Dehtyaryova Raisa Semyonovna

Interviewers: Natascha (Ukraine), Tim (Germany)

At her home in the living room, August 10^th 2010

Life before World War 2

Dehtyaryova Raisa Semyonovna (nee Korotyna) was born in the village of Berestovoj in Konstantinovka Region in 1924. Her mother died when she was two years old. Her father married again though she never had a very close relationship to her step mother. She lived together with her parents and her two younger brother and one sister in Frunsa street.

Her brother Lonya was born in 1928, her sister was born in 1930 and the second brother was born some months after Papa had left to war. Her parents worked hard. Her father took care of horses before the war. They lived in the 3^rd last house on the edge of the town.

She has attended school since the age of 6. The school building was near from where she lived. It had first one, later two class rooms where one female teacher taught them. In times of one class room, they studied together in noon, in the afternoon. Later the 1^st and 4^th grade occupied the one, the 2^nd and 3^rd grade learnd in the other class room. She joind the pioneer youth organistation. There was one Babuschka (grandmother) and one younger person that took care for the children  and guided them to the lake. She stayed 9 years at school. She had not received any documents proving her school attendance. At school people spoke Ukrainian and Russian. She was taught in Ukrainian language. In the 9^th grade she made an excursion to Kiev as her father was among the “Best Worker”. It was the first occasion for travelling in a train. She slept in a coupé. It was an extraordinary experience, a highlight of her teenage.

In 1926, at the beginning of collectivisation she got married. During the famine they had barely enough to eat. They ground corn like coffee and would add it to soup as well as beet leafs,, ate potatoes, leafs, no bread. There was no real starvation. She ate something poorly and ugly. The food was not normal but she could fed her stomach. There were people from West Ukraine that hoped to find better life conditions in East Ukraine. Many of them worked in mines and tried in vain to survive. There was simply not enough food. The children they brought with them were often weak and died very soon. Although many local people were hungry as well, none of them would not survive.  

Beginning of World War 2

On that very Sunday June 22^nd 1941 when the World War 2 has started she was sleeping in. At those times, she was 17 years old, her sister 11, her brother 13 and one brother, Kolya, was to be born very soon. Her father was mobilised to go to army. The Germans arrival in her town was not an invasion. Workers of the industrial area and head of factories and their families, all in all not “average” people, were evacuated by local authorities. When the fascists came, they nearly took everything they found, especially food like beans and horses. After the war had started, she helped in the Kholchos (collective farm) with the harvest.

Once she came back from work and fed her little one year old brother with poor soup and black bread made of sunflower seeds. Two young Germans came in. When they saw them, they said, that she could not feed a baby with such ugly bread. She asked the Germans what else she can give the baby to eat. The Germans went away and came back with a loaf of white bread.

She knows a story of local boys and girls sitting on a bench behind their own house smoking and playing. The local “Polizei” (police) came unexpected and took them to a place where they had to dig out a hole for a cellar all night long. Furthermore, they had to go like geese in front of the laughing “Polizei” men. In the morning of the next day they were brought back and had to start their usual work without sleep.

Raisa as Ostarbeiter in Germany

One day she left hiding herself with a friend in the forest from Germans. Then her friend got to know that farm workers would not be taken to Germany. So she decided to return. The local police men would nevertheless come and take her away on April 20^th 1943, shortly before Easter. In fact it was one of the last transports of forced labour to Germany that has already been working since two years. And it happened half a year before the liberation of Ukraine. She had little time to take her stuff, not much, and a loaf of dried bread. She went to her Aunt to say Good Bye. Her aunt was asking her to write down a text of a famous orthodox church prayer that she shall take with her. She and her friend were brought to the Kommandantura in the outskirt of the town where they joined a group of twenty. The local policemen lined them up and surrounded them with dogs. They were put in a wagon with straw that went to Donetsk. There, they waited for other trains coming from Slawiansk and Kramatorsk to be connected to their train. In the meantime they let them out to go on toilet in the bushes. The rest of the time the door was closed so they could not escape. They were not fed but they got water to drink. The Germans were travelling in a wagon not far from the locomotive. It seems that she was the only person from Konstantinovka in this transport. After three days of travelling, she arrived in Berlin at a station that was situated high above the street level. They took part in a medical examination. They were washed and then covered with towels.

The farmers came directly to the station. One took her to Großneudorf. He lived there with his brother in a detached house with farm land around it. It seemed to Raisa that the farmers were not the richest ones. There were also German workers and Russians who worked there. The hosts lived in a big house and she lived separately in a small house. Half of it was the German assistant hands and the other half for “Ostarbeiters” (“East workers”), three girls, one of them Schura from Konstantinovka. The living conditions were not bad. They ate separated from the hosts.

They had to get up at 6 o’clock, they were fed and then they started to work. They went by bicycle to the farm. She had different tasks to do like bread baking. One friend of her milked the 5 cows on the farm and stole from time to time a bit of milk because the “Ostarbeiter” were not given any. They also stole cucumbers from the field. There was no strict schedule. Sunday was their day off. They were allowed to sleep till noon. Then they would come for lunch themselves. They were as well allowed to go outside, leave the farm, but they did not dare because they feared to get off.

The “OST” patches, they did not have to wear them during work but in the hospital whenever they needed medical assistance. In case of having fever for example, they got a sick leave from the hospital and they did not have to work.

She was very homesick although people told her that due to war situation the conditions of living in her home region were worse than in Germany. “If I had had wings, I would have flown home.”

As more and more planes were flying over the farmland she worked, she assumed that war would be over soon. During war she knew that concentration camps existed.

End of World War 2 and return to Konstantinovka

After the end of the war in May 1945 she started to work one year in a hospital. It was 70 km far away from Brandenburg gate in Berlin. She did not work as a nurse but as someone who washed patients, washed the linen bed sheets, in fact helping around. After one year she stopped working there and got some document for her work in the hospital. At the hospital she was asked by the KGB if she was a spy. She denied. She remembers that Berlin in 1945 was rather black in spite of the situation in 1943 when the city was still beautiful.

On her way back home to Ukraine, she was passing the house in the village where she had worked for  two years. It was mainly destroyed.

After having arrived back to Konstnatinovka, she had difficulties to find a job. She applied for a working place in a canteen. She was not hired because they were suspecting her to poison the meal of the people as she has been to Germany. Her brother had a similar experience. He  applied for a place to study in an institute. He was asked if he had had any contact with foreigners. He denied but then he was told that it is very well known that his sister had been to Germany. Finally he was accepted but they noticed very well the history of her sister.  

She had a poor life in post war time. In 1946 she got married. She met her husband during one evening. He and a friend of his invited nine women to cinema. He liked her most. As a matter of fact, there was a lack of men after the war and it was a great luck for her – she “won” him. She stayed together with her husband who died 20 years ago. She did not get back to school. As she did not have finished her education in spite of nine years of school attendance she did agricultural work during summer and spring. Her brother went seven years to school and did military service for three years.

Twice she received a compensation from the German state, one amount in Deutsche Mark in 1999 and one in EURO.