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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS ITEM TRANSCRIPT

ENGLISH TRANSLATION 2 CITATION & RIGHTS 13

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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID BEL036.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4dt1c

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION —Today is November 3, 2009. We are in Vitebsk, Belarus. We are meeting with a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Please tell us your name, where and when you were born. Please, go ahead.

It's the beginning of November. A few days from now we will celebrate the great October Revolution, which I congratulate you with.

—Please introduce yourself.

I am Lev Genrikhovich Manevich. This has been my last name to date, but for two years when I had a different name—Pyotr Vasilyevich Shvedov. I also had a number, "vier und achtzig, vier, ein und achtzig” [84481].

—Where and when were you born?

I was born in the Viktorovka khutor, near the Mozhzhevoe village of the Kaslyukovichsky District, Mogilev Oblast, to a family of Jewish peasants.

—What do you remember of your life before the war, of your family?

Even though we were very poor—we were "kolkhozniki" [collective farmers]—the time until I turned fourteen was the happiest time of my life. When I turned fourteen, I left my home to go study, and I spent the rest of my life half starving.

—Was this a Jewish kolkhoz?

Yes, it was a Jewish settlement. Only Jews lived there, on the territory of a country estate. I only remember the landowner's wife and her son, Viktor, whom the farm was named after. I remember [officials] arriving from the district center and taking him away. This happened before I started school.

—What year was this?

1927.

—And he never returned?

No, he never returned. [L.M. reads a poem in Belarusian about his homeland]. I want to have another

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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID BEL036.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4dt1c

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN chance to visit my homeland.

—And then what happened to you? What school did you attend? Was it a Jewish school?

No, it was a Belorussian school. I finished seven grades. I wasn't a wunderkind: all subjects were difficult for me. Nevertheless, I graduated seven grades, earned a merit certificate, and applied to the Orsha Teachers College. My documents were sent back to me, as I was missing one year of schooling. But I had an uncle who worked in Orsha. At first he was in the police force and was then promoted to the first party secretary of the district party committee. Thanks to his request, I was allowed to take the entrance exams and I was admitted to the Orsha Teachers College, where I studied for two years.

It’s interesting to note that during this period my uncle's career progressed: he was nominated to the Supreme Soviet. Five days before the election his candidacy was removed and he ended up in an NKVD basement, in the very building where he worked. He was tortured for nine months. By chance he was able to get a pair of his shoes to his wife, and inside he hid a note. It said that when his son grows up, to tell him that his father was always, until his last day, devoted to Stalin. The shoes ended up with his nephew and were sent to Moscow, to Stalin. As a result, he was freed. He was jailed during Beria's tenure, and released under Beria's tenure, and he continued to work as a party secretary of the district committee until the war broke out. He took part in the war. He was a commissar at a hospital throughout the war. He returned after the war and went back to work.

My parents were executed. When I got back from the war, I wrote a letter to the kolkhoz asking what had happened to my parents. I received a half-page response: "Your father and your entire family were shot by German-fascist occupiers." I went home the first opportunity I had. My neighbors, peasant women, told me how it happened. Blood froze in my veins, I felt chills, and I couldn't hold back tears. Our house stood on the bank of a river. This river still flows and weaves through the willow bushes. I stood on the bank for a long time with my son. I called out "aooo," hoping someone might respond. But no one did. My daughter and I visited the mass grave there; good people setup a monument there. A weeping willow now grows there, and happy people live nearby. Goats graze in the summer and happy people live nearby. That's a fragment from my biography.

—Besides you, were there other children? Did you have brothers or sisters?

That's just the thing, I had two younger brothers and a sister, you see. A polizei arrived from the city and ordered the [town] overseer to prepare a horse cart, and everyone was loaded on. The oldest of my younger brothers was about to run, but the polizei pulled out a gun, ready to shoot. My mother screamed, and my little brother was caught and placed back on the cart. A day later they were all shot in Mstislavl

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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID BEL036.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4dt1c

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

[Mstsislaw].

—The polizei—was he Belorussian?

I don't know whether he was Ukrainian or Belorussian. That's the story. In the morning when I wake up and in the evening when I get ready for bed, I cannot help but remember these things. This and everything that happened then. There are seven boulders sitting in my garden, under my window. I imagine that my loved ones, [the following lines quote a famous Soviet song, "Cranes" —Ed.] like those soldiers who never returned from bloody fields, weren't buried in the ground but turned into white cranes. And when at the close of day I see them in their weary V, I can see a gap in their formation—a little space that, perhaps, is meant for me. I will rise up with them, and dissolve in the heaven mist [end of quote], and I will wish upon you, my friends, that you live long on our wonderful and unhappy God-created land. What else would you like to know?

—When were you drafted to the army?

That is a good question. I joined two days after the war began, straight out of university. I was a first-year university student. I had one more exam to take and came to school with the intention to take the exam. It was the second day of the war. I discovered that the war had begun while [studying] in the Lenin Library—there was a pillar with a radio attached, and Molotov came on the radio at 11 o'clock in the morning. I came to the university asking for instructions. [We were ordered to] gather in the basement of the university. And in the meantime, there already lay an unexploded bomb the size of a person by the university. We were given small-caliber rifles and organized into . . .

—This was in Orsha?

This was in Minsk. The university was a state university. A student fighter detachment [was organized], which included all of the university heads of staff. We took part in it for a few days, but there wasn't much we could do, and we were told to go home. It took me several days to get home. By the time I got back Stalin had already made the announcement over the radio. Everything was quiet and peaceful at home, you see. My father received an army summons, but since he worked at the mill, he stayed so that he would keep working. Our home phone rang asking if anyone born in 1923 resided in the household, at which point I was ordered to appear before the military enlistment committee. When I arrived, my documents were taken and they announced, "You're moving out tomorrow." They gathered about twenty of us, and we started walking. It took us a long time to get to the end station, the Rada Station, near Tambov. There we underwent training. We sharpened sticks and with these sticks we were supposed [to practice] bayonet attacks against the Germans. Later we were sorted and those who graduated school were sent to the East. It took us a long time to get out there; we went all the way to Kazakhstan. There we were trained for a

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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN month and then sent to the Southwestern Front. It was already the winter of 1941.

I spent a year at the front and two and a half as a POW. Yes, yours truly, a Belorussian Jew, went through five German-Nazi concentration camps. Went through—but survived a thousand days in the German-Nazi captivity. Podlissky wrote a book about me.

—How did you end up a prisoner?

It happened in the summer of '42, near the Donets River. Our regiment was encircled, but it fought to the death. An all-around defense with no shells, no cartridges. The order from High Command was to not retreat, but everyone wanted to survive so badly! Those who retreated encountered the barrier troops, or they were sent to Stalingrad [Volgograd] to fight. Those who fought to the death were either killed or captured. War is a tragedy, calamity, and catastrophe for all. But for a Jewish soldier, the most frightening thing on earth was to be captured by the Germans. I was not able to evade this fate. Your humble servant, a Belorussian Jew, endured five German-Nazi concentration camps. And not only the German camps, but also two Soviet camps. In a mine near Tula I atoned for having been in a German-Nazi camp. I managed to escape from there, came back to Minsk, to the university, which had held on to my documents and gave them back to me, and then I was demobilized.

—How did you manage to stay alive [as a POW]?

To stay alive? First, I looked like a Belorussian, my mother was a Belorussian.

—You did not look like a Jew.

Exactly. Two of my close friends, they knew. They said to me, "Don’t worry, we won't betray you. But don't you go and reveal yourself either." This was because at the very first inspection, we were lined up and an order was issued: "Jews and commissars—step forward." No one did. He walked through the rows of people and found this little Jew. He teased him, but the latter remained with us. Later, when we were transferred from one camp to the next, they were plucked out, the Jews that is, and were kept elsewhere. They were abused separately. And then they disappeared altogether. They were shot somewhere on the way. That's that.

So how did I survive? The most important thing for me was to get through the medical exam. But I had to get through that only in the last camp, in Germany. We were there for a long time, in the city of Hagen.

—Which city?

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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID BEL036.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4dt1c

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

Hagen, near the border with France, in Westphalia. We spent a long time in the camp, and before being sent off to work, everyone was taken to the banya. All of our linens were taken for disinfection. It was a good banya; there were lots of people. When we came out of the banya there was a table next to the door manned by a huge Russian-speaking man. He would ask everyone who exited the banya: "Where are you from?" And he looked at each person, from top to bottom. I [of course] understood what he was looking for. I exited only when there was already a big crowd of naked people, and only a few remained in line [to be examined]. I had to go, so I went. Immediately he asked "Where are you from?" At that moment I ran and hid in the crowd of naked people. He went after me, but I crouched down, like a rabbit under a bush. There were still people in line, so he went back [to his post]. He came to look for me later. I don't know if he was Russian or Ukrainian, but he didn't recognize me again. So I survived. There was one other time, right before liberation. Us young people, the youngest were all taken to a medical exam. They wanted to send us to work in a mine. So [we had to go through] another medical examination. Before coming before the medical examiner I felt like a dead man walking. Rumor had it that one of the doctors was German, and the other was Polish. A young Pole, you see. He looked me over from top to bottom, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, "Good for you that you stayed alive."

—The Pole said that?

This young Pole.

—And he let you go?

He let me through. And he declared that the number 84481 is not suited for [work] in the mine. I had a hernia, you see. It's [difficult] to recall this tragic episode.

—[From the audience:] Did you have a tattoo?

No, we didn't have tattoos. We wore metal badges on our arms. No one asked for your last name, just your number—84481.

—How did you escape the camp?

I did not escape the camp, I stayed there until the end.

—And then . . . What happened in the end?

I will tell you in a moment. Right before the end of the war everyone was lined up, given half a loaf of bread, and they marched us, but we didn't know where we were going. We walked for a long time, with

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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID BEL036.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4dt1c

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN shooting going on all around us. Our guards switched a few times. There was an older commandant, and then we were free. There were no guards. We returned back to the ash heap of the camp where we had been living and carried on living; we didn't know what we were supposed to do.

—Where was this?

All of this was in Hagen, Westphalia, Western Germany. While I was at this camp for two years, we were bombed day and night, with nowhere to hide. We were being bombed intermittently by the British and the Americans. The Germans hid in good bomb shelters, but the rest of the camp would just sit it out. The camp had been bombed through and through multiple times. And then we heard that the Americans had come. It [turned out to be] the British, not the Americans. They came into the city and walked all the way through. That is how we ended up free. No one liberated us. The British appeared, and all of the prisoners came out, but neither could communicate with each other. But they explained to us that we were now free and were free to do whatever we wanted. Some of the men began occupying living quarters and apartments [in the city]. A few days later, the Americans arrived. It turned out that some doctor could speak English and he was able to communicate with the Americans. He was assigned as commandant, and he ordered the Russian POWs to gather at the edge of the city that was unharmed and take over the apartments in that area. The Germans were all kicked out, and we took over their apartments. The Americans fed us. We stayed there for an entire month. All of the men gained so much weight, they were unrecognizable. Those packages [they gave us] kept us well fed.

Then, a Soviet officer arrived in a truck, and began speaking from atop a car. He explained the international situation to us and told us that the officers would be taken back to the motherland first, as the motherland needed people. The rest would go on foot. So I claimed to be an officer—I said I was a political deputy. Cars arrived, driven by black drivers; we got in the cars and were driven away. We passed through Bautzen, where Thalmann died [Ernst Thalmann was imprisoned Bautzen but was later transferred to and shot in Buchenwald —Ed.]. It was a checkpoint, so we stayed there for a few days. Afterwards we were put on a train and taken towards the motherland, which took a long time. Finally we reached Nevel [Nyevyel'], which is on the border of Russia and Belarus. We were greeted with a wind ensemble. All of a sudden we found ourselves behind barbed wire. It was a SMERSH camp where we were all screened. You hear? They screened us, filled out documents about who we were and where we were from. People wrote to their loved ones, wives could come visit their husbands. That is when I received a letter from the kolkhoz saying that my entire family had been killed. For a long time I kept that letter in my breast pocket, but so that it would not burn my heart, I decided to burn it. Everyone was screened, then everyone received their documents. But since I was living under a different name, you see, no documents came for me. That is when I decided to confess that I was not Pyotr Vasilievich Shvedov, but Lev Gennadievich Manevich. I asked [an official], "Which name should I live with?" He replied that I should live by my own name, "You are now Manevich." I, along with about twenty or thirty people, was sent to the mine to work. I felt like the time

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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

I spent as a POW was hell, only to realize that I was going even deeper here. I worked for a week and then I ran away with a few other people. It took us a long time to get to Minsk. In Gomel, I was arrested and detained. I explained everything, just like I have explained everything to you just now. A guard had me sign a paper that said that I would leave Gomel and the entire Gomel Oblast within twenty-four hours. So he let me go. I don't really remember . . . I continued on to Minsk . . . and when I arrived in Minsk, I received my documents which were still there. I returned to the SMERSH camp and then was officially demobilized. I thought that I would return home as a hero, because I survived, you see. But they sent me straight to the mine. Just like that. I am a tenacious man. Sergey Zakonnikov, a Belorussian poet, had an entire radio hour dedicated to me, titled "The Tenacious Man." Podlissky wrote a book about me, and so did a German woman. A German, two German officials visited me at home. But here, no one has visited my home here. I live a few steps from here.

—What did you do after you were demobilized?

I'll tell you. When I was released, I made friends with several Georgians. They said, "You don't have any family left, come with us to Georgia." It was far away and I decided to visit my homeland. It was wintertime, there was snow everywhere.

—Where were you when you were demobilized? What was it called?

Opukhliki, the city of Nevel. There's a health resort there now.

—That's where you were demobilized?

That’s where I was freed, demobilized.

—And where did you go?

I wanted to go to Georgia, but I decided to drop by my homeland through Mstislavl. I made some calls: "Do you know what happened to my uncle, he was the secretary of the district party committee?" I learned that he was working in the regional party committee. Hearing this, I turned around and made my way straight to Mogilev, to the regional party committee [headquarters]. It was still wintertime. I arrived and said to the guard: "I need to see so-and-so; he is my mother's brother." The guard asked me, "What does he look like?" I told the guard that my uncle was bald and older. The guard made a phone call, and then next thing I saw was my uncle, wearing a cotton-padded jacket. He looked around but didn't seem to recognize me. "Where have you been? I've been looking for you for a while," he asked me. I told him I had been a prisoner, and, being a commissar, he scowled at me: "You couldn't have picked somewhere else to be?" Then he realized was he was saying and let me stay with him. Because he worked in the regional party

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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID BEL036.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4dt1c

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN committee, he had an apartment in Mogilev. I stayed with him for two weeks, but [I left because] his wife didn't like that I was living with them without paying [rent].

One good man whom I knew from before the war took me by the arm and led me to the regional department of education, where a friend of his worked. I was sent to a school, to an orphanage, to work as a teacher. And then I transferred from Minsk to the Mogilev Pedagogical Institute. I enrolled and continued to work in orphanages until I was ready to take the state exam. It wasn't easy to prepare for the exam while working in orphanages. But I managed somehow, more or less. I passed the first three exams, but I didn't pass the fourth, in pedagogy, despite feeling more confident in this subject. My exam ticket consisted of two words: separate education; at this time they were introducing separate schools for girls and boys. And I [had studied] Sukhomlinsky, Makarenko. I told them everything I knew, thinking that I got very lucky with the question. I explained why it was bad. I said enough for a master's degree. The committee just sat there in silence. Everyone received their [passing] grades, I was the only one to get a 2 [equivalent of an F grade —Trans.]. I thought I must've misheard them. I asked why, and they explained that single-gender education had been implemented on the orders from the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Communist Party. What was I to do? Either to end up with a certificate that indicated I had [completed] four [out of five] years [of university] or . . . I thought about what I should do. Jump out of the window? I gathered up all of my courage and went to the regional department of education, where I asked to be assigned a school. They asked me where I wanted to go, I told them I didn't care. They gave me three districts to choose from, and I ended up in Surazh District. You don't know our districts, this is one of the most backwards and downtrodden areas. I came out and the guys asked me where I was headed. I told them Surazh District, and they all laughed. When I got to Surazh, I discovered that there wasn't any transportation there and that the school I was assigned to did not exist. I walked from one end of the village to the other and saw a live person [so I inquired where the schoolhouse was]. "You keep walking past it," he said. "It’s in one of the private homes." I asked where the principal lived, and went to his house. He died not long ago, by the way, my very first principal. He lived behind a stove in a private house. There was a child crying in his house, and I thought, "Where did I end up?" We talked and I ended up staying as a teacher in this rural school for two years. Those were the happiest two years of my after-war life. I became a man here, you see, because before I was just a lad. I studied for the state exam, which I passed with a grade of "good" [equivalent to a B grade —Ed.], and got my diploma. At the village school, I taught history, the Constitution, German; I had to dabble in everything. I became the ninth person in the district to receive a higher education. I was sent to a high school to teach German and history. I taught history for six months and then I started teaching only German, because there was no one else to do it. Since then, I have taught German for thirty years. I took numerous courses. I applied to the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages all by myself. I got in and studied there. I already had a family by then, and I didn't want to waste my time and be poor, so I dropped out. I took some courses in Minsk and other places.

I spent ten years teaching in rural schools and I worked at a technical college for twenty years. Five and half

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Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

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ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN years later my hours were cut in half. I was told to go to the kolkhoz, spend some time working there, and they would think of something by the time I returned. I did as instructed—I went and worked with a group. The female teacher didn't go because she had no one to leave her dogs with. An emergency occurred when she did go. I worked there for a bit, returned and discovered that they did not think of anything and my hours were still cut in half. This was very stressful, and I had a stroke and was paralyzed. After that I had three heart attacks. In a word I have a whole cart of illnesses: a stroke, three heart attacks, and obliterating sclerosis of the brain and extremities. Now, that's serious. "To lose my mind I dread; 'tis worse than facing beggary and dearth." —Pushkin. I write poetry as a sort of therapy. My occupational therapy is my profession and involvement in the party. I live in a house without a[n indoor] bathroom, but I do have a phone. That's how a war veteran and widower lives, like a crow. I couldn't get a vacation trip for three years in a row, so I made my way to the administration [of the city of Minsk]. I said, "Can I see the minister?" No. The deputy? No. He's in Brest, not here. I was escorted to the assistant, for whom I recited a poem. "You write poetry?" she asked. "I do indeed," I responded. "Do you have any lyric poems?" I felt uncomfortable reading that kind of poetry to this woman, but I recited "Second Heart Attack." She then said to me, "Are you ready to leave for the health resort right away? You have a second to think it over." I said I was ready. She went through a side door, and I realized she was going to speak with the minister. She came back and told me that I should go see him. I refused. She told me I have to go. I opened the door into a large room. Behind the table sat a small woman, no larger than your wife. I walked over thinking that she was going to ask me to sit at the table. She got up from her desk and reached her hand out to me. I started crying. I said to her, "'If you place a crying Bolshevik in a museum, visitors would walk around all day, gaping, as you would not see this anywhere else.'" [—Mayakovsky]. I wiped my tears as she tried to calm me down, "Go ahead, you will be given your vacation ticket." I came out and continued to wait, probably for another half hour, while they called around. Finally I got a ticket. Guess where? To the RHIP. Do you know what that is?

—No.

Republican House of Individual Pensioners. God forbid one ever ends up there. That is a place where retirees live out their days. There are no dances, the food is awful, and so on.

—I have one more question for you.

Go ahead.

—Did you often talk about what you went through with your family?

I've told you: in the morning, when I get up, and in the evening, when I go to bed, I can't help but think about it. Between us, these memories are always accompanied by tears.

Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID BEL036.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4dt1c

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

—When did you get married?

I will tell you. At first I had a lover. A great lover. Those were the two happiest years of my life.

—And when did you get married?

Married? When I graduated from university and had to get married.

—Did you talk to your wife about your ordeal, or you didn't want to remember it?

Since you started talking about my wife, I will tell you. You hear me? Don't interrupt, okay? A fellow teacher saw me in town and said to me, "Lyova, do you want me to introduce you to a nice girl?" I said, "Sure." Don't interrupt! And a date was scheduled where nowadays . . . in those days there was a toilet there, and a church nearby. Instead of the girl I was supposed to meet came her mother. She told me that her daughter had to go away for work—she was sent to the farthest district of Belarus. Instead, she brought a photograph [of the girl]. Are you listening?

—Yes.

I took a look at the photograph, and I could tell that she was a beautiful girl, busty, blonde, and so on. I had a bride in Mogilev, though. I decided to pursue her. I went through Polatsk, and I found her. She was a doctor, had just graduated the year before. [On the train] I asked some girls I was traveling with if they knew her. They did and told me where she lived. I came to her house and she was sitting there, with a friend, eating cherries. Don't interrupt.

—That's not what I'm asking about.

Two more minutes. I asked her to take a walk with me. I told her that I was stationed there. We walked through the city, and, to her surprise, I showed her the photograph. She asked, "How come my mother gave you my photo?"

—Truly, my question is not about that. Just among family, around the dinner table, did you talk about what you went through?

I told you, in the evening . . . How could we not?

—I see.

By the way, my son and I visited my homeland.

Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID BEL036.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4dt1c

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

—You traveled there with your son?

With my son and my daughter.

—How old were they when you took them there?

They were all grown up. She wants me to keep talking. Let her stay with me for a day, I will keep talking.

—Thank you very much.

Lev Manevich. Full, unedited interview, 2009

ID BEL036.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4dt1c

ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN

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