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MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD IN THE WAR

Tamara Konstantinovna Sheibel has for decades been living in Volgograd. However, she frequently visits Vitebsk. This is not only the city of her birth but also the city where her son lives with his family.

During one of her visits Tamara came to the Jewish center, where I met her. I requested her to share her childhood memories, memories about her parents and the war.

- I was born in December 1933. My father, Konstantin Anufrievich Lebedev, worked at the post office. When the war began he wasn't mobilized. As Germans were approaching Vitebsk he came home and said: "I've locked the post office".

Mother, Sofia Isaakovna Biser, originated from Vitebsk. I do not know who my grandparents were. Mother was brought up in an orphanage. At the beginning of the war she was working as a nurse in a hospital.

I had sister Ludmila, who was two years older than me,

Our family decided to evacuate. For some reason they stayed in Vitebsk.

Father tried to take the family to Vorony, near Vitebsk, where his parents lived. We stayed there for a while but soon neighbors started spreading rumors that we were Jewish. Thus we returned to Vitebsk. Father was with us all the time.

Mother had sister Pasha, who began living with us. She had a baby, who died soon.

I don't remember exactly when it happened, in August or September, but my father decided it was time to leave and hide somewhere. However, Nazi policemen came to our house before we managed to leave. Mother, aunt Pasha and father were arrested. My sister and I were left alone.

In the morning sister ran to the ghetto and saw mother in a truck which took people to the execution. The truck began moving and sister ran after it as much as she could. We never saw mother and aunt Pasha again.

Father returned home two weeks later. He had been kept in prison. When he came home he was covered with bruises and blood. But they let him go.

Father took us to the village. We returned to Vitebsk from time to time.

Later father got married again to Olga Karlovna, who was Polish. Her husband had been shot by Germans. She did not have children of her own and treated us very well.

In 1947 we moved to Chashniki where father became a head of a local factory. Once people came to our house at night and arrested him. I never knew what the reason was. He was under arrest until 1953. In 1954 he was sent home but died soon.

Later I got married and moved to Volgograd. Once my son decided to visit Vitebsk and in the end made up his mind to stay there for good. He has a family of his own.

Recorded by Arkady Shulman

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