Born 1929 in the hamlet of Grimm, Saratov Region. It was a German village,
everybody spoke only German.
Father – Fedor Andreevich
Mother – Maria Karlovna
Brothers and sisters: Reinhold (born 1931), Irma (born 1925) and Erna (born
1925).
The father had a job as a locksmith, the mother was not working. They owned a big house made of stone. There was a vegetable garden, which was later confisctaed to build a clubhouse in its place. There were apple trees and melon plantations. Apart from this, they kept a cow and chicken. From early childhood he used to help with the hay harvest or collect firewood in the forest (the quantity of firewood the might collect was determined by the forest supervisor).
When he was a child he liked to make games of dice (“knucklebones”).
In Grimm he went to school for two years..
They learned about their deportation early in the morning, when the children were still asleep. They got the information that they would all have to leave their houses on the following day.
They took aalong just a few, though important, things; mainly tools and kitchen utensils, as well as a sewing machine and the spinning-wheel.
The complete family was exiled, including his mother’s sister.
They were forced to give the cow away: in return they were reached out a receipt saying that the would receive a new cow in the the place of exile (this, in fact, became true – not immediately after their arrival, but only much later).
On the evening of their departure cow and dog came running along; his parents had deliberately left all doors open.
Everybody was crying. His father guessed that they would be exiled to Siberia. And his assumption became perfectly true.
They went to Krasnoyarsk by train. They were supplied with food rations, nobody grew ill or died. Conditions were to some extent bearable.
Then they were taken to Yeniseysk by barge on the river Yenisey. They stayed overnight and boarded a cutter on the following morning. There final destination was Bashenovo, where they lived 9 years altogether. There was a kolkhoz farm. They were accomodated in different houses.
The local residents behaved well towards them.
They cultivated cereals on a small pieve of land. His father worked there as a brigadier. The woman who had occupied this job before felt very insulted and annoyed.
They did not receive any salary; their labour was calculated in so-called work-days (units of work on collective farms; translator’s note). They did not get enough to eat; they were hungry all the time.
His mother was working as a pigwoman. When the children got there, she would feed them with beets. They dug over the potatoe field, as well, in order to collect the potatoes which had been left behind during the last harvest. They also used to eat the green stuff from the potatoe plants.
Karl went to school. Like all the other German children he was unable to understand and speak Russian. The Russian children told them how to greet the teacher in the morning; however, they used all bad words by intent, such as “piss off!”. The teacher entered the classroom, said: „How do you do?” and the German children ripped out with an oath. At first, the teacher was very annoyed, but then he understood and punished those who had plotted such an unpleasant situation.
At first they put Karl to the third form; however, as he was unable to communicate in Russian, he was taken back to the first. He learned Russian very quickly.
At school they did not receive any food at all.
He went to school for almost one year (term), from automn till spring; then the familys food stock was running low, and he had to leave school in order to go to work.
His aunt worked for the kolkhoz farm as a separator (she separated cream from milk), and in the winter she went to work in Mikhailyovo or Antsiferovo, where she would sew clothes on order of the local people.
In Bashenovo they had to regularly go to the commandant’s office to get registered. Nobody ran away from the place of exile.
In the spring he began to work for the kolkhoz farm. The ground had just become dry enough after all the snow had thawn away, when they gave him a plough and a couple of horses. It was a very hard labour.
They came for his father; he was mobilized to the trudarmy to Solikamsk. This happened in 1941 or 1942; he only returned home in 1954. He had to work has a lumberjack; later he got a promotion and became a chief storekeeper.
Some acquaintant of the family named Miller , after having been released from the trudarmy, went home all the way up to Antsiferovo on foot. He had not a single rag to put on; that is why he arrived at home just wrapped up in a blanket.
His sister was mobilized to the labour army, as well .
His father immediately took his family in, they removed to the village of Podtyossovo. The authorities had assigned him one room in a barracks.
His father then worked for the tool shop of some shipyard, while Karl had a job on the wharf; he was directly involved in the building and repairing of ships.
No of them ever visited Grimm again; they did not have the wish to doing so. They do not bear any hatred or grudge against their unhappy past.
The interview was taken by Olga Krushinskaya and Tatyana Dzhioyeva.
(AB . Remarks by Aleksei Babiy, Krasnoyarsk “Memorial“ organization)
