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Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

ENGLISH TRANSLATION 2 CITATION & RIGHTS 14

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Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS008.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4tk1p

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION —Today is March 4, 2008. We are in Tel Aviv interviewing a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Please introduce yourself and tell us where and when you were born. Please, go ahead.

I was born on September 6, 1921 in the town of Kanev [Kaniv] in Ukraine, Kiev [Kyiv] Oblast [now Cherkasy Oblast]. Kaniv is the place where Shevchenko is buried. When I was one years old, in 1921 there was a famine, and my parents and I moved to Dnepropetrovsk [Dnipro]. I lived in Dnepropetrovsk until 1941. As they say, we lived, loved, and went to school. I graduated from tenth grade in 1939.

—What did your parents do?

My father was a bookbinder, he worked at a factory. My mother was a housekeeper. I also had a sister, who now lives in Ashkelon; that’s our whole family.

—Please tell me, did you also know your grandparents?

Yes, I knew my grandmother, she also lived in Kaniv until about 1940. I did not know my grandfather.

—Was your family traditional in a religious sense?

My grandmother was religious. However, I would not say that my parents were religious. In any case, they did not go to the synagogue. In Dnepropetrovsk they spoke Russian at home. They knew Yiddish. I was born at a time when Jewish schools were being shut down. In Ukraine, and particularly in Deipropetrovsk, the schools were being switched to Ukrainian. And I graduated from a Ukrainian school. Afterwards, we lived in a Jewish district of Dnepropetrovsk. Our building was completely Jewish. However, I did not attend a Jewish school.

—So until 1939, yes?

Until 1939. In 1939 I graduated from tenth grade. In 1939 there was a draft in accordance with a new draft law, so all recent graduates were called up. Even those who enrolled in universities were drafted. To my great disappointment, I was not drafted in 1939 even though I was supposed to be. They determined that my eyesight was poor. All of my friends whom I had studied with and with whom I graduated were drafted, but I was not. I was quite upset and enrolled in the History Department of the Dnepropetrovsk State University. Once I had finished my second—no my first—year of studies, the war broke out.

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Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

This is how it happened. The first year had ended and it was time for final exams. On June 25 we were supposed to take an exam in ancient history, but on Sunday, June 22, we heard over the radio that war had begun. Nobody knew where to go. I went to the university. I was not the only one, our whole class showed up without a summons. We had an rally where we were told that war had broken out. We all had a new task ahead of us. Nobody attended the exam because it was cancelled.

My wartime life began. You see, students were an already organized group which could be easily reorganized as needed. Young students aged 19-20 were immediately sent to factories and workshops. There, we talked about the difficulty of the situation and the mobilization. Then we students were sent to a collective farm to help with the harvest. We spent several days there. We were then taken back to the city. We walked around town, digging trenches and bomb shelters. The bombing of Dnepropetrovsk began.

On June 9, no, pardon me, on August 9, I was drafted into the army. I was now deemed fit for service and got called up. We arrived at the barracks in Dnepropetrovsk. We were not issued uniforms. We kept the clothes we arrived in. We were given a place to sleep in some garage. We spent the night there. At night, there was an air raid, and we were led to a bomb shelter. We sat there for a bit. This went on for several days. During the day we had so-called basic training which consisted of reading the military regulations, marching, sprinting, and drill. This went on for some time and we did not have uniforms or weapons and we had not taken an oath of loyalty.

On August 18 we were assembled. Our group consisted entirely of former students of Dnepropetrovsk higher learning institutions. We were led across town. We were not told where we were going. We were led all the way to the outskirts of town, to the village of Krasnopolye [Krasnopil]. This is a suburb of Dnepropetrovsk. We were then ordered to dig an antitank trench. So, on August 18 we began digging this ditch. We were out in the open and it was very hot; they brought us a limited quantity of food, but no water. We dug this antitank ditch and other trenches. We were only briefly told about the situation at the front.

On August 22, well on the 22-23rd, retreating units approached Dnepropetrovsk from the direction of Dneprodzerzhynsk [Kamyanske]. We students were already soldiers, but we did not have uniforms or weapons. We were inducted into the military units which had occupied the trenches we had just dug.

—So your training lasted less than a month?

We had no real military training. We simply lived next to the barracks until we were sent to dig those trenches. We had no weapons or equipment aside from our shovels and pickaxes. That was it. So, we were inducted into those units . . . Together with those retreating units we took up defensive positions. There

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Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN would be an armed soldier who had retreated and one of us. Sometimes near dawn on the 24th German units approached and began advancing on our trenches.

There was a short battle. The Germans did not advance right away, it was probably only their recon. By nightfall the regular German units had arrived. There was heavy bombing. We were resting in a small grove. Our commanders decided to withdraw all the students from the fight. They ordered us all to withdraw and led us back across town to the railroad bridge across the Dnieper River. The bridge was mined, so we were not allowed across. They then marched us to another railroad bridge in Shevchenko Park. There was only one rail line there. It was across this bridge that our group, which could not have been more than 100 people, crossed the Dnieper. We began our retreat from Dnepropetrovsk.

On July 25 our troops abandoned the left bank, sorry, the right bank of Dnipropetrovsk. We walked along the railroad tracks until nightfall to get away from town. We heard explosions behind us in Dnepropetrovsk, the fighting had moved to the left bank. Just then a passing train of flatbed cars loaded with factory equipment happened to stop. We were ordered to board the platforms. We climbed onto the open platforms and rode the train. We were taken westward, no I’m sorry, eastward. We made our way, by train and by foot, to Rostov. We had left the war behind us. We had broken away. In Rostov we were put onto another train and taken to Krasnodar.

In Krasnodar, in the Krasnodar Krai, we were stationed in the stanitsa of Slavianskaya. There is a giant apple orchard there. We set up camp right in the orchard. We stayed there for a long time. Only now do I realize why we, young people, were not thrown into battle. Our group of students was being saved for a military school. Soon, exactly that happened. By autumn the Germans had taken Rostov and had begun advancing into the Caucasus. We were again loaded onto a train, but this time into real covered cars, and moved. We did not know where we were going because nobody would tell us. We had one sergeant who traveled with us and commanded us.

We traveled for forty-five days from Krasnodar. We were brought to the city of Astrakhan. This forty-day journey was excruciating. We had no food because we were issued three days’ worth of food, but the journey to the next food distribution point was eight days. We led a very hungry existence. If you managed to scrounge something up, then you could keep it. We traveled without cleaning or washing for forty-five days. Can you imagine the state of our hygiene?

—Did you ever fall ill?

Well, we were young and strong, sickness could not get us. We had a furnace in our car, so we would keep

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Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN it going in order to stay warm. We were brought to a military school in the city of Astrakhan. Here we cleaned up and were issued uniforms. This was in December of 1941. We trained at that school almost until June 1942. This was true military training. We were being trained for service as officers. We finished our training at the start of June. We received our officer epaulettes, or no, they had not been introduced yet, we were given rank insignia, and were all made lieutenants. We boarded a steamship in Astrakhan and were sent up the Volga to Stalingrad [Volgograd]. To Stalingrad.

The war had not reached Stalingrad yet. In Stalingrad we, or rather a few of my comrades and I, were sent onwards. We were sent to the town of Kamyshin. The 7th Reserve Rifle Brigade was deployed there. We trained marching companies. We trained soldiers who had just arrived from Central Asia, issued them uniforms, and then spent two-three weeks teaching them before they were sent to the front. The team of instructors stayed on. Then another batch would arrive. We would train them for a little bit, and then they too were sent to the front. Then the situation at the front became more serious, when the Germans approached Stalingrad, and our reserve regiment could no longer exist because we were unarmed. We sent our trainees to a different unit, and the officers and sergeants of the reserve brigade or regiment were sent away from the front.

We were taken to city of Sverdlovsk [Yekaterinburg] in the Ural Military District. From Sverdlovsk we were taken to Molotov, which I think is called Perm now. In Perm Oblast we were sent to the village of Poletayevo, taken out into the forest, and told that there would soon be a city there. So the sergeants and the officers of the reserve brigade started to build a military base. We built dugouts and used the surrounding lumber which was in abundance. However, the trees had to be chopped down and prepared before use. Then a new batch of recruits arrived and we again set to training them for the front. It was already winter of 1942, so it was cold. We trained several marching companies.

As fate would have it, I was then sent to Sverdlovsk for further training. There was a training program for senior infantry officers there. We trained there for half a year to become company commanders. Our training lasted for almost half a year. On February 23, 1943, on Red Army Day, we were issued our epaulettes. The military had adopted a new set of insignia. We put on our epaulettes and looked at ourselves in the mirror, thinking that we looked like old tsarist officers.

After completing our training the senior officer invited me and two other officers in order to introduce us to a colonel. It turns out that he was the commander of the HQ of the 35th Rifle Corps. He needed to pick out two-three officers to work at the HQ. The HQ of 35th Rifle Corps was just being assembled in Sverdlovsk. He needed officers that knew topography well and could reliably work with maps. Luckily, I was selected for work at the HQ along with another officer. This is how I became an HQ officer at the corps HQ.

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The corps was assembled quickly. It was time to go to the front. The corps HQ along with the communications and engineering battalions was put onto a train in Sverdlovsk. We traveled along a green street . . . a green street is when a train has priority over everything else and does not stop. We were taken to the Oryol—Kursk area. So quite some time after war broke out, I was sent to the front.

Our HQ was freshly-formed and not yet used to working together, but nonetheless it was given command of three divisions. A Corps consists of three divisions. We were immediately thrown into the battle for Oryol. As an HQ officer I was given various tasks that I had to carry out. On August 5, 1943, Oryol was taken after heavy fighting. On that day fireworks were let off in Moscow for the first time in history in honor of our victory. The 35th Corps was mentioned as one of the victorious units in an order issued by High Command. Our division continued fighting. On September 17 we liberated the city of Bryansk.

I forgot to mention that around this time the 323rd Rifle Division, where I was shortly sent, was added to our corps. Having liberated Bryansk, our forces had an opportunity for a fast advance toward Belarus. We approached the Sozh River. This is the eastern border of Belarus. The commander of our corps HQ, to whom I answered directly, said to me during a friendly conversation, calling me by name: “Misha, as a young man and a young officer, you need to fight in earnest for a while.” I agreed. I was sent to the 323rd Rifle Division as the commander of a rifle company. I fought with that division until the end of the war.

—Starting in late 1943?

This was September or October of 1943, yes October of 1943. The division’s advance was halted by organized enemy resistance from the other bank of the Sozh River. The division could not immediately break through and was halted on the eastern bank of the Sozh. The fighting was intense and the enemy used everything at their disposal. We took up . . . we took up defensive positions, dug trenches, built pillboxes, and prepared for the upcoming offensive. In November, my battalion, part of the 1086th Regiment, was given an order to cross the Sozh and advance toward Zhlobin.

However, forcing the Sozh was not a simple task because the river was cold and fast-flowing in November. Our company was issued three boats. At dawn we approached the riverbank. The preceding artillery bombardment was well-organized. We crossed the Sozh, which was not a wide river. We continued our advance toward Zhlobin. Some units of our division went further to the right toward Buda-Koshevlyovo. Meanwhile, our regiment and our battalion advanced on Zhlobin. We liberated several municipalities between the Sozh and the Dnieper and made a corridor. We approached the Dnieper. Here the Germans had built up a strong defense line, the so-called Eastern Wall. We hit this wall and could not advance any further. The battalion received orders to dig in and set up defensive positions on already captured territory. We set up positions near a bridge. Most of the German forces were on the western bank of the river, but a group of them had set up positions on the eastern bank. We stopped just short of their

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN positions.

We dug in and began building up our defenses. First we dug foxholes, then trenches, and then communication lines. We defended that position for two months, December, January, and part of February. What was defensive work like? During the day you put up sentries and firing positions, as well as watching the enemy. During the night you work with a shovel and a pickaxe. We had to dig through the frozen earth and dig in as deep as possible. If you dug in deep, you’d stay alive, if you didn’t, you wouldn’t. On February 18 or 17, I received an order to transfer my defensive positions to another unit, and my company was taken to the regiment muster point. The regiment was assembled and marched north toward Rogachiov. We walked along the Dnieper. We passed Rogachiov and approached the village of Stankovo in the Rogachiov District of Gomel Oblast. We turned west across the Dnieper, which was covered in ice, and stopped in a forest. It was a frigid winter, so we stayed warm any way we could, including using our own body heat. Each company was allowed to burn a small fire.

—Did you have winter uniforms?

Of course. On the night of February 23 the battalion commander, who was also stationed in that forest, summoned me and gave me a mission to lead my company to the Drut River. The Drut is a tributary of the Dnieper. We were to cross the Drut during a night raid and advace toward the village of Bolshaya Kaplitsa

We carried out our order. We were issued white winter camouflage and we took up positions on the Drut. Of course we could not see the river because it was covered in ice and snow. We also could not see the enemy. At night we began crossing the snow-covered Drut. We crossed it, but we could not really tell because there was no water. The night was clear. We lined up as platoons. We walked along the river, with high banks on either side of us. We began approaching the high banks when the Germans opened fire. We turned around and immediately counterattacked. We suffered our first casualties.

—The first?

Yes, the first casualties. However, the company continued to move forward. We intensified our firing and advanced. We managed to occupy the high points by the river. We could not see anything before dawn, but when dawn broke we saw that we had captured a high point. Behind us were the river and the low ground and to the right was Bolshaya Kaplitsa. Other Soviet units came and attempted to move forward, but the Germans brought their infantry and their tanks, making further advance impossible. We were ordered to set up defensive positions. We started digging trenches in the snow right where we stood. I

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN began to move in short bursts and survey the area controlled by my company.

During one of my bursts I was hit by artillery fire and wounded. This was on February 25.

—1944?

Yes, 1944.

—Where were you wounded?

I was hit in the right arm, but I stayed with my company. Our medic performed first aid and bandaged me. I stayed with my company until nightfall because it would have been impossible to take me eastward during the day. At night I was first taken to a medical battalion and then to a hospital. On the 26th I arrived at a field hospital in the village of Zabolotye. I spent two and a half months there until the start of the advance on Belarus. This advance is known as Operation Bagration. The fighting we had done to take the height was basically the start of Operation Bagration. We had prepared the positions from which Operation Bagration was launched. I spent two and a half months in hospital. I healed up and was sent to the 3rd Army Officer Reserves. After arriving in the reserves I asked to be sent back to the 323rd Rifle Division.

—Why did you want to return?

Well, because I had already fought for some time with that division. I already knew the regiment commander and the battalion commander. I was told that everything had already been prepared for the advance and that I could not be sent back to my division. I returned several days later and asked to be sent back to my division without an assigned role. They did me a favor and sent me back without an assigned role. I arrived at the division HQ and it turns out that the division was still in the exact same place from where I was sent to the hospital.

I informed HQ commander Colonel Spiridonov, whom I already knew, that I had arrived. He told me that all of the roles had been assigned and that he could not return me to my company, but that he would allow me to serve in the division. He offered me a job as a communications officer.

What is a liaison officer? This is an officer who maintains constant communication between the regiment commander and the division commander. This is not done over the phone or radio, but in person. When there is an advance . . . you cannot give a combat order over the phone or over the radio because it will

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Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN immediately become common knowledge. Therefore a map depicting the current situation, or a letter, is delivered by the liaison officer who had to find the regiment or division commander. There were communications officers in all HQs of corps and divisions.

I was assigned to the 1086th Regiment. My service at the HQ began. The liaison officer is always close to the division commander, always. When the division commander needs to convey a secret order to the regiment commander, a liaison officer is summoned. A liaison officer has two horses and a coachman at his disposal . . .

—Did you travel alone, or was there anyone else with you?

There were two of us, me and the coachman. We had two horses and two submachine guns. Horses were our transport. We would go off in search of the indicated location on the map. We would be shown a circle on a map and then had to find it. It may be small on a map, but in reality it could be 1.5-2 km. That was my task.

So, as I was saying earlier, Operation Bagration began. This was a difficult offensive that was meant to liberate Belarus. It was planned to be a fast-moving operation that did not involve long engagements with the enemy. The enemy was to be surrounded and bypassed.

So the operation began. When did it begin? On June 26 it began and by July 3 we had liberated Minsk. We bypassed Rogachov, without engaging the enemy, and other municipalities. It was incredibly difficult work. We marched day and night without any rest. We were fed on the go. We were given a piece of bread and salami which we ate without stopping. We embarked on June 26 and by July 3 we were in Minsk.

—So you did not sleep at all during that time?

Yes, we practically slept on the go. After Minsk the division advanced past the Belovezha Forest toward Bialystok. We encountered fierce resistance. The Germans had time to build up a strong fortified defense. The fortifications had been built before the Great Patriotic War. Bialystok was a Soviet city on the border with Poland. After liberating Bialystok we advanced onward toward the Narew, which we crossed. There was heavy fighting at the Narew Lodgement.

There was an incident that I was involved in there. We were on the outskirts of a village when an artillery barrage began. We took cover and the barrage ended. I got up and saw that a group of people had also just gotten up some distance away. I came over and saw a wounded woman lying on the ground. I looked at her and saw that she was bleeding from the head. I had a first aid kit in my pocket that I used to stop the

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN bleeding. She was unconscious. I stopped a passing cart with ammunition and loaded her onto it. I took her to the nearest medical facility. Why am I telling you all of this? Because . . . I did not know her at all. I met her again already in 1974 when we were revisiting our old battlefields. During my conversation with her I told about how I found a wounded woman and sent her to a hospital. I described the woman and said that she was blonde. She told me that it was her. She was terribly beat up. Afterwards… Her name is Anna, Anna Khitina. We met on many occasions after that. She considered me her savior.

I want to go back and tell you about an incident that took place near the town of Volkovysk after we captured Minsk. This incident is not described or recorded anywhere. It is an unpleasant incident. During this incident the commander of the 35th Rifle Corps General Zholudev was killed, and the commander of the 3rd Army General Gorbatov was wounded as was the commander of the 323rd Rifle Division. This is what happened. The division was on the offensive and was occupying the high ground. The Germans were also on the high ground. The division commander was at an observation point and I was nearby. A convoy of Willys jeeps approached the observation point. The commander of the 3rd Army, General Gorbatov and the commander of the 35th Corps General Zholudev emerged. They began shouting at the division commander: “Why the hell are you sitting here, there’s nobody in front of you, is there?” The division commander reported that the nearby high points were under German control. The terrain was very hilly, with one hill after another. The corps commander said that there were no enemy positions there and gave the order to drive forward. Everyone got in their cars and as soon as they reached the top of the first hill they were hit with an artillery barrage. The commander of the 35th Rifle Corps General Zholudev was killed on the spot. He was buried in the town of Volkovysk. The army commander and the division commander were lightly wounded.

But I digress. We reached the Narew River and captured the Narew Lodgement. Here the division was given a new mission to withdraw from combat and muster its forces around the Belovezha Forest. The division carried out its orders. They brought us new uniforms and food, let us bathe in bathhouses. We spent several days resting there. Then the division was given a special mission: by any means possible, on foot or any available transportation including rail and cars to get to the city of Lublin. This was the leftmost flank of the 1st Belarusian Front. We took Lublin and its outskirts.

The division’s regiments captured all of the districts around Lublin. Why was this so important? At that time the new Polish government was being formed in Lublin and we needed to provide security. The division was stationed in Lublin for a month or two before the Vistula offensive. We spent the time training. Just before New Year’s in 1944 we received an order to leave Lublin and take up defensive positions on the eastern, no on the western bank of the Vistula near the Bukhrin Lodgement [sic. this lodgement was in Ukraine in 1943]. We crossed the frozen Volga [sic.], took the lodgement, and relieved the units that were

Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN manning the defensive positions. Soon the Vistula-Oder Operation was launched. The harbinger of this operation was the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes, which saw American and British forces pushed back. Churchill then asked Stalin to begin an offensive on the Eastern Front in order to take the pressure off the Americans and the British on the Western Front. Stalin agreed to ease the situation on the Western Front. The offensive was moved up to January 14th from its original planned start at the end of January. It started earlier than planned. There was a massive artillery barrage which lasted over two hours. Then units from our division went on the offensive. Poland was before us. We liberated Radom and Lodz.

—Your division liberated them?

Yes, the 323rd Bryansk Rifle Division. We bypassed Poznan where a large group of Germans had been surrounded, and began our advance on the lair of the fascists. Units from our division advanced from the Vistula to the Oder, which they reached at the city of Frankfurt an der Oder.

It was March 5, 1945. Oh, I think I misspoke earlier, the Vistula Offensive was in 1945, not 1944.

—Yes, in 1945.

It’s OK, right? It was March, 1945. We approached Frankfurt. Another division had already set up a lodgement in the town of Vogelsang. We were ordered to relive the division which had set up positions on the Oder River. At night we built a light bridge, crossed the river, and took the lodgement. We engaged in battles at that lodgement. The Germans fought fiercely and tried to push us into the Oder. However, the division managed to cross the river. In addition to the combat units, the supply lines also managed to cross and made it to the lodgement. We defended our positions until April 21 when the operation to liberate, to take, Berlin began. Our division was not ordered to take Berlin, but to advance to the south of it. Its mission was to destroy the German reinforcements approaching the besieged city of Berlin. To the north, other units were encircling and storming Berlin. We moved to the south in order to meet the Germans fighting toward Berlin. We were in a thick forest. There were pockets of German resistance which we bypassed. After destroying the forces coming to reinforce Berlin, our division moved toward the Elbe River. This was our final push. We took Magdeburg on the Vistula… no, the Oder, see, I’ve gotten everything mixed up. We took Magdeburg on the Elbe. This was on May 2, the same day that Berlin fell, and met up with the Americans. This was basically our last advance. On May 9 we celebrated victory on the Elbe River, across from the Americans, swam in the Elbe and listened to the celebration in Moscow.

—You traveled such a long way, as you have shown on the map. At first I did not understand it, but now I

Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN do.

Yes.

—Could you spare a few more minutes? Could you tell us what some of you most painful memories of the war are? It was such a long journey, but is there anything particularly difficult? I understand if you cannot answer.

I can tell you that from that whole lengthy journey, the most painful part was when we abandoned our native city Dnepropetrovsk at the start of the war. This was the city in which I lived, loved, and learned. We were forced to leave it in flames. This was the most difficult moment of my life.

—What happened to you parents?

I did not hear anything about my parents until the fall of 1943. Nothing. However, before I left for the army on June 9, 1941 we agreed with my mother, father, and sister, to write to Khabarovsk no matter what. Mother had a sister there. I wrote to Khabarovsk, and received word that my parents were safe and had evacuated to Central Asia. My father passed away in 1942, but my mother and sister were alive. When Dnepropetrovsk was liberated they returned home.

—How did you reunite with them.

After the war I stayed in Germany with the occupying forces. I was allowed to go on vacation for the first time in 1946. In January 1946 I came to Dnepropetrovsk for the frist time after the war and met my mother and sister.

—I cannot even imagine that reunion.

The journey from Germany to Dnipropetrovsk was difficult even after the war. All of those going on leave were first gathered in Berlin and put on special trains which went back and forth between Berlin and Brest. We arrived in Brest. In 1946 there was famine and ruin in Russia. In Brest we managed to climb onto a train headed for Kiev [Kyiv]. By climb, I mean literally storm it. I had two suitcases with me. Are you recording this?

—Yes.

I had two suitcases with gifts for my mother and sister. I had a new uniform, not the one I served in at the front. I had decorations on it. I arrived in Kyiv and boarded a train for Dnepropetrovsk. I arrived at the ruined train station and walked home. Everything was in ruins. My mother and sister were alive and we met

Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS008.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4tk1p

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN up. I spent a month with them, or rather twenty-four days, and returned to Germany. I served there three more times in the occupation forces. I served until 1965 and retired.

—Thank you very much for sharing your story.

You’re welcome. Maybe I mixed up some of the dates.

Mikhail Boguslavsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS008.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4tk1p

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

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