Table of Contents Item Transcript

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

ENGLISH TRANSLATION 2 CITATION & RIGHTS 14

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 1/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION -Today is March 9, 2009. We are in Los Angeles meeting a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Please introduce yourself and tell us about your life before the war. What was your family like? How did you come to serve in the Red Army and what did you do during the war?

You are at the office of the Association of World War II Veterans. Our association has been in existence for 32 years.

- Please introduce yourself.

My name is Efim Moiseyevich Stolyarsky and I was born on March 18th, 1923. My grandson was a birthday gift for me, we share a birthday. I was born in the village of Popilnya, near the station of Brovky [now Brovky Pershi], Kyiv Oblast [now Zhytomyr Oblast]. My family was working-class. My father was a freight loader at the railroad station and my mother was a housekeeper. My grandfather was a stove maker. Later my father worked as the scribe at the train station, he had very good handwriting. My father was religious, but concealed this. My sister and I knew he had a tallit and a few other things. My grandfather went out to pray.

Later my father worked at a sugar factory. In general he worked in the Ukrainian sugar industry. He worked in the village of Turbiv at the sugar factory and then at another sugar factory in Skomoroshky. I remember these villages. Life was not easy, we always kept livestock, pigs, chickens, kept a vegetable garden, planted potatoes. I remember all of this very well. Agriculture was for subsistence. Then my father was transferred to Vinnytsya to work at “Sakhsbyt” [a processing and distribution center]. This was in approximately 1939. He first worked in a sugar industry trust and then in the “Sakhsbyt” state-run enterprise. There were 13-15 kolkhozes and 200 sovkhozes that grew sugar beets in the Vinnytsya Oblast. My father worked at Sakhsbyt for the remained of his life. He was respected among both his subordinates and in Moscow at the Ministry of Sugar Production. Pidhornyi [1st Secretary of CP-Ukraine 1957-1936; member of Politburo] himself worked at the Vinnytsya Sugar Trust as the chief engineer.

In Vinnytsya I completed high school. At first I studied at High School No.2 on Lenin Street. It was an

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 2/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN exemplary school. Then for some reason we were integrated into High School No.15 on Gorky Street. That is where I completed tenth grade. Vinnytsya is a lovely town, and I have many fond memories of it. The Palace of the Pioneers was beautiful. First it was housed on Kozitsky Street on at the intersection with Lenin Street. Later it was transferred far outside the city where was a lot of land, a wonderful building, and the Palace of Pioneers. I was a member of the Palace of Pioneers Council. That is also where I graduated from driving school, having received an amateur driver’s license.

In 1941 I was finishing up high school and applying to the Odesa Shipbuilding Institute. But alas… from there we were drafted into the Odesa Artillery School, where I completed accelerated training. By 1942 I was a lieutenant at the front. Our school trained extra-heavy artillery crews. All the cadets were educated because a lot of calculations have to be made when firing heavy artillery over large distances. I was in Odesa during the first air raid. The oil storage tanks was on fire, the steamer Lenin sand in front of my very eyes. Pushkin’s House was damaged during the first air raid too. We helped extinguish the fire. The Black Sea Fleet’s oil supply had been bombed. Then High Command decided that the Odesa Artillery School as well as the infantry school must be evacuated deep into the USSR. We were lined up, our equipment was loaded onto the steamer “Gruziya” [Georgia] while we marched to Mykolaiv. When we were a little ways out of Odesa we encountered refugees. All the people were on foot. They had one cart which was loaded with all their suitcases. A little horse was pulling the cart, and all the people were walking…

I was ordered back to Odesa by my battery commander. He gave me an empty tanker truck and told me to fill it with gasoline and catch up to the column. I just made it before German paratroopers landed and cut off the infantry school that was retreating right behind us. The infantry school was already in battle while we were boarding trains in Mykolaiv. Our equipment was unloaded elsewhere and brought to our destination to the Sukhoy Log District in the Urals. This district was a place where people were sent to live in exile. The locals called them “Chaldon.” They spoke a strange dialect… The only commercial venture in town was the firesand factory. We trained for a little while longer, then we were lined up, all promoted to lieutenants, and sent to the reserves in Zlatoust where our unit was being assembled. There were 13 of us lieutenants. When the very first commander came to recruit troops for the front all 13 of us, all Odesites, volunteered. We were recruited by Colonel Uzlyager, he was Jewish. I remember. He was an old officer, a colonel with bars on his insignia.

We were assigned to the 1164th Artillery Regiment, outfitted with 152-mm howitzers. I was a comely young man and the colonel very much wanted to make me his orderly. At the front a colonel is prescribed and orderly. However, I refused and was made given command of a battery. Our battery had four weapons, two platoons with two guns each. I commanded a platoon and was the commanding officer of the battery. We boarded trains for the front in Zlatoust. Nobody knew where we were going, they kept us

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 3/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN in the dark about that. We had one GAZ-AA truck and one ChTZ tractor to load all our equipment. I alone loaded the weapons onto the train with a tractor because I had obtained an amateur tractor and driver’s licenses in Vinnytsya at the Palace of Pioneers. I was trusted because it takes experience to load a heavy gun onto a platform. It weighed seven tons. When we were done loading we traveled north. We disembarked in Bologoye, near Leningrad. When we were approaching we saw flares at night.

How could this be? We had no tractors or trucks… Where were we going?

- What year was this?

This was 1942. I was struck by how well-organized everything was; the train entered the station, and the on-duty officer reported to the station commandant. Our Colonel Uzlyager emerged, and he was a tall man. We were immediately issued 24 tractors and 36 trucks. They came right away! We were then taken to the staging area. This was quite close to the front. We could hear gunfire. War. We were camouflaging our positions… We had never been under fire, we were inexperienced. General Degtyaryov, the artillery commander, stopped by and told us to try to kill at least one German with every shot. We were young, and said we could do better! I was assigned to the first artillery team. Our colonel received an order and according to artillery rules and regulations the first team has to scout out fighting positions and observation points. This is called reconnaissance. I was assigned to this group. We traveled a short distance… For some reason we were hungry. We saw a rutabaga field and rushed for it, but it wasn’t that easy. A voice came from a nearby shack “Halt! I’ll shoot!” There was an old man guarding it. The government was already keeping track of everything. We treated him to some tobacco and he let us each take a rutabaga.

When we departed Zlatoust, a local factory gifted us all dirks. We used them to peel the rutabagas. What can I say… that rutabaga was like a jet engine. Nobody could even stand for five minutes afterward. Everyone stuffed themselves… We completed our recon mission and took up our firing position. We were very careful when we did this because we had never been under fire before. The most experienced among us was the regiment commander. I was a lieutenant and my battery was commanded by Junior Lieutenant Polonets. He was a stocky man, a Don Cossack, always wore a sabre belt. I was 19 going on 20. We took up our position and dug in. We did this very timidly and without experience. I was brought the fire plan. We were to take part in the artillery barrage at the start of the first attempt to break the siege of Leningrad [now St. Petersburg]. The attempt failed.

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 4/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

The shells were brought to us. They weighed 48-kg each. We had communication wires laid from our position to the commander, but when the barrage started we lost the signal. We fired the first 2-3 shots. I would command “fire”, but my soldiers were afraid. I had to run up to the gun and pull the cord to fire myself. People had to sit down with their mouths open because otherwise the discharge of the gun would blow out their eardrums. So instead they scattered. I ordered “Fire!”… and they were all gone. I would run up and fire the gun myself. This went on for 2-3 months… until they got used to it. We lost communications. Until today I remember the pain of our shells being taken away to be used by a different battery. Later we got used to it, and nobody ran away anymore, they just turned around and fired.

My platoon was made up mostly of amnestied prisoners. When the junior lieutenant introduced me to the platoon, they all looked down. They were all tattooed. There had been an amnesty, and only political prisoners were left in captivity. Petty criminals and troublemakers were amnestied and sent to the front. That was the kind of platoon I was assigned to. There were 22 men in the platoon. The platoon commander introduced me “This is Efim Moiseyevich Stolyarsky, your platoon commander.” They were all older than me. The artillery crews were all made up of old men, the younger guys were further up ahead in recon and communications. Those people were very close to the enemy. Sometimes the observation posts were only 200-300 meters from the German positions. They had to be reached by crawling or through trenches because otherwise the Germans would see you. If the terrain allowed it, we would find a place further away, but at higher elevation. The swampy terrain of the Leningrad and Novgorod Oblasts made everything to do with observation posts quite difficult. As a rule, the Germans took up the high ground. If they did retreat, they never stopped in the swamps, but always took up the next high point to halt our forces. After a German retreat we always ended up in a worse position: for example we were in the swamps around Sinyavino while they were on the in the Sinyavino heights

My first battle was very tense, especially after my battery commander was killed. The political commander… he was a short guy, and he couldn’t move his knuckles, but he was a powerful speaker. He could bring anyone to tears. He came to my and said “Efim, you are our leading candidate for command of the battery.” I was frightened, to think of going to his post and ordering where to fire… God forbid I hit one of our positions. The firing positions are some 3-4 km behind the observation post. I had to prepare all the data, know the coordinates of the target and the observation post, as well as the location of the guns. It was on me to make all the calculations, take the time of flight, shell trajectory, and air temperature, and shell temperature into consideration. I needed to make all the necessary adjustments, and quickly. I was nervous the first time I went to the observation post. However, I quickly got used to it and soon thought to myself “How could have I ever served at the firing position without even seeing the enemy?” Here everything was right in front of me: I had a periscope through which I could see the Germans and where they were firing from…

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 5/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

I took part in lifting the siege of Leningrad [now St. Petersburg] near Sinyavino. This is near Shlisselburg, Mga, and Lake Ladoga. Shlisselburg is on the banks of the Neva. That is where I took part in the fighting. It was very tough, very tough. The fighting was awful. A huge number of people died. You are not as interested in the step-by-step of the fighting, but in the psychological effects. I was young. The guns were manned by older people. This was in the winter of 1942-43. By then these were truly elderly people, Ph.D. candidates in linguistics and biology, really eloquent people. One day the secretary of the Party organization, an old communist named Medvedev, informed me that the soldiers were saying “Look who is in command! He’s still a boy, he’ll have us all pushing daisies.” Can you imagine? I began to worry that I was not trusted. These conversations continued the entire time. I even thought of reporting it…

An incident in the Sinyavino Heights played to my advantage. Our forces had already entered the heights after taking heavy losses, losing tanks in the swamps, and the dead bodies… It was a marine infantry brigade, wearing striped undershirts, it was winter… there were mountains of dead bodies. We took the heights, and at night the Germans counterattacked and were flanking us on our right. I saw my old men get worried. They sent someone to talk to me. I was working out the coordinates when he came over and asked “Comrade Captain, what shall we do?” That is what I needed. I silently walked out to the trench so that everyone can hear me. I then let loose on him, with cursing and everything. “Specialist? What did I do yesterday?” “But comrade captain… we… what are we going to do, they are flanking us.” Of course the Germans got pushed back and we played a part in that. After that it was like turning over a new leaf, I had the full trust of my men and was no longer nervous when making my reports higher up.

I commanded the battery for a short time before being given command of an anti-tank squadron in 1944. I had three batteries under my command and now had completely different set of objectives. Before I fired from concealed firing positions using indirect fire, now I had to primarily rely on direct fire from positions just behind the line of engagement. Before I had been behind cover, the HQ was far behind the front line. Now I was at the front. There were lots of difficult battles. I did notice, and can tell you with confidence, that there were many Jews under my command. The regiment commander was Major Kovalenko. He was a friend of mine and a remarkable person. I had an orderly from Western Ukraine who spoke a little bit of German. He was handy and could cook anything. He treated me with great respect. He was an internationalist. There was also the regime political officer, Kochegarov, and he was a real nationalist! He never nominated me for the higher medals.

I nominated all of my battery commanders and they received an Order of the Red Banner, while I just got the Order of the Patriotic War. When the regiment commander found out, he asked “Why? You are the commander… how can this be?” It was the political officer’s doing. It was a type of discrimination. The commander often came to eat with me even though he was entitled to a personal cook, an adjunct, and an

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 6/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN orderly. One time, right to Kochegarov’s face, said “Could you not try and make sure that the commander is fed?” After that I really got it…

The fighting was terrible. Direct fire units are always in the enemy’s sights. I had an apprentice in the regiment, a Tatar named Kalipov, a Hero of the Soviet Union. There were many awards, but we always suffered heavy losses. There were Jews. Just like everyone else, they were all different: one could be cowardly and another could be brave. I remember a clockmaker by the name of Tsalkinder. I remember him because he brought some kind of watchmaking tool with him and asked me to keep it safe for him. But… the poor guy was killed. There were even a few incidents from the breakthrough at Pskov. There was a fortified district there and my unit was assigned to a rifle division. The division was not accountable to losses in its auxiliary units. I was under the direct command of the division artillery commander. I was in a High Command artillery unit, so we were often assigned to other formations.

Our objective was to capture Korovye Selo. The village was first attacked by a penal battalion which gave its all. Man did they fight! By the end of the day the regiment commander reported back to the division commander that we were in nearby village of Vadrino. I saw that he was mistaken… The division commander then ordered me to move my guns to Vadrino. I said “I will not go, there are Germans there, no infantry support.” He said “Captain, I will shoot you right now if you do not get your battery.” I said “No, there are German positions there.” He threatened to shoot me for about two hours until nightfall. He then called an assembly in our bunker. At the meeting it became clear that nobody had reach Vadrino. Then I reported to the corps artillery commander, and he said “For the improper use of artillery I order this squadron to be freed from this command.” I quickly gave the order and we left for a different position. Can you imagine how much we lived through there? First, I was worried about the lives of my men. If I had given them the order to move out, they would have all been killed. During the capture of Novgorod, where I was one of the first in the city, our battery was captured by the Germans after we retreated. We then recaptured our positions and I had to run for the tow tractors. The heavy machinery is usually hidden somewhere behind the liens. If I had ordered the men to send me a tow tractor, they would have left and enver returned. I ran there myself to call one. A commander of a motorized infantry regiment mistook me for a deserter and landed a good punch on me… I fell to the ground and said “Are you supposed to hit squadron commanders like that? “Oh, I’m so sorry buddy!” He apologized and I kept running to get the tractors… I managed to retrieve the guns.

My battery was among the first troops in Novgorod. Next to the Kremlin Wall in Novgorod there is a memorial to the 1,000th Anniversary of the Russian State. I am not sure if it was scraped by us or the Germans, but it was sunk in Volkhov. It was later raised and restored. On that very same square my unit fired a four-gun salute to celebrate the capture of Novgorod. I was then immediately ordered to continue

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 7/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN the advance along the banks of the Velikaya River. We soon encountered enemy resistance. There was forest on both sides of us. My squadron was made up of 12 guns with no infantry support. We were caught on the road. The Germans were up ahead. It turns out that some battalions had gotten drunk in Novgorod. They captured German alcohol stores and got drunk, delaying the regiment. I found myself at the forward edge of the front without infantry support. We set up our guns in a checkerboard pattern in the forest and I radioed an unencrypted message to my commander “No infantry, send help.” We held our own for a bit until the infantry arrived to cover our flanks. For that transmission I was summoned to the commander’s post. He had a few choice words for me, but then sent me back to my unit.

I can retell a few incidents. After Novgorod I entered Porkhov, an ancient Russian city. We reached the city through German resistance. When we took the city I was quartered in a two-story house near a church. The church was beautiful. We were running short on engine oil and gasoline, so we needed to replenish our supplies. We put the guns in the courtyard of the house that the squadron commander had selected beforehand. When I arrived the squadron medic reported “Comrade Captain, there are about 100 small children in his building.” The Germans had gathered those children, primarily boys, to be sent as slave labor to Germany. Among them was a one-eyed old woman, her other eye was covered with a black bandage. When I arrived… I was a young man. I had no children… I only knew love. I entered the building and the old woman fell to her knees, begging “Captain, sir, the children haven’t eaten anything in five days.” The Germans did not feed them and were preparing to ship them to Germany, but our forces came in so fast that they barely made it out themselves. We decided to donate the squadron’s food and the supplemental officer rations of tobacco, butter, syrup, and cookies to the children. Our medic had to be careful not to overfeed the children. We gave them our porridge… Once they got some food in them, they began to smile.

I took a look inside the church. It was beautiful. It was all golden. I do not know why it touched me. I am not a religious person, and especially given the attitude toward religion back then. But I ordered a guard to stand outside the church and not allow anyone inside. I went back to the squadron HQ and visited the children. The boys looked at me like this. The room was empty, there was no furniture. The children sat on the floor. I sat on the floor with them. They began inspecting my handgun and my belt… then I heard someone ask for the commander. It was a ringing, confident voice. The door opened a little and someone peeked in and said “there’s nobody there.” The door swung open and a priest stood before me. He was slender and had puffy hands, he had a neatly trimmed beard. His clothes smelled of money. He said “Commander Sir, I am the keeper of this church and I ask that you open it for me.” Should I open it or not? My political officer was a Jewish guy named Shuster. He had recently arrived… a well-read person. I called him up and asked if I should take down the guard. He said I that I ought to do so immediately because that priest had helped the partisans… Some time later I heard the bells ringing, the priest was performing a service. I was busy with the children.

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 8/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

When my soldiers heard the bells they came in to get me “Comrade Captain, the priest is dedicating his service to you.” My heart nearly stopped. That was it… Me, a Communist, at a church, and I’m Jewish… For a whole month I was afraid that someone would call for me asking about the church…But it turns out that Shuster got in touch with the political directorate which permitted anyone to pray if they wanted to. The political officer then gave the priest my name along with that of a few other decorated soldiers. He then prayed “For victory, for Stalin, for the Motherland.” We did not spend a long time there, instead continuing our advance.

The war ended for me near Riga, where I was serving with the same squadron in the 54th Light Artillery Regiment. The 14th Guards Corps was on the offensive. We were already in Latvia. The artillery commander summoned me and ordered my unit to cover the right flank of the 14th Corps. The infantry had advanced forward leaving the flanks exposed, so I was ordered to put anti-tank defenses on the right flank. What did this entail? I had to send a recon team and determine where the enemy was… But I am a brave warrior, so I personally led my battery to the position. We ran into a German rear guard. I was driving my Wyllis, with the driver sitting to my right. We were both in full camo with mosquito nets draped over our hats. We looked identical. The first bullet got him. They thought he was the commander. Blood flowed from his temple in a stream. He fell. Then they fired a round at the engine block. I had time to slow down. There are no doors on the Wyllis. I fell into the ditch. My orderly and radio operator sat behind me. The orderly also jumped out, but the radio operator had a heavy radio in his lap… The poor guy never got out of the car. My orderly was named Ivan Ivanovich Anufriyev. He was like a brother to me, I shared things with him that I did not share with anyone else. As I lay in the ditch pressed against the ground, I heard footsteps. I looked up. I raised myself up on my elbows and found myself eye-to-eye with a German. His rifle was on the edge of his trench, while he sat there in his helmet. I immediately jumped into the ditch and reached for my handgun… I had to crawl back. As I was thinking all this through, I felt an impact on my left. This was August and the rye field had not been cleared. I then felt everything get hot, tasted salty blood in my mouth, and… lost consciousness.

The battery was advancing behind us. They saw all this play out. I found out later that Klimenko and Popov dragged me out of the action, put me on a Dodge loaded with ammunition, and sent me to the hospital. I remember an incident from the hospital. At first I was in a field hospital, made up entirely of tents. After the surgery was performed and the wound was closed I felt… The wound was 12x6 cm with a segmentectomy of ribs 5 and 6. I was young… I lowered my feet from the operating table and tried to stand up. My God! The surgeon then said to the nurses “You almost let a patient go!” I was laid back down. The surgery was performed under local anesthesia, so I could clearly see the tips of my ribs. He used some sort of tool to cut off the tips and they white pieces of bone fell into his hand. They then handed him the stitching thread. By then I was in pain and shouting at the top of my lungs. He then said to me “This is the last one.” What on earth did he mean?! I saw that he still had a needle and thread. They put 12 stitches on the wound. After

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 9/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN that I was taken away to a tent. I am still touched by the care the surgeon gave to me. He brought me a little potato [cries]. I do not remember his name, but I remember he had strong hairy arms and a rolled up lab coat. He came with the potato and said “Where is that wounded guy who got up from the table?” [cries]. Of course at that point I could care less about the potato. A little while later I was given a few injections, carried onto a medical GAZ-AA truck on a stretcher, and transported to an airfield. I was brought aboard an U-2 along with two other patients. The stretchers were secured. I remember telling the female pilot to take things slowly because the pain got intense after the numbing wore off.

At the hospital I was again put on the operating table. My surgeon was Vera Alekseyevna Ivenkova, and I will remember her forever. Her husband was a Captain 1st Class. After the hospital I returned to service. First I led a detached reserve squadron of the 3rd Baltic Front and then I commanded a batter of 203-mm guns. There were only six such batteries in the entire Red Army. One battery was in the Far East, one in the Leningrad Military District, and another in the Belarusian Military District. The battery had a range of 35-km and the shell weighed 105 kg, 43 kg of which was the gunpowder charge. When geared for transportation in weighed 70 tons and 43 when set up to fire. In Konigsberg [now Kaliningrad] I fired on fortifications and at a ship in Pilau [now Baltiysk].

The war ended and my postwar life began. For a short while we were based in Mitava [now Jelgava], but we were then transferred to the Red Barracks in Leningrad [now St. Petersburg]. Then our civilian life started in earnest: barracks, training, studying. I had been in love with my wife since eighth grade. We parted with her… At the front I had a map of the USSR. I sent inquiries about her to every office I could find. I proceeded systematically and kept drawing blanks. Only when Vinnytsya was liberated did I find my wife. It was some reunion… What can I say… It was past curfew in Vinnystya and I was wearing a military uniform. I found my classmate Zhenya Borkovskaya. It turns out that she was promiscuous and had messed around with the Germans… At about 10 I showed up to her apartment. It was past curfew and a man in uniform came in. She was scared… felt guility. Then she recognized me after I said ”Zhenya, don’t be afraid, it’s me Fima Sotlyarsky.” She remembered of course. My first question was “Do you know where Alla is?” Yes, she is in the old town. I closed the door and went there. It was a 5km walk. It was curfew, the streets were empty… We got married in 1947.

She graduated from the Vinnytsya Medical School. After our daughter was born in 1948 I brought her to live with me in the Pavlovskiye Barracks in Leningrad [now St. Petersburg]. We had just one small room for us and the small child. But we were happy. We did not go hungry even though times were very difficult. But we had some clothes to wear. My wife worse military felt boots when she went to work to care for the wounded. She needed size 36, but the smallest available was 40. She was a straight-A student from first grade to the her last year in medical school. They wanted to keep her at Professor Shklyar’s department in

2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 10/14 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN the Vinnytsya. She later complained to me that she could have became a scientist, but you took me away… I served in Leningrad until 1961. I was a present at demining operations many times. They took place on former battlefields where there were still active landmines and unexploded ordinance. I commanded a demining squad for three summers in a row. God was merciful, we did not suffer any losses. It was very dangerous and nerve-racking. My subsequent service had its ups and downs. I ended the war as a squadron commander, but when the army downsizing began all the old men were kept at their posts, but the young guys were demoted. I again became a battery commander. A while later I was made the chief of the sergeant school in our brigade. Some time after that I was sent to the Far East where I commanded a 152-mm artillery squadron. Then came the 1.2 million man downsizing. I was not demobilized. The army had officers and guns, but a shortage of soldiers. The officers had to do everything themselves. I agreed to become a deputy rear regiment commander. By that time I was a lieutenant colonel. I tried to return to the artillery units, but then came a visit from Babadzhanyan, the chief of the rear forces. He did not let me leave. I finished my service as a deputy commander of a rear forces division.

We Jews had to work twice as hard just to stay afloat. My peers would do half of what I did and the be praised for superior work. One time I was put in an uncomfortable position when the brigade command pointed to me and said “he’s a Jew.” He was knew, and did not know that I was Jewish. He said something about not liking Jews. It seems that later someone informed him that I was indeed Jewish. He then invited me to see him and apologized. He explained that his attitude came from when his father was a stable- master in the employ of a Jewish man. Apparently he was mistreated or something…

I had a very difficult moment in my life. When I served near Leningrad [now St. Petersburg] our unit was converted to a nuclear weapons unit. This was in 1961. I was the chief of the regiment sergeant school. That is where I was promoted to lieutenant colonel. It began when the initial secret orders were sent. The 316th Super-heavy Artillery regiment was to be combined with the 2nd Super-heavy Artillery Regiment and was to be outfitted with nuclear weapons. I… read the order. The commander of the ground forces at the time was Marshall Malinovsky. There was nothing about Jews in the order, but there was this “Persons of ethnicities hailing from capitalist countries are not permitted in the regiment.” That was all. We had no Englishmen, no Americans, no Germans. But Jews… First I was made the chief engineer of the regiment. I had to go somewhere to train, but a little while later I got a phone call from the commanders of that regiment, I was being reassigned to the reserves of the Leningrad Military district. There was a guy there named Tolya Danilov. His wife was Jewish, so he was also transferred. By the way, he later became a general. Tolya Morozov was also transferred because he had a Jewish wife. All three of us were sent into the reserves. Tolya Morozov’s father was the chief of staff of an air force division. He was Russian. He went on the offensive by taking a trip to Moscow. Both Tolya Danilov and I gave him our reports. He visited the chief of the Central Committee’s Military Affairs Bureau at the personnel department of the rocket artillery forces. He was told “Comrade, why are you here? This is the domain of the regiment commander, he

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN chooses his personnel.” Tolya came back and told us everything. We began applying pressure on the regiment commander. My sergeant school was the best, I had letters of gratitude from high-up commanders, and the other two were also excellent officers. He called up Moscow, asked if the order had been changed, and we were transferred. To be fair, I was given an equivalent position as the commander of a 150-mm artillery squadron. From there I was transferred to the Far East.

We had kids and new worries. I had a heart attack in Berdyansk. There was a factory there which produced a secret engine oil for space projects. It was a huge factory. The director of the factory was a wonderful person. I brought 50 people with me to help out the workers. Then a fire broke out in a building where some of my people were. I ran around the smoke-filled building and made sure everyone was OK. That was too much for me. I spent a month in hospital there. My wife was a military doctor. My children were good students. My sister left for America in 1976. My son and I had permission to go. I did not have any plans to leave, I was retired and lived quite well. I worked as the chief sales officer and then the CFO of a meat-packing plant. My wife eventually retired. Doctors were allowed to receive a pension and continue working at the same time. We were quite well-off. My sister kept on harping that we were fools and we should leave. In 1988 they invited us for a visit. They picked us up in a limo and bought a ton of presents. We could not even bring them all back… They then invited us officially and we immigrated.

-Did you ever return to Vinnytsya?

I did. I returned in 1998 to visit my father’s grave. He is buried in Vinnytsya. He passed away in 1964. I have a friend there, Polya Gornaya. We call each other frequently. My wife and I have been married for 63 years, but we have been friends for over 70. Vinnytsya looks better, there are new neighborhoods. The cemetery was well-kept. There is a new train station, the old one was completely dilapidated.

-There were lots of Jews in Vinnytsya before the war.

A great many. The entire faculty of the Vinnytsya Medical School was Jewish. There is a Dr. Shemer who lives here, he is a graduate. When my parents were still alive we never vacationed at resorts, but instead visited one another. My parents lived well, they had their own house.

- When did you find out about the Holocaust, before or after the war?

It was well known that Germans killed the Jews in the occupied territories. We knew that. We read Ehrenburg and knew that. But we were all fighting for the same cause “Daddy, kill a German.” There were many Jews. I had Jewish soldier named Dvoronenko, a Jewish political officer, and a Jewish platoon commander.

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

- Did you ever feel that you had fight harder than everyone else?

I felt that after the war.

- Thank you.

There is one more interesting story I want to tell you. One time I destroyed a German armored train. Our forces, that is the 14th Mechanized Rifle Corps made a wedge in the enemy defenses and crossed the Dno-Batetsky railway. Due to our Russian “caution-to-the-wind” attitude, we did not mine the railroad to the right and the left of us. We then received word that a German armored train had been spotted in our section of the front. It consisted of an armored steam engine and four armored cars with guns. I was ordered to cover the railroad incase the armored train attempted to break through. I placed a sentry on the railroad to listen for a hum in the rails. You can hear an incoming train from far away if you listen to the rails. I placed all three 76-mm batteries alongside the railroad, camouflaged of course. At dawn the sentry signaled that there was noise on the rails. When an armored train approaches an enemy position in usually lets off steam [as a smokescreen – EB]. I could not see any steam, but I did spot the train moving slowly toward us. The question is, when to open fire. Timing is everything. If you fire too early, the train will back away and escape. If you fire too late, it’ll zoom past you. Nobody was permitted to fire without my command. One of the batteries was ordered to take out the steam engine. If you can take out the engine, the cars aren’t going anywhere. We fired with our twelve guns and the Germans scattered like rats. There were escape hatches in the floor of the train. The battery commanders were all given an Order of the Red Banner, but even though I was the commander, I only got the Order of the Patriotic war 1st Class.

- Thank you very much.

Efim Stolyarsky. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID LA027.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4q52ff7k

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

CITATION MLA Citation information coming soon!

CITATION APA Citation information coming soon!

CITATION WIKIPEDIA Citation information coming soon!

CONTACT [email protected] 212.275.4600

BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION 1633 BROADWAY AVE, 4TH FL NEW YORK, NY 10019

BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG FACEBOOK.COM/BLAVATNIKARCHIVE