Margarita Yakovlevna GIESBRECHT, Ukrainian German, was born in 1928 in the village of SCHOENHORST (later named VODYANE), in the KHORTITSA district, ZAPO-ROZHYE region, Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. Her mother died of typhoid fever in 1932 or 1933, and her father, Jakob Martinovich GIESBRECHT, born around 1900, then got married again. Step-mother, Agatha GIESBRECHT (named PRUKOVSKY after her first husband), who lived approximately from 1905 to 1980, a German as well, obviously also was a widow early in the 30s.
The village was inhabited by Germans, Ukrainians, Russians, Jews. When in 1941 the front-line came nearer and nearer, the father and many other villagers loaded what was absolutely necessary on a cart and tried to get to the East. They succeeded in crossing the River Dnepr; however, they were overtaken by the speed in which the front-line advanced, so that they had no other choice but to return home. In the village the Hitler troops had already taken up their position, and in their own house the GIESBRECHT's noticed a dead officer of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces during the NS-regime). The soldiers ordered the owner to bury this officer, and only after this command had been carried out, they were allowed to go into the house.
After the defeat near Stalingrad the Hitler troops became nervous and, when in spring 1943 the Soviets launched their counter-attack in Ukraine, the Nazis insisted that the local population left for Germany. In the first place this probably concerned the Germans who lived there, but in the end they started relocating all inhabitants. The father refused to go to Germany and was shot by the Nazis; his family, as well as other German, Ukrainian and Russian families, were forced to the train station and pushed into freight cars, as many as would fit in - by standing. Then the transport left for Germany. During the whole trip the prisoners had to remain in this upright position. Upon their arrival in Germany they were asked to get off the train and were immediately taken to a camp surrounded with barbed-wire fences, somewhere close by a big river - the name of the camp was BLANKENBURG.
In this camp the relocated families languished until their release in spring 1945. They were not allowed to leave the camp, not even in order to go to work, with a single exception: once, over a period of two weeks, a number of young people from the camp were taken to some factory on trucks at night, probably to a shoe factory, where they were forced to pack boots and other clothes for the soldiers. They left the camp late in the evening and would return by daybreak. The boys somehow got hold of blades, harmless razor blades, and with them they made cuts into the boots, while the guards who passed through the rows, turned their backs on them.
The camp prisoners suffered greatly from hunger. During the day each of them only received a single potato boiled in its skin. Many died of starvation or illness. The father's mother lost her life in the camp - Margarita GIESBRECHT; Margarita Yakovlevna's little sister - Erna Yakovlevna GIESBRECHT, born 1941 or 1942 - also died there. She was only 2 or 3 years old.
When, in 1945, the front-line advanced to the camp, Hitler's troops started making preparations to blow up the camp. Evidently, the guards ran away. Rymin, the camp officer, opened the big gate and started screaming: Every man for himself! The Russians are coming!
The prisoners made a rush for the gate without having the slightest idea in which direction they should head. Some ran across the bridge to the opposite bank of the river. There were lots of dazed fish in the river. The completely exhausted prisoners caught them and devoured them raw. Margarita GIESBRECHT, her sisters and brother, also fell upon the fish; however, their step-mother Agatha tried to explain to them as well as she could that it was not advisable to eat too many.
In the dairy that had been destroyed by bombing, the freed prisoners found little pieces of cheese and curd cheese blackened with soot.
Soviet troops appeared and at once disappeared, and in their place came the Americans. The released prisoners had to return to the destroyed camp and live in the rubble. The Americans brought along milk for the children and once a week distributed chocolate bars. Thus, three months passed by, and then, one day, a Soviet official arrived to call the prisoners back "to their native skies".
The Americans offered an opportunity to emigrate to the United States. A few people agreed, but the majority rejected this suggestion. They were loaded on wagons and the train went eastwards. On the way, at different stations, wagons were taken off from the train. In Biysk (a town in Altay district) they uncoupled one or several wagons and the prisoners had to stay there for a week; then they were transferred on another train, which departed for the Irkutsk region.
The wagon in which the GIESBRECHT family had been loaded, was finally uncoupled at UDA-2 station, in NIZHNEUDINSK district, IRKUTSK region; some families were sent to the settlement of SHUM, 3 km away from the station. The remaining families were taken to nearby villages. The whole trip from Germany had taken about two months.
At that time the settlement of SHUM was inhabited by exiled Ukrainians. The new arrivals were crammed into all kinds of corners and unoccupied housing. The GIESBRECHT family was given shelter in one of the stables of the collective farm. They lived there for many years and rebuilt the stable into a rather acceptable living space by their own efforts. The commandant's office was situated in the timber processing factory, about 3 km away from the settlement. In the beginning the commandant used to call them and, under threat of violence and torture, forced them to make some "confessions": their hands were trapped in the door, so that they afterwards left with their arms full of bruises.
The exiledswere sent to work on the SHUM collective farm. The commandant's office was closed down in 1956.
The following members of the GIESBRECHT family were exiled:
Together with the GIESBRECHTs, in the same wagon, the German family KRIEGER got to the settlement of SHUM to live there in exile (before that they had also lived in the region of
ZAPOROZHYE) and the German family BERGENS (this family spoke a different dialect):
In accordance with the archival certificate No. 9/27 of Aug. 8, 1990, issued by the Information Center of the Irkutsk regional UVD (Administration of Internal Affairs), M. GIESBRECHT had been kept in a special settlement in SHUM, following the directive of the NKVD (People's Commissariate of Internal Affairs) of the USSR No. 181 of Oct. 11, 1945. She was released by the decree of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium, issued Dec. 13, 1955.
Oct. 31, 1990, recorded by V.S. Birger, Krasnoyarsk, "Memorial" Society
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