Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Alexander Raab - June 28, 2002

Were you all together still, the family?

No. We got separated uh, that was only me, my mother, my grandmother and my brother. The rest of the family we got separated in Siberia.

What happened to your father?

My father passed away in Siberia.

You don't know how or when?

I have no idea.

When did you find out?

That, oh uh, just before they took us out from Siberia.

So you already knew. They took him to a labor camp, but then he ???

Right, we knew, we knew that he passed away, yeah. We knew.

So there were four of you.

There was just the four of us.

That must have been hard.

Yeah.

And you were now eight years old?

I was about eight years old. And I was older probably. I was born in 1933, so in '39 I was six and that was uh, '42--'43, so I was about eleven years old.

What did you think was going to happen then?

I uh, I was thinking only one thing, how to survive today. And what's happening and what will happen, that really wasn't my concern. Just to make it through the day and I was happy with it.

Were you in Saratov when the war ended?

Near Saratov.

Near.

Yeah, it was a Kolkhoz, you know that was a...

Collective.

Collective farm what they called it. And uh, yeah, the war ended. I, I remember it was big, big celebration you know, the war ended. And then they took us uh, right away they took us. The war ended in May, in May nine. Right, that, eight or nine, May eight or nine, 1945. And, uh...