Last Witnesses : An Oral History of the Children of World War II

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In the course of the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) millions of Soviet children died: Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainians, Jews, Tatars, Latvians, Gypsies, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Armenians, Tadjiks…

People’s Friendship magazine, 1985, No. 5

…AND ONE QUESTION BY A RUSSIAN CLASSIC

Dostoevsky once posed a question: can we justify our world, our happiness, and even eternal harmony, if in its name, to strengthen its foundation, at least one little tear of an innocent child will be spilled? And he himself answered: this tear will not justify any progress, any revolution. Any war. It will always outweigh them.

Just one little tear…

“HE WAS AFRAID TO LOOK BACK…”

Zhenya Belkevich SIX YEARS OLD. NOW A WORKER.

June 1941…

I remember it. I was very little, but I remember everything…

The last thing I remember from the peaceful life was a fairy tale that mama read us at bedtime. My favorite one—about the Golden Fish. I also always asked something from the Golden Fish: “Golden Fish…Dear Golden Fish…” My sister asked, too. She asked differently: “By order of the pike, by my like…” We wanted to go to our grandmother for the summer and have papa come with us. He was so much fun.

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