As soon as the war began, we knew what the Germans were doing… Within a year, the shootings started. They had already shot many people. Then, they caught us and forced us into a barn.

We were constantly moving. Once, near the village of Nadezhdivka, we heard terrible screams. A man and a woman ran towards us, shouting, “Where are you going?! They’re killing people there! They’ll kill you too!” They grabbed our horses, and we turned around and fled.

We ended up in another village, forced to work. We were starving. A policeman came for us five times, sent by the head of the village council to take us away. But the people wouldn’t let him! They stood like a mountain for us, shouting, “What are you doing to them? They are hungry, they are working. No, we won’t give them up!” We survived because of them.

But one day, my own family was taken. I had gone out with some other girls. When I returned, our yard was full of people, but my parents and siblings were gone. The neighbors whispered, not wanting to tell me. They had me spend the night at their house. Only in the morning did they say, “Your father, your mother, your brothers and sisters are gone. The Germans took them.” I later learned they had been killed.

A local couple took me in. They were not Roma. They gave me a new, Moldovan last name and falsified my documents to protect me. They hid me in their barn with the cows, in a pit they had dug out where it was warm. I spent the winter there.

I still think about it: what is the point of this life? I don’t need to live for a long time. I need to live a good life. So that things can be humane.