Richard FINK, Doctor of technical sciences
I was not personally affected by the trudarmy. Due to my age I was not counted among those who were to be mobilized. However, my father and my brother (he is five years older than me) were called up into the labour army, and about one year later, when they began to also randomize the mobilization of women and girls as from the age of 16, my sister had do suffer the very same fate...
Dad was a book-keeper by profession. My brother went to the technical school of mechanical engineering, my sister attended the vocational school of pedagogics. We lived in Marxstadt, in the Republic of the Volga-Germans. All of a sudden the German population was forced to leave their ancestral places of residence to resettle in Siberia, allegedly for a limited period of time only. We arrived in the district of Irbei on October 2. I was 13 years old at that time. We were received at the station. They immediately began to question us about our professional education, about what kind of a job we were able to do, and then they assigned us to the surrounding villages; we were taken there by carriages. Our family happened to get to the village of Taloe: “The are in urgent need of a book-keeper for the machine and tractor repair shop”. 15 families were taken to Taloe in all. We were put up in a communal flat for mechanization experts. My brother found himself a job with the repair shop, my sister (three years older than me) began to work, as well. And I attended school: upon the advice of the director I was supposed to repeat the fifth term, for until that time I had been given lessons at a German school, while all lessons were now held in Russian.
Father and son were mobilized in 1942. All men at the age of 16 to 60 years were fetched into the labour army by force, without exception. They were taken to the Kraslag – postbox no. 265, where they used to keep prisoners in actual fact. Now they had to live with this kind of neighbours. Our Germans, too, had to work for the timber industry; in the spring they were to float the huge trunks up to Kansk. They lived separately in the village of Zhedorba, which was situated in the remote taiga, about forty kilometers away from Taloe,
There was nothing but taiga around; every five kilometers there was a camp. In the beginning our people worked without being accompanied by guards. But when the situation at the front became worse, the conditions of detention of the trudarmists also worsened.
I am well aware of these facts, for I often went there to deliver parcels. At least once a month. It was absolutely necessary that the inmates were supported by their relatives – for it was impossible to merely live on the miserable food rations. My father and brother happened to get to the same camp. Apart from this, we took our own clothes, everything we believed to be suitable, and exchanged them against flour and other foddstuffs with the local people in the villages. Mum baked a couple of rolls, and then I took the parcel there. Thus, they managed to survive. You cannot imaging what kind of bread they used to bake at that time: 20% of flour, all the rest – potatoes. Everybody fared that badly. It sometimes happened that the trudarmists’ wives delivered such parcels by sledge; they were so weak from hunger that they could hardly move forward. There was nobody, who owned anything useless or dispensable things at that time… About two years later father and brother were transferred to Nizhnaia Poima.
Some time before the end of the war they released father due to his poor health: he was plagued by rheumatism. One day, I met a friend on the road-side, just in front of the barracks were the postmen used to exchange parcels that were sent from the district town to the villages and the other way round. He told me that he had seen my father hobbling home. “Go and meet him. He is hardly in a position to move a foot forward. Try to get some cart to take him home”. I told my mother to try her best to find a cart or at least a horse, and then I set off running like a lightning to meet my father.
His pitiable sight lacerated my heart: he was hardly able to move forward. I relieved him from his little suitcase; Dad managed to move on for about half a kilometer – then the entirely enfeebled man collapsed. I helped him to get up to his feet again, put him to my shoulders and this way vanquished the last six kilometers up to the neighbouring village. We arrived there by night; it was heavily raining. The next morning Mum came with a horse. We helped him to get on the horse an took him home.
However, the authorities would not leave him alone. Repeatedly they summoned him to appear before a medical commission. Finally, they acknowledged him incapable of working and he was permitted to stay at home …
In our village there was an 8-term-school, which I finished successfully – although I was working at the same time, occasionally even far into the night. In order to learn an appropriate profession you had to go to the district town, but the commandant is not willing to give his consent – for nobody else would then be available to do all the accrueing work.
Finally, the also mobilized all women into the labour army, as well. Mother was excepted from this call-up due to her poor health. When they acoompanied the other women a short way yet, the head of the farmstead management suggested my Mum to let me work with her (at that time I still went to school): „Elsewise you will not be able to satisfy hunger. Hence, you will at least receive a workers’ food ration, Moreover, you have a cow, and we will help you out with hay and firewood“. We agreed.
The machine and tractor repair shop had ist own farmstead; there were even 12 horses. They placed me there asking me to take care of the transportation of firewood and hay. And one day it was time to put my sister on the sleigh and take her to Kansk – she had been called up into the trudarmy. It was severe frost, so that we were sure not to manage to get there; we were convinced to perish by cold on the road. I was glad that I had loaded a great deal of hay before leaving. We covered ourselves up, thus saving our lives.
Soonafter, I changed my profession: I was no longer a carter, but found a job
as a locksmith.
Nobody else was available to fulfil the tasks of a locksmith – for all men were
either at the front or had been called up into the labour army. An invalid
worked with us as a turner. It took my the whole night to perform the very first
task they had assigned to me, and the next morning I hurried to school in order
not to be late. The rules were such that you were not allowed to leave the
repair shop, unless you had finished the job they had assigned you to.
Thus it would happen every now and then that I was forced to stay in the garage
at nighttime all on my lonesome.
This situation continued for about a year. I stayed the course.
In my capacity as a worker I received 800 grams of bread per day – Mama, as a non-working family member, was entitled to 200 – 500 grams only. This is what we lived on. And we even managed to work wonders by feeding our family with foodstuffs which we had obtained in exchange for clothes.
My sister was sent to Buryatia/Mongolia. She worked there all along in pits as a normer, a task that was not too hard for her to do. When the war was over, the unit my brother had last been working for, was liquidated, and the trudarmists were sent to other places scattered all over the Soviet-Union. My brother got to Middle Asia, where he worked in coal mines for any length of time.
Officially, nobody was informed about the liquidation of the labour army. The people who had been mobilized and deported to do forced labour, became free workers by the course of time, some were even released. But the majority was not given the permission to leave the place, for they had been principally deprived of the right to leave the place of their permanent residence the authorities had assigned to them. They were not permanently watched over anymore, but their freedom of movement was limited to the borders of the responsible registry office.
In the middle of the 1950s only this regime was done away with. It is quite spine-chilling to recall that time, for it was strictly forbidden to the German special resettlers to remove themselves by more than three or five kilometers beyond the limits of the district without permission of the commandant (where we had to go and get registered once a month). Such an absence without leave was considered as an attempt to escape – it was punished by 20 years of forced labour, in fact, irrespective of the age of the offenders’s age.
The grammar school was situated in the Irbei District, about 30 kms away from Taloe. And then the commandant, incidentally overtaking me on my way to the district town, heralded that I was not supposed to go to any school anymore: „Chance would be a fine thing, but you better stay at home. There is no school for you. And in case you intend not to listen to what I am telling you right now – you will be punished by 20 years of forced labour“.
Nevertheless, I insisted on my intention by all means, for I wanted to continue my school eductaion in any case. A good deal of time passed by and one day the commandant could no longer resist: he felt sympathy for me and decided not to let anybody know about my freelancing. Late,r we got along very well with eachother.
My elder brother returned to us in 1958 due to family circumstances. My sister came also back to us, together with her daughter; this was, when we lived already in Krasnoyarsk. And I removed to Krasnoyarsk with the commandant’s permission in 1947, in order to continie my school education. After having finished the 10-term school in Irbei, I registered with the Siberian Insitute of forestry and technilogy – which nowadays is the technical university. I became an engineer-technologist by profession, I hold the degree of a Doctor of technical sciences. I am a pensioner now.
Needless to say that my brother and my sister did not want this kind of a life in their younger days, but ... one has to accept the fact that you cannot just delete parts of the text of a song.
Published in: Friendshiü League N° 4, 1998