Valentina Pogorelova

8th April, 2013.

Alessia (Italy), Oksana (Ukraine), Nora (Austria), Kim (Austria).

My name is Valentina Pogorelova and I was born in 1925 in Rostov-on-Don. I lived with my grandparents in a kolchoz then we had to move and live with my aunt. Later the Germans murdered her. Before the war started I had just finished the 9th grade. One of the few things I remember from my schooltime was that we always cheated when we had a test.

When I heard about the war on the radio, my sister and I decided to volunteer as nurses. Many people applied as volunteers but unlike them, we were rejected because we were too young. Later on, the bombing began and all the inhabitants were hiding in bomb shelters. On October 15th 1942 I was forced to go to Germany. I was taken away with many other people.  As we all knew about this before, we had some time to collect food and pack some clothes.

Our first stop was in Stuttgart and then I was brought to Thuebingen, where I started working in a doctor’s house (he was called Uzatel) for one year and a half. When I was starting to work there, Dr. Uzatel was at the front and I was alone with his wife and their children. They treated me badly. Even their children did not speak to me, they used to tell me what to do. This family was very rich and the house had 54 rooms and I had to clean all of them. Besides that I also took care of their garden and their animals (pigs, cows and chickens). Every day I had to get up at 5am.

I lived in a small room under the roof. There were a small bed, a chest and a small basin for washing my hands. In the house of Dr. Uzatel I did not get enough food. His wife measured sausages, bread and sour cream.

When her husband came home from the front and saw me for the first time, he asked her wife what I was doing there, unable to work (because I had been hurt by his wife) . She answered him that I did not come volunterely, but I was forced to. Furthermore he wanted to know why she used to behave rudely with me even though it was me who took care about their children. Life there was better when Dr. Uzatel did not have to work on the front and spent time at home. Then I used to get more food and the doctor also worried about my health: he thought I had tuberculosis.

Something really special for me were the presents I got from the doctor. I remembered getting a dress hidden in a wooden egg, with a pair of shoes of my size (36). Unfortunatly I was not allowed to take this presents with me when I left.

Compared to the workers in the factory I did not have much free time. Just on Sundays I had some time off and I spent those two hours meeting some other forced workers and discussing  our bad working conditions. For 2 years I met those people. I began to forget Russian, because my German improved. On Sundays I had to be back at 5pm, otherwise the doctor and his wife would not allow me some free time anymore. One Sunday, I was already late, I met a fat policeman and he asked me in German: “Where is your “OST” sign?” and I answered in Russian: “Ch’ort puzatiy!” (“You devil with fat belly!”).He thought that I was talking about the doctor, as his surname was Uzatel [note: the policeman misunderstood her Russian as bad German pronounciation of the name Uzatel]. Luckily, the policeman was a nice guy and did not understand what i said to him and just reminded me to put the “OST” sign on next time, without giving me a fine.

One time I sat down to play the white piano. The hostess saw me and said: - Where are your hands? - and called me “dirty russian”. I explained her, that I would have cleaned the piano. I also remember some other situations when she threw some object against me.

Once I was locked in the room where they used to wash the clothes. I wanted to escape through the window, but the woman saw me, sent the dogs after me and shouted: - Axel! Etel! Bite her! -  I answered in Russian: - You are a fool! I feed them, they will not bite me! -  Still, I did not manage to escape.

After a new decree promoted by Molotov, saying that every German was responsible for Russians in Germany, I decided to commit suicide in a river. But as I grew up in Rostov-on- Don I was a really good swimmer. A policemen saw me swimming, picked me up and brought me to a labore office. The employer of this office, a German woman, brought me back to Miss Uzatel and she told me that I would have worked there until she would have found another place for me.

It must be around one month later, when the labor office found a new place: it was in an orphanage.  Most of the children were from immigrants and almost all of them were not able to speak German. In this orphanage nuns took care of the children. The nuns treated me really good, we would even celebrate birthdays. I stayed there for one year and a half.  As the orphanage also included a hospital, we had the red cross on the roof and were not bombed. We used to eat all together, except when the officers ate there. I was not allowed to enter the room.

I was liberated by the British and the Americans. I tried to run away  because I did not understand that the soldiers wanted to free us as they were very unfriendly. After seeing my sign on the shirt saying that I was from Soviet Union, they changed into being friendly.

On our way back to Rostov, we stopped in a former concentration camp which was already in Soviet Union. The conditions were really bad in the camp, even after the liberation. We slept on the streets because we did not want to stay in the barracks of the camp, the smell and conditions were unbeareble. In this lager I also saw the crematorium. There were ashes everywhere and a cruel smell that I will never forget.

Finally, on October 20th 1945, I came back to Rostov. After I got married to my husband, I moved to Konstantinovka. My husband started working in the glass factory Avtosteklo and I was even offered to join in the party, but I refused. After the death of my husband I wanted to return to my hometown because I did not have enough resources to stay anymore, but the director of the factory offered me to keep my flat. He would have paid for it.

In the 1990ies I received reparations from Germany (three times 650 German Marks), now I have some benefits from the Ukrainian government for domestic bills.