Vladimir Kibkalo – Walpersberg

I was born on May 8, 1927, in the village of Solonzej (today Rudenkova), Poltava Oblast. When moving to my father's brother in Moldova, to the town of Bolgrad, in the spring of 1943, we were all arrested together by a German commander with an interpreter. We were my mother Anna Nikolaevna, my father Markijan Kondrat'evič, my sister Alexandra Markianovna, and me. We, along with five or six drovers, were herding a large cattle herd to Romania. Our task was to milk the cows. We were all promised that we would be released once the herd was brought to Romania. We crossed the Prut River, passed through the towns of Kagul, Adgut (?), and Vasluj, and arrived in the town of Berlad (probably Birlud? in Romania), where the cattle were handed over to a meat processing plant. After that, the Romanian gendarmerie took us over. We were driven to the train station, where a transport with freight wagons stood, containing people from various countries, guarded by Romanians and German officers. Everything we carried was taken from us, leaving only clothing and some blankets. We were locked in the wagons. With us were Bulgarians, Yugoslavs, and Czechs. The journey went in an unknown direction. In the city of Vienna, we realized we were in Austria. Then it continued via Chemnitz and Weimar, where the transit prison and distribution were located. My sister was sent to agricultural work, but father, mother, and I were sent to Kahla. In Kahla, we arrived in a freight wagon. We spent three to four days in the field under the open sky next to the factory, then we were brought to Construction Camp II. Initially, we were housed in this Camp II, later we were transferred to Construction Camp III. This is confirmed by a single letter sent to me from Arolsen on February 21, 2003. In this document, my birth year is given as 1929. My parents reduced my age because they knew that being underage would exempt me from hard labor, but it didn't help. I worked just like the adults. A copy of the document is attached. We lived in the camp in a barrack with two-tier wooden bunks. Instead of mattresses, there was wood wool. It was very cold, and the light was turned off at nightfall. The barrack was heated with an iron stove, but the firewood was insufficient. There was a container with water. The latrine was outside on the street. Pillows and blankets were not issued. Everyone covered themselves with what they had. Work clothes were not issued. Instead of footwear, we had wooden shoe lasts. The letters "OST" were sewn onto our clothing. At the end of work, with an ID, we received a token/coupon for the next day's food. The food was poor and was distributed twice a day. The portion included 200 grams of bread with raw minced meat—horse meat with caraway—or a slice of moldy cheese (or mold cheese?), which was said to be Swiss cheese, and the mold contained penicillin. We also received soup with rutabaga and kohlrabi. Wake-up call was at 6 a.m., and by 7 a.m. we were already at work. The workday ended at 5 p.m. On Saturdays, we worked until 2 p.m., and Sundays were free. The distance from the camp to the factory was about 2 kilometers, but when we were transferred to another camp, we had to walk one kilometer more to the factory. We were accompanied by camp guards on the way to work. There was no roll call, only when we arrived at work were the "inhabitants" counted. There was no fixed work quota. The work was controlled by the foreman, a German disabled veteran, who assigned who had to do what. Essentially, the work was underground. Foremen and engineers were Germans. They were strict, strict with us as well as with their countrymen. Especially bad was the ventilation of the tunnels after explosions. The air compressors were turned on, and we had to pull the hoses to the end of the explosion so that the gases were pushed out from there. There were cases of poisoning by this gas. During working hours, it was not possible to rest; there was always something to do along the entire line. To my knowledge, the work was not paid at all. Once we went to Jena to the Zeiss factory to load sand. My sister had already been assigned to agriculture since the transit prison. After four months, she was transferred to us; we addressed the camp administration with this request. Contact with home was not possible; there was no correspondence. The Italians in other camps received packages from the Red Cross, mainly tobacco products. Contacts with workers from other camps only occurred during production, with Czechs, Poles, Italians, and Yugoslavs. The workers were not treated equally. The difference was that Italians, Poles, Yugoslavs, and other nationalities worked on (tool) machines, concrete mixers, as drivers of the underground locomotives, and similar tasks – while we, the Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians, worked as tunnel diggers and helpers. We had the hardest work. During production, one had contact with people of other nationalities if it was possible to understand their language, but in the camp, we conversed with Czechs and Poles, whose language was more understandable. In our camp, there were many married couples and families with children, but I did not meet any children under 10 years old. The children tidied up the barracks and the surroundings at their parents' request. They were not forced to work. Many of the families came from Poland, especially from Poland after the uprising. The guards in the camp were from Belgium or France. There were others as well, but I do not know from where. In my opinion, they were rude and cheeky, which was due to their not understanding the language. I know nothing about informers, but it is possible that there were some. I do not know about corruption. Once I noticed how someone was taken for some reason to the camp entrance, to the gatehouse, and then driven away in a car; where to, I do not know. My parents protected me so that I did not have to experience anything like that. For minor offenses, the guards were allowed within the camp to beat and push. The German workers and the camp administration behaved badly towards us; the administration's demands on us were harsh. Mainly, misunderstandings arose from ignorance and because the language was not understood. There were contacts with the local population. Women from nearby settlements approached the camp administration to ask for permission to take workers on their days off to help on the farm. Only one person from a family was taken as a worker so that they would not escape. I was lucky. Once, a German woman from the settlement Dienstadt named Lisa Verter called for me and pointed at me. Since I was underage, my work in the settlement was agreed upon with my parents. That is how I came to this employer. On Saturdays after 2 p.m. and on Sundays, the employer came to take me with her and gave me the task of caring for the horses, as well as the cows, and other tasks on the farm. Later, I received a pass and could go to work by myself. The employer was quite good to me and satisfied that I finished the work, as I had also grown up in the countryside. The employer took good care of me, and when she learned that my family was in the camp, she even gave me two to three butter sandwiches for my mother, father, and sister. In Mrs. Lise's family, there were three children – daughter Anne-Luise, 17 years old, Edit, 14 years old, and son Klaus, 5 years old, and a grandfather aged 80. I will write the story briefly: There was a rumor in the camp that the Germans would shoot the prisoners. At the end of April, the employer said that we had to escape from the camp. When I asked how and where to flee, she answered – to me. She had everything planned. She gave me a pair of pincers so that I could cut an opening in the fence surrounding the camp, and at three o'clock in the night, my entire family escaped. The employer awaited us at the agreed place. Then she led us to her place and hid us in the barn in the hayloft. There we sat for ten days and nights "like mice." The employer took care of us, but when the American troops came, they supplied us with field rations. Afterwards, she moved us close to her house into a chicken barn, which we later completed. We lived there until September 1945. Then our KGB agents demanded that we return to our homeland. The employer provided us with decent clothes and shoes, gave us food for the journey, and a bicycle with a cart. Thus, we reached Dresden and from there our homeland. I cannot stop admiring how this woman risked her family to save us. Her memory is eternal. Only in 1995 did I decide to find this family. I had not remembered the family name, so I decided to write to the mayor of Kahla. I wrote as best as I could – I had learned some German, how to find this settlement, and also the sign on the house "Otto Verter." I knew that was the name of the street, but it turned out to be the family name of the grandfather. I received a letter from the mayor