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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

ENGLISH TRANSLATION 2 CITATION & RIGHTS 20

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION V. …where we are right now and today’s date, and then it will be your turn to speak. First I will ask you to introduce yourself, tell us where you were born, and to tell us a little bit about your prewar life, your childhood, your parents’ home, what kind of school you attended and whether it was a Jewish or non- Jewish school. Later I will of course ask about how the war changed your life and how you came to serve in the Red Army.

O. I have some documents that I brought with me.

V. I will give him the documents and he will scan them while we talk. Is that OK?

О. No. I want it to be done in my presence.

V. You misunderstood, he will do this here.

О. So then I will see him do it…

V. Do you need them for our interview? You do not want him scanning the documents while you…

О. Where will he scan them?

V. In the next room.

О. Let me bring them over.

V. You can give them to me, and I understand that documents are very important.

О. These are the sort of documents that are irreplaceable.

V. Yes they are.

О. This is why I get worried when I even leave them in the next room.

V. Of course, but rest assured, we never walk off with anything.

О. No, no, this is not about you. It is just that things happen, you know?

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

V. Of course.

О. These things get lost, and I must make sure that it does not happen.

V. Everything will be done right here.

О. I must show him what it is that you wanted to have scanned.

Today is March 4th, 2008. We are in Tel Aviv, meeting a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Please introduce yourself and tell us where and when you were born. Please also tell us a little bit about your childhood and about your parents. Go ahead.

Of course. My name is Mikhail Petrovich Pekarovsky and I was born on March 31st, 1923 in Kyiv, which makes me a native Kyivan. My childhood was not easy. These were tough times, not just for Kyiv, but the city suffered as well. My mother died in 1929, leaving me orphaned at four years old. My father was a very good and hardworking man. He was a typical Jewish man: extremely talented and a good storyteller. He had a great voice and a God-given talent for drawing. He never took formal lessons, but did it so well that it became his profession. He was born in Bila Tserkva and my mother was from Vasylkiv. These are small town near each other, so my parents met and got married. My mother passed away too soon. A little later my father remarried, but a stepmother is not like a real mother. She was a difficult person to get along with and we had many conflicts and fights. I am being honest with you because I think it is important to always tell the truth.

For example, I remember wanting a glass of kissel with lunch, but she would not give it to me. Of course, this was bearable, but there were other incidents like this which were quite unpleasant for a young boy. Nonetheless, I remained a curious and questioning child. I read a lot, wrote poems, and visited the Palace of the Young Pioneers where there were many different activities. I mostly went there to play chess, which I did well and even managed to win a tournament. I was lucky. In the summer of 1936 world chess champion José Raúl Capablanca came to visit Kyiv. I came to the Palace of the Young Pioneers as usual and saw chess tables lined up in a row. I wondered what was happening. It turns out that Capablanca was going to play multiple games at once with different opponents. Our director, a good man and a competitive checkers player named Natov, told me to have a seat and play against Capablanca. I asked him how I was supposed to play against Capablanca, I was only in sixth grade and just 12 years old. He told me to sit down and play anyway. He was the director, so I sat down and even though I was so afraid that I was shaking, I waited in anticipation for what is to come next. Capablanca came in when all the seats were already taken. He was a handsome, dark-skinned Cuban man; he quickly made his first move and then went down the line to make the first move in the other games. I was completely focused and gave the game my all. He won almost every game, losing only one and drawing in six. One of the draws was against

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN me. I will remember for the rest of my life, how I drew with the world champion during a series of simultaneous games. I read many books and would sometimes binge on the classics. I read Flaubert, Balzac, and Tolstoy. I enjoyed serious books and I wrote poetry. One time there was a poetry festival at the Ivan Franko Theater, one of the leading theaters in Kyiv. I took part in it, but I was unlucky. I read Mayakovsky, but did not do a great job. However, I did meet a boy named Ema, who recited a poem that enjoyed so much that I remember it to this day.

Her eyes were blue,

And her braids hid under a blue kerchief.

This is not what I wanted to say,

But I guess I just did anyway.

It was amazing! A boy dug up lines like that. We walked around together all evening and into the night. The next morning I left my home and when I returned my father said that some boy had been there and left me a piece of paper with an original poem. I took the piece of paper. If this is interesting, I will… I no longer have the paper, but I can read you the poem. I will recite it for you, it is not long. I will first read it for you, and then I will tell you who that boy turned out to be; then you will understand why I am telling you all of this.

It went like this:

The years fly by, like clouds in the blue sky.

Perhaps you and I will never meet again.

But the day we met cannot be overwritten.

This joyous day I will remember always.

Gaze at the flow of these simple, wavy lines,

The meter’s steady hum, the precisely falling rhymes.

Keep this notebook page for centuries.

May it not wilt with the Autumn’s leaves.

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

Those were his lines. The piece of paper was destroyed during the war, I could not save it, but I did save the poem. I am especially happy, because these lines belong to Nahum Korzhavin, who now lives in Boston, USA. Memories stay with a person forever. I remember my high school graduation. I studied in School No.25, which was a Jewish school. In 1939 all Jewish schools in Ukraine were shut down and we were transferred to School No.60. If anyone ever tells you any other date, do not believe them, there were Jewish schools until 1939. Afterwards, I was transferred to Russian School No.98 which I graduated. Our graduation was held on June 21st, 1941. Everyone was dressed up. The boys wore their most dignified outfits and the girls also dolled themselves up as much as they could. We danced waltzes and other dances. We all knew how to dance tango and foxtrot, but we really loved waltzes. After the graduation dance, where teachers were present, we continued to celebrate in the city. We went to Volodymyr Hill, which is called that because there is a statue of Volodymyr the Great there. I always had a guitar because I wrote poetry and set it to music. We walked around the hilly banks of the Dnipro and sang our favorite songs. This was on the 21st of June. At night I was awoken by a large explosion at 4:00 am. It turned out that the fascists were bombing Kyiv, not just Kyiv, but in our city they hit the three bridges over the Dnipro. There were only three bridges in Kyiv at the time, but there are many more now of course. They also bombed Military Factory No. 43. They knew where everything was located and targeted it. In the morning I discovered that war had broken out.

Before that nobody suspected…

No, there was no panicking or anything like that. It was sudden and very unexpected. If someone ever tells you that it was the Soviet Union that attacked Germany, do not believe them. These kinds of claims are all fiction. Fascist Germany attacked the Soviet Union and bombed several cities, including Kyiv. Daily life in the city changed greatly. Everyone was on the lookout for spies, and occasionally someone would be caught and led away under that pretense. People tried to sell whatever they could, including curtains and tablecloths. They were trying to save up money because they knew that very difficult times lay ahead. And they were right because soon the evacuation began. My father was drafted into the people’s militia and my family, along with my peers, found ourselves on the road. I had almost never traveled anywhere before I was 18 and had no idea what it was like to be on my own. Here I was, on the roads of war, with no idea where to go or what to do. The most frightening memory from that time was traveling on a cargo train car that was filled with corn. We had to keep moving, so I climbed the train and it set off. Can you imagine how frightening it was to travel on a train car… a train car filled with corn? Why was it frightening? Because the corn shifts during transit. You lie down of the corn and shift with it from the edge of the car to the center and then back to the edge. I still do not know how I managed not to fall off. It was a miracle.

After that we were on the road for quite some time. We traveled in trains. First we came to the Donbas and then continued southward. On our way to the Donbas our train was destroyed in an air raid and we continued onward as best as we could.

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

V. Did you know where you were going?

O. No, I did not. I knew that I had to keep moving down the road, but where could I go?

V. What did you bring with you?

I had a bag with a few bagels and tenderized chicken stakes that my aunt had prepared for me. I also had a little bit of sugar, but that was it. I was lucky because on the very eve of hostilities I had ordered myself a custom-tailored suit at the Pasazh in Kyiv. It cost me 225 rubles and the suit was brand new. I sold it for that exact price and carried the 225 rubles with me. This helped me buy food on my journey to Derbent. However, I did not remain in Derbent and was sent to work at a glass factory in the town of Dagestanskiye Ogni in Dagestan. I was made the director of the local social club. I was a well-developed lad and had a knack for drawing, so I was a good fit for the job. My time to serve came and I saw no reason to sit in the safety of the club. I was assigned to the Tbilisi Artillery School.

You were drafted?

Yes, I was called up by the draft office in Derbent and sent to the artillery school. This was in the winter of 1942. You would think that Georgia is a southern country and should be quite warm, but you cannot imagine how cold that winter was. We were young and not yet used to that kind of environment. We woke up at five every morning, did our physical training, and then studied the art of war, how to best operate our weapons, and how to take care of the horses. We had to groom the horses since our cannons were horse- drawn. I was from the city and had never had to deal with horses before. All of a sudden I had to learn to groom and ride a horse. Well, I got used to it because there was a war going on, and what else was I to do? I understood that I would have to fight, and do it well, in order to defend my home, my land, and my country, so to speak. I trained earnestly and could tell you quite a lot about my life at the military school. However, I will just tell you one story to show you what life there was like. We had to get dressed in five seconds. As soon as you heard the order to get dressed, you had to immediately get dressed and line up for rollcall. I made it to the line, but I was a bit late. Our master sergeant Chyornyy gave me two extra rotations at the stables as punishment. This meant that I had to work in the stables for two days, where the horse could easily kick me. The horses were very sturdy. Shivers ran down my spine. Suddenly he barked an order at me: “get undressed.” I began getting undressed and did so very quickly. The master sergeant then said “For getting undressed within the allotted amount of time I would like to publically thank Pekarovsky in front of his peers and cancel the two extra rotations at the stable.” This is how we were trained. We were trained very well. We learned how to operate the cannons from frontline artillery officers who knew their profession very well. I was good with the cannons. Then we set out for the front.

In 1942, yes?

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

Yes, in 1942. On August 7th, 1942 I stood with the other trainees in the main courtyard of the school while we were being awarded officer ranks. Everyone was either made a junior lieutenant or a lieutenant, and every single one of us was shacking with anticipation. Of course it was better to be a lieutenant. Finally, I heard my name: “Mikhail Pekarovsky, lieutenant.” After that we were sent to the front, where we traveled with our vehicles, equipment, and weapons. We spent two weeks in the Armenian town of Leninakan before moving on to Sukhumi. You might have heard of it, it is in the Caucasus. After Sukhumi we traveled to Gadauta, and finally, Gagra. These were resort towns, beautiful like gold. People took vacations there, swam in the sea, and enjoyed the lovely weather. In Gagra I was placed in charge of an anti-tank rifle platoon. It consisted of four rifles, four crews, and me, the commander. However, very soon I was reassigned and became the deputy commander of a battery of 45 mm cannons. These cannons were nicknamed “Farewell Motherland” or “Flea Killers” because they were positioned in front of the infantry and were essentially tasked with clearing a path for it. I swear that even though we were in Gagra during the beautiful autumn, I did not swim in the sea even once. There was fighting in the nearby mountains. The Germans were some 30 km from Tuapse, which is close to Gagra, only 30 km to the north. The Germans sent 40 divisions from Rostov and 15 from Crimea, which had already been occupied. An additional 26 divisions were to the south of us in Turkey. There was also the elite Edelweiss Mountain Division, which controlled almost all of the important passes in the Caucasus: Moruvsky, Klukhorskiy, and Sancharskiy. There is a place called Krasnaya Polyana, which is now being prepared for a festival and being cleaned up. It was there that we fought against the Germans. It was a resort town. There was a lake there that was used as a breeding pond for trout. Have you heard of trout? It is a very tender fish. There was fighting there and men were killed.

Was this your first frontline…?

Yes, yes, this was the beginning. One time I stepped out onto the shore and saw periscopes poking out of the water. Do you know what a periscope is? It is like a telescope for submarines. I was surprised because I could not figure out where the submarines came from. It turned out that these were German submarines and that we were essentially surrounded. The passes were controlled by the Edelweiss Division which knew the area very well since most of them had been tourists who came to spend time here. They had excellent maps, were very well armed, and took all of the mountain passes. Martial law was declared in Sukhumi to the south of us. In Gadauta… they were 30 km away from Gadauta in the south and 30 km away from Tuapse. We were surrounded because to the east, the main mountain passes… the passes in the Caucasus, were all controlled by the Edelweiss Division. We were surrounded.

I was in the 56th Army, 61st Division, 237th… see how well I remember things, 237th Detached Anti-tank Artillery Squadron, 3rd Battery. I later had a battery under my command. The 56th Army was in the Black Sea Group along with the 18th Army, commanded by General Grechko who later became Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union. We began our push north. We were a bit lucky because the Germans’ primary

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN objective was to reach the Caspian Sea and take Baku; they did not think that the war would take this long. They did not have enough fuel or engine fluids, they badly needed oil. This is why they had to take Grozny and Baku. They devoted 40 divisions, a huge number of men, to this operation. However, since the Battle of Stalingrad began at the same time, Hitler was forced to move units from the Caucasus Front to Stalingrad. The Caucasus Front was very important to him because after taking Baku, the road to India would have been open, but he needed to divert forces in order to hold the line at Stalingrad. We took advantage of this opportunity and moved north toward Tuapse. I passed through Tuapse, which was in ruins, just like Stalingrad. Tuapse was a southern resort town, but it had been leveled just like Stalingrad. Walking through Tuapse was heartrending. We moved through the Shabanovsky Pass. There was only a dirt road there, but the military engineers covered it with something to make it easier to use.

We advanced down the road toward the Germans. Many vehicles were lost on this road. For example, a truck carrying 17 young officers, all of them great guys, slipped off a cliff. People died this way. This is how we crossed the Shabanovsky Pass and eventually reached to low ground on the other side in the stanitsa of Stavropoloskaya. We began our fight for the Kuban. You cannot imagine the mud on the roads in that area. The mud in the Kuban is like a swamp. Our trucks would get stuck and we had to… We took Stavropoloskaya right away and were preparing for an attack on Novodmitrovskaya where the enemy had set up solid fortified positions. After that we advanced toward the stanitsas [sic.] of Abinsk, Krymsk, Georgiyevsk, and so forth. We were to push on toward Krasnodar, a large city and the capital of Kuban. However, another army was ordered toward Krasnodar and we were directed to Novorossiysk. This section of the front proved to be very important. However, the first battles were for Novodmitrievskaya. Our infantry regiment immediately advanced on Novodmitrovskaya.

I want to interrupt you for just a second. You mentioned that at one point you were surrounded. Did you ever feel as if you were not going to get out alive?

No, not at all. We all believed in our victory and knew that we would persevere no matter what. Nothing could stop us! We simply believed that we would win. That is why when they sing about victory in songs… like in that famous song that says that “victory was far off,” it is false. Our victory was with us all the time, every minute of every day. I wrote about this in my song “The Victory.”

Victory, you were not easy,

But we were ready to give our lives for you.

You urged us to be heroes, and walked alongside us,

You marched with us, victory.

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

It marched along with us in a worn trench coat. We fought as best as we could, which turned out to be quite well. So back to Novodmitrovskaya. The infantry advanced forward when suddenly soldiers began to fall down. Machinegun fire from a nearby hill mowed everyone down. It was terrible to see living men cut down before my eyes. It turned out that the Germans had chained someone from a penal unit to two machineguns. He could not retreat, so he could only fire away and mow down our soldiers. We then figured out that we could send a recon unit from the other side. They found him, killed him, and we then took Novodmitrovskaya. There were fierce battles around Krymsk and Obinsk [sic.]. I am skimming over this because I could not tell you everything in a day and a night, let alone an hour. The 47th Army was not able to take the Krymsk, or the Krymskaya Stanitsa as it was known then. It was very heavily fortified. Our 56th Army had to bring its weapons in order to help liberate the town. We took the town and then took the stanitsa of Obinskaya. Later we… I was wounded in the leg, but not seriously. I was bandaged at a field hospital and returned to my unit. We reached the stanitsa of Neberzhayevskaya and the eponymous mountain pass.

After that we advanced on Novorossiysk. This is the most important bit of the story. Novorossiysk is quite a large city and we had to capture it. I had been promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant by that time and was placed in charge of a battery. I had grown from a civilian, just a boy who did not know the thunder of shells, to that rank. A battery commander was in charge of four guns and that was something. We took up firing positions, in front of us were German mortars. An artillery duel broke out between us. We had two types of shells: armor piercing, which were used against tanks, and fragmentation which were used against German infantry. I picked quite a good position, but the situation quickly changed and this proved to be my final battle. It was as if I were hit in the head with a log. I felt something hot. I had been hit in the head and immediately began bleeding. My undershirt was completely soaked in blood. Two men from my battery came and picked me up, each one holding one arm, and led me away. My deputy assumed command and I was led away. I think I still had the psychological makeup of a child because all I could think of as I was being led away was how I resembled Chapayev, who was also led away like this. However, when I arrived at the field hospital, laid down at the bottom of a trench, and lost consciousness, I realized that I was no Chapayev. When I came to, I realized that I had been wounded; I did not yet understand how seriously, but I knew I had been wounded. This was a field hospital and I was immediately sent to the OR. When they cleaned up the wound they saw that there was a piece of shrapnel that could not be removed at their facility. I was sent to Krasnodar where a more substantial hospital had been set up. It is there that the photo which I showed you was taken. How was it taken? I was laying there, suffering from a terrible headache. I had just been wounded… I was bandaged up… some Armenian was in the next bed. He got up and told me to follow him. I asked why I had to get up. He told me that a photographer had come. I said “To hell with him, why the devil would I want that?” He insisted that I get up and be photographed. Thanks to him, I have the only war photo ever taken of me. I sent the photo to the editorial board of Evening Yerevan, which ran it in the paper. A woman wrote to me, saying that she recognized her brother in the phot next to me, and wanted to know how he was doing. What could I tell her? I was just lying there

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

ID IS066.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4n25g

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN wounded with a bandaged head. Her brother’s head was also bandaged and we only made small talk. I could not tell her anything because her brother did not come back alive. I lost track of him, but I am thankful to him for this image. It is a very important memento. It reminds me of that extraordinary stay in the hospital as an officer, but still a boy. This is how we fought against Hitler. The doctors were unable to remove the shrapnel in Krasnodar, so I was sent to Baku on a medical train.

In Baku I underwent two trepanations. The second one was particularly bad because the nurses dropped a heavy instrument on my head, causing me agonizing pain. However, the doctor in charge of the operation turned out to be very good and she told me to just hold on a little longer while she tried something else. She then said to me that she cannot take the fragment out and that she will have to close the wound with the piece of shrapnel still inside. Professor Arutyunov, a famous neurologist from Kyiv later also looked at my wound and told me to just keep living with it and to get used to is as my friend. He told me that I would suffer from headaches, but that at least it did not keep going since it would have pierced my brain. After being advised by such a specialist, I decided not to do anything else. My wound healed up and I left Baku to return to Kyiv. Khreshchatyk lay in ruins and the city was quite badly damaged.

Was this in 1943 or 1944?

This was in 1944. In February of 1944 I was seen by a medical commission and made a reserve officer. I was granted a pension. By that point our forces were on the offensive and men like me were no longer needed. By that time there were fresh fighters who were capturing cities, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The front was moving rapidly and I was not needed there. I told my wife, whom I had married by then, that I thought that if I returned to the front, that I would not make it back alive. I only managed to survive once. Sometimes you catch a lucky break and thank God I did. I kept living and working.

May I ask you a few questions now, or should we come back to this later?

Please, whatever you think is best.

Could you tell us about your father? Did you keep in touch with him, or did you lose track of where he was?

You will be surprised by the kind of coincidence that occurred. I was in the hospital in Baku, near the Yaşıl Bazar. It is probably still there. My father was in a hospital in Kirovograd. Not the one in Ukraine, but the one in Azerbaijan, just a few hundred kilometers from me. He was wounded in the leg. I did not know anything about him, and he did not know anything about me. I did not write or keep in touch with anyone. When I sent a letter to my old address in Kyiv, I received a response saying that my house had been destroyed and that my family was not living there. This was a lie, which I will explain later. I even contemplated not returning to Kyiv since I thought that my home had been destroyed and that my family

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN was no longer there. However, I decided to return anyways. It turned out that my house was standing and that my family was alive, but had been evacuated to Orsk in Siberia. My father had joined the rest of my family there, and I began figuring out a way for them to return.

Why were you lied to?

I later understood that our neighbors had broken into our apartment and looted it right when the Germans took the city. Somebody had to know this and they did not need that kind of trouble… so they decided to dissuade me from returning to Kyiv. At first I really did debate not returning.

Furthermore, I even traveled to Almaty. Because in the reserves, where I served after being discharged from the hospital… The winter was incredibly cold. We had a metal stove, where an officer who had lost his eye sat all day. Even though the stove gave off heat, he would complain about how cold he was. Without his eye, he was cold even near the stove. I told him of my predicament and he told me to travel to Otar, a nearby village, where his parents would welcome me like their own son. I set off and traveled God knows how long over the Caspian Sea and by trains. They really did receive me well. However, I had to register in Almaty, which was the capital of Kazakhstan at that time. When I came there, I saw how dirty the city was. In fact, it was not really a city, just a huge village. As someone who had grown up in Kyiv, this seemed awful. I did not waste any time and went to the draft office that very same day in order to request a transfer. I returned to Baku, from where my hospital acquaintances got me a pass to Kyiv. This is how I returned to Kyiv.

There were so many awful losses during the war, but you managed to make friends anyway? Maybe it is because of all the death around you?

I must answer that question with a story. I published this story in the Voice of the Disabled Veteran, you may have come across that magazine here. My story is titled Half a Loaf of Bread. When our 56th Army was advancing toward the Kuban, a fellow officer and I were told that we would become communications officers. We were then told we were being given a very important mission and that we had to catch up to our detached artillery squadron. In addition to the anti-tank unit, there was also an artillery unit. Communications officers are usually issued a car, a horse, or a bicycle, but we did not receive any of that. Crossing the Shabanovsky Pass on our own two feet was very difficult. It was bitterly cold. Finally, Borya (speaking of friendship) and I found ourselves… we crossed over the pass and found ourselves near a stanitsa. It was late and we were terribly tired. We were wearing fur coats and were carrying our backpacks. Inside the bags we each had a pair of underwear, a head of garlic, a head of onion, another pair of underwear, and one or two cans of food. In those times these items were worth more than gold. We decided to lay down and have a nap.

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

Where?

What?

Where did you lie down?

It was… in the field. Right in the field. We had fur coats and cotton hats. We had nowhere else to sleep, there was no shelter. We were literally in the middle of a field and we were exhausted. When we woke up it was already morning and the sun was out.

I felt that something was missing and looked around to find out that my backpack had disappeared. I was horrified. My comrade woke up and his bag was there, but mine was missing. We were all alone, and since we had not reached the units we were assigned to, we were caught in a sort of limbo. He said to me “Don’t sweat it, everything’s OK.” He then proceeded to take out a loaf of bread from his backpack and split it with me. Bread was worth its weight in gold back then. This is what friendship is. What else could one call it? It is friendship. You see, he shared his bread, even though he needed it in the cold barren steppe. We did not know how much longer or where we had to go, but he shared his food with my anyway. Thanks to him I survived. It was an exceptional kind of friendship. God let there be that kind of friendship in our times in the land of Israel. May people love, respect, and help each other the same way that my friend did. You asked if there were any friendships. There were, and they were extraordinary, especially among frontline soldiers. They gave their own lives so that the men next to them could live.

В. Could you tell us about how you learned about what the Germans did to Jews?

We watched films before the war. I saw “The Oppenheim Family” by Lion Feuchtwanger [sic. the director is Grigori Roshal –EB], which showed everything about how the Jews were treated. We knew this from the very start. On top of that, refugees from Poland began arriving and recounting what they had witnessed back home. I knew before the war even began, but only thanks to films and several books. Most of my information came from “The Oppenheim Family/”

What about the “Not a step back” order…

Oh, good thing you remembered! The commander of our school gathered us all in the central assembly square. He uttered those terrible words to us, words that we as Soviet people could not believe: “Comrade cadets, I want to inform you that our forces have shamed our banner near Rostov.” I stood there thinking that he must have misspoken, he could not have meant what he was saying. Later, I found out about order 232, I think it was 232. “Not a step back.” I knew that we would be shot or sent to a penal battalion for retreating without orders. We were not allowed to retreat at all, we had been retreating for two long.

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However, this was only in 1944. I think it was either order 227 or 222, I cannot remember anymore.

Did you ever witness your comrades being punished?

Yes.

For what?

I witnessed it. Our commander was Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny, Marshall of the Soviet Union. Our unit was stationed in Gagra on the coast of the Black Sea. We fought in the mountains and would then return.

There were lots of scum among us. They were specially sent people who were dressed in Soviet military uniforms and were supposed to spy on us and collect intel. One time an antitank rifle unit was approached by two such men. They came up to a young officer and said that Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny had personally asked them to relocate his guns to a section of the front where they were desperately needed. It was clearly a fishy, but they young officer was naïve, so he gave them the antitank guns, which they loaded up and took with them. Later when asked where his guns were, he began explaining what happened and it became clear that what he did may be construed as a crime. He gave away his equipment and weapons to people whom he did not know and who had not shown him any documentation. I attended his military trial. I was genuinely sorry for the lad, he was just a young and naïve boy. I could sense that he had a good heart. He stood there, without his belt, as the tribunal read out a verdict: he was to be sent to a penal battalion. This meant that he had to charge headfirst at flying bullets and falling bombs at the very front of our lines. I witnessed this punishment being delivered. It was very painful to watch and I could have easily made a similar mistake. Budyonny was quite the authority, if he requested something, there had to be a document. In any case, such a request would go to the unit commander, not a platoon commander. The young guys were not quick on their feet yet.

As a Jewish soldier in the Red Army, did you feel that you were treated differently on account of your ethnic background?

Not at the front. There was a bit of that after we arrived in Derbent.

The senior officer at the draft office… he saw my documents. He read them and saw that I was Jewish. He began laughing and saying something about it. That was the only time I ever experienced anything like that. This did not happen a single time at the front. There was never any anti-Semitism at the front. At least I did not experience it either at the front or during training.

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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Was there any kind of kinship with other Jews at the front? You fought together after all?

Honestly, we did not have that many Jews in my unit. It was antitank artillery: 45 mm guns, “Flea Killers,” and “Farewell Motherland.” There was only one other Jew and he and I had an unpleasant encounter. He was a civilian through and through. He was of small stature and I think he was an accountant of some sort. This war was a huge nuisance for him; he had to lug around the anti-tank guns. One time we had to cross a river by balancing on a log that we were using as a bridge. This was not easy, you practically had to be an acrobat. We young guys had no problem, but he was a bit older already middle-aged. He fell into the river. We immediately dragged him out, dried him off, gave him dry clothes, and sent him to the rear. I do not think this had anything to do with him being Jewish. He simply had not adapted to military life. There was no open or blatant… quite the opposite, during training Major Oleynik introduced me and said that I knew how to play violin and wanted me to put on a show. I was not as good as some other people, but nonetheless, he put me on stage… he probably saw me first and foremost as a Jew, you understand? However, I never felt that I was subjected to abuse or anything like that. Actually, Lieutenant Chernov abused one Armenian so badly during training, that you cannot imagine it. He discovered that Sogatelyan would unscrew the receiver from the radio before running somewhere with the radio set. The idea was that you had to be able to run with the receiver attached. He had graduated from the mathematics department at an Armenian university. So Chernov called him over. The Armenian came over. “Screw this back in” said Chernov. The Armenian complied. Then Chernov said: “Do you see that tree over there?” The tree was quite far away. “Put on your gasmask and run there back.” When he returned he looked like death. When he took off his gasmask we saw that he was drenched in sweat. Chernov said “I’ll teach you some math…” He was punishing him not for being Armenian or Jewish… just because he was educated. Cerhnov was a simply Belarusian guy and this is how he took his frustration out. However, I never heard of anyone being abused for being Jewish… never.

Could you tell us about your awards and your medals? Which mean the most to you?

My dear, the medal for victory over Germany is my most valued one. I told you that we always felt that our victory was marching beside us, not like in those songs… especially that main one…

Victory Day?

Yes… Victory Day was so far from us. I mean it was correct in a physical sense, but the song should not begin the way it does. Victory Day was never far from us. Even in the hardest hours, when we were rotting in the trenches, our victory was with us. If it had been any other way, we would not have won. I can say this with great confidence. People have to believe in something and we believed. If a person still believes in something good, then he deserves respect because it means that he is striving toward his goals with confidence. That was the case with our victory as well.

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Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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Could you tell us about your postwar life.

I could. Do you want to know?

Yes of course, because ???

I mentioned that my father was a painter, so what do you think I was to do when the war ended? I began painting portraits and received payments from the arts fund. I am not sure if that organization still exists today. I did this until I graduated from the Repin Arts School in Leningrad. It is an institution with a rich set of traditions and can boast of such famous graduates as Surikov and Repin. I even defended my dissertation in the same hall that Repin had defended his thesis “Raising of Jairus' Daughter.” I only learned of this later.

You were telling us about women who were…

I was telling you about my university, the one where I defended my dissertation. My topic was artists at the front. I never let go of the war in anything that I did, you understand? And here in the Land of Israel, Moses knows how many essays I wrote about Jewish artists during the war, the war itself, and about the need for a museum to showcase these materials. I never abandoned this topic. I also have a few books on philosophy, including “Truth or Error.” This is a book on political philosophy. Do you have a copy? You should. In general, everything that is new, lively, and original attracts me. I go where my heart calls me. Just today I was touched when I witnessed Rosa and Johnny take the dog our for a walk. I looked at them from behind and reminded me of Chekhov’s “Lady with the Dog.” I wrote a song about it called “Johnny, Johnny.” Nowadays I am interested in questions of philosophy. I do not repeat what others have said to me, but I sit down and write my original thoughts, no matter how difficult. Although I have written quite a few works, I have not made any money on them yet. This is the tragedy of our time. Only once was I paid 20 shekels for my work. The man who paid me probably does not even remember, but I do. One journalist even hung himself here on account of this problem. He was a journalist by trade and began working here, but he was not paid and could not support his family. He did not know how to do anything else, so he hung himself. For some reason this kind of work is not valued or rewarded here. It is absolutely unclear to me. I think it is simply because there are no funds for this kind of work.

You are correct

О. Почему не платят вот этим авторам многочисленным, которые в газету пишут? Потому что нет в редакции денег.

They do not pay the many authors who write in because the published does not have any money.

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Could you tell us why you decided to move to Israel?

I came to Israel in 1990 because I felt anti-Semitic oppression at home. I worked in circles of educated people, but I will shed light on one episode that forced me to leave a very prestigious institute in Kyiv. It was the Kyiv Research and Experimentation Institute of Residential Construction.

They say that the son of Stalin’s cook was the director of this institute. His name was Aleksei Ivanovich Zavarov and he was an energetic and active man. He did many good things for Kyiv. It was 1972 and I had been productively working at the institute for many years. I was working on theoretical problems and publishing pamphlets that even made their way to Moscow. I was published in Kyiv and Moscow magazines, which is good for the institute. In 1972 those who worked with theory were now also given practical assignments. In addition to working with theories, you also had to help with ongoing projects in order to earn money. This is quite difficult because those of us who work with theory tend to get absorbed into our work and we are not well-connected with actual projects. So in addition to my theoretical work, I also did practical assignments. My theoretical work consisted of designing interiors for village social clubs. This was quite important because these clubs frequently resembled large sheds that needed to be spruced up in order to look more modern. I was good at this. The practical work had to do with plywood. Plywood is a material that can be used very cheaply instead of more expensive real wood. I had to figure out how to use it for flooring material. I had to design pieces with the optimal parameters for use as flooring material. We had to figure out such parameters for different shapes: rhombuses, squares, triangles, and circles. This is important because unlike in an apartment, there can be many different needs in a public space. I took up this task and my work was greatly appreciated by leadership at the Bozhenko Factory. Their management approved my work and paid me 3,000 rubles. Back then that was quite a pretty penny, right Moses?

Yes.

I suddenly made 3,000 rubles. We were having our end of year meeting where we were summarizing what we had accomplished. Even though I had done good work, some of the managers began chastising me. Everyone understood that I deserved praise, but I was instead being told that I was doing poor work. I suddenly understood that this was not due to my work, but due the fact that I was Jewish. My boss, Zavarov, needed give my position to a different person.

There was another wave of anti-Semitic firings and I fell victim to it. At first my managers told me that they would protect me and told me to apply to the Teacher Training Institute, but no matter where I went, I was not given any work. In order to make ends meet I wrote articles and books. I did a lot of work and was published in nearly all of the Kyiv newspapers starting from Kyiv Nightly and ending with Pravda of

Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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Ukraine. I was also published in magazines in Moscow as well as abroad. My wife helped me because she had a practical job that paid money. How could I feel comfortable in this situation? I found myself unemployed, but since I had many friends they found me work at an engraving workshop. This workshop produced portraits, landscapes, and other thematic works. The artists were some of the best in Kyiv and they did amazing work. However, they were not free to develop the themes of their work because they had to make sure that the different parts would still fit together. I was in charge of doing so. Our products were easily sold and I quickly earned a bit of money since the pay was not bad. However, I was a Ph.D. candidate and my job, although not job is bad, was not befitting of a man with that degree in Kyiv at the time. It was one thing to be a senior fellow at an interior design bureau, it was an entirely different thing to work on engravings. I cannot say that I encountered anti-Semitism directly, or that I was verbally abused, but I always feel a sense that I was not like everyone else, that I was not as Einstein put it, an aboriginal. I felt that I was treated and received differently. I was never insulted or treated with open hostility.

If it is not too much to ask, we only have about five minutes remaining, Stas cannot copy the entire book, so he asked if you could please read us a few lines of your own poetry. If it is not too difficult.

Yes, let’s read from the book.

Or by memory. Just one or two, I’m sorry that I did not warn you.

I will read you the ballad of a soldier’s love.

You wait for a letter, for just two lines

To tell you that I am alive and still in good health.

And after a sleepless night’s struggle

The battle’s over and pick up my quill

How much I have endured my dear,

During this short and turbulent night.

It has passed and dawn is breaking.

But as I write, my dreams leave me.

Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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Yes, night has passed and morning is arriving.

The sun showers the deep blue in gold.

But my love, you do not know yet

What price we’ve paid to live our lives.

There was a long hard fight for the crossing.

The Germans gave it all they had.

You remember that I did not know how to swim,

But tonight I made it across the river.

We climbed the shore. Mowed down by shrapnel,

My comrade fell and said : I only have a mother.

Write to her kindly and convincingly,

So that the old woman does not grieve too much.

I hugged him, and through the tears,

I could not pull apart his frozen hands.

Maybe then I did not think my love,

That I’ll survive till morning.

The shadow of night is more and more terrible.

Which of them hides my death?

And if I did not die in the attack,

It is because I carried you with me.

Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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When this war ends, we’ll be together again.

And there’ll be too many happy days to count.

When I return, without extra words

You’ll see that I’m alive and that I’m there.

Fog obscures the distant horizons.

The sun is higher, but the paper is empty.

He wrote, I’m alive and well, don’t worry Tanya,

I am alive and well, my love, Boris.

I think that’s everything. I did not miss anything big in either case.

Thank you very much

Do you have any more questions for me my dear?

Thank you very much.

May I go?

Yes.

Mikhail Pekarovsky. Full, unedited interview, 2008

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