Pugachova Nesterivna Lyubov’.

Interviewed by Daniela, Valentina, Margherita and Benjamin in the living room of her home in Konstantinovka on April 8th, 2013. Text in square brackets serves as explanation and commentary added by the interviewers. This interview was more difficult than others, both for Pugachova Lyubov’ , visibly shaken and emotional, and for the group of interviewers.

I was born on March 8th 1921 in Izyum, in the Kharkov Oblast [region]. I had one brother and one sister. In 1922 my mother died and within one month, my brother and my sister died too. Then I stayed with my father and my grandmother. My grandmother died. My father was working in the mines where he had an accident and also died. I was eight years old when I was sent to orphanage that was 18 km away from Izyum.

In 1939 I was sent to work in a factory that produced clay dishes in the Donetsk region. The war started and on March 22nd 1942, I was twenty years old then, together with 17 other people I was taken to Germany. We traveled by train in a wagon made for horses. The trip took one week, and during that time, ten people disappeared. [It's not clear whether Pugachova Lyubov’ means that they were able to flee, or that they were killed, or if she even knows for sure.]

I was brought to a lager in the city of Duisburg. Half of the lager were Ukrainian prisoners, the other half French and Belgians. I was living in a four floors lager with barred windows. They fed us very badly, a piece of bread for four days and 150 grams of margarine, “briukhva” [turnip soup] for lunch and dinner. Life was very hard there, and we weren't allowed to leave the camp. When we went to work, we were guarded by police with dogs. Those who tried to escape were killed. I was working as a loading porter.

I stayed in Germany for three and a half years, until we were set free by American and Soviet soldiers. I returned in October 1945. Back at my old factory I worked as a loading porter for fifteen years until I got sick and they gave me a lighter job. In 1953 Stalin gave an order that women cannot work as porters, so I was moved to another department. [It's not clear from Pugachova Lyubov’s narrative whether it was her sickness or the new law that actually caused her to be transferred.] I worked for 60 years.

I met a partner and we had four children, three of them have already died. We weren’t officially married. He knew I have been in Germany. [It's not clear whether this was why they didn't marry.] He died on January 18th 1980.