Odyssey of a Leningrader

Elena Skrjabina, Siege and Survival: The Odyssey of a Leningrader. 1971

Trans. Norman Luxemburg

Skrjabina was evacuated from Leningrad to Pyatigorsk with her family during the winter and spring of 1942. Skrjabina had no political connections and was considered a refugee throughout her evacuation experience.

January 29

Rumors about a possible evacuation are becoming more and more persistent. My uncle, who is so weak that he no longer hopes for survival, cannot stand these discussions. Even if he should be taken out of Leningrad, he wouldn't survive the trip

February 5

A day of insane flurry has ended. The final packing took place in complete darkness. I don't know what I took, what I have forgotten. We are so tired, we can hardly move .

And so tomorrow we are leaving. Our party - my seventy-four-year-old, terribly weak mother; our sixty-five-year-old nana, feet swollen, covered with boils, strength undermined by the harsh winter; gravely ill Dima who cannot walk by himself; little Yura, covered with sores, and me. Me - just barely able bodied. I am already beginning to swell. I have especially weakened in these last few days

February 11

Yesterday we got off at the Cherepovets station at ten in the morning. It was cold and snowing very hard. We had nowhere to go. I took my mother to the nearest aid station.

And so Leningrad is behind us .

It was not until ten P.M. that we got to the opposite shore. We had hoped that the other cars would be waiting for us. But they were gone. Our bad situation was intensified by the fact that no one knew at which station we were to meet the train or where we could find the people responsible for the evacuation. Our drivers managed to spend the night in a hut, while we had to sleep in the car in various twisted poses. That was an endless, wearisome night

We had just started off when an alarm sounded. German planes flew over us. Antiaircraft guns pounded at them .The hospital director showered us with reproaches for lagging behind. But the next day I learned accidentally that the officials had celebrated all night with the food designated for the whole transport

So here I am in a railway car with my old ones and Yura. There was not one vacant spot. We sat on our suitcases. Besides that discomfort, there was torture of another order. In the morning the wife of the evacuating hospital director and her daughters took out some fried chickens, chocolate, and condense milk, at the sight of which, Yura fainted. My throat was seized by spasms, but not from hunger .

Travel by night is worse than by day. My hands have swollen. I had to hold Yura on my lap all night. It never occurred to anyone to give up his set for a while And in addition, someone beat on the doors with a hammer at every stop. I don't know who - trainmen or orderlies. They pounded deafeningly on the walls and shouted, "Do you have any dead? Hand them over to us."

February 15

Stopping in Cherepovets has done us no good. The food situation here is very bad. The people are given 400 grams of bread and that's all refugees find it had to exist, especially since there are so many in Cherepovets. Evacuees stop here as we did, some partly because of the illness of some member of the family. The supervising officer in charge of evacuees told me curtly and bluntly to leave as soon as possible. He will not continue our rations any longer than for three days. No one is allowed to register in Cherepovets unless he has relatives here.

Source: Elena Skrjabina. Trans. Norman Luxemburg. Siege and Survival: The Odyssey of a Leningrader. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971), pp. 60-74.