk steppes and Kalmykia and reach the outskirts of Astrakhan. The distance covered was more than six hundred kilometers. At times we made our way through deserted places where it was almost impossible to find food.

On the road our family, especially the children, suffered hunger and the heaviest hardships.