Surviving Soviet Deportation: Women's Unimaginable Suffering After WWII

The Story of Mathilde – Part V

In the final installment of our series on Mathilde and the other women in the Soviet labor army, we look at how they experienced the end of the war.

The first year in the labor army was drawing to a close when Mathilde unexpectedly received a letter—it was from Dora. Dora had actually survived the accident. She wrote that she had fought for her life in the hospital for a whole month before being discharged and allowed to return home. Her hair would never grow back; her entire scalp was scarred. She had come to say goodbye, but the guards had refused to let her in. The barracks erupted in excitement when Mathilde read the letter aloud. Everyone rejoiced for Dora. Magdalena sighed deeply: "Poor thing! Now she's disfigured for life. She'll never find a husband now."

"Aren't we all disfigured here?" Rosa snapped bitterly. "I'd let them tear out every last hair if it meant I could go home to my children." A wave of sorrow, despair, and emptiness spread through the room. The women sank into gloom. Mathilde embraced Rosa and began to sing softly: "A little bird came flying, perched upon my foot so light..." Marie Ruf suddenly jumped down from her bunk: "Stop! Right now! We're not allowed to sing German songs.""Shut your mouth!" Magdalena stepped in front of her, blocking her. The other women joined in: "Dear little bird, fly onward, take my greetings and a kiss. Tell her I cannot follow—here is where I must stay."

Strength Barely Left to Survive

Mathilde had to abandon the idea of fleeing to Tula. Most of the women did the same—they were simply too weak. And none of them had the strength left to dry bread for the journey. Only three women dared to try. But they were caught at the very first station—their filthy white padded jackets had given them away. They were dragged back and punished with a week in solitary confinement. Two of them did not survive it.

When more and more women began collapsing from hunger, the bread ration was doubled. Now they received a kilo of bread. At first, there was joy, but it did not last. The damp, heavy loaves—bulked up with Andean millet and sawdust—were powerless against their ravenous hunger. One day in the barracks' courtyard, Mathilde ran into Nelly, who was housed in a different barracks. They had barely seen each other—working different shifts in separate halls.

Heartbreaking News from Home

Nelly was painfully thin, almost translucent, but her large eyes shone with happiness: "Guess what? I got a letter from Sascha's parents, and inside was a little note from him to me! He sends his greetings to all of you. He's at the front. And he wants me to keep sending letters to his parents—he says that way, he's more likely to receive mine. And you know what? He wants me to go to them after the war."

"At least that's one piece of good news! But girl, make sure you hold on—you've got to make it through!" Mathilde hoped this glimmer of joy would give Nelly the strength to endure. Good news could be a lifeline. But most of the women received only heartbreak from home. Just last week, Rosa had finally gotten a letter from her daughter. She clutched it to her chest, beaming—but the news inside was devastating. Her younger children had starved to death in the orphanage; her daughter herself was now in the hospital. Rosa lay down on her bunk and never got up again. By morning, she too was dead—her broken heart could not bear the blow.

Marked by Hunger, Disease, and Madness

A year and a half had passed since they were torn from their homes. No one could recognize the girls, the women they had once been. Hollow-eyed and vacant, they moved like shadows, clinging to walls and fences for support. Ravaged by dysentery, many could no longer control their bowels—excrement simply ran down their legs. Some, driven mad by hunger, scurvy, and dysentery, let themselves go entirely. They no longer cared about hygiene, stopped combing their hair, ceased washing their clothes, and rummaged through garbage heaps for something—anything—to eat.

Desperation Drives Them to Drink Machine Oil—It Smelled Like Doughnuts

Some even drank machine oil—it smelled so deliciously of Kreppel (doughnuts). Those were the first to die. Mathilde refused to sink that low. No matter how exhausted she was, she washed her clothes, combed her hair—nowhere near as thick as it once had been. Until July 1944, she worked in Molotov at Factory No. 260. By then, she was already one of the goners—the walking skeletons, nothing but skin and bone. She was lucky, in a way: deemed too weak to work, she was discharged.

At the Mercy of Arbitrary Power

That July, she was sent with 41 other women to a state farm. They were a pitiful sight: emaciated to the bone, their bodies, arms, and cheeks covered in rashes from the machine grease (Solidol). At the farm, the women were first taken to the canteen, but the meager portions left them still ravenous. Food was all they could think about. Mathilde and a few others approached the serving window and asked if the kitchen needed any help.

The cooks took pity on them and said they could wash dishes. So every day after work, Mathilde and her companions returned to the kitchen to scrub pots, peel potatoes, and chop vegetables. They were allowed to eat the scraps. Slowly, they regained their strength.

The state farm also held a prisoner-of-war camp. The women were treated the same as the POWs—after all, they were German, and so were the prisoners: fascists, in the eyes of their captors. They were even permitted to celebrate Christmas together. The Red Cross at least kept an eye on the POWs, who occasionally received food parcels they would share with the women. But the forced laborers were entirely at the mercy of those in power, subject to their whims and violence.

Banished Forever

On May 9, 1945, Mathilde was working in the fields. Eva Hubert drove the tractor while Mathilde operated the attached equipment. At the edge of the field, a truck adorned with flags came to a stop. The brigade leader ran over, shouting: "Pobeda! Pobeda! Voyna konchilas'!"—"Victory! Victory! The war is over!" The women embraced, laughing and crying at once: "Hurray, now we can go home!" But their joy was short-lived. They were told they would remain deported for life, and that leaving their assigned settlements without NKVD permission carried a penalty of up to 20 years in the gulag.

Their last shred of hope was crushed. They fell into despair but forced themselves to keep working. Mathilde spent another two and a half years on the state farm. The brigade leader was a fair and decent man. In recognition of her and Eva's hard work, he promised them leave—and managed to secure NKVD approval. In December 1947, they boarded a train, two loaves of bread tucked away for the journey, though they barely touched them.

The entire way, they wept—partly from the joy of finally going home, partly from the injustice and suffering they had endured. "Vy chto, khokhlushki, plachete?"—"What are you, little Ukrainian women, crying for?" a man asked sympathetically. How could they possibly explain? They said nothing, perhaps also out of fear he might realize they weren't "Chochlushki" (Ukrainian women) at all.