We were hiding… But my mother and brother didn’t make it in time. They also wanted to hide, but they were the ones who were caught. It wasn’t just them they took—it was many people, Russians and locals among them… they took everyone.

It was near the church. There was a big church in the village. That’s where they herded them. They packed so many people inside that the doors could barely close. How they ever got out of there, I don’t know…

We hid in the village, with a certain woman. I think that was her name, I can’t remember it exactly anymore. She kept us in her cellar. My little brothers were also hidden, wherever there was space: in someone’s basement, in someone else’s cellar. People hid us. A big thank you to them. May God grant them health. They would bring us a piece of bread, a bun, a small cake, or a boiled potato. People fed us; they saved us.

We weren’t always in one place. I, for example, was more often with that woman. My little brother was further away, with other people. Here and there—we ran and hid all over the village, wherever we could. My father and mother were also hiding. People hid them, too.

They passed us from house to house like that—so we wouldn’t be killed. People protected us as best they could. And thanks to them, we survived. But those people are gone now… They have all died. All of those who saved us back then.

But there were others—the ones who betrayed us. And there were many like that. My father was beaten very badly. And we were beaten. The Germans beat us terribly…

Who exactly betrayed us—I don’t know. God knows. But that one woman, the one who definitely betrayed people… When our troops arrived, she was shot immediately.