(Translated from "Novi Vestnik" by Carl)
"Dimitry, was ist dass?"
Dmitriy Trofimovich Chirov speaks of his life easily and with wit, as if he was not recalling his own past, but telling about an amusing book. Although... it really is a book. A year ago the recollections of this Karaganda retiree were set to print in Austria, in the German language.
In Dmitriy's past there is everything: a guardian angel who saved the Karagandan's life, fascists who took him prisoner, Austrians for whom our countryman worked during captivity, and whom he befriended to this very day.
Do you believe it?
Dmitriy Trofimovich (Chirov) looks pretty good for his 83 years - not a day over 75. This retiree with his crafty smile and thick, full beard had been answering our questions for several hours. At just the right moment, he pulled out a fat album with his photographic archives, as well as newspapers and books to confirm his story. Ever more frequently, he used the word 'lucky'.
'RUSS, AUFSTEHEN!'
"I was called up when I was 18. I had already been working as a language and literature teacher in the Lbishchensk middle school. Lbishchensk - it's that cossack village where Chapayev died in 1919. I was sent to work in the school after 4 months of training.
"In the army, I served in the western Ukraine. As I remember it, on June 17th, 1941, we were taking down our tents because of an alert, and loading them onto the wagons. Then we marched 120 kilometers in two days. We stopped at the village of Olese - it's about 18 kilometers from the border. On the 20th and 21st we built a summer encampment, and on the 21st we got reinforcements. The boys were wearing new undershirts and soft caps. They hadn't been trained, and they didn't even have weapons. The next day, as you know, the war started, and on the morning of the 22nd, I remember, at 3:45 AM they woke us up. We thought it was just a drill. We ran outside, and I look up: airplanes were flying towards us, to the East. In 15 minutes our regiment formed into a military column and went into a forest. There, some 'Messers' flew at us, but we still thought it was some kind of drill. They'd been warning us the whole time that combat maneuvers would be as close to real as possible. When we got to the border, some bombers flew over us at top speed. Our anti-aircraft gunners fired at them. Only then did I understand, that it was war"
The confused soldiers did not receive any information. Only one order after another: retreat, retreat, retreat. "We had regimental mortars, they were real new, but we didn't have a single shell. Only after the second month of the war did we get some mortar rounds, then we started to fight for real," explained Dmitriy Trofimovich, underlining the 'for real' with a gesture. "I remember how we went around the Dnepr. We started to get close to Chernigov. This was my most awful memory," the veteran was quiet for a moment. "The whole city was in flames, but it was still ours, the Germans hadn't taken it yet, even though the fascists bombed it night and day."
It was by Chernogov that Dmitriy Trofimovich's regiment was surrounded. "When we had no shells left, we tossed the weapons in the river. The senior politruk (political officer) gathered the fighters and gave a speech. 'Comrades, let us break up into small groups and go into the forest.' I was in awful shape. I put all my documents in a haybale, I wasn't thinking, because if we made it back to our lines, the first thing they'd ask me for would be my documents. Me and a comrade twice tried to make it through the forest. We were shot at. I said to my comrade: 'Davai, Ivan, let's dig a foxhole, and camouflage it so that no one sees it. We'll sit there for a couple of days. When the Germans leave, we'll think of what to do next.' And so we did that, we hid in a foxhole, fell asleep. But in the morning, all of a sudden, footsteps! Someone stepped on our roof! And then a yell: 'Russ, aufstehen!'"
THE ANGEL AND THE PONCHO TENT
All captured soldiers were taken by the Germans to a nearby village. For awhile, they were kept in the collective farm's stables. "I'm standing by the barndoor, looking around," masterfully, like a professional actor, our narrator lowered his voice. "And suddenly I see: right in front of me a young fellow, with a master sergeant's rank. He asks me: 'Why don't you have any trenchcoats, any poncho tents?' I was just in my undershirt. Then he gave me his poncho and... disappeared. I looked for him among the prisoners, and never saw him anywhere. What was it?" the retiree turns over his hands, and answers himself. "Maybe, an angel came... because, later, that poncho saved my life!"
The captured prisoners were transported in eschelons to the West, to the border. "They put us in open train cars, like they use to carry coal, and sent us off. We came to a little place called Lambsdorf, in occupied western Poland, and they put us in Camp 318. Some of the prisoners had died on the way: we'd been transferred to freight cars, 100 to a wagon. You couldn't sit or stand, it was so crowded, and we travelled like that for 2 days without stopping.
"And we got to the zone. But nothing was there! Just the naked earth, and an iron and concrete latrine. The toilet was so that there wouldn't be epidemics among the prisoners."
And so, you lived right on the naked ground?! "Yes, right out under the open sky. In October. At first, our eschelon had 3000 men, but less than half survived two weeks in this zone, the rest simply froze to death. This is where my poncho tent saved my life!" the veteran artfully raises his voice. "Rain would be pouring down. Me and a comrade dug a trench so that we could get some kind of shelter, and covered it with the poncho. Water would run down our collars, but we covered our heads and sat together for warmth. I was in Camp 318 for 40 days."
HELPING AUSTRIAN FARMERS
"Only in Austria did we get normal treatment," the former prisoner of war stressed. "They took us to the Krems district. We went through quarantine there, got bathed, they took away our rags, shaved our heads. We dressed in clean clothes. They gave us these dyed German uniforms, and in big letters: 'SU', short for 'Sowjetisch Union', on the back and on the breast, and on the soft cap. Instead of footwear they gave us these wooden slippers. We were put in warm barracks and they more or less fed us regularly, with hot meals."
A few days later, Dmitriy Trofimovich was once again lucky. He was transferred to a so-called work command, as an assistant to the translator: his knowledge of German helped him. "In the summer of 1942, I asked to be put in the work detail, where there were 20-25 fellows," the retiree recalled. "You see, in a small work brigade, it's easier to survive. I was sent to the agriculture detachment. Me and 15 others worked in the village of Hedersdorf, by the central prison camp, where I was at. We helped farmers at home. Several dozen prisoners were sent to a factory. In the morning, we were woken up, taken out to the village square and went to various houses to work. They came for us at night, but during the day no one guarded us."
For this work... they paid the camp for your labor? "The farmers asked for prison labor," Dmitriy Trofimovich explained unperturbed. "They signed a contract with the camp, and paid something for us. And fed not just us, but the guards who brought us."
'WE ATE AT THE SAME TABLE'
Do you remember the first time you saw your host? Did you feel some antipathy towards him, perhaps? "Ni-ni-ni! Not in the least!" he waves me off. "I remember, the guard brought me. I went into the farmyard and sat down. Suddenly, I hear: 'Hallo, komm!'. That was my host, Johann Zinner, riding past me on an oxcart," Dmitriy Trofimovich laughs at the memory. "He was taking some clover hay to feed the cows. I went over to him. He asked everything about me: who, what was my name, what did I used to do. Together we went into the farmyard and unloaded everything. Later we sat down to eat. And that's how it all was. Austrians in general are kind-hearted. Only once did my host yell at me, by then I'd been working for him for 3 years. I'd done something with a shovel and had put it back in the barn without cleaning it. The next day, my host showed me it, and said sternly: 'Dimitry, was ist dass?' I begged forgiveness."
Dmitriy Trofimovich, did you have many duties? "I worked mostly in the vineyards. Springtime my host would cut vines, and I'd collect them. Later I'd trim and clean up around them. A whole hectare of vineyard, that takes a full month of work. The vines need a special amount of moisture, and we'd work hard to get that right. It was a lot of work, but I was never driven like a slave. I guessed that it was better to do something slow, but well. The host worked with me, from dawn to dusk. We ate at the same table. First breakfast - coffee, tea, or milk, with a roll. Second breakfast - bacon with bread and beer. At midday - lunch. At 4 O'clock, break, and in the evening supper. I ate well there. Before that, I was just skin and bones. My relationship with my host was the best. I don't remember anything but good," the retiree stressed. "Hedersdorf for me became a second homeland. I could have died in captivity, obviously."
AND THEY DID NOT EVEN REPRESS HIM
For a time, the Soviet prisoner had to work at two farms. Johann Zinner and Franz Herstenmayer shared a fence. "I worked for two families simultaneously for 3 months. Later, Herstenmayer got another fellow to help him, and so he and Zinner chose who would keep me. I was a good worker: I spoke German, I understood everything. You didn't have to explain things to me very long. Both neighbors asked me: 'Dimitry, who do you want to stay with?' I acted diplomatically. I would stay with the family to whom I first came, that is, the Zinners.
"I worked on the farm until April of 1945, until our forces took Vienna. In parting, my host loaded a travel-bag full of bread, bacon. In a word, he set me up with rations for a week. And he asked: 'Dimitry, wherever you end up, please write.' Although, when they liberated us prisoners, there could be no talk of this, otherwise they'd have quickly sent me to someplace bad. I wanted very much to write, but it was just fate."
Nonetheless, Dmitriy Trofimovich's fate turned out very well. Perhaps, he would again be lucky? "Obviously, in those days, how could it be otherwise? The Soviet forces liberate this or that camp. They load up the prisoners into an eschelon. Then, on to the Urals, to the so-called 'filtration camps'. For example, my second cousin was also a prisoner, but he didn't return from the Urals until the beginning of 1947. He didn't come back as a soldier, but as 'having passed through filtration', and because of that, he didn't receive credit for taking part in the Great Patriotic War. I was demobilized on December 30th, 1945, as a teacher and student of the Pedagogue Institute, and do you know why? When they liberated us, I found out that there were in our camp agents of counter-intelligence! They had burrowed into it somehow, I don't know all the details. And so, here were these counter-intel boys, I knew them all, and I'd even been feeding them with the food Zinner gave me. I told them everything, just like I'm talking to you now. Perhaps the counter-intel guys said that I was svoi (one of ours)."
LIKE IN A FAIRY TALE
Dmitriy Trofimovich recalls the very day he decided to write the story of his life very well. It was in memory of his grandchildren. "On November 27th, 1987, I took this school notebook here," the retiree held out a thick essay folder. "I wrote just one such notebook. What it is? It turned out to only be enough for my childhood. So I filled up another: again, only childhood and the beginning of adolescence, and so I wrote and wrote. Twelve notebooks. The general volume - 4500 printed pages. I'm now re-reading my notes. It's like it isn't about me. It reads well, easily," Dmitriy Trofimovich laughs.
In 1990, the Karaganda veteran finally made up his mind and wrote to Austria, to the editors of a communist newspaper, with a portion of his memoirs - the part where he recalled his captivity and his friendly hosts. "I thought, perhaps they'll print my writings and send me some kind of honorarium?" the retiree confessed. "And soon I got a reply: yada yada, we cannot print your manuscript, but we'll send your papers to the Krems district. That is, to where I lived during the war, you understand?
"And later... the grey reality ended and a fairly tale began, because personally I've only ever seen a 'happy ending' in the cinema."
Less than a year after that letter from Austria, Dmitriy Trofimovich once again found a foreign letter in his mailbox. The return address began with 'Franz Herstenmayer', the name of one of the farmers under which POW Chirov had labored. "I remember that I thought: 'Bah, can he really still be alive?!' But it turned out that his son Franz had written. When I lived in Austria, he was but two and a half. Of course, he remembered almost nothing about me, but I'd written a whole page about him in my memoirs. He was such a good little boy! In his letter, Franz wrote that his parents had died, and the other hosts had as well. And in general, in Austria everything had changed. Oxen don't pull wagons anymore," Dmitriy Trofimovich recounted, hiding his smile behind his whiskers.
And so, correspondence began, between the former prisoner of war and his new Austrian friends. Ten years ago, Dmitriy Trofimovich and his wife travelled to Austria, and last week, they received a visit themselves. Three guests came to Karaganda: Franz Herstenmayer's granddaughter, her husband, and a distant relative who spoke Russian. "We've become more than friends now," Dmitriy Trofimovich said. "We are kindred spirits. We will never forget them. It's surprising, but it turns out that the Great Patriotic War was for us both a great grief, and a great happiness. It happens that way."
Guests
'I SAW HIM ON THE TELEVISION!'
Christine and Walter - the Austrian guests of Dmitriy Trofimovich - sit humbly on the small couch. They smile wide, a little differently than we do, but very affable. They are comfortably dressed. Bank teller Christine wears a gay blouse. Electronic engineer Walter is in a biege t-shirt, like you would find in our markets. It turns out that they bought their clothes here.
"We like your bazaar a lot," the couple explained through the translator. "We even bought marzipan and dried apricots."
Dmitriy Trofimovich organized a rich program for his guests: a trip to Spassk, a visit to the folk history museum, and some strolls about town. "We liked the city," Christine smiled. "The people here are very nice."
Does your family still have any recollections of those days when Dmitriy Trofimovich lived with you? Christine shakes her head. "Dad was very small. But Frau Zinner, from the family where Dimitry also worked, was always watching television. When they showed Kazakhstan or Russia, she was always hoping: maybe they'll show him. One time, she even yelled: 'There's Dimitry. I saw him!' There you have it, she recognized him!" the guests finished their story with laughter.
"Or maybe, didn't recognize!" added Dmitriy Trofimovich from the corner. "I'm always on television. In Astrakhan and in Karaganda. So maybe Frau Zinner really saw me!"
By the way
LITERARY DREAM
A year ago, a book of Dmitriy Trofimovich's recollections was printed in the German language, in hardcover, with a wealth of archival photographs. The Karagandan's memoirs were translated and edited by Barbara Schtelsl-Marx, who sent him a souvenier copy.
Dmitriy Trofimovich dreams that the story of his life will be printed in Karaganda someday.
"My letter is at the district administrator's, Mukhmedzhanov. And there's another hope, the dean of Karaganda state university said: 'well, if nothing else works, come to me'." Dmitriy Trofimovich is a candidate for a PhD in education, and has worked for years at the university as a professor.
