“I went with doctors and medics to drag away the wounded from the front. And I became an agitator for German troops.“

“I went with doctors and medics to drag away the wounded from the front. And I became an agitator for German troops.“

Asia Matveyuk was interviewed by Zhanna Litinskaya for Centropa in Kherson in 2002. She was born in the shtetl of Novopoltavka in the Nikolaev region in 1919.

I went with doctors and medics to drag away the wounded from the front. And I became an agitator for German troops.

My father volunteered for the army in early July 1941. On August 7th, retreating Red army troops were moving through the region and I enlisted in an engineering brigade. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to my family.

Because of my medical training I worked alongside frontline doctors. I was given a medical bag and a gun. Soon I became the pharmaceutical supervisor. We kept retreating, but for whatever reason, I had no fear in battle. I dragged the wounded, applied bandages, and helped them as much as I could.

In late September 1941, we arrived in Kuibyshev—they call it Samara now—and we rebuilt our Red Banner Division #235, which had been badly decimated.

That took until March 1942, and I was promoted to the chief of the regimental pharmacy. I slept in a dirt hut under an overcoat. A few times officers asked me to share their bed and become their combat girlfriend, as it was called then. No thank you.

I had trouble only once when a sergeant said in front of everyone: ‘Don’t touch Asia, she is keeping herself safe for Abram,’ which was clearly an antisemitic taunt. I slapped his face good and hard right there. I should also mention that this guy got a good telling-off from other officers that day.

I went with doctors and medics to drag away the wounded from the front. And I became an agitator for German troops.

Here I could make good use of those German lessons I had when I was young. I was in a Jeep with a huge loudspeaker where I was reading my announcements in German, calling for the soldiers to drop their weapons and come over to our side.

I would tell them about their wives and children waiting for them back in Germany. I usually didn’t get very far as they would empty their guns in my direction, and we had to speed away.

So, we came back the next day and I started all over again.

During the war, the Germans murdered Asia’s mother, grandmother, sister, and all her cousins. Asia Matveyuk served as a medic and pharmacist in the Soviet Army until 1946. After the war Asia married Vasiliy Matveyuk and had two daughters. She worked as the director of a pharmacy and remained in Kherson. She passed away in 2008.