Born in 1939. Son of an army doctor. His father’s name was Heinrich (Andrei) Fedorovich Wingert, hismother was called Sophia Christianovna Richter (born in 1911). She was a housewife, for they had a very big family; there were five children, and someone had to be at home all the time to take care of them. Until their deportation the family lived in the Saratov Region, district of Krasnoyar, in the hamlet of Alt-Urbach.
In 1941 Alexander Genrichovichs family was given notice about their impending expulsion; at that time Alexander Genrichovich was just two years old. Following the reports of his parents, they were given two days to pack their belongings. In the end, however, they just succeeded to taking along a spinning wheel, a sewing machine, a few household articles and a suitcase with clothes. In the sequel these objects helped them to survive in far-away Siberia. They exchanged their clothes agaianst milk and potatoes; apart from this, owing to the mother’s extraordinary ability to make skillful fancywork, they had a fair chance to stay alive. She was very good at sewing on her „Singer“ sewing machine.
Alexander Genrichovichs mother told him that they went by train for a long time, that they had not been aware what would happen to them afterwards and were they were taken to. It was a trip in in the dark - trembling uncertainty.
At first they were assigned to stay in the village of Lukianovo in the Yeniseysk District, situated not far from the hamlet of Chalbyshevo, but they did not stay there for a long time.
Afterwards the whole family fas sent away even farther – to the Pirowsk District, the hamlet of Tarkhovo. „Apart from us three more families were sent to Tarkhovo geschickt, among them the family of the father’s brother – Martin; he worked as a blacksmith. We lived there until 1962. We arrived in Tarkhovo without our father, just with our mother, for father had been mobilized to the labour army in Reshoty before. He returned from the labour army in 1944, completely enfeebled and invalidated. Mum thought he had died and had given God the solemn promise that she would abstrain from eating one day in a week, if he should come back healthy, if he would survive, after all. He stayed alive, and Mum kept her promise until she died in 1988“. The father was very good at reading and writing; therefore he got a job as a shopman and miller in Tarkhovo. And the mother worked for the kolkhoz farm, where she did all kinds of unskilled labour. „We worked there against credit of daily work units, for which we received a little flour. The local residents behaved in different ways: some showed a benevolent attitude towards us – they even gave us, the little children, something to eat; others were rather unfriendly, like, for example, the head of the kolkhoz farm (he used to chase the young German girls). The village Soviet placed at our disposal warm clothes for the winter and felt boots. This gesture greatly assisted us. We lived under miserable conditions, and in order not to starve, the little children began to catch birds, which were then roasted.
The people only spoke Russian; they even feared to using the German language in a whisper. Mum knew a lot of German songs, which she used to often sing to herself. Whenever there were suitable foodstuffs available, she would cook national meals – fruit soup, cabbage. Step by step we got used to the Siberian way of living. We, the little boys, sawed firewood, carried water and helped our family members with all kinds of labour. Our parents had instilled into us from early infancy the love for work; we had a very small farmstead – a cow, some chicken and a piglet. In spite of the fact that I was of German nationality, I went to school. Unfortunately, in the hamlet of Tarkhovo there was just a basic school. My brother, who was one year younger than I, attended lessons in the first term during the second shift, while I was in the 2nd term, where lessons were held during the first shift. We only had one single piece of garment for the two of us. As I went to school first, I was also the first to wear shirt and trousers. My brother had to wait for my return from school – but as longas I was absent he had to run about just in an undershirt. Well, I cam back home, took of the clothes, he put on the garments and hurried to attend the lessons. Our school bag had been sewn from cloth; we only had very few schoolbooks. Hence, I went to school for four years altogether. In order to continue my education, my parents sent me to the hamlet of Belskoye, where I attended school for another year; I lived there in an aprtment, with other people, for we had no acquaintants in Chalbyshevo. When they finally opened a boarding school in Chalbyshevo, I continued my education there until the 8th term. My elder brother worked in Yeniseysk as a stove fitter; he invited me to live with him. In Yeniseysk I went to school again. I do recall that, when entering the classroom, two girls were of the opinion that I was a soldier, since I was wearing a soldier’s blouse; but I just did not have any other clothes at that time.
We were rehabilitated in 1956. Before that, however, we had to regular go to
the commandant’s office to get registered, and none of us was in possession of
an identity card.
In order to identify a person, we received some written confirmation from the
village Soviet. The commandant’s office was in the premisses of the village
Soviet in Tarkhovo. There was a tremendous amount of prohibitions. Whenever you
set out to hunt an elk, they would put you on trial. Once my father killed an
elk, but the man who lead the investigations in his case obviously commiserated
with him. He was a good, a just man, who took into consideration the fact that
our family consisted of 9 members at that time!
After school I immediately went to work for a sawing mill, where I had to load barges. Soon after I was assigned an aprtment on Bograd Street and my parents moved over to live with me in this place.