Born in 1925 in the hamlet of Warenburg, ASSR of the Volga-Germans. Resettled by force to the Krasnoyarsk Region in September 1941; deported to the settlement of Nikolskiy, Dudinka District, in 1942. Worked as a fisherwoman. Today she lives in the settlement of Nosok, Ust-Yeniseys District.
We did not live far from the river Volga......
I was orphaned quite early. Mother died aborning, and soonafter my father left this worls, as well. I was brought up by my elder sister. Emma was thirteen yeras old at that time. In the autumn of 1941 I got to the little Siberian village of Parovaya, Beresovsk District, Krasnoyarsk Territory. One year later, in September 1942, we were deported to the Taimyr Region. In the little settlement of Nikolskiy there was a kolkhoz farm named „Kirov“. We had to get used to go fishing and hunting. Once a month, on the fifteenth, we had to go and get registered with the commandant’s office. They were afraid that we might betake ourselves to flight. But were should we have gone to – without appropriate clothing, without passport or identification card.
The first winter in Nikolskiy (1942-1943) was a terrible one. The people were starving. They began to eat the skin of reindeers and fish scales. It would sporadically happen that young girls ate up their fingers in black despair. Many perished by cold in the tundra, for they were at the end of their tether, unable to go and get some firewood or pull the fishing nets out of the water....
We had to suffer a hard lot, we were forced to go through hard times. Till middle of October we went fishing – in lace-up shoes. At that time of the year it was very cold, the river was all frozen up.
And now we have serious problems with our joints, there is a dull pain all the time …
Recorded in the settlement of Potapovo in 1992