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DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Moisey Pliss. Full, unedited interview, 2007 ID NY028.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4028pf57 ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN TABLE OF CONTENTS ITEM TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION 2 CITATION & RIGHTS 16 2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 1/16 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Moisey Pliss. Full, unedited interview, 2007 ID NY028.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4028pf57 ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION —Please state your name, place of birth, the names of your parents. Please go ahead. I was born on July 17, 1923. I am eighty-four years old now. I was born in Minsk, where my parents had come to visit my father’s sister. We lived in the city of Novoborisov, Minsk Oblast. It is about 80 kilometers from Minsk. Until 1939, the state border lay not far from Minsk. We lived probably 60 kilometers from the Polish border. I was my parents’ firstborn. My mother, Revekka Moiseyevna, was a couple of years younger than my father. He worked as the manager of the Borisov branch of the State Bank, and my mother was a housewife. We were three children in the family: I was the eldest, then there was David and the youngest, Yakov. Three brothers. Our town was small. In the early 1930s, Soviet power had just taken root there. There were many children. The town was small, all the neighbors had children, all were friends. Our neighbors called us “three acrobat brothers—pitchfork, rake, and shovel." That's because we had a small vegetable garden, and as soon as we were old enough to hold garden tools, we spent much time in the garden, where we dug earth, planted, and played hide and seek. We were very close, and the neighbors came to visit often. Since there were many children, we got together, played soccer and various children’s games. I started school when I was about eight years old. First we went to a Jewish school, which, because of the small number of people who wanted to go there, was closed. I don’t remember what year it was, but my parents didn’t want us to go to a Jewish school. We were transferred to a Russian school, the Novoborisov Secondary School No. 6. The school was located in a very convenient and beautiful park, and we studied there. In 1941 we finished school. I say “we” because David and I took lessons together. As soon as I started school, he refused to stay at home and went with me, even though he was a year younger. In 1941 we finished tenth grade. On the night of June 22, we had our graduation dance. Since our school was mentored by the local military unit, there were many servicemen at the party. We did not know what was going on, but the military guys seemed anxious. In the morning after this ball, we all went swimming in the Berezina River, which flowed through our town. The Berezina is famous because of the 1812 battles with the French. There is a place in the town that we called “battery,” where French and then Russian troops had been deployed. Big guns stood there. The place is very beautiful—it is like a hill . Very beautiful. We loved promenading there with girls and just by ourselves. A very nice place. Our town was located near the Moscow-Minsk railway station. The station was called Novo-Borisov. The city of Borisov itself was located across the Berezina, 4-5 kilometers from the station. Actually, the place was inhabited by people of different ethnicities: there were Russians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Poles, Jews, and we, the kids, were all friends. We were a close-knit group, played soccer and lapta [a game similar to baseball—Trans.]. And we also had students of different nationalities in our school. On June 22, 1941, we settled on the banks of the Berezina and were going to take a swim. This was after the graduation ceremony. At about midday a few guys who remained in town came running and told us 2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 2/16 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Moisey Pliss. Full, unedited interview, 2007 ID NY028.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4028pf57 ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN that the war had started: the Germans attacked Russia. In the fall of 1939 Germans occupied a part of Poland, while the Soviet Union took the piece of land called Western Belorussia. Many refugees arrived, some went to school with us, some got jobs. —Were you surprised when they told you that the war had begun? What was your reaction? The Soviet Union had been preparing for war. “Our tanks are fast, our tanks are strong” . The feeling that something was about to happen had been in the air for a while. Moreover, after the annexation . after the liberation of Western Belorussia [Belarus] in 1939, we felt that a war was coming, for the Soviet Union had moved very close to Germany. Germany occupied that part of Poland, and our army occupied almost the whole of Western Ukraine and Belarus. So war was in the air. All the boys were registered at the military recruitment offices. We had paramilitary training. Nobody evaded the army, we all trained for it, there was not a single guy who did not want to serve in the army. When we were informed about the start of the war, almost all the guys ran to the military recruitment office. Mobilization had already begun and there were crowds of people there. When we made our way to the military commission, those who were even a few months shy of eighteen were sent home. All seventeen-year-olds, including us, were all sent home so as not to get in the way. Naturally, we got together in the evening . Under the auspices of the police, detachments were formed to assist the local population and go on patrols. We organized a small detachment, which was supposed to prevent panic, while the military was coming from the west. That lasted until June 24-25. Refugees from Minsk began to arrive and report that Minsk had been bombed, that the Germans were very close. On June 26, the factory where my father worked—they manufactured plywood, matches, building materials—began evacuating. Factory equipment was dismantled and loaded on trains. Father ran home, we packed the essentials and went with this train. My youngest brother, Yasha, had left for Moscow a couple of hours earlier with our father’s relative. This relative had arranged with our father where they would meet. We evacuated on the 26th: Mom, Dad, David, and I. The railroad passed through Orsha. In Orsha we were heavily bombed. There were many burnt echelons there, and several bombs fell next to ours. Of course, we did not stay in the cars, we hid under them or in other places. A day or two later, what was left of the train moved forward. I remember we passed the city of Aleksandrov, Vladimir Oblast. Somewhere there, the train pulled into a siding and was unloaded; the passengers were loaded onto wagons and driven away. They brought us to some village, gave us a house. It was a residential place, but the owners were absent. A pretty big house, wooden floors, nice house. Mom and Dad began to settle in. We went to the village administration to assess the situation, and they offered us jobs, I can’t remember where. My father was an accountant, so they gave him a job at the administration. Mom did not work. She wrote letters to relatives who lived in Penza, Chelyabinsk, and Krasnoyarsk. After a while, a letter came from Penza from my mom’s sister inviting us to come there. During the war one couldn’t just move at will, one needed permission and an invitation to relocate. So we left for Penza. I can’t tell you now when exactly this happened. I think it was in the fall. We arrived and settled in. Dad got a job, my brother and I wanted to study further. There were no other higher education establishments in Penza at the time except for a construction college and a pedagogical institute. 2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 3/16 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Moisey Pliss. Full, unedited interview, 2007 ID NY028.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4028pf57 ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN —And your youngest brother? No news from the youngest brother; he just left. While we were settling in, our father and mother were looking for Yasha. Dad knew where his relative was going to land, he wrote there, but no response came. My father was a religious man, and he immediately went to the local synagogue in Penza and told them about his son. Some time later, one of the worshipers said that he had seen a boy who said that his aunt lived in Penza. And some time later, we found Yasha. David did not want to study, so he started looking for a job. —And your father wasn’t afraid to go to the synagogue, to pray? He was fervently religious. He attended a synagogue in Borisov, too. It was not forbidden then. It was another matter if a person had an official post, then he could not go to the synagogue. The elderly went to the synagogue, that was part of their lives. These were not the synagogues of today or of the olden days before the Revolution: they were prayer houses.