Maiden name Pister
Was born in the SaratovRegion, hamlet of Bolshoe, 20 kms away from Saratov, in 1926. The family owned a propsering farmstead.
The were deported in 1941, after having been informed a couple of days prior to the beginning of the action. They were permitted to take along their mostly necessary belongings. They were handed over a receipt specifying all confiscated property, but they never got anything back for it.
They got to the station by car, then had to board freight cars. There were 8 – 10 families in one waggon. On the way to Krasnoarsk the train was several times brought to a standstill and the prisoners were supplied with food.
In Krasnoyarsk the accompanying guards assigned them to different districts. Their family was sent to Pirovskoe. They made the distance from Krasnoyarsk to Galanino by barge and then continued the trip up to Pirovskoe by horse.
They were assigned to live with a Russian family. They lived in mutual agreement, associated with eachother and finally even made friends. But in spite of their good relations they had their meals separately.
In Bolshoe L.P. finished 5 terms; in Pirovskoe she was proposed to go to school , as well, but there were only four classes.
The parents worked for thekolkhoz farm. For a one-day work unit they received 400 rubels. Apart from this, they were supplied with bread, flour and groats, but not always. They exchanged various objects against potatoes – the equivalent value for a dress was a bucketful of potatoes.
Upon their arrival in the place of final destination they were to go to the commandant’s office and get registered. The kolkhoz organization let them have a potatoe field, where they later harvested about 800-900 buckets all filled with potatoes.
Under Stalin’s rule and even later, they were not allowed to leave the place. After the war they were given a cow, but this did not happen in order to compensate any of the property confiscated from them at the time of their compulsory leave from the ASSR of the Volga-Germans.
In 1951 she got married to a Russian; their parents had no objections.
She considers the deportation to be a very stupid action.
Interviewed by Svetlana Chernousova and Yevdokia Kurushina.
(AB – comments by Aleksei Babiy, Krasnoyarsk “Memorial”)
Forth expedition of history and human rights, Novokargino 2008