Minna Friedrichovna Bliumova (Wamboldt) was born on the 28.07.1931.
Father – Friedrich Petrovich Wamboldt, born in 1907.
Mother – Maria Ivanovna (Hans) Wamboldt, born in 1912 (in the Saratov area).
We lived in the Volga Region till 1941 – in the hamlet of Balzer. There were four children in our family – Minna, Lusia, Arnold und Silva. Before the war our parents built a house with three rooms and a kitchen; they had their own vegetable and flower garden, a cow, pigs, goats and chicken. They owned all kind of furniture needed for a household. Minna’s father was a blacksmith by profession, her mother worked for the brickworks as a technolgist. They earned good money, made their living. The hamlet was as big as a real town. Russian families lived there, as well, and there were numerous mixed marriages. Minna was the only one who went to school at the age of 8. On the 28th of August 1941, the day when the war broke out, all German families (mixed families were not affected) were notified about their imminent removal to another place of residence and were asked to pack their belongings and get ready without delay. They were furthermore informed that they were only permitted to take along clothes and packages up to a certain maximum weight. Everything they had to leave behind was locked inside the house and the keys of the farm buildings afterwards handed over to the commanders. On the way they slaughtered one of the goats, cooked its meat and ate it. When they left their native place they were told that they would get all their immovable property back upon their return. The entire family was taken to the embankment of the river Volga by car. They were asked to board a ship and then passed the Volga. Having finally disembarked, they were loaded on freightcars equipped with plank beds, and the trip continued. They recievd food at the stations and defecated whenever the train stopped. The train went slowly and stops at the stations would drag on endlessly. They were taken to Uyar or Zaosyorniy – she does not recall this with reasonable certainty. Automobiles had been sent to pick them up from the train station. They families were spread all over the district. The Wamboldt family was assigned to live in the village of Stoiba, Partisansk District. They were all accomodated with a woman, one of the local residents. Two days later the father was mobilized into the trudarmy, where he worked as a blacksmith. They did not allow him to go home to see his family. His stomach git into a serious disorder and three years later he died. The family received an advice note about his death. The nother worked in the village, but she did not earn enough money for a reasonable maintenance, so that she was forced to additionally beg for alms. Thus she happend to get to Tinskaya, where she came across her husband’s brother who had also been deported; after she had been away for a whole week. She finally returned to Stoiba discovering her children in a miserable state of health: they were starving, unable to get up anymore. During her absence the children had lived in one room of a hostel, together with two more families. Coming back home she found her four children lying motionless on the floor. She gave them the scrounged alms, which were all frozen, thus saving the little ones from starvation. Towards the spring they had recovered and went all the way up to Tinskaya on foot, in order to settle down at Alexander Wamboldt’s (father’s brother) family, where there were four children, too. Uncle and aunt were working for the kolkhoz farm; there were other Germans, as well - Jakob Waitzel and his wife Amalie and two or three more families); some, however, had already left the place before the war. Waitzel had built himself a house. The mother got a job for the school as a technician; she was accomodated in a small wooden hut right on the school territory. It was a really small hut, but there was a Russian stove. They had no vegetable garden, since they were nt allowed to keep anything like that. All remaining belongings and clothes they exchanged against foodstuffs; the children went begging for alms throughout the whole winter. In the spring they planted potatoes, and in the autumn they harvested 10 sacks of potatoes. What a joy! Later they acquired a co, which lived outside, but during the wintertime they allowed the animal to stay and get milked inside the house. Then they bought a little wooden house (just next to N. Filimonova’s; the old small cottage is all decayed) and removed to this place after the war. All children began to attend the 4-classes school. At the age of 7 Lusia stayed with relatives from her mother’s side in Uyar. When she was 12 she began to work for the farm as a swineherd – together with Anisya Burej and Olga Kuzmina. Having worked there for about a year, she and Valya Kuzmina changed to the calves stables, where they worked for three years. Later she would milk cows, 15 animals in all – by hand. In 1953 she married Kostya Bliumov, in 1954 Little Lida was born. Later she did various unskilled work for the kolkhoz farm or in the fields, she took care of the silage or worked for the goods receiving department. In 1956 Masha was born and the family was released from compulsory registration at the „commandant’s“ office. Until that time they had been forced to go and get registered there once a month. In 1956 they were assigned to work for the fruit orchards. Maria Gerasimova worked as a nanny, her sister Alexandra Burei and others, as well. Daughter Natalia was born in 1960; Maria herself was engaged in different tasks for the kolkhoz farm. In the summer of 1967 they plastered the walls of the new school building (Liubov Filimonova, Antonina Syk). Brother Arnold left for Kazakhstan in 1956 to live with his father’s relatives, who lived in the Kustanai region. Silva and her mother followed him in the winter, because life was much better there; her mother, in accordance with her profession, worked for the brickworks. She died in 1969. Silva now lives in Germany, she left the country in 1992; her brother is also dead. In the 1960s he returned to the Volga region; foreign people lived in the house, where he had once spent his early childhood. And he was refused the return of his property. None of us received any compensation for all lost property. My working life comprises 49 years, I was awarded medals and certificates of honor. I am an acknowledged Soviet veteran. I receive benfits (as a victim of political repressions): a 50% reduction on electricity and gas rates, as well as on medicine. My children are all married, I have 7 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter; she is called Ksenia and she was born in 1994. My husband, Konstantin Bliumov, died on the 04.11.2001.
Minna Friedrichovna Bliumova‘s (Wamboldt) report was recorded by Maria Kuznetsova, librarion with the village library in Tinskaya.