[Pg. 70]
I was captured on September 22, and I escaped from captivity on October 22, 1941. One month in captivity.
I have forgotten a bit, but what I had to endure during that month, and what events I had to witness, have never faded from my memory to this day and will not fade until I die. Only there, in captivity, did I see with my own eyes what kind of people these fascists were; I saw their cruelty. I will not describe day by day my stay in captivity, I will describe only a few episodes, which will give a full description of the Germans and the conditions in which we found ourselves.
The first thing they did was take away our overcoats. The coat was made of cloth, but winter was approaching. If someone had boots, they took away his boots. If someone had woolen uniform items—trousers, jackets, shirts—the woolen garments too were taken away. Among the hundreds of prisoners, there appeared men wearing only underwear, barefoot. The whole time they kept us outdoors, right on the ground. Admittedly, the Germans displayed “mercy.” Among the prisoners there were many Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and Jews. So, if a Russian or a Ukrainian turned out to have only underwear or no shoes, the translator accompanying the German submachine gunner gave our soldier—a Jew or an Uzbek, a Kazakh—a searching look and, threatening him with being shot, forced him on the spot to remove his clothes or shoes, and handed his cotton clothing to the Russian or Ukrainian prisoner.
After three or four days, only soldiers of non-Russian nationality turned out to be wearing underwear alone. Naturally, these men, exhausted by cold and hunger, huddled together, warming each other with their bodies, and in the camp area they held themselves aloof, as a separate group.
[Pg. 80]
On October 17th, they did not lead us out to clean the road; instead, they had us form up and then moved us to Borispol’. This was 40 to 45 kilometers.1 Along the way, at one of the forks in the road, we passed through a graveyard of our Russian motor vehicles that had been shattered by bombs…There were no bodies of Red Army men who had been killed. Apparently, the Germans, fearing putrefaction and ptomaine poisoning, had taken them away. But the dead, twisted, ruined vehicles remained. I noted that many prisoners ran up to the vehicles and began to tear off the seat coverings. I followed their example, and I quickly pulled the padding out from under one of the seats, stuffing it around my chest between my shirt and my high-collared tunic, and also into my trousers. Soon I felt that the padding had begun to warm me. A pleasant warmth flowed through my whole body. Now I was really a “king,” I thought with bitterness.
In the evening, they led us to Borispol’, to the spacious airfield where almost a month ago, full of hope, we had passed through during the retreat from Kiev…
It started drizzling again, and even though protected now by my padding, I felt that I was wet through. By nightfall, the rain had changed to wet snow, and by midnight it was freezing again. My wet high-collared tunic and padding no longer saved me. Then Shidlovskiy and I discovered that the whole airfield was scarred with small holes—2 meters long and 70 to 80 centimeters wide—like graves. The prisoners, seeking refuge from the icy crosswind, climbed into these little grave-holes and lay there in twos and threes, one on top of another. Shidlovskiy and I also climbed into one of the holes. He lay on the bottom, and I was on top of him.
[Pg. 81]
Before long, I felt a third prisoner lie down on top of me. His torso was level with the ground surface, and he was warmed by the heat coming from our bodies below. We agreed to lie as we were for half an hour, and then to switch places. The man on top would go to the middle, the middle man would move to the bottom, and the man at the bottom would be on top. And that is what we did after half an hour. I was in the middle—I moved downward, Shidlovskiy to the top, and the third man took the middle position. After another half hour, we changed places again. Shidlovskiy took the place in the middle, I moved to the top, and the third man went to the bottom. That half hour that I spent lying on top—I thought I would come to a bad end. Lying almost level with the surface, I felt the crosswind as if I had no side protection of any kind at all. As for my back, I had already lost all feeling there. My wet shirt, padding, and high-collared tunic froze and produced a solid, icy coat of mail. After fifteen or twenty minutes, I nudged Shidlovskiy, saying that half an hour had passed, I couldn’t hold out any longer, but he kept saying the same thing over and over—wait a bit longer, the time’s not up yet. Fine for him, I thought, he’s lying in a warm spot, I’m warming him from above. Our companion on the bottom was silent. Finally, Shidlovskiy said:
“Well, all right, move into the middle, get warm.”
I climbed out of the hole, Shidlovskiy right behind me, but the prisoner at the bottom did not move and gave no signs of life. We tugged at him anyway, but with no result. He’s dead—the thought flew through my mind. We pulled him out, more precisely, his body, onto the surface. He did not stir, and I felt his pulse—there was no pulse. Shidlovskiy put an ear to his chest—there was no heartbeat. We dragged him a step away from the edge, but we were surrounded by five prisoners asking to be the third man in our group.
After a short bit of trading, we accepted a third companion in exchange for one small carrot. Shidlovskiy and I divided this carrot in half and ate it then and there. Then each of us lay down in his assigned place. Shidlovskiy was on the bottom, I was on top of him, and our third comrade lay at the very top.
Today all this seems absurd, incomprehensible. How was it possible to value a human life at one small carrot. But at the time, I did not think about that. I lay atop Shidlovskiy, up above me our new third man was getting warm, and all I was thinking was whether my back could recover after half an hour, and whether my coat of mail would grow. In this way, we spent the night until morning came. We switched places four more times and, of course, did not sleep.
In the morning, when it was light, the Germans, aided by blows with sticks and submachine guns, made us carry all those who had died during the night to the edge of the airfield, chuck the bodies into holes similar to our own, and cover them with earth. Then they made us form a column, herded us onto the highway, and forced the hungry, frozen, sleep-deprived men to walk to Darnitsa.