On September 29, on Yom Kippur,
the Jewish Holiday,
the Germans came for mom and me.
We were living in Podol, on Pritisko-Nikolsky street.
They took us to the execution at Babi Yar.
We didn't know about the execution,
and we didn't take anything with us.
We went there just as we were.
We passed Frolovskya street, the Podol's market,
Andriyivskyy Descent,
Melnik street,
Artem street.
Many people joined us on our way there.
We all kept walking hoping that everything would be alright,
and we just would be transferred somewhere else.
For the most part, mom held me in her arms,
but from time to time I walked on my own along those broad streets.
I looked around, and it seemed strange to me
that people were carrying large bags, driving wagons,
and taking the sick ones on carriages.
Some came on carts.
But all of them where moving in one direction,
and when we came to Artem street, not far from the Jewish cemetery,
the human mass grew bigger and bigger,
and there were more and more German soldiers with guns.
They pushed people closer in order to form a tight convoy.
They tried to prevent from this human river overflowing the banks.
Finally, we came to the Jewish cemetery and stopped there.
Far away we heard some sounds,
but we didn't know and didn't understand
where we came and what would happen.
We were in Syrets,
but back then there were no Syrets yet, only Babi Yar
and a Jewish cemetery on Artem street.
We didn't know where exactly they brought us,
but we knew that there was a railway nearby.
We thought that all the Jews would be evacuated from there.
We stood in the middle of this giant crowd,
like a grain of sand in a sea, and waited for...
our destiny and our verdict. We didn't know what the future holds.
After a while, groups of people...
I can't tell you how many people were in each group.
I don't remember everything because I was only a child.
I just saw a sea of people, but I couldn't make sense of it.
I just saw that the road was blocked,
but the soldiers took some people and pushed them further.
And we waited for our turn.
Only when the night fell... We left our home in the morning,
and only at night our turn came.
According to mom, there were 120-150 people in our group.
We were taken to Babi Yar.
The whole place was fenced with wire,
and you couldn't came out, there was no way out, just in.
No exit.
I remember seeing...
I saw folding tables on the left, I don't remember exactly...
and a massive pile of baskets.
Osier baskets, you know? Like they used to make in the old days.
People were throwing there their documents.
They called for 6 or 8 people to approach one of the tables
and they handed over their papers.
The soldiers checked them, and confiscated all valuable things:
clothes, rings, watches, earrings.
Everything those people had. They even took bags and parcels.
They confiscated everything.
Then people began to understand. We heard shouting and moaning
when we came closer to this big ravine.
But they took as to the top of the hill and the ravine was beneath us,
35-40 m down there.
We stood waiting while they executed the previous group.
Mom and I... I was little and couldn't stand on my feet for so long.
I heard the noise and the shouting.
I was afraid, I wanted mom to take me in her arms.
I was 4 and a half.
A bit older, 4 years and 9 months.
When I heard people yelling, I said: "Mom, let's go.
"Take me out of here. Do you hear people shouting?
"I think they beat those men and women."
I didn't know that they were not beating, but killing them.
When our turn came, we approached the table and handed out our papers.
Mom gave them our documents,
the ones that she brought, and then took me in her arms.
The soldiers checked her mouth looking for gold teeth.
They took her earrings and watch, everything she had. Her rings.
Made us undress. They took her beautiful dress,
and all of my clothes. I was left only in my underpants,
and mom was left in her camisole.
It wasn't new, so they didn't take it.
After that we stood half naked, waiting for our destiny.
Then we saw an old man who came on his carriage.
He couldn't enter Babi Yar.
He stood with his carriage on the other side of the fence,
the other side of the barbed wire. -Wired fence. -Yes.
And then mom saw a German with a bayonet approaching this man.
He looked into his mouth, then took a penknife,
and tried to cut out his teeth.
I started crying, and this old man resisted the German.
He was sitting on his carriage.
The German caught him by his beard,
and threw him over the fence.
And the beard stayed in his hands.
I started yelling and crying: "Mommy, mommy,
"let's get out of here quickly. They are killing this grandpa,
"and they will kill us too."
Mom said: "Quite, baby, don't cry.
"If you will cry we won't be able to run away,
"and then they will surely kill us.
"If you keep quit, we have a chance to survive."
After this old man, we saw a girl...
I didn't know how old she was, but mom saw her
and told me that she was around 15 years old.
She was extraordinary beautiful, her name was Sarah.
I saw how she was stripped out of her clothes, she and her mother.
Her mom tried to protect her with her own body,
but the Germans didn't let her.
She was very beautiful. They hit her mother with their clubs
till she dropped dead. They hit her on her head.
And a group of Germans dragged this naked girl somewhere.
She cried and yelled, but nothing helped.
Nobody could help her.
When the last group before us was executed,
it was already midnight.
Afterwards came our turn, we were the last group for that day.
It was September 29.
It was 00:30 or 00:45 am.
I think it was 00:30 am
because the Germans ordered us to stand still,
but on the other side of the ravine...
It was in a form of C,
and so we stood on the left side of it.
They took us aside so we won't see the Germans who took the documents.
Or maybe they were gone already, I didn't see it, so I don't remember,
and when they told us to stand still,
we saw machine guns and guns ready for the execution.
Mom threw me into the ravine, and I fell down
on to the people that were shot before me.
The execution started at 9:00 am.
And then she fell on me before they ordered to open fire.
The Germans began to shoot, and the bodies fell on top of us.
There were wounded, there were all kind of people.
Some were alive.
But around 00:45 am,
when mom regained her consciousness and heard noise,
a sound of splash, as if someone was hitting water.
It was a sound of people's blood, the murdered and the wounded,
and it was covering us.
I started spluttering,
and I lost consciousness. I don't remember what happened next.
Mom told me later that the Germans checked the pit with bayonets,
and stabbed all those who survived.
Mom was lucky because a German soldier stood on her
and stabbed with his bayonet those who were lying around her.
Mom was afraid to move because I was lying beneath her.
She was afraid that I would suffocate or splutter and die.
She put both of her fists under my chin
so that I would have some air.
The German that stood on her body stabbed her heel with his bayonet.
He cut it.
She didn't make a sound.
We kept lying there till she heard that the Germans went away.
There was some mess, some clash there,
the Germans argued furiously.
They probably quarreled over the stuff that they took from the Jews.
They divided it between them.
Then mom crawled out from under the bodies,
and took me out. I was half dead.
Unconscious.
Mom thought that I was dead,
but she decided to take me out anyway and burry me somewhere.
So she...
crawled in this ravine
through the bushes with many branches
where the wire wasn't attached that firmly.
She moved the wire up a bit,
and crawled underneath it, and pushed me too.
I guess that I...
because I was unconscious and she dragged me,
so a bit of the wire cut my leg.
I have a scar till this day because the wire cut my vein,
and the blood spewed like a fountain.
Mom tore off a piece of her camisole,
and bandaged my leg.
She pulled me away not knowing where exactly,
just away from this horror, from this disaster, and death.
She told me later that she crawled about 1 km.
She tried to check whether I was breathing, but I wasn't, she didn't hear a thing.
She was really scared for me, tried to breath into my mouth,
and gave me her saliva in order to prevent my dehydration,
so that I would wake up.
But I showed no signs of life.
It was very hard for mom, she couldn't yell,
she had no water, nothing. She dragged me a little bit further.
She couldn't stand up because the Germans patrolled the ravine,
and they could see us.
So she dragged me a little bit further.
She said it was around 3:00 or 3:30 am
when she came to...
There is a grove called Kyrilovskaya.
In Kiev. It begins just after Babi Yar.
There are also some ravines in it, but not that large.
The Germans chose those natural pits,
so that they wouldn't have to dig the graves for the execution.
The pits were already there, and so they executed there,
and threw the people into the ravine.
Mom crawled one more kilometer,
and she began to gather some morning dew.
She took some grass, and squeezed its juice,
and gave it to me.
She gave me artificial respiration,
and she saved me.
When I started to come back to my senses,
I felt nauseous, and all this blood that I swallowed, came out.
Mom asked me to keep quit.
She held me close to her, and continued to crawl.
We came to...
Kurenevsky neighborhood, that is near Babi Yar,
also in the Syrets.
There was a brick factory there
because there were natural quarries in this area,
and there were a lot of sand and clay.
So they manufactured bricks from that sand and clay.
Mom and I hid there, in the basement.