Uncle Vanya: Recollections 1941 onwards...

 

Then in 1941 the war began and by decree of August 28, 1941 from the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, thousands and hundreds of thousands were accused of sabotage and all Germans from all over the country were arrested and exiled to Siberia and Kazakhstan. They lost all their property and livestock. Only two or three remained at the collective farms, just a few. Everyone was evacuated to areas away from the front. This was at the end of August, beginning of September. Harvest of grain was going on in the fields, stacks of grain lay at the collection points. Almost all the implements, combines and tractors were taken for the war. Everything else was thrown to fate. People were taken on tractor carts pulled by horses to the railroad stations. My brother tried to take clothing and bedding and other property without the bed. Even the chairs were left. At the railroad station we were loaded into box cars which had carried grain and livestock. Fifty people in one car, without any conveniences. They took us to Omsk. Ten days we were on the road. From Omsk they took us to collective farms where they gave us a place to stay in dug-outs without windows and doors. We had to work at the collective farms until January 1942.

In January 1942 we men were mobilized by the Military Committee into the “Trudarmiya.” Only families with children and the elderly remained. In such conditions many died from the cold and starvation, but in the summer they gathered the women and children older than 3 years. There was a woman who had to leave 5 – 6 children to the winds of fate. We men were taken to Omsk in horse drawn carts to the closest radio station. We were sent to a club where we waited for 13 days in railroad cars. Then we were transferred to wooden cars and transported to the northern Ural mountains in the Trudarmiya to build the atomic factory.

On the way, which was 12 – 13 days, they kept us in barbed wire prison camps under military guard towers. They put us in two storey barracks, where we worked day and night almost naked and shoeless on the trees. In the camp were 13 barracks, but there was one bathhouse. People from only one barracks could go to the bath at a time and for sanitizing clothing. One evening we had to go to work. The bath house didn’t operate during the day. All 13 barracks had to go and eat for 13 days without disinfection.

We were first fed 600 grams of bread, then the rations were reduced to 500 grams. We had to go to work at 6:00 am. There was also only one small kitchen in the camp. In the morning, we had to wait 3 hours to get soup from this kitchen. To get soup fed to all the Trudarmiya people, the first barracks had to get up at 3:00 am to go to the kitchen. 

At 6:00 am we went through the gates under a strict count of everyone in the brigade. The counts had to be given to the office. We went to work under guard. It was 5 km to the site of construction. The rest of the people worked on dirt excavation, digging trenches 3 – 4 meters deep. It was winter work, and the temperature went to 40 below. The ground was frozen and the tools, like shovels, picks, mattocks, were iron and they broke.

The brigades were told how many cubic meters they had to excavate per day. If the brigade didn’t excavate as much as they were told, the “desyatnik” [brigade leader] would not give them the note, and without the note from the desyatinik, the brigade would not be allowed back in the camp in the evening. Literally after a month people began dying along the road on the way home in the evening. We had to leave them lying along the road in the snow until a cart pulled by a horse could collect them.

The brigade wouldn’t be allowed back in the camp until the watchman knew how many people were left. He would ask where the man was, and we would wait until they brought him. That is how people began to die.

At the end of 1945, at the end of the war, the Trudarmiya was finished. But then came the “spetskomandatura,” [Office of Special Populations] where we all had to be listed. They read to us and gave us a decree of permanent exile to sign where every month we had to report to the special office. We were forbidden to leave town without permission from the special office. Without permission, we could not even go to the railroad station, which was 3 kilometres from town, or to the next town, which was 15 km away. In 1965 the special office was eliminated, and we were given passports without the notation of “special population.” But we were forbidden to go to our homeland. Then it was determined that we had no claims on our home at our homeland.

In 1971 I went to my homeland, to my village of Josefstal. There wasn’t anything at all there. The village was completely liquidated. I found my father’s large wooden house in another village named Novo-Nikolaevka, which earlier was Marienfeld. It was turned into a club, and was locked. Many villages in our republic have been completely liquidated today.

Those villages which still exist are in sorry condition. We Germans were removed from the special population, but that special population gave us obstacles and under the special population department there were Germans who were not allowed to get any work. For example, we worked temporarily for one steam electric station, and attached to our factory was a permanent steam electrostation. Because this big electrostation worked all the time, they closed our temporary station and tore it down. All the bosses and technical workers were all transferred to the big station, except for us Germans. They didn’t give us any work. They wouldn’t let us work at the electrostation, but moved us from the factory. Only now are German workers given responsible positions at various factories. 

My memories about daily life.

I am Gerk, Ivan Georgievich, born February 22, 1911 in the village of Josefstal, ASSRNP, into a farming family. My parents were: father Gerk, Georg Georgievich, born 1868 in the village of Josefstal. He died on February 10, 1925 in Josefstal from intestinal cancer.  Mama was Gerk, Anna Margaretha Heinrichovna, born 1868 in the village of Josefstal. Her maiden name was Rowein. She died on September 16, 1957 in the city of Krasnoturinsk, Sverdlovsk oblast after a stroke. The parents had 11 children, 7 sons and 4 daughters. I was the youngest of those brothers, having been born in Josefstal, ASSRNP on February 22, 1911.

I spent my childhood in Josefstal, I studied in the village 4-year school, which was also in Josefstal. After school I worked on my parents’ farm. On October 24, 1929, I married Barbara Gerk, born 1909 in Josefstal. Her maiden name was Dieser. Until 1929 I farmed, then in 1930 I joined the collective farm, which sent me to courses at the tractor school. I completed courses at the tractor school in 1931-1932, and at the end of 1932 I went to the courses for the tractor brigade. At the end of 1933 I was drafted into the Red Army, where I was sent to school for junior commanders. I finished the courses with the rank of sergeant I served in the cavalry units until the beginning of 1938, when I was then chosen as the chairman of the collective farm where I worked until the end of 1939. Then I was chosen as the brigadier of a tractor brigade until the deportation in 1941. I was deported to the Omsk oblast in September 1941. At the beginning I worked as a combiner, then worked at a machine tractor station, as the brigadier in charge of tractor repair. On January 20, 1942, I was mobilized into the Trudarmiya, and went to work at the aluminum factory in the northern Urals. First I worked as a mechanic at the diesel electrostation, then I was transferred to the steam station as the master for repairs of the turbine department. From 1945 to 1953 I worked as the head of the turbine shop. In 1953 I was transferred to the aluminum factory where I worked as a master of repair work. I worked there until I retired in 1971.

In 1937 we had our daughter Valeria. She died at the age of 15 months in 1938. In 1939 son Volodya was born. Our second son, Eduard, was born in 1941, and he died in Siberia in 1942. When we were taken into the Trudarmiya, my family, mother, wife, and two aunts remained in the Omsk oblast at the collective farm. Later my brother Gottfried took my family to his place, because he lived in a different region 130 km. The move was made in February, on sleighs pulled by horses. On the way our second son Ewald contracted pneumonia and he died at the age of 16 months. In 1943 I was sent to the Omsk oblast section for the Trudarmiya, where I picked up my wife. My mother and son stayed with my brother. In 1946 I built a home in the city of Krasnoturinsk and brought my mother and son to the Urals. We lived there until August 1974, then we moved to Uzbekistan, to the city of Angren where we have lived until today. (Written Summer, 1989)

 (Thanks to Rick Rye for his translation)