Kuznetsova Ksenia Konstantinovna

Tell about yourself

My name is Ksenia Konstantinovna Kuznetsova (maiden’s name: Moskalenko). I was born on February 16, 1926, in the village Stonitse near Krasnodar in family of kolchoz farmers. We were not a big family: My parents, two sisters, one brother and I.

I finished the 5th form in Novodmitrievskaja School, and then did not go to school anymore, since it was not obligatory. When I was 14, my sister took me with her to Krasnodar. I helped as a nanny in several families, and when the war started, I helped digging trenches.

How did you get to Germany?

We were taken to Germany by force, I was 16 at that time. On the way there I got to know my future husband. When we arrived in Germany, people were already standing at the railway station waiting for workers. I was sent to work at the plant of Rodenstock, in Munich. Six months I lived in a camp under quite good circumstances, but they gave us little to eat. Later I worked at another factory. There we got good food, they gave us meat and sausage.

In the kitchen there worked two Russians and one German girl. I lived in an very big room with 40 people on bunk beds.

There were workers of different nationalities – Russian, German, French, Belgian and Spanish. There was no difference in the attitude towards the different nationalities, nobody had privileges. We worked under the same  circumstances as the Germans.

Tell about your work? What was it exactly about?

Our work consisted of doing some work on optical devices, nobody knew exactly what.

Our working day was from 8am till 4pm. Saturday and Sunday were holidays. On Saturdays they wouldn’t let us out from the camp until the evening – this time was used for taking showers, cleaning and washing laundry. They paid us 25 marks a month, we spent the money in our free time.

When somebody got ill, we got medical aid in the camp, and you were freed from work for some days.

Our conditions of work and living were fine, nobody tried to flee.

Tell us, what sort of contacts did you have with German civilians?

We had contact with the local people: they invited us to their homes. One of the local Germans really liked the bras the Russian girls were wearing. She asked us to sew some for them. In exchange she gave us food and some of her clothes. 

How did you return home and what did you do after liberation?

When the bombing started I understood that the end of war was near. The Americans tried to liberate us. Our guard, who was afraid of panic, said to us: “Get away who can”. And after some days may friend arrived, he had worked about 30 km away from our camp. He also proposed to flee, he was afraid to perish. We went to the town for 7 km, and then went on train to Denmark. We had no money with us, but a lot of food products. When we got out of Germany, my husband acquired a lot of tobacco, which we sold in Denmark and for which we received a lot of money in exchange.

We had no place to sleep in Denmark, and so we asked local people. They were greeting us with great joy and hospitality. We didn’t stay and work for a long time in Denmark. Soon the end of the war was announced. And only shortly before our departure from Denmark my daughter would be born. All were going away, but I was refused to be transported before I gave birth. When I gave birth one of the local people gave me a very beautiful child cart as a gift, took us to a shop and invited us to choose whatever dresses we would like for our baby. We got 2 packages of canned food for the journey. It took us 3 months to get home. We arrived at Konstantinovka, where the relatives of my husband were waiting for us. We stayed in Konstantinovka and found jobs.