T.P. Ustinova. I WAS ONLY THREE YEARS OLD…

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My war story is not big, as I was a small child then.

A. Borovskaya. In the bomb shelter
A. Borovskaya. In the bomb shelter.

When the war started I was three. We lived in Moscow, not far from AMO plant (later ZIL), next to ring railroad, which was bombed all the time. All the citizens had to leave for the night to the near metro station. The station was not finished – it had only tunnels. In the courtyard of our house there was hatch with a ladder, to the tunnel with many wooden plank-beds. I would take my baby blanket and potty and together with other children went there to reserve seats, and wait for the rest of the family to come in the evening. It was so boring to stay in one and the same place for us children, and we explored the place around. Once we reached an impasse where found a high fence. We saw horses in the crack! Since then we kept coming to see the horses and to watch them.

One day we came back home after bombing and saw the floor covered by glass from smashed windows, our mom did not let us in, for we were barefooted… … In front of the house all the ground pitted with deep craters, they planted a school garden there later on…

Again bombing. 1941
Again bombing. 1941. Photo of B. Yaroslavtsev
After the bombing. Moscow. 1941
After the bombing. Moscow. 1941

The heaviest bombing in Moscow happened during summer and autumn 1941, and by summer 1942 the fascists were driven off, and all the families with children were sent to evacuate, made go from Moscow.

Our dad and the eldest brother went to the front by this time; middle brother was taken to a sschool of factory training and stayed in Moscow, the youngest brother was 14, and me, the smallest one was 4. I remember only one episode with my dad – it was when he came to say good-bye, I was sick in bed, so he entered the room, kissed me and …left… and we never saw him again – he went missing… The eldest brother also died in the war…

So my mother my brother and I went to the village in Vologodskaya oblast where our grandma lived. The grown up worked in the collective farm from morning to night, and we children were left alone. From  the age of six children alone went to forest to pick up berries and mushrooms, collected ears in the field, and when I did not even turn 7, I went to school…

In 1946 it snowed in September and the snow did not melt, everybody was left with no potatoes  no bread, and another story begun - about the postwar famine …

 

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