大象传媒

I'd like to tell the story about my grandmother's family who were captivated in Russia during the war and sent to labour camp in Germany.
When my grandmother Matrjona and her two little sons Eduard and Valerij were captured, she was pregnant for about 4 months. It was twice hard for Russian people to survive in that conditions because as Stalin was saying, "We have no captives abroad", so when sitizens from other european countries received parcels and other help from their relatives- Russians did not. Grandmother told that many people pitied Russians and shared some food which received with them. She also remembers that the only ones who were very hostile and hated them were Polish people- that's because they blamed Russia and Stalin in the war. I personally don't understand this: you can blame a country and it's leader but why usual people are guilty???
But that food was almost nothing and she had to go begging with other captives to local people, Germans to get food to feed two little sons. Some of locals were friendly and gave something but some were with stone faces that she new in advance that they won't give anything. There was a river or a pond near and her sons went there to catch frogs and then changed them to Frenchmen for food.
Soon, she gave a birth to a babyboy called Leonid but as she had no milk or food the boy died. Only mothers can understand how it is to lose the baby. There were of course diseases in a camp and she also got scurvy.
When American soldiers came to free them they offered her to immigrate to the USA but she refused. Grandmother was surprised when she knew that her husband, my grandfather was also captured and he worked in another camp near hers. So the family went back to Russia.

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