when the war began, shuri levchuk was in her seventh year; her mother had three of them, shura, her sisterrother. in august 1943, before retreating from the city , the nazis drove their family to germany, and i remember how they drove everyone on foot to the belarusian marshalling yard, 2-3 km from the house, there was a freight train there, they herded everyone into wagons, there was a raincoat, screaming, women fell, fainted, people were pushed into carriages like cattle, in terrible cramped conditions and stuffiness they traveled for a whole week, in the unknown, without food and water, without sanitary stops, many women cried non-stop, and shura’s mother too, they took them to berlin, there the filter went through everyone, they stripped all the men, women, children, they stripped everyone naked, they shaved everywhere, shaved off all their hair , i sat there, early in the morning at 3- 4 a bell rang along the corridor, a bell like that, everyone went out into the corridor, a prisoner, they were driven away, they came for the whole day, they came for about 12:00 at night, we never saw