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Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

ENGLISH TRANSLATION 2 CITATION & RIGHTS 15

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Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

ID OH008.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b47688

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION —Today is June 7, 2007. We are in Cincinnati, meeting a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Please introduce yourself and tell us about your childhood, how you came to serve in the Red Army, and about your wartime experiences.

I was born in 1924, but this was later changed to 1923 for reasons I will explain in a bit.

—Please introduce yourself.

My name is Arkadiy Naumovich Minevich. I was born in Kalinkavichy, in what was then the Polesia Oblast of Belarus. My mother was a housewife and my father worked in the forestry industry. In 1941 I finished tenth grade and had my graduation ceremony on June 21, the night before the war began. We were all celebrating in the woods when a guy ran up to us around noon and said “War! Molotov just said that we are at war.” We immediately ran home. Since I was a Komsomol member, the following day the district Komsomol committee summoned me and assigned me to a civilian militia. The militia was housed in a school building and we were issued Polish rifles and ammunition. We were all young guys . . . I was just seventeen. There was one thing that happened at that time that I cannot omit. This happened for sure, I have even read about it in a book. I do not remember whether this was on June 24 or 27, but we were all woken up by an alarm, grabbed our rifles, and were loaded onto trucks. The Germans had landed paratroopers near Kalinkavichy and we were drive there. We opened fire until we heard an order to cease fire over the loudspeaker. There were militia units from a few districts there. It turned out that these were our paratroopers that were supposed to be deployed in Poland but had accidentally landed in Kalinkavichy. Someone began firing and they mistook our Belarusian for Polish. It was only later, when someone started shouting “For Stalin!” . . . They followed the railroad tracks until they came across a switch operator’s work station and saw a portrait of Stalin. Only then did they realize that they had been deployed in the wrong place. Later they were all gathered together and they even dried their parachutes at the same school where we were based.

My parents were evacuated five days later on one of the passing trains, but I stayed behind. I stayed in my home town, but when the Germans got close, it was decided that we should be put onto trains and sent deeper into Soviet territory. They had to take us through Gomel, but could not do so because the Germans were already on the approaches to the city, so instead we were taken through Kiev [Kyiv]. Before that, I had to figure out what to do with our cow and the chickens that we had just gotten that year. I came home and broke open the door to the henhouse, poured all the grain onto the ground, let the cow out, and left. We were sent to Voroshilovgrad [now Luhansk] Oblast. We traveled through Kiev. The Germans were approaching there. We saw dragon’s teeth [a type of anti-tank fortification] . . . When we arrived in

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Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

Voroshilovgrad Oblast, all the young people were sent to assist with the harvest. I worked on a hay baler. When the Germans began approaching the oblast, we were again loaded onto trains and taken to Kazan. This was in September or October. When we got to Kazan, we were loaded onto steamships and sent to dig anti-tank trenches in the countryside. We dug trenches until January, when the temperature began to dip down to -50 degrees Celsius. We had no shoes. If our boots ripped, we were issued bast shoes that we could then replace for seven rubles a pair . . . we were issued a new pair every month. It was very cold, so the guys and I ripped up a blanket in order to make footwraps to wear to work. Aside from that . . . we were not rationed any bread. After about a month and a half or two, representatives from the Vakhitov Factory came to us in order to recruit workers. Their workers had been drafted and they needed someone to press soap. Each chunk of soap weighed 45 kilograms, too heavy for the women, so they were recruiting new workers.

I had a friend named Zhenka Osipov. We decided to walk to Kazan. It was 200 kilometers, in the winter, -50 degrees Celsius and there was no forest for cover. They told us to follow the telegraph poles and spend the night in villages that were on our way. Zhenka Osipov and I set out. His cheek or his nose would start freezing. We figured out that we had to take our towels and wrap them around our faces, leaving holes only for our eyes. We walked, knowing that we had to walk 20 kilometers through the snow and cold to reach the next village. We would arrive and ask the locals to shelter us in exchange for work like chopping firewood . . . All the men were gone. We would do our work and then the locals would give us something to eat and drink, as well as a place to sleep. We arrived in Kazan after four days of this, chilled to our bones and hungry. We came to the factory and were given jobs as soap pressers, which was demanding work. We worked for eight hours, then rested for eight hours, then worked for eight hours again, and so on. We were very hungry because our rations were not enough to keep us full. We were issued ration cards for porridge or oatmeal, but this was not enough and there was no bread. There were large cisterns with sunflower oil at the factory left there from before the war. They used sunflower oil to make the soap. We were young guys and we were starving. We poured it into our porridge and ate it like soup. Then we got terrible heartburn. There was a lot of water there and if you slipped you would likely be soaked from the neck down. Our target was to press seven units every shift, but we managed to produce nine. The work was very difficult, with each soap slab weighing 45 kilograms, made up of 75 smaller blocks. I remember it to this day. They would be loaded onto carts and then taken to be cut up. We really did not like working there and wanted to go to the front.

There was an announcement that the Lankaran Coastal Defense Academy was recruiting cadets. Zhenka Osipov and I applied because we had both finished high school. We applied and waited. In late February we received notices to leave our jobs, collect everything that was owed to us, and prepare for departure to Lankaran. We arrived at the recruitment office only to learn that we had to go back to work since the Germans were approaching Lankaran and the academy was in the process of relocating to Baku. However,

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Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

ID OH008.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b47688

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN we no longer wanted to return back to work. We saw an announcement in the recruitment office that the armored forces school in Kazan was enrolling cadets. We decided to give it a shot, so we went to the school and applied. We were interviewed. Zhenka was accepted, while I was rejected because I was born in 1924 and was not old enough for the draft yet. He had the documents and I did not. I went outside and did not know what to do. We'd been together all this time and now I didn't know what to do with myself. Plus, I'd been separated from my mother. I was probably sitting there and crying when a captain walked by and asked me why I was in tears. I told him that my friend had been accepted to the academy and that I had not. There were already 200 or 300 civilians waiting in quarantine to begin training and I said that the only reason I was rejected was because I was born in 1924. and didn't have the right papers. He asked me if I had any other documents with me and I said I did not because of the evacuation. He said, "So just write 1923 then." I immediately did what he said. I think he put in a word for me because my application was immediately accepted and I was sent to quarantine with the others. Following that there was an interview, which only seven out of 200 passed. I was among those that passed. Our company was composed mainly of sergeants and sergeant majors that were separated from their units during the retreat. Zhenka Osipov and I were the only two civilians in the company. He was assigned to the 1st Platoon and, since I was shorter, I was assigned to the 4th. We began our training on English Matilda and Valentine tanks in 1942. We spent about eight months training, but I can't remember the exact amount of time.

We were assigned ranks based on our grades at the school. If you graduated with perfect marks, you became a lieutenant; if you had a few Bs, you would be a junior lieutenant. A few Cs would earn you the rank of senior sergeant. I became a lieutenant and was sent to senior officer training school. I trained there until 1943. By that time we had Sherman tanks, MTSs, MTLs, and MTAs, which I trained on for about five or six months. In 1943 I was sent to the active army. My first assignment was to the 57th Independent Tank Regiment near Kharkov [Kharkiv], but then we were sent to Gorky. In Gorky we received new tanks and I was given command of an M4A2 Sherman. We were then sent to the front, where I served from 1943 to 1945, starting as the commander of a tank and ending as the commander of a company. I was the commander of a T-44 tank company. I took part in combat and was on my fifth tank by the time the war ended. In our unit we had a tradition: the regiment commander would take the officers that he already knew. After they took the troops back for reorganization and replenishment, new tanks always arrived fully manned, with platoon and company commanders. However, the regiment commander would always let us, if we wanted, stay and get another tank. He even offered us the opportunity to work in the supply platoon, but I chose to stay with the tanks the whole time. One of my tanks sank and another was hit. That was in Poland. We took part in combat and carried out all the missions we were given.

Most importantly . . . I received the Order of the Red Banner in Poland. We were moving at night with the 7th Guards Cavalry Corps, commanded by General Konstantinov. I was with the 15th Guards Division. We frequently went on raids into enemy territory. One time we broke the German lines near the Vistula and

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Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN called in the cavalry. Every division had an armored regiment and our 57th Independent Tank Regiment was under the command of the 15th Division. We advanced forward, but then stopped because of the snow and heavy fog. All of a sudden, my regiment commander summoned me—I was a platoon commander—and gave me an objective. The cavalry division advanced along many roads at once. There was a huge number of horses and carts. Further up our road the Germans had stopped our front units and recon, and blocked the road. Our regiment commander ordered us to break through the German defenses so that our cavalry could keep advancing. It was very foggy and the visibility was poor. He showed us our objective on a map and said that we would be met by our recon team and given further details then. We left—I was leading the platoon—and met up with the recon unit. They reported that the German defensive positions were just ahead of us, with tanks, SPGs, APCs, and infantry. We needed to advance, so I gave the order to load our guns with an armor-piercing rounds just in case. Only officers manned the guns in American tanks, the privates were only there in supporting roles. Every man had his own task. I did not open fire because I could not see anything, but figured that the sound of our tanks would lead the Germans to open fire, and the flashes would reveal their locations. I did not give my position away. Suddenly we saw a flash: a tank opened fire in the direction of the sound. When it fired, I immediately sent an armor-piercing round in the direction of the muzzle flash, and apparently managed to hit him. The enemy Panzer was engulfed in flames. German tanks ran on gasoline, and when I hit it, there was a massive fire that illuminated the other tanks and the APCs behind them. We opened fire and destroyed almost everything. Some of the APCs managed to get away, but there were lots of damaged ones too. After we advanced forward the cavalry units arrived and began the usual . . . I received the Order of the Red Banner.

I also received the Order of the Red Star. Once time I spent over a week in the neutral zone near Kovel with my tank. About 400 meters ahead of me there was a hill, and beyond that hill there were Germans. Behind us, beyond the railroad, were our front units. We had to take the high ground in front of us. The attack from our forward positions was scheduled for seven o’clock in the evening. We took up our positions on the edge of a forest and had to advance down a road because there were swamps on either side. I was the platoon commander and was in the second tank in our column. We crossed the railroad and opened fire on the high ground. We had advanced by about 700 meters when the first tank became stuck. I could not get around him because of the swamps, so I stopped. Our forces were observing us from behind and the SPGs provided us with covering fire. All of a sudden I saw the front tank crew running. I asked what happened. They said their tank had been hit. When your tank was hit, you were allowed to abandon it. There was nothing to be done. A recon team was instantly dispatched and discovered that the tank had not been hit, but was rather stuck. They had strayed off course, the tank got stuck, and they abandoned it. The regiment commander ordered me to get the tank out. It was still light out, but an order is an order . . . I approached the tank and began hooking a tow cable to it. Just then the Germans began a mortar barrage. They destroyed the road behind me, with craters large enough to swallow a tank. I had to stay put. For seven days the recon would arrive at night and bring soil to fill up the craters. In the morning, right when

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Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN they finished working, we would get the tank running only to have the road destroyed by a fresh barrage of artillery. We couldn't get out. We only managed to tow the other tank out and retreat on the seventh day.

There was a second battle in Shayna near Kovel. There was a hill there. Initially the Supreme Commander had announced that Kovel had been captured. But . . . there were sausage and vodka factories there, so our troops partied too hard for two days and the Germans came from Brest and recaptured the city. We were ordered . . . well, all of the troops in the area were ordered to recapture Kovel. Our unit took part in this operation and had to capture the strategic hilltop village of Shayna. A light armored company on Valentine tanks was dispatched in that direction, but the Germans stopped their advance. They advanced in a line toward the hill when German Ferdinands blocked the road and opened fire, wiping out our tanks. The regiment commander then ordered us to break through the German lines there. The first to receive this order was Lieutenant Dmitrienko, who commanded a tank. He moved forward, stopped at a turn in the road and began to observe the German positions. He saw German Ferdinand SPGs blocking the road. These guns had 300mm of armor at the front of the vehicle and could not be destroyed by our cannons. I can confirm this firsthand. He fired off some rounds and then reported to the command post that he was out of ammunition. He only a quarter of his ammunition remaining, which had to be kept for emergencies. The regiment commander summoned me and ordered us to take Shayna. Lieutenant Dmitrienko briefed me in his own familiar fashion: “Arkasha, there's no sense in going there. That Ferdinand is blocking the road and it'll smash you right away.” But I was much younger than him and I had my orders . . . I told him that I must advance. I loaded my gun with an armor-piercing round and went around the bend. I saw a Ferdinand not far from us and our sergeant screamed “He’s twiddling his moustache,” which means that he was positioning his barrel. I managed to get a round off, but the armor is 300mm . . . you cannot pierce it . . . Then he fired back. First he hit the driver-mechanic's hatch. The hatch is held by a special manual lock, so it did not come off, but it was bent and jammed. The driver-mechanic was wounded in the face. He fired again and scored a direct hit on the turret where I was sitting. But because of the kind of armor American tanks used, it just made an indentation . . . When we got hit I ordered Lebedev, who had gotten back up, to reverse. He tried and then shouted “Lieutenant, the tank isn’t moving!” I told him to move forward. Just then he managed to put us in reverse. His face was covered with blood, so he grabbed the wrong lever and immediately put us into a swamp. I ordered the backup driver Karpov to get behind the controls, but to do so he needed to climb out of the tank. We pulled Lebedev into the turret through a passage inside the tank. We were under heavy fire. I was a good tank driver. Usually when we were on the offensive, the mechanic drove the tank at night, while I drove it during the day so that he could get some sleep. But technically the regulations forbade officers from driving tanks. I was a good tank driver. I opened the hatch so that it would cover me from enemy fire and managed to open the driver’s hatch and climb in. I was able to drive us back and quickly ran to the observation post and reported to the regiment commander. After hearing my report he gave the order for us to advance anyway. Lieutenant Dragushin’s tank was ordered to do what we just did. We were all friends, so I briefed him on the situation and told him the same thing

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Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN that Dimitrienko had told me. Their whole crew heard this. Their driver did not lock the hatch and advanced. The exact same thing happened to them. The first shell hit the driver’s hatch, and since it was not locked, it blew open and he was decapitated. The radio operator, who sat behind him, was hit in the groin. The radio operator sat at the level of the driver’s head. The driver somehow hit the controls to engage the reverse gear and drove the tank into a swamp, where it flipped. That was the end of that saga. Maybe this is why I have the Red Star.

Another interesting story is about my tank sinking. We had already reached Germany and it was the start of the summer. The Germans began to retreat . . . with our assistance. When their APCs began their retreat, I was ordered to pursue them. I went off right away, firing on the go. We came to a bridge that they easily crossed, so I followed them. The bridge could not hold the weight of the tank and collapsed, sending the tank flying down. The turret hatch was open and the mechanic was ejected out of it. The radio operator, cannon loader, and I jumped out of our respective hatches. The tank sank, but we all survived and received another tank. Another one of my tanks was destroyed by enemy fire in Poland in the village of Rożdżały near Kalisz. I had started to cross a river when we were hit by a shell. The tank was disabled . . . I spent two weeks there. The Poles called me “commandant.” It was a large village with a mansion and livestock . . . I spent two or three weeks in charge of all of it. I drank some vodka. That’s about it . . . The rest is detail . . . Ambushes near Berlin . . . You cannot tell everything, and some things I no longer remember.

—During the prewar years, did you family observe any Jewish traditions?

My mother was the person in our family who observed Jewish traditions. We celebrated Passover, but closed our blinds so that nobody could see us. We baked matzah. My father was not very religious, but he knew the Torah well. My mother strictly followed all the traditions, including keeping kosher.

—Did your parents speak Russian at home?

No, only in Yiddish. We all only spoke Yiddish and Belarusian.

—When you were in the militia and later in the army academy, did you feel that you were treated differently because you were Jewish?

I did feel it at the academy. I will never forget . . . There was an older sergeant major named Shishkanov, who commanded our section. I ran into him after the war in Moscow. I was already a captain, but he was only a lieutenant. He drove me hard . . . First of all, I was still wearing my civilian boots and the trench coat that I was issued at the academy. We all had black shirts at that time. I remember how he made me crawl in the snow, after which I was nicknamed “crawler” for my snow-covered shirt. The front was white and the

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Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN back was black. However, I never felt it from my fellow cadets. I was physically fit and even did ice swimming for thirty-five years before coming here. I swam in lakes year round, even in -30 Celsius temperatures. I was quite fit. One time Shishkanov caught me sleeping and made me run around outside. He ran after me because he was the section commander. After a bit he was running behind me and ordered me to stop, but I kept running. He was screaming and I kept running. It was awkward for him . . . I know that even during training and then later in the army I was respected. I served in the same unit and we got new tanks, but I stayed . . . I was always a just officer and tried to imagine what I myself would've done in a given situation. Things happen . . . I never punished my men.

One time when we were on the defensive in Western Belarus, we had to dig a fortified position for our tank. This was when we were ordered to set an ambush. Sometimes we had to do this twice a day because after digging the fortification, driving the tank into it, and aiming the barrel at the proper target, we would get an order to move to a different location. Usually the officers did not dig the fortifications, but I always helped my four soldiers. We always dug together. I was very sure of myself at the front, probably because I was just eighteen or nineteen, an ideal age for a soldier. I remember once when I was already a platoon commander somewhere in Poland or Germany we stopped to rest. I had a certain Lieutenant Nianin in my platoon. He was around thirty-five and had a family and children somewhere. We, young guys, could see that he was much more easily frightened and would immediately take over under the tank when we were strafed by Messerschmitts. We were more composed about such things, but we were still responsible about it. One time the Messerschmitts attacked us when we were resting, so he immediately crawled under the tank for cover. We laughed at him, but now I understand him, having children and all. We had no children and as for our relatives . . . we had no time to remember them. It was easier for us. If you must go to war, you must do so as a young man. People with children view war differently.

—Did you ever have technical issues with your tanks?

The American tanks almost never broke down. The Sherman had two 250 horsepower engines. I spent only a day in a T-34, but it was enough to get a sense of it. First of all, the Sherman was well detailed on the inside: there was rubber so that you would not hurt yourself by hitting the sides. There were seats for everyone, and it was all around well made. There was a good radio station for internal and external communication. The only thing is that the cannon was a bit weak. The German Ferdinands, I know this well, had an 8.6-meter barrel . . . The initial velocity of their rounds was 1650 m/s, but our tanks only fired at 650 m/s. That's what helped their penetration capabilities. The Germans had Zeiss sights, which made them extremely accurate. They barely had to aim to hit their target. We never had serious technical issues, but the tanks were not suited for all types of terrain. They had rubber-coated tracks, which were originally intended for Africa, for sand or asphalt. However, they often got stuck in the swamps of Belarus. The T-34s would get through, but . . . Much also depended on the mechanic. After Lebedev I had a mechanic named Almetov. He would find a patch of land and say, “Lieutenant, wait here, I can get through.” And he would.

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Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

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But the tank behind us would get stuck and have to be towed out. We were used to towing each other.

—Were there special units that were tasked with retrieving disabled tanks?

Yes, the critically damaged vehicles collection unit. If your tank was damaged during combat, you had to abandon it and leave. The most important thing was to be able to get out. Most tank crews died when evacuating the tank. Tanks are very flammable because they have a lot of fuel and oils, so they burn like a bonfire.

This was somewhere in Germany. We had surveyed the battlefield before the attack. Apparently there were snipers in the trees and the company commander was wounded. There had been a battle before we arrived and one of our tanks was burning in the field. A man burned with the tank. It was windy and something lingered . . . then the smell went away. I can tell you a few things that I forgot to mention. When we were in the neutral zone, we managed to escape on the fifth day. When we reached our starting positions and the rest of our tanks, the regiment commander—this was during the day—ordered me to drive back into the neutral zone. This time we would fool the Germans and bring field engineers with us in order to tow the other tank back out with us. I decided to come back down in reverse and radio my orders to the tank driver. This way we could quickly attach the tow cables and retreat. We left. My hatch was lowered in the front and my tank was going downhill at full speed. However, just then an artillery barrage began. I gave an order, but I think Lebedev lost his composure and accidentally pulled the wrong lever. We drove off the road and also got stuck. This was during the day, but the Germans firing at us were far away. I climbed out of the tank and huddled with the four field engineers, one of whom was from my town, in order to decide what to do next. Just then we heard a voice over the loudspeaker, ordering me to report to the deputy head technician. I had to sprint 400-500 meters to our positions. There was a ditch along the road and I ran along it. We knew that the Germans first overshot the tank, then did not reach it, and then hit it. I heard an explosion and went prone. I turned around to see that the shell came very close to the tank. I saw Lebedev running to our positions . . . holding his rear . . . I asked him what happened. “Lieutenant, they got everyone!” he said. I ran back and saw two dead men and our radio operator Trubachev, from near Yelets, who was still alive. He had been born in 1927, just a boy who had only recently joined my crew. We picked him up and took him to our positions, where he was given first aid, but he still died. After that I returned to my tank and spent another three days there. The Germans again destroyed the road and we were only able to return to our unit three days later. I was supposed to die because I was in the very thick of the fighting. If I had not been called over the loudspeaker just then, I would have died there.

—How many people are in a tank crew?

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Five, unlike the T-34, which has four. Our five were the mechanic, second mechanic, gun loader, radio operator, and officer. There was one officer in every crew.

—The officer received a certificate and a salary.

Yes, we were paid.

—What about the other members of the crew, the privates?

They were paid, but I do not remember how much. Everyone there had special field pay, which was slightly more than the usual front-line soldier's wages.

—How many shells could you carry at one time?

We had to have 65 shells in accordance with regulations. There were special storage compartments for them. But we usually took 120 shells with us.

—Was this always enough?

Yes, we had both armor-piercing and fragmentation shells.

—Did you ever run out of ammunition?

No, never. Any tank . . . it goes quickly. Tank battles are quick. In Kovel, I told you about our attack there, we had infantry units behind us. As soon as you drove onto the field, the enemy started firing at the tank. The infantry immediately jumped off . . . When you advance further, you are again ordered to pick up the infantry. The Germans could aim directly at us from 1,500 meters, but we had to be just 800 meters away to do so.

—Were tank crews often replaced due to casualties?

Hmm . . . I would not say that. My lieutenant from Moscow was killed, a good friend of mine. He died. But it was because he did something stupid. He could not see very well, so he poked his head out of the tank and was decapitated by enemy fire. His name was Lieutenant Lukashin. Usually when a tank was damaged we would escape and get a new tank. This happened a few times. When we got new tanks with new crews, we would send some of the crew members back. The regiment commander would read each man’s profile . . . The regiment commander would receive awards. Did he ever even take part in an attack? There are platoon and vehicle commanders, and they are on the battlefield, but he was always at his command post. He even had his own tank. There are 20 tanks in each regiment, 10 heavy ones and 10 light ones.

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Additionally there is the regiment commander’s tank, making it 21. He could just go to the observation post if he was afraid and communicate with company commanders. But whenever awards were distributed, he would always get one. I remember my first regiment commander well. His name was Colonel Taranenko, a former cavalryman. All the cavalrymen had been retrained as tank crews. He had a grey mare and horses in the supply train, and he would do trainings at the front before an attack. He would choose some open area, brought out the tanks with their crews, and he would give us orders to advance, retreat, and rotate, all from horseback, to practice the formations. We'd get in our tanks and move. If something wasn't right, we had to go back and line up again. He would continued leading on his horse. Then they replaced him with lieutenant colonel Nemovsky, who was killed.

—Were there other Jews in your tank regiment?

In our regiment . . . we had a company commander named Nemirovsky. Only now do I realize that he was probably Jewish. I had a friend named Volodya . . . I never thought . . . Later when we were near Berlin, we found out his mother, Sara Abramovna, was looking for him. His last name was Dvizhkov. Maybe his father was Russian and his mother was Jewish. Later Senior Lieutenant Ginzburg joined our unit and fought alongside us.

—You liberated many places.

Yes, from Western Belarus to Poland and Germany.

—Did you ever pass through areas with concentration camps?

Yes, there was one time near the end of the war in 1945. This was May 6 or 7, and our company was preparing for an ambush. We were waiting for German units moving in our direction from Prague, Czechoslovakia. Suddenly I saw four or five emaciated people moving down the road. I figured out that these were Jews approaching our tanks. I climbed down from my tank and began talking to them in Yiddish. I knew Yiddish well, but had not used it in four or five years. I spoke as best as I could, but I understood them well. They were from a ghetto, but I did not ask which one. This was near Berlin. I gathered from talking to them that they were either from Poland or Ukraine because Belarusian Jews speak differently. I took them to some German apartments, and even though the Germans at first refused to let them in, I made them give the Jews new clothes.

—How did they wind up near Berlin?

They were 20 or 30 kilometers from Berlin, definitely in Germany, but I cannot remember where exactly.

Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

ID OH008.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b47688

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

—How did they get there?

I do not know. They were famished and wearing striped jumpsuits, maybe they had been laboring there. I do not remember what we talked about, but I remember taking them to get clothes while my soldiers looked on. I got them clothes and food, and then we parted ways.

—Did you know about the concentration camps and the murder and burning of Jews?

I found out when we were still in Belarus. I probably had heard about concentration camps, but did not know much about them. In Kalinkavichy . . . that was an entirely Jewish town. Now it is Belarusian, but then . . . there were 12,000 Jews living there. There is a mass grave near the railroad.

—Before the opening of the second front, did anybody discuss this possibility and its potential to bring you closer to victory?

Of course. We often turned on our tank radios and listened to western radio stations. We were still preparing for an ambush when on May 9 we heard over the radio that the war was over. We only got confirmation of this on the 10th.

—Tell us a little bit about your postwar life.

In 1945 our unit, which included our tanks and a cavalry division, was stationed in Potsdam and provided security for Stalin’s visit there. After that we were sent to Osipovichi [Asipovichy] in the Bobruisk [Babruysk] Military District. When we arrived we were ordered to accompany our tanks, which had been received through lend-lease, back to Archangelsk. I was very happy because traveling to Archangelsk meant going through Moscow and getting a chance for a quick stop there. I forgot to mention that when we were traveling from Gorky to the front, I hopped off the train in Saltykovka [now part of Balashikha] to visit my parents. In 1943 I hopped off there at five in the morning. We were traveling in cattle cars and I was not asleep. All of the tanks were with us, covered by American tarps. When we stopped at the local station, I jumped off. I wanted to leave all of my things with my parents, but my suitcase was in the tank. I came to Saltykovka and found the house. When my mother saw me . . . This was at five or six in the morning. She began crying because I was headed to the front and she had only recently found out that my brother and my sister’s husband had been killed. My father and I sat down for a drink and then I had to go. I got onto a commuter train and two or three stops later pulled in just in time to get back on my train. The other soldiers had my suitcase, so I jumped on and threw it down to my father . . . We were going to a place near Kharkiv . . .

Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

ID OH008.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b47688

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

As for the postwar years . . . Our deputy regiment commander was Lieutenant Colonel Tishchenko. He was my direct superior and knew that he could count on me as an officer who got things done. Our regiment was converted into a tank battalion in the 15th Motorized Infantry Division. Tishchenko was promoted to command the battalion and was sent to Brest. One time he came to visit and said to me, “I would like to bring you with me and give you command of a company.” I had a good friend named Vanka Kardashov. During the war, we would eat soup from the same bowl. I wanted to stop in Moscow and maybe go to Archangelsk to hand over the tanks. I told him that I would only come along if I got a few vacation days and was allowed to take Kardashov with me as a platoon commander. He agreed. We traveled to Brest, where I was issued a T-44 tank. The tanks were transported in special crates that had been built by the Americans before the war. Our tanks were there and you could see fuel leaks, oil leaks, and rust everywhere . . . We trained our company. When we arrived for training one day, the guard on duty informed us that Tishchenko was dead. We were shocked. How could it be? I had just taken a vacation and Ivan got married. My older sister, who lost her husband, had two young children. My mother and father were old by then. I came home for vacation . . . the company commander, a captain, had asked me, “Are you planning on continuing your studies?” I . . . “Have you not considered the possibility that today you are an officer and tomorrow you’ll get a boot in the rear? What will you do?” This made an impression on me. My sister also told me that life was very difficult for her, taking care of two old people and two children. They lived outside of Moscow. They needed help with firewood and fixing the fence. It was a man’s job. So we both decided to get discharged. We started breaking regulations, and we would get 15 days for that. We asked to be demobilized. They transferred us to another unit. We didn't go to the training and got punished again: 15 days, no time off, and a 20 percent pay cut. Oh yes, I was intending to enroll in the Stalin Academy of Armored Forces. I submitted my resignation to the regiment commander. He knew me very well because I often traded off command of a platoon with him. When I handed him my resignation he said to me, “I cannot let you go, we do not have many officers like you.” I told him that in that case, I would get demobilized so that I could go and get an education. Well . . . we started getting drunk in violation of protocol. We were sent for demobilization to the Bobruisk Military District. We were issued demobilization profiles, but mine was very bad. I know this because I had a friend working in the special department and he told me. I did break a few rules. Oh, the most interesting bit of it all is this. Vanka Kardashov and I arrived together. There were committees there that decided who should be demobilized and who should be kept. The chairman of ours was a general. My friend Vanka went up there . . . he is an idiot when he is drunk, only I could deal with him then. He was a good officer, but he had a weakness for vodka, so he had that in his record. My report was mostly positive and mentioned that I was well-versed in tactics, respected, and battle-hardened. After that it was written that . . . They asked me questions . . . The general asked me: “Kushka?" . . . I knew this from school, but I pointed north . . . He then said, “We cannot let you go. You are an officer with high honors, the whole war behind you, ten classes of education, and officer training, while most of our officers only have seven years of schooling. We can’t let you go yet.” I told him that I wanted to continue my education. He said that we would discuss it the following day. My friend was demobilized, but I was not. Well, what did the officers always do? We got a bottle of liquor. We had a hard drink and in the evening he needed to go get his demobilization papers. We went together. The sergeant major gave him

Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

ID OH008.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b47688

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN his papers and asked me, “And what about you, captain?” He took a look . . . and found my papers. In any case, he wrote me a demobilization slip. Most interestingly, when I walked out, I ran into that same general from the committee. He asked me, “Captain, I thought that we would wait until tomorrow . . .” We had a laugh and I left.

After that I enrolled at the Moscow Automobile and Road Construction University. After graduating I helped my parents as best as I could. Initially I was going to be sent to Riga to work, but was then kept in Moscow. It was difficult for me to find a job due to my ethnicity. My sister was a department head at the Ministry of Food Production and she helped me get a job as a workshop foreman at an automotive repair plant. Two months later I was transferred and worked my way up the career ladder and became the department head. In 1952 I got married and had my first child. I was an engineer and was paid a salary of 980 rubles. The workshop foreman only got 120. Life was difficult. My wife was a doctor and got 680 rubles. We had a child and elderly parents . . . life was difficult. I became the head of the instrument workshop. When Khrushchev came to power, the workshops were expanded. The instrument workshop came under the jurisdiction of the head mechanic. I became the head mechanic of the auto-repair factory.

—When did you retire?

One more thing first. Later this factory was converted to a nuclear facility. A large bread factory was opened in Balashikha. I knew little about bread, but my wife said to me, “You spend ten rubles a day on lunch, leave at six or seven in the morning, and return at seven or eight at night. Get a job in Balashikha: you'll be nearby, and you'll be able to have lunch at home and take your son to kindergarten or pick him up. Otherwise it's all on me." I did not know anything about bread, but after seeing some of the machines that they were using, I figured I would apply. I did not imagine how difficult the work would be. Later I was made the head engineer in repair-construction before moving to America.

—I would like to tanks. When you abandoned your tanks, did you have to write a report explaining why?

No, they had it on record that it was damaged. There was no reason to stay in the tank, which was now just a target. One time during an offensive I stayed with my tank because our units moved on forward.

—Thank you very much.

Arkadiy Minevich. Full, unedited interview, 2007

ID OH008.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b47688

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

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