Born 1923 in the village of Gelzel (Hölzel), Seelmann District, Saratov Region, ASSR of the Volga-Germans. In 1941 she and her parents were deported to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in September 1942 further to the Taimyr Peninsula. She worked as a fisherwoman. Today she lives in Dudinka.
- I was born as a farmer’s daughter. My parents worked on a hog raising farm. We had our own house, our own little farm – a cow and a couple of chickens.
In September 1943 we found ourselves in Siberia. My father, Mikhail Mikhailovich Gerb-Sommer, was mobilized to the trud army; since then he was never heard of again. One year later they took us to Dudinka by steamship “Kirov”, from there to the hamlet of Ananevskoe by cutter. We were accomodated in communal barracks. It was cold, we suffered from hunger.
In April 1943 our mother, Yekaterina (Katharina) Andreevna Gerb-Sommer, died from weakness and exhaustion caused by permanent, unhuman hard labour. I was fourteen years old at that time, my brother Adolf – seven, sister Pauline – sixteen.
In the autumn of 1943 they took my brother to a childrens’ home. He did not want to leave, ran away and tried to hide under grandma Yadviga Raissich’s (Reissig’s? skirt.
My brother and I were reunified only eighteen years later, in 1961, when he removed to the setttlement of Levinskiye Peski, where my sister and I were working for the fishing industry. During the last years my sister Pauline Pabst has been working as a milkmaid for the „Poljarnij“ sovkhoz. She is in possession of numerous marks of dicstinction – certificates of honour and diplomas. I worked as a kitchen help for the canteen. Meanwhile I am recipient of a pension.
Department od Culture and Art of the Administration of the Taimyr Region (Dolganes
/ Nenzes)
Museum of Local Lore of the Autonomous Taimyr Region.
„Museum Messenger“. Issue 1.
Dudinka, 2001