Ludmila Kubik

“Two Czech blacksmiths in the market square, two Czech blacksmiths there, one is shoeing the horses, and the other one loving Andulka, one shoeing the horses, and the other loving Andulka. Yesterday she told me, she told me, that she had a scarf for me, an embroidered scarf for me. My son, don’t marry the peasant’s girl, don’t marry her, don’t marry Andulka, don’t marry the girl. Over there, over there, potatoes are growing there, green potatoes, and among them, the blue-eyed girl, the blue-eyed girl, growing there for me, when she grows up, she will be my girl.”

“We meet on St. Nicholas’ Day, we dress up in costumes, we have the figures of the devils… St. Nicholas walks through Simferopol, we invite the children, and they come and we give them some presents. In the puppet theatre they prepare some exhibition for the kids. St. Nicholas sits there and gives presents to them. The children like to come. They bring them to our town from all the villages, from Bohemka, Alexandrovka…”

“I attended the first grade in Bohemka and we walked to our house. I was walking home with my two cousins that day. We were little kids, one of them was seven, one was eight, and the other one was nine years old. As we were walking together, we saw those big wagons, which are used for transporting hay. They are called mazhare in Russian. There were several of these wagons passing by and we could hear some screaming and wailing. Women and children were carried in them. A town called Dzhankoy is nearby, and there was a dushegubka there (a mobile gas chamber – ed.’s note) and that’s where they were taking them. They drove them there, suffocated them and burnt then. The men dug a grave. We, the children, were walking there, and there was shooting going on. We were curious and we walked straight towards the Germans, and they were shouting at us: ´Weg! Weg! Weg!´ We kept walking towards them. They pointed a rifle at us. We are looking at them, there is a row of men, young and old men, and the Germans are shooting. If someone dropped to the ground, the man who was next to him had to move him, and he himself had to stand up and they shot him. If somebody ran away, they shot him, too, and they dragged him into that grave. When they threatened us to go away, we ran home to our mom. It was terrible, we saw it all, we saw them shooting the men, it was a horror, it was terrible.”

“I was eight years old when they arrested my daddy. It was in 1937, perhaps you heard about it. Many good people were put into prison. Not only my dad, but many other Czechs, too. They took them to Simferopol and they shot them there. Later they gave a rehabilitation notice to my mom, stating that he was not guilty. Mom told them: ´What is that paper to me?! My kids don’t have a daddy and I don’t have a husband.”