Ivan Afanasyevich Evtekhov

Interviewers: Chudinova Maria (Russia), Sosina Oxana (Russia), Marlene Klinger (Austria), Igor (Ukraine)

History of the family

About myself

My name is Ivan Afanasyevich Evtekhov. I was born on 31 October 1925. My mother, Stepanida Iovna (née Deryugina) was Ukrainian, she was born in 1895. My father, Afanasii Petrovich – Russian, was born in 1892.

Prehistory

My grandfather,  a former soldier, served in the army under General Skobelev.

He took part in the Russian-Turkish War (the Crimean). After an army service of 5 years (and not 25 years as a result of the mercy of the tsar) he returned home to his village ( then a suburb) in Klimov district. That was still before the revolution. He returned, had a look and saw they were all poor. He decided to go somewhere else with his family. And at that time they were building the railway to Kharkov, to Mariupol, to the Crimean. He decided to look for work there. All the 4 brothers went there. Grandfather had a piece of land in Artemovsk where he grew melons.

Grandfather had 4 sons. He built a small house opposite the factory, then the brother of my father sold it. Now it already started all over again. My father grew up here , in Konstantinovka, he found work on the bottle factory (it was built in the 1890-ies). His family got his roots from the Old Believers (who did not accept the joining of the Russian and Ukrainian church after the unification of Ukraine.)

He married around 1911. In 1919 he had already 4 sons. But they all died within one week in 1919 from smallpox. How he survived himself, he says, they drank vodka and ate herrings,  that saved them. After that he had 6 more children: Petro, Victor, me, Olya, Volodya, Lyuba.

My mother, Stepanida Iovna Delyugina (née) was born in 1895 in Poltavshina. In Konstantinovka she worked as a servant with rich relatives. My mother was a genuine woman.  After she married, she dedicated herself to the family, she was a housewife, she could always wash and cook. She married around 1911.

In 1924 or 1925 came the engines “Lynch” from America. My father was a clever peasant and loved to go around from place to place, he wanted to share his work experience with all.

In the time of the famine, it was such an epidemic famine in Konstantinovka as far as I remember, as it was nowhere else. In 1933-34 a zinc factory was built. The factory “Kitchen” worked with a canteen where they served food to people during the time of the famine. You got bread on ration cards. In 1934 they finished the building of the dam, not far from there was a shop for workers where they gave out bread without cards.

Later they suggested to my father to go to Odessa to share his work experience. In 1934 we left Konstatinovka to live in Odessa 3 or 4 years. There was a new glass factory, but it was based on manual work. When they started to mechanise it they needed specialists, that is why my father took the family and we went there.

Then my father sent a letter to the new factory in Roslovlo, Smolensk District and again we moved there to work , with the whole family. There they gave us accommodation in a two storey house with 3 rooms in an estate not far from the house of the big landowner Vilkin who had a large apple orchard. There we lived until 1941.

The sister of my mother lived on the Crimean and sent us a letter, inviting us to live with her. Again we moved and settled on the estate of Gvardeiski (in Soviet time Ostryakovo) There again we got a flat, and my father got work in the MTC. But literally within a month the war started.

The start of the war

My mother heard explosions at night – that were the Germans blowing up Sevastopol (150 km from us) In the morning they announced everywhere on the radio that the war had started. 2-3 weeks afterwards the Chekists (political police) arrived suddenly at my father’s work place and arrested him straight away. He was called an enemy of the people because some time ago in the glass factory he told a joke: if  an echelon (special train) leaves from Russia is will be full of bolts and nuts. But on the special train from the Ukraine there is only bread and lard, bread, lard. For that he was sentenced for 10 years, but later they took 5 years off that. He was 48 years old then, nobody looked at the fact that he had 6 children. So we did not find out what had happened to him, if he had not managed to give a note to the watchmaker from the train in which they send him to the Urals. The watchmaker gave it to us in 5 days.

They pushed us out of the flat and for a week we lived in the garden. Then they gave us one room of 12 square meters for 7 people. We slept in bunks.

My mother who did not use to work had to fee us somehow. She found work as a laundress in a restaurant.

My father was imprisoned for the whole year. He worked in the paper factory. For his good work they released him for voluntary settlement in a village in the Perm district. There he worked in a brick factory, he organised everything there, the whole mechanisation. At first he did not know that he was released, he thought, that he left without having the right to do so, so he lived there. They offered him to marry but he declined. When he found out that he was free he returned home.

In 1946 in Kama, on the Volga, he got to Stalingrad, worked there for a while. He transported luggage on a wheelbarrow for women who arrived on the train. When he had earned some money he returned to the Crimean. There he could not find work, therefore he moved up along the coast, got as far as Novorosiska. He found work as a watchman but within 2 weeks the Chekists came and ordered him to leave the area within 24 hours. My father returned again to the Crimean, took his youngest daughter and left for his old flat in Roslav, later the rest followed him. There they buried him at the age of 84.

My history

As a child I went to the kinder garden in the Yakusevich park. I went to primary school opposite the bread factory.

In 1942, when the Germans took Sevastopol, a gendarme and a German soldier and a village elder came to our house. They informed us that we were obliged to pick one person from the family for work in Germany, otherwise they would take us all. Mama decided that my older brother Viktor should stay because he could help her to look after the other three children. So I had to go to Germany.

A special train came to the station. They loaded us onto five carriages. Girls and boys, side by side, tightly, nearly without water and food . We went through Poland  and Czechoslovakia for about a month. Toilet – at a stop under supervision of the guards. They had no shame, the girls went to one side, the boys to the other. They hardly gave us anything to eat. Once in a station there stood cauldrons with some slop just for pigs, with ladles. I did not see that someone from us ate it. Sometimes women came running and gave us something. You were not allowed to run anywhere, they immediately started shooting.

We arrived at München.  They divided the grown ups there according to their trade: who was a turner, who was welder. They put them up beside Dachau. There were empty barracks there.

We children were left behind without anything. It was already autumn, so they sent us to the potato harvest to the local farmer (ordinary peasants). Their relationship with us was not bad, they even fed us.  At 9 in the morning the servant always brought us bread with caraway seed and beer to the field. The caraway seed I always pick out because I they made me sick and I poured the beer away. I did not like it, it was too bitter.  I would have preferred to drink lemon water. When we returned from the field the table was already laid. But after we had picked all the potatoes they sent us back to the camp. This time it was a big stone building with iron bars. Often Russian women came to us. They had emigrated to Germany already before the revolution, and they asked us who we were and where we came from. We were 20-30 people then. (Photo)

Once a lorry came and they took us to work in Grünewald (region of München) The river Isar flows there. They allocated us to work with different masters in the factory for cooling installations. I came to Willi, a 30 year old young man. He always wore on the sleeve the SS armband, but he was not a bad man, he did not even yell at us. When he had breakfast in the morning I felt embarrassed and when out to the ground floor to talk to the other lads. He asked why I did not eat and I replied that I was talking. Then he said that was not in order and gave me a sandwich. Willi had a map on the wall where he always marked all battles and the cities that were taken. I often looked at that map and said to him when the Russians are coming he will have to serve me and not I him. He smiled and answered that not the Russians but the Americans would come here (that was in 1943, later it happened that way.)

After the battle of Stalingrad the violent nationalists started to treat us worse. They paid us 5 Mark per month, the adults got 30. By the way – one bread cost 1 Mark. Next to us there was a shop, once we went in there to buy ice cream. But there they told us in German that they did not have ice cream for Russian pigs. We left humiliated.

Somehow they took us to the Zoo in München and I remembered from that visit that the German word for ‘monkey’ is ‘Affe’. Once when we went as a group from the canteen a German young woman came towards us. She called us Russisch Schwein (Russian pigs). I looked at her. She was so terrible that I said to her in German that she was a real monkey.  The woman was embarrassed and fell silent.

In the morning they gave us coffee. From 11-12 they turned up and the server poured us 0,75 l of some unknown liquid. And we were glad. In the evening - beet root, turnips, vegetables. Gradually it became easier for us because we received some money for which we could buy products.

In 1943 we decided to escape. Patriotism leaped up, youth is nasty. All are running and so are we. One of those who stayed I met later in Hungary. So   nearly all that were faster stayed alive – they were liberated by the Americans. We walked for a week from München in the direction of Italy because we had heard that there was already collapse of power. We walked about 200 km but they noticed us and caught us. I registered with my mother’s maiden name, that was discovered and I was hit in the face by the prosecutor. For some days they conducted an investigation at that place where we were – nothing happened. We were lucky that all was quiet. If it had been revealed that there was theft or murder they would have shot us.

That is how I got to Dachau. At arrival we had to take off our clothes and they led us to the bath. I saw for the first time such a pleasant sight: in the bath everything was nickel and tiles. They brought us blue and white striped clothes: trousers and a jacket. As shoes we got thick wooden clogs with a canvas top.

In the middle of the head they left a stripe of hair which indicated that we were prisoners. They took us to the quarantine block where they had already collected prisoners of war, citizens, all different kinds of people over the last three months.

My friends appeared there: Colonel Eten (Manevich), Major Nagorny, Lieutenant

Vasilyev, Ivan Ivanov.  I have written everywhere to try to find out something about their fate, nobody could help me- there are no archives, nothing.

Being in Dachau we could not see anything of what was happening on the outside because we were in the punishment block. I remember that on Sundays they gave us macaroni. And on ordinary days some kind of slop.

After three months they sent us to Austria, to Mauthausen. They loaded us, around 1000 people in carriages, we travelled around 24 hours. We were met by SS officers with dogs and they marched us through the whole night to the camp. I remember there was a hospital, but not the kind that makes you better. There were only dying people in it. When they were dead they were taken to the crematoria.

They drove us in groups of ten to the bath and gave us a small piece of soap.

On the territory of the camp there was a small house were prostitutes of different nationalities stayed, serving the Germans.

I came to Block 19. But Block 20 was for those condemned to death, from there nobody returned. They sent the servicemen, communists, higher officials there. Before New Year 1943 the prisoners of Block 20 started a revolt, killed the guards, seized their machine guns. But they were nearly all shot.

We worked in the stone quarry. We dragged the stones from the crater to the surface. If you took a lighter stone, the guards would beat you with a whip or something.  If you took a heavier stone out of fear then it was impossible to drag it up. People dropped to the ground. The Germans grabbed them by the arm and the leg and carried them away where they were bound for.

Every day we carried 5-6  dead people and stored them near the crematoria. During the day they turned off the water and we could not even drink.

And when we had our fill of water and looked at each other we would not recognise each other: we were so swollen and inflated.  Only the healthiest ones remained and we were only a few. I was there for 4 months.

Once the overseer collected 11 people and made them to take 22 thermos flasks to some people that sat on carts. They were old people, women, children. As I found out later they were Jews. They send them all into a bath, and instead of water they let out gas.

In winter 1943-44 I came to the camp Sankt Valentino. I worked with production of tanks. There were many Jews (around 1000), Russians, Poles, political Germans. None of them had any rights, they were treated all the same.

I remember when we stood in rank and file we were supposed to take off our caps all at the same time in front of the leader. If someone could not do it in time, they made him walk in goose step (squatting) and then he had to run in circles. It is very difficult for an unprepared person to walk in goose step, many fell down. But I had done a lot of sports until the war, therefore it was not difficult for me, I even smiled when I did that.

Lice developed in huge quantities. They crawled over the body, the clothes. You could be crushing them on your body all night and see in the morning that your fingers were covered with your own blood.

Once at 17 degrees frost they made us all undress, we could only take a basin and shoes and we had to go and wash. After the wash we stood for 15 minutes in the freezing cold, naked and wet. Then they drove us all out behind the camp where we sat 24 hours in such a condition. We sat like the Tatars, in rows, one in front of the other. I got spasms and a temperature. The Major supported me from behind. I leaned against him so that it was not noticeable that I was sick. But after that they gave us hot tea and my temperature dropped.

I remember an incident when I wanted to get an extra portion. I gave mine to my friends and went for a second one. I thought that if I come from the other side the server would not recognise me and give me another one. But I was so bold and I had a memorable face. That is why when I tried to ask for a second portion, the server chased after me with a big ladle. I ran and thought that could I get into the barrack now, climb on the top bunk and there he would not reach me. But he caught me and hit me strongly on the back with the sturdy handle of the ladle. I fell but he stopped and said that I had enough. Much later, in 1974, I was operated on my kidney and they discovered a cancer. It seems that this benign tumour was the consequence of that beating.

When they were already fighting near Vienna, they put us into a special train and sent us to the reconstruction of the railway that had been destroyed by the Russian air force. It was in March- April 1945. But there was not even a shovel. Therefore they sent us to Ebensee. That was the most terrible thing that I have seen in my life. We were around 30000 people. They gave 30 people one loaf of bread per day. We divided that equally, chewed it, sucked it, but did not swallow, brought it up again. You must not swallow it – it could happen that it would twist your guts.

Under the window of the 30^th block (the block of those condemned to death) the dead bodies were lying in mountains, and people still alive, soon, living corpses crawled beside it. There were more than 100 people. The crematoria could burn 5 bodies at the time but that was not enough and also that smoke, the ash, the smell penetrated everything.  For the burying of the bodies they dug trenches.

On I May 1945 30 000 people were ordered to come to assembly. The Commandant told us that while the fighting was going on we had to hide in mine  shafts. They wanted to blow us all up. And we, all 30 000 people, simultaneously refused to go there.

After that they somehow started to give us 300 gram bread per person. Rumours were going round that that was help from the Red Cross.

On 6 May we stood at the fence of barbed wire and looked at what was happening outside. Suddenly a tank comes towards us. We first decided that the tank was German and it would rinse (?) us all. But the tank turned out to be American. The cover opened and a black man looked out of it.  How people moved towards that tank! In the fence there was a hole, we went through it and ran to meet the tank. The black man stood and photographed us.

We went down the slope and there were many many American tanks. The Americans asked us in Russian who we were. Until now I remember their white teeth, how they offered us biscuits.

We , 5-6 people, went to a lake. We saw a car and a Hungarian in it. We took the car from him and went away in it. But the Americans took it away from us and put us up in a little house.

The first night we went to a farmer. He let us stay on the hay loft and brought us bread and milk.

His wife asked us not to smoke in the hay loft. But why would we be smoking – we were hardly alive. If we had spent another week in that camp we would have been added to that pile of dead bodies.

We dropped the outer layer of striped clothes, it was hot and we went like that in our underwear. On 7- 8 May we stopped at a camp where there were Russian women and girls. They were very badly dressed. I and the lads got hold of some arms, went to the locals and got some clothes for the women. That way we dressed them.

Within half a month the Americans sent us in lorries to the town Melk (?) where there was a very big concentration camp. In the meantime we had acquired a more or less normal look, become similar to humans again. The American talked us into returning to the USSR, they said that wherever we go there is destruction. In Melk we went to a special department where those who had not committed any offence could join the army at the place. That is how I served in the Soviet Army from 1945 to 1952.

When I returned to my home country I met with my family, my father and we talked about the misfortunes that had happened to us.

In 1951 I worked for a while in Roslavel, learnt to be an operator.

In 1952 I married the daughter of the factory director. I was a noticeable lad, played football, danced, took part in activities, had success. But even I could not avoid unpleasant events. The thing was that when I served in the army we had to go on a trip for months and guard the transport of goods. I and some other soldiers did not like that and so we wrote a report and all signed it. As a result they put us on the same footing as state criminals and transferred us to aviation where we had to serve for another two and a half years. That is how they taught us a lesson. Later my father in law found out about this, started to poison my life and my relationship with my wife went wrong. But I sat it out the defective situation. I said that I was a lathe operator and they gave me work. The Soviet camp was for me like a spa compared with what I had survived in Germany.

After that I decided to return to where I was born, to Konstantinovka. I found work here in the glass factory. I once met my father–in-law on the street, so he knew I was here. Later he came to my house to make peace but I showed him the door. And then suddenly my wife appeared, as if nothing had happened. She said that we will go on living, everything will be fine. She talked me into it, together with the landlady of the room where I lived. We started renting a room on Chervony, later they gave us a flat.

I worked in the factory for around 60 years, I improved the production. At that time there was a decline in the factory, the bottles were considered bad. I started to do the working process in my way. I finished the Technical college, on two courses I worked with the manager of the section.  We adapted 27 machines with our own hands to our requirements. . In 1980 I retired but continued to work as a machine repairer.

I have no children, but my wife has a grandson and a great grandson, they are like my own.

I received from Germany compensation once. It took a long time to get compensation here, but it does not matter. If I had the opportunity to go to Germany, to visit these places, I would definitely go, in spite of my weak heart.