“Ask as long as there’s someone alive to ask to spare our children and grandchildren this terror.”

On 7 October 1936, Donya Pentetska was born second of three children in Fraydorf in the Nikopol area.

For Donya, the war started on 22 June 1941 when Germany attacked the Soviet Union. This marked the beginning of a long flight from the Germans who invaded Belarus and the Ukrainian area. In July 1941, Donya’s father was conscripted into the army. “They conscripted anyone who could do some good at the front line,” says Donya.

Today, when she talks about the moment she saw her father leaving over a bridge in his lorry, her eyes fill with tears. Back then, she was far too young to understand what was going on: “I felt nothing.” Her dog ran after the lorry. Donya watched her father and her dog disappear in the distance. She was never to see them again.

Soon afterwards, the rest of the Brodsky family, comprising Donya, her younger sister Sina, her older sister Rakil, her mother and her grandfather, left Fraydorf. On 17 August 1941, the Germans marched into the village.

Donya describes the flight as “endless wandering”. They managed to get to the Dnieper river in a horse and wagon. Things got chaotic when crowds of people waiting there tried to get aboard a small ship to cross the river.

Ms Brodskaja, her three children and the grandfather were allowed aboard. They slept in the forest on the other side of the river and continued their flight the next day. Finally, they reached a train station and got on a train.

Donya remembers:

“The train is full of people, there is no place left to sit. (…) Suddenly, the train stops. A bomb raid! Rakil starts hyperventilating. Mother is trying to calm her. Again and again, aircraft are attacking the train. All travellers try to get out at once and run into the forest nearby. Everybody is panicking and running about. The noise is incredible. Chaos!

Mother doesn’t want her family to leave the train. She’s afraid someone might get lost. Suddenly, Rakil runs from the train and disappears into the forest with the crowds whereas grandfather, mother, Sina and Donya remain on the train. Grandfather cannot leave his seat because of his old age.

Donya hears people crying. Bombs hit, people drop to the ground. She sees aircraft in the sky, yet, she doesn’t realize what danger they’re in. All she realizes is that her mother is desperate: she sees the despair in her eyes, hears the despair in her voice as she is calling for Rakil.

Donya is seized by immense fear. People are already coming back from the forest. No sign of Rakil yet. Finally, someone is carrying her back to the train. She had curled up in a hole in the forest ground and waited there for ages, alone and utterly afraid.”

Three months later, the family finally reached the northern Caucasus. They were hosted by a Muslim family. Donya’s mother had to work hard to feed her family. Sina got ill. Her grandfather died. In 1945, when the war was finally over, the family returned home.