The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister (19 page)

At this point in her transcript, Nonna included one of her father’s favorite sayings, along with a poem she wrote to him after his death.

“There was no shame in those who had committed an execution where there had been no crime!”

TO PAPA

With tears in your eyes, you’ve softly spoken,

“We shall remain and take a chance.

Though others had been treated roughly,

We’ll beg—to give us some defense!”

Now was our chance to cross the borders,

And with a smile so sweet, you’d say,

“We must believe and look for rainbows—

The freedom was just miles away.”

But when the troops arrived so swiftly,

There was no time to talk—just hide.

You’ve waited days in the cellar (sickly),

Then the Germans found you inside.

You tried to tell them, give them the reason;

They were too drunk to understand—

For them it was a hunting season,

Of those still in the land!

With terror in my heart I’ve cried,

“
Er ist mein Vater, und er ist tot!
”

But faces froze and filled with spite,

Of those without respect for God.

There were no lilies on your coffin;

Your hands were folded on your chest.

I could not cry, but stood there hoping

Your soul was free and you could rest.

They tortured you while you were living,

And pierced your heart when you lay dead.

You’ve taught me how to be forgiving,

Please tell me how to forget!

28: Papa’s Burial

We were grief stricken, and so alone, and so helpless! However, there were some arrangements that had to be made, and Papa had to be buried. While Mama and I had to find someone to build a coffin for Papa, Grandmother went back to her house to look for help from her neighbors there.

Mama and I walked around for hours asking people if there was anyone who could help us. Finally, we came to a place where there was a lumber storage, and we heard some nailing going on inside. There were three older men building something. Mama asked them if they could make a coffin for Papa, and with a compassionate look in their aged eyes, they agreed to do it. They told us to come back in three hours, and they would have the coffin ready by then. When we came back and I saw the coffin they had built, I could not imagine Papa being buried in it—it was so plain, and not even painted. The old men apologized to us for not having any paint, but we knew that they had done the best they could do under the circumstances. We were grateful for what they had done. They would not even allow us to pay them for their work on the coffin—money did not mean anything to anyone then, anyway. They wanted to know how Mama and I would manage to get the coffin to our house, since it was at least one and a half miles away. There was no way to get it back home except for Mama and me to carry it.

When we made it back to the house with the coffin, Grandmother was there with several men and women whom she had gathered from around her neighborhood. I wanted to just disappear and not be there for the rest of it—so I went back to my room and closed the door behind me. I don’t know how long I remained in my room with my face covered with a pillow. I lay there on my bed, filled with grief and anger, and I didn’t know whom I was angry with the most—the Russians, the Germans, the war itself, or the whole world that we were living in. I could feel myself clenching my teeth until my jaws hurt. I could no longer cry—my eyes were dry, and no matter how hard I tried to cry, I just could not cry. I felt as though I were slowly being crushed by the heavy air and the atmosphere around me.

Then I heard the wailing of the women coming from the parlor where Papa’s coffin was placed. It was a custom that the Russians and the Ukrainians practiced before burying the dead. It was as gruesome a sound as anyone could ever hear. I could no longer stand the sound that they were making and stuck my fingers in both my ears. I ran out of my room, passing the parlor, and into the yard. The cold air felt good to me, and I took a handful of snow and rubbed it all over my face until it burned and hurt.

Someone had found a horse and buggy; it was there by the gate waiting for Papa’s coffin to be loaded onto it. Grandmother took my hand, and we walked to the next house (our neighbors’). She asked the lady if I could stay with her until it was all over. The lady was only too happy to make me welcome and took me into her house. There were two little girls (four and seven years old), and they stood there wide-eyed, looking me over. I really did not feel comfortable there, but it was a temporary escape for me, and I was happy to stay. Outside, the temperature was something like 25 degrees below zero—it was one of the coldest winters that we had had for a very long time. Mama later told me that the men had a terrible time digging Papa’s grave through the solidly frozen earth. It took five men several hours to dig it.

29: Life without Papa

Mama and I stayed in the house (just the two of us), and we slept in the kitchen on the double bed where Papa had spent those bad times before he died. The rest of the house was big, and the rooms had high ceilings and big windows so it was impossible to keep such a big place warm enough to survive. The stove in the kitchen was joined through the wall to the chimney of the fireplace in the living room. The fireplace had a damper that we could close off and, therefore, keep the heat from the kitchen stove inside the kitchen. The kitchen was the perfect size to keep us comfortably warm, as long as we could keep a fire going in the stove.

Grandmother decided to return to the Great House even though it had been heavily damaged in the bombing. She did not want to leave her home empty, for fear that it would be burglarized or that the German soldiers would take it over. Mama and I were trying to make a life for ourselves, and we felt that it was safer in the village than it would be in Konstantinowka, where there was a lot of heavy fighting going on between the Russians and the Germans. The sounds of the cannons and the artillery could be heard, especially at night.

We were hoping to hold out until spring would arrive, but the cold winter was still to last at least three to four months. Occasionally we would make trips to the village to look for some food (mostly potatoes and carrots). We had made quite a few friends in the village. Mama had brought her sewing machine and some material (sheets, blankets, or any kind of material that would make clothing) from Grandmother’s house. Mama would spend much time sewing (making) clothes, and from time to time, we took some things to the village where the people were happy to trade the clothing for whatever food they could give us. Sometimes, we would spend all day long at the village, going from house to house bartering the clothes for food. We had to spend the night there on a few occasions, and some people would offer us a place to stay overnight. On most occasions, we would sleep in the stables, where there was a lot of straw to keep us warm.

It seemed that the people in the village tried to help us any way they could. A lot of the older people knew the Ljaschov family ever since the time when Grandfather owned the village. Some of the older men talked very favorably of our “old” family. Many of the village people had evacuated by train when the Russian troops pulled out. Those that stayed were bombed occasionally—and we never knew if the planes were Russian or German.

We were hoping that by the end of December, the very cold weather would let up some and give us a break. In the meantime, we gathered wood outside by tearing down fences and breaking off branches of small trees. It was a daily chore to go around and pick up any wood that we could find to take home to make more fire. It seemed that we had nothing left on the outside to provide us with wood. So out of desperation, we started to burn chairs or whatever furniture we could do without. In the meantime, the temperatures outside were dropping to 42 and 54 degrees below zero, and we were quite desperate. The windows and the walls inside the house were covered with thick layers of ice (one and a half to two inches thick). We began to stay dressed with our coats, boots, and caps. We would sleep on the springs and put the mattress on top of us, then cover up with all the blankets, rugs, or anything else that would protect us from these terrible freezing temperatures.

By the time January arrived, the Germans began to fill any space that was available to live in. They would simply walk into the house and tell us that they needed a place to stay. When they arrived, most of them were sick, hungry, and half-frozen. They moved into the rest of our place, and they took all the beds and spaces until the house was full. We could no longer cook anything (mostly potatoes and carrots) without them coming into the kitchen and taking everything away—as soon as they smelled food, they would come and confiscate it.

JANUARY, 1942 •
The Germans had overrun Belorussia (Belarus) and most of the Ukraine—Nonna’s homeland. They had surrounded Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and had begun to converge on Moscow.

Soon Mama and I had only my small bedroom to ourselves—leaving the rest of the house to the German soldiers. They were coming in half-frozen and starved, and they were eating all our food supplies—which were already scarce. Soon they started to burn our furniture so they could sit by the fireplace and keep warm. Some of the soldiers were brought in on stretchers, and as soon as they could warm up, their ears and noses would drop off because they were frostbitten (actually frozen off). I watched one of the soldiers as he took his boots off by the fireplace: he had also taken off the skin of his feet all the way to the bone.

GERMAN SOLDIERS’ SUFFERING •
Hitler’s soldiers suffered from the extreme cold climate of Soviet winters. They had not been equipped to withstand the freezing temperatures. Many German soldiers died in the winter of 1941 from cold exposure and frostbite.

Nonna reports on the troops at her house of refuge: “We end up with at least fifty-four German soldiers in our house, and they remain for a long time before the army trucks come and take them to a newly established German hospital.”

Many nights, I lay in my bed awake, and I could hear Mama softly crying in her bed. She did not think I was awake and could hear her. Some nights, I would lay there and wish that my brother, Anatoly, would be there with us. I would imagine that by some miracle, he would just appear at our door. Even though I knew that it would never happen, I pretended that it could happen one day. Sometimes, I would feel angry because he was someplace else and knew nothing about what was happening with us. But then the thought of him being there—and the Germans killing him—would terrify me. He, too, could be killed or beaten to death like they had done to Papa and so many others. There were many very young boys along with men who were either tortured or beaten to death in these times.