criminals, just 'politicals', as the children of enemies of the people were called, they pinched Lenina viciously and laughed at her sobbing. Two guards, one holding a barking Alsatian, opened the cell door and ordered silence. The girls were herded into a refectory, where they lined up at a small window for a bowl of soup. One of the older girls slapped the underside of Lenina's bowl as she came away from the window, spilling her soup on the floor, an initiation rite for the new kids. Lenina went back to the cell hungry. A few hours later a prison doctor came, diagnosed Lyudmila with measles and sent her immediately to the prison hospital, leaving Lenina alone with her tormentors.
After a few days Lenina was allowed to visit her sister during the daily exercise hour. She would save whatever scraps of meat or sugar lumps she could after the older girls had picked through her food, hide them in her underpants and give them to Lyudmila to keep up her strength. Sometimes their aunt Feodosia would come by with little packets of food, which Lenina would pull up on a string through the barred hospital window overlooking the street. Mila remembers the string and the little parcels of food. She also remembers being scolded for wetting the bed at night, and her sister Lenina crying all the time.
In late December, three weeks after they had been imprisoned, Lenina awoke in the middle of the night to find the cell filling with smoke. The cell door opened, and a panicking warder ordered the children out into the yard. The building had been set on fire by some older children to cover an escape attempt. The guards had let the dogs loose and they snapped at the children as they were ushered into the exercise yard. Ever since that night, Lenina has been terrified of dogs. The children shivered in the cold as the fire engines arrived. Lyudmila had also been brought out, lying on a stretcher, with other children evacuated from the prison hospital.
The prison burned all night. By dawn it was gutted and useless, and the children were frozen half to death in the yard, still under guard. A convoy of open trucks arrived to take them away in groups of twenty. Lenina and Lyudmila were on one of the last, bound for one of the more distant orphanages in the region. Their truck rode them north for most of the day, hungry and freezing cold, through driving sleet. Finally, they were unloaded at an 'allocation centre' for parentless children in Dnepropetrovsk. Lenina and Lyudmila were blue with cold and shivering so uncontrollably that Lenina remembers that she couldn't speak. They were herded into a large hall, already filled with the children of Spanish Republicans, evacuated to the Soviet Union to save them from the civil war. The Spanish children, far from home, were bawling and terrified as they waited to be assigned to local orphanages.
A harassed desk officer took the list of names and ages from the new arrivals' escort. He told Lyudmila to go with the other little children, and Lenina to stand aside and wait her turn. Lenina fell on her knees, pleading for the men not to take her sister away, embracing the pigskin boots of the guards. As she pleaded, a man in civilian clothes listened, leaning on the doorframe; as she told the story sixty-five years later in the kitchen of her apartment in Moscow, Lenina lumbered up and leaned by the kitchen door, arms crossed, to demonstrate. The man stepped forward, put his hand gently on the shoulder of the guard, said, 'I'll take her,' leaned down and helped Lenina up off the floor.
The man was Yakov Abramovich Michnik, the director of a giant newly built children's home at Verkhne-Dneprovsk, created to rehabilitate 1,600 street children, criminals and orphans and make then into new Soviet men and women. That evening Lyudmila and the youngest children, plus twelve-year-old Lenina, were driven to his orphanage in a bus. When they arrived, the children were showered and deloused, and their heads were shaved.
After a few days Lenina was allowed to visit her sister during the daily exercise hour. She would save whatever scraps of meat or sugar lumps she could after the older girls had picked through her food, hide them in her underpants and give them to Lyudmila to keep up her strength. Sometimes their aunt Feodosia would come by with little packets of food, which Lenina would pull up on a string through the barred hospital window overlooking the street. Mila remembers the string and the little parcels of food. She also remembers being scolded for wetting the bed at night, and her sister Lenina crying all the time.
In late December, three weeks after they had been imprisoned, Lenina awoke in the middle of the night to find the cell filling with smoke. The cell door opened, and a panicking warder ordered the children out into the yard. The building had been set on fire by some older children to cover an escape attempt. The guards had let the dogs loose and they snapped at the children as they were ushered into the exercise yard. Ever since that night, Lenina has been terrified of dogs. The children shivered in the cold as the fire engines arrived. Lyudmila had also been brought out, lying on a stretcher, with other children evacuated from the prison hospital.
The prison burned all night. By dawn it was gutted and useless, and the children were frozen half to death in the yard, still under guard. A convoy of open trucks arrived to take them away in groups of twenty. Lenina and Lyudmila were on one of the last, bound for one of the more distant orphanages in the region. Their truck rode them north for most of the day, hungry and freezing cold, through driving sleet. Finally, they were unloaded at an 'allocation centre' for parentless children in Dnepropetrovsk. Lenina and Lyudmila were blue with cold and shivering so uncontrollably that Lenina remembers that she couldn't speak. They were herded into a large hall, already filled with the children of Spanish Republicans, evacuated to the Soviet Union to save them from the civil war. The Spanish children, far from home, were bawling and terrified as they waited to be assigned to local orphanages.
A harassed desk officer took the list of names and ages from the new arrivals' escort. He told Lyudmila to go with the other little children, and Lenina to stand aside and wait her turn. Lenina fell on her knees, pleading for the men not to take her sister away, embracing the pigskin boots of the guards. As she pleaded, a man in civilian clothes listened, leaning on the doorframe; as she told the story sixty-five years later in the kitchen of her apartment in Moscow, Lenina lumbered up and leaned by the kitchen door, arms crossed, to demonstrate. The man stepped forward, put his hand gently on the shoulder of the guard, said, 'I'll take her,' leaned down and helped Lenina up off the floor.
The man was Yakov Abramovich Michnik, the director of a giant newly built children's home at Verkhne-Dneprovsk, created to rehabilitate 1,600 street children, criminals and orphans and make then into new Soviet men and women. That evening Lyudmila and the youngest children, plus twelve-year-old Lenina, were driven to his orphanage in a bus. When they arrived, the children were showered and deloused, and their heads were shaved.
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