Savarovskaya Svetlana Sergeevna
Responsible secretary-operator
Council of Veterans of the Yuzhnoye Medvedkovo District
I, Savarovskaya Svetlana Sergeevna (maiden name Shchemeleva) was born
Grandfather and father worked on the railroad. Mom, Ekaterina Ermolaevna Novikova (born in 1920), worked as an instructor in the district party committee from the age of 16, later graduated from party courses and rose to the position of second secretary of the district committee. Further, with the creation of the Economic Councils, she was transferred to the city of Omsk to the district party committee to a leadership position. In connection with the liquidation of the Economic Council, she was transferred there to the position of head of the department for working with the population on complaints.
Grandma didn't work because... in 1941, in addition to our family, two mother sisters came to our room with children the same age: I was one year old, my cousin was 6 months old, my sister was 1.5 years old. We lived in such conditions for several years. But as far as I remember, they lived together. Two of my aunts got jobs, and my grandmother worked with us. And now I just don’t understand how she managed it while also having a farm (a cow, chickens, a wild boar and two sheep)! When we grew up, we were assigned to kindergarten ik. I still remember my grandfather well; he was an atheist, a communist. Grandfather was very kind, he woke up very early, but I just don’t know whether he went to bed, apparently that’s why he lived so short, only 51 years. He made hay himself and planted potatoes.
I remember my childhood years with rapture, I still remember kindergarten, I remember my teacher. She read a lot of books to us, and we walked around her like goslings (I can’t remember that anyone didn’t like to listen to her read books).
Our school was two-story, wooden, there was stove heating, but I don’t remember that we froze. There was discipline, everyone came to school in the same uniform (the quality of the material was different for everyone), but they all had collars. This somehow taught them to be neat and clean, the schoolchildren themselves were on rotating duty, in the morning they checked the cleanliness of their hands, the presence of a white collar and cuffs on the sleeves of girls, and the presence of a white collar for boys was mandatory. There were clubs at school: dance, gymnastics, theater, and choral singing. Much attention was given to physical education. When I was already retired, I took skis to my grandson’s physical education lesson, and that’s when I especially remembered the post-war years of 1949. How is it that in this school they managed to allocate a special room for well-groomed skis, which stood in pairs along the walls and there was enough for everyone. We were taught to be in order, the lesson was completed: you need to wipe them off and put them in the cell where you took them. And that's great!
I also remember fondly that from the 8th grade we were taken to a large plant named after Baranov twice a week. This plant was evacuated from Zaporozhye during the war. The factory was a giant, they taught us how to operate machines there, both girls and boys. We went with great pleasure. There were practically no lectures on working on them, but the training of the machine operators themselves, that is, practice, taught them a lot.
At the end of ten years, the question became where to go. It so happened that since 1951, my mother raised the two of us alone. My brother Volodya was in third grade, and I understood that I needed to help. After school I went to this plant and they hired me as a controller in a laboratory testing precision instruments. I liked the work, it was responsible, they checked calibers, staples, calipers and many precision measuring instruments on microscopes. They put their mark and “paraffinels” (in liquid hot paraffin) on each product. I still remember the smell of paraffin. At the same time, I immediately entered the evening department of the aviation technical school at the same plant. I finished it and received my diploma in Leningrad. I really liked the work, but time takes its toll. Two years later, she married a graduate of the Vilnius Radio Engineering Military School, Yuri Semenovich Savarovsky, born in 1937. We had known each other for a long time: I was still at school, and he studied at the Vilnius Military School.
He himself is from Omsk and came every year for the holidays. The garrison where he was sent to serve after college was at that moment relocated to the village of Toksovo, a suburb of Leningrad, where I went with him. In 1961, our daughter Irina was born. We lived in the Vyborg district of Leningrad for almost 11 years. I graduated from the Polytechnic Institute, and Yura graduated from the Academy of Communications. It was convenient, just close to us. After graduating from the Academy in 1971, my husband was sent to Moscow, where we live to this day.
At the end of his military service, due to health reasons, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, the husband was demobilized from the army. They say that if a person has talent, then he is talented in everything. And indeed it is! After graduating from school, college, and academy with only excellent grades, my husband found himself in creativity.
Yuri Semenovich is a member of the Russian Writers' Union. Unfortunately, he died in April 2018, leaving behind unforgettable masterpieces: paintings, published 13 books of poetry.
In Leningrad, I worked at a factory as a workshop foreman. Upon arrival in Moscow, she worked at the Electrochemical Plant as a senior site foreman, senior engineer of the All-Union Industrial Association of the Ministry of Chemical Engineering. She was awarded many certificates of honor and the Veteran of Labor medal.
Daughter Irina Yuryevna graduated from the Plekhanov Moscow Institute in 1961. She is currently retired. There is a grandson, Stanislav Petrovich, born in 1985, and a great-granddaughter, who is 2 years and 8 months old.
I work in a public organization of war veterans, labor veterans, and law enforcement agencies. She began her activities as a member of the active staff of primary organization No. 1. In 2012, she was elected to the position of chairman of the primary organization PO No. 1, due to her knowledge of working on a computer, at the request of the chairman of the district Veterans Council G.S. Vishnevsky. transferred as executive secretary-operator to the regional Veterans Council, where I work to this day. She was awarded with diplomas from the head of the district administration, the chairman of the RSV, the chairman of the North-Eastern Administrative District, the head of the municipality of the Yuzhnoye Medvedkovo district, and the chairman of the Moscow City Duma.
Gordasevich Galina Alekseevna
Chairman of the medical commission of the Council of Veterans of the Yuzhnoye Medvedkovo district.
When the war began, I was visiting my father’s relatives in Ukraine in the small town of Shostka. The front was approaching quickly. Alarms began day and night. When the alarm sounded, we had to run and hide in the cellar. Now the horizon is painted crimson and a constant hum can be heard. Close ringing explosions are heard. They blow up enterprises so they don't fall to the enemy. But we can’t evacuate: there is no transport. The state of anxiety is transmitted from adults to children. Finally, permission was given to board open freight cars filled to the brim with grain.
The journey to Moscow was long and difficult: bombed roadways, shelling by German pilots returning at low level to the base, locomotive sparks burning holes in clothes, lack of shelter from the piercing wind and rain, problems with water and food.
When it became clear that our cars had been running along the ring railway around Moscow for several days, we left our temporary housing, with difficulty making our way to Moscow, we found my father, who was mobilized to prepare for the evacuation of the defense plant. He sends us to catch up with my mother, younger sisters and brother, who, according to the order of the city leadership, have already been evacuated.
The meeting with my mother took place in the village of Verkhnie Kichi in the Republic of Bashkiria. Adults were recruited to work on the collective farm. I, along with other children, collected ears of corn. There was no Russian language school nearby.
In the late autumn of 1942, we moved to our father, who was in the city of Kirov, where the plant had been evacuated. There was a school in the factory village. They accepted me straight into second grade.
The classes took place in a one-story wooden building, similar to a barracks, apparently recently built, since there was no vegetation around, not even a fence and just a landscaped yard. I remember the red clay that stuck to my shoes and made them heavy. In winter the heating was poor. It was cold, or maybe chilly from hunger. As the evacuees kept arriving, the city could no longer cope with rationed supplies, and famine began. I wanted to eat all the time. It was easier in the summer. Together with other guys, you could go to an old cemetery, where you could find some edible plants. Oxalis, horsetail, young spruce shoots, just picking needles or linden leaves. In the summer you could pick up a mug of medicinal chamomile, take it to the hospital, and in return you would receive a portion of gray porridge sweetened with sugar. Mom and other women went to the nearest village to exchange things for something edible.
The main food was polished oats, which had to be cooked for a long time in order for both the first and the second to be learned. If you were lucky, the menu included “nausea,” a cutlet-like dish made from frozen potatoes.
During lessons we often sat in outerwear, as the heating was bad. There weren't enough textbooks. We studied in turns or in groups. Notebooks were sewn from newspapers or written with quills; ink was carried in sippy inkwells.
In 1944, they returned to Moscow with their parents. It was not so hungry in Moscow. Grocery cards were given regularly. We lived in a factory barracks until 1956, since our pre-war living space, despite the reservation, was occupied by other people.
I really liked the Moscow school. It was a typical building, made of gray brick. Four floors with wide windows. Spacious and bright. The classrooms were cleaned themselves, on duty according to the schedule. The teachers treated us kindly. The teacher leading the first lesson always began with a story about front-line news; it was already joyful. The army advanced victoriously to the west. On the large map in the history room there were more and more red flags that marked the liberated cities. At the first big break, sweet tea and a bun were brought to class. There were also not enough textbooks, and several people still studied one book, but we did not quarrel, we helped each other, the more successful students helped the lagging ones. On the desks there were the same sippy cups, but they wrote in real notebooks. There were 40 people in the class. We worked in three shifts.
You had to wear a uniform to class; our school had one. of blue color. A dark blue dress was accompanied by a black apron and dark ribbons; on holidays, a white apron and white ribbons. Even when visiting the boys' school for joint evenings, one had to wear this festive uniform.
There were pioneer and Komsomol organizations at the school. The reception there was solemn and festive. Extracurricular educational work was carried out through these organizations. Komsomol members worked as detachment pioneer leaders and organized games with children during breaks. High school students were supposed to walk in circles in pairs during recess. This order was monitored by the teachers on duty.
I was an active pioneer and an active Komsomol member. Amateur theaters were very popular. For some reason I got male roles.
The most favorite entertainment was a trip by a large group of householders to the fireworks in honor of the liberation of the city in the center on Manezhnaya Square, where huge spotlights were installed, and somewhere very close a cannon was firing, the cartridges from which were collected as souvenirs. In between salvos, the beams of searchlights pierced the sky, now rising vertically, now circling, now crossing, illuminating the national flag and portraits of V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin. The festive crowd shouted “Hurray!”, sang songs, it was fun and joyful in the noisy crowd.
And now the most joyful day has come - Victory Day. Together with everyone else, I also rejoiced at this national holiday. Was festive event at school, we sang our favorite military songs, read poems about the exploits of our soldiers.
In 1948, after finishing seven classes, having received an incomplete secondary education at that time, I entered the Moscow Pedagogical School, since I had to quickly get a profession and help parents raise their younger children.
She began her working career in her 3rd year, going to work in summer pioneer camps as a pioneer leader.
In 1952, after graduating from pedagogical school, she was assigned to work as a senior pioneer leader at boys' school No. 438 in the Stalin district of Moscow.
After working as an assigned worker for three years, she switched to working as a primary school teacher at school No. 447 and continued to study at the evening department of the Ministry of Education and Science. Since September 1957, after graduating from the institute, she worked in a secondary school as a teacher of Russian language and literature. Until September 1966 at school No. 440 in the Pervomaisky district. Due to illness, in September 1966 she was transferred to work as a methodologist in the Pervomaisky Regional Educational Institution.
Due to a change of residence, she was transferred to school No. 234 in the Kirovsky district, now in the Northern Medvedkovo district.
I loved my job. She strove to use the latest forms and methods, ensuring that each student knew the program material. At the same time, as a class teacher, she paid a lot of attention to the general development of her students, organized visits to museums, theaters, exhibitions, trips to places of military glory, memorable places Moscow region. She was the initiator of various school initiatives. Thus, in the courtyard of school No. 440 in the Pervomaisky district, there still stands an obelisk in memory of students who died in battles for their homeland, which was installed at my suggestion and active participation.
My professional activities have been repeatedly awarded with certificates by public education authorities at various levels. In April 1984 she was awarded the Veteran of Labor medal. In July 1985, he was awarded the title “Excellence in Public Education of the RSFSR.” In 1997 she received the medal of the 850th anniversary of Moscow.
Along with teaching, she actively participated in social work. From 1948 to 1959 she was a member of the Komsomol, was the permanent secretary of the Komsomol school organization, and from September 1960 until the dissolution of the party was a member of the CPSU.
In September 1991, I started working as a teacher at a boarding school for blind children, where I worked until August 2006.
Total work experience 53 years.
Since August 2006, she has been involved in the work of the Veterans Council. For the first six months she was an active member of primary organization No. 3, then she was invited to the district Council to the position of chairman of the social welfare commission. Currently I head the medical commission. Since June 2012 I have had the “Honorary Veteran of Moscow” memorial badge.
Dubnov Vitaly Ivanovich
Chairman of primary organization No. 2
Council of Veterans of the Yuzhnoye Medvedkovo District
I, Vitaly Ivanovich Dubnov, was born on October 5, 1940 in the city of Lesozavodsk, Primorsky Territory. After the USSR victory over Japan and the liberation of Southern Sakhalin, he moved with his family to Sakhalin, where his father was sent to head the construction of a dry dock for ship repairs in the city of Nevelsk.
In the city of Nevelsk he graduated from high school and in 1958 entered Tomsk State University at the Faculty of Physics.
After graduating from university in 1964, he was sent to work as an engineer at a defense industry enterprise in Moscow. In 1992, he was appointed Chief Engineer at one of the enterprises of the scientific production association "Energia" in Moscow.
During his work in the defense industry, he was awarded state and government awards: by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR he was awarded the medal “For Labor Distinction”; by Order of the Minister he was awarded the title “Best Test Manager of the Ministry”.
In 1994 he completed courses under the Government Russian Federation on the privatization of enterprises. Participated in the work of federal privatization funds as a manager of shares of OJSC TsNIIS.
During the period from 2010 to 2015, he worked as General Director of one of the enterprises of the Transstroy corporation. He retired on July 1, 2015. Veteran of labour.
Currently I serve in a public organization, the District Council of Veterans, I am the Chairman of the primary organization No. 2 of the Council of Veterans of the South Medvedkovo district.
Marital status: married, wife Larisa Petrovna Lappo and two daughters - Valeria and Yulia. Larisa Petrovna is a philologist, history teacher, graduated from Tomsk State University, Faculty of History and Philology. Valeria (eldest daughter) is a pharmacist, graduated from the 1st Moscow Medical Institute. Yulia (youngest daughter) is an economist, graduated from the Academy of National Economy. Plekhanov. The son of Valeria’s daughter Savely is my grandson and studies at the Moscow Higher School of Economics.
My memories of my childhood years spent on Sakhalin after the war. The Soviet Army quickly liberated Southern Sakhalin from the Japanese army group, and the Japanese civilian population did not have time to evacuate to Japan. The Japanese constituted the main workforce in the construction of the dry dock. Russian specialists supervised the construction. I must say that the Japanese are very hardworking and very polite in their communication, including with Russian children. The life of the Japanese was very simple; when the tide came and the coastal bottom of the ocean was exposed for hundreds of meters, Japanese women took large wicker baskets and walked through the shallow water far from the shore. They collected small fish, small crabs, shellfish, octopus and seaweed in baskets. This constituted the food of the Japanese after being cooked in small stoves like our potbelly stoves. Rice, which was paid for in advance, was delivered in bags to houses on carts. There were no shops in the city. Russian families received food using cards from Lend-Lease reserves. The Japanese lived in small houses (fans) built from light materials, entrance doors the fanzas had sliding lattice panels and were covered with oiled paper. Russian children pierced these doors with their fingers, for which they received scoldings from their parents. Fanzas were heated from potbelly stoves, while the chimney pipe was located around the perimeter inside the fanza and only then went up. The city of Nevelsk (formerly Khonto) is a small city in Southern Sakhalin. There was one secondary school in the city, where Russian children studied together with Japanese children in Russian. At that time, there was compulsory seven-year education, and those who wanted to go to college studied in high school. My Japanese friend Chiba Noriko studied with me from the first grade to the tenth, who entered the Mining Institute in Vladivostok and subsequently worked as the head of a large coal mine on Sakhalin. I remember my difficult post-war childhood. How they also fished in the sea, made their own scooters, what games they played. How we bought our first shoes when I went to first grade. I walked to school barefoot, and only put on my shoes before school. We went in for sports. And we studied seriously and tried. We attended various clubs in the Houses of Pioneers. But they really wanted and were eager to learn. It’s funny to remember how they dressed. There were no briefcases, the mother sewed a bag from matting over her shoulder. There is something to remember, and it is interesting for children to listen to it. I get asked a lot of questions when I speak to school students.
To the 70th anniversary of Pob food in the Great Patriotic War, the district administration plans to install a memorial stone to the defenders of the Motherland - residents of villages, villages and the city of Babushkin (the territory of the modern North-Eastern Administrative District) who went to the front during the war of 1941-1945.
We need memories of eyewitnesses of these events, names of villages, villages, names of people who went to the front (possibly with a biography and photo).
Offers accepted by email [email protected] indicating contact information.
Antoshin Alexander Ivanovich
Memoirs of a member of a former public organization
juvenile prisoners of fascism concentration camps
Alexander Ivanovich was born on February 23, 1939 in the town of Fokino (former village of Tsementny), Dyatkovo district, Bryansk region. Expelled to the Alytus concentration camp (Lithuania) in 1942. “Mom had four children,” recalls Alexander Ivanovich, allsubsequently returned home. It was a terrible time,” Alexander Ivanovich continues the story, “much has been erased from memory, I remember barbed wire, naked crowds of us being forced into the shower, policemen on horses with whips, a line for slop, children of Jewish nationality being taken somewhere and the loud roar of parents, some of which later went crazy. The Red Army liberates us, they put us in the house of a lonely Lithuanian, and again we fall into a trap.”
“One of the terrible pictures: It happened in the evening,” Alexander Ivanovich continues his story, “shooting was heard outside the window. Mom immediately hid us in the earthen underground. After some time it became hot, the house was burning, we were burning, we got out into the house. Aunt Shura (we were in a concentration camp together) knocks out the window frame and throws us children out into the snow. We raise our heads and there is a squad in front of us in green and black uniforms. The owner of the house was shot before our eyes. We heard these young men going on a shooting spree every evening, and later we learned that they were “forest brothers” - Bandera’s followers.
They returned to their native city of Fokino in 1945, the houses were burned, there was nowhere to live. They found a dug cellar, and they lived in it until my mother’s brother returned to the wars; he helped build a small house with a stove-stove. Father did not return from the front.
In 1975, Alexander Ivanovich graduated from the Moscow State Correspondence Pedagogical Institute and worked at secondary school No. 2 in Fokino as a teacher of drawing and fine arts. Retired in 1998.
BELTSOVA (Brock) GALINA PAVLOVNA
Born in 1925. When the Great Patriotic War began, Galina was 16 years old. She studied in the 10th grade at a Moscow school. All Komsomol members of that time had one desire - to go to the front. But at the military registration and enlistment offices they sent me home, promising to summon me when necessary.
Only in 1942 did Galina Pavlovna manage to enter the Moscow Red Banner Military Aviation School of Communications. Soon the school began recruiting cadets who wanted to study to become shooter-bombers. Seven cadets, including Galina, who passed all the commissions, were sent to the city of Yoshkar-Ola to the reserve aviation regiment. Taught basic rules
aircraft navigation and weapons handling. It took them a while to get used to flying; many felt unwell in the air. When it was time to jump, the cadets didn’t have much desire to jump. But the instructor’s words: “Whoever doesn’t jump will not get to the front” was enough for everyone to jump off in one day.
The female crew that arrived to pick up the girls from the front made a huge impression. “With what admiration and envy we looked at the front-line pilots, at their brave faces and military orders,” recalls Galina Pavlovna, “we so wanted to get there as soon as possible!”
And so on April 6, 1944, Galina and a group of other girls - pilots - arrived at the front, near Yelnya. They were greeted warmly and cordially. But they didn’t let me go on a combat mission right away. First, we studied the combat area, took tests, and performed training flights. We quickly became friends with our new comrades.
On June 23, 1944, Galina received her first combat mission - to destroy a concentration of enemy manpower and equipment in the Riga area. What is indicated on the map as a front line, from the air turned out to be a wide strip of black caps of anti-aircraft shell explosions. This distracted attention, the pilots did not see the ground at all and dropped bombs, focusing on the leading crew. The task was completed.
This is how Galina Pavlovna’s combat life began; battle-hardened and experienced pilots were led into battle. After several flights, we began to feel more confident and began to notice more what was happening in the air and on the ground. A little time passed, and the young crews showed examples of courage and bravery.
“Once we were flying to bombard enemy artillery and tanks near Iecava in the Bauska region (Baltic states),” recalls Galina Pavlovna. As soon as we crossed the front line, my pilot Tonya Spitsyna showed me the instruments:
The right engine gives out and doesn't pull at all.
We began to fall behind the line. There were still a few minutes left to reach the goal. Our group is already far ahead. We decided to go on our own. We bombed, photographed the results of the attack and returned home. The group is no longer visible; the covering fighters left with it. And suddenly I see: a Fockewulf is coming at us from the right. I started shooting, fired several bursts. And here is another Fokker, but on the right front. He walked straight towards us, but at the very last moment he couldn’t stand it and turned away. No fear, only anger that you couldn’t shoot the vulture - he was in a dead zone, not fired upon by any of the firing points of our plane. Another attack is from below from behind. Gunner Raya Radkevich fired there. And suddenly there are red stars nearby! Our fighters rushed to our rescue. Oh, how timely! Having escorted us behind the front line, they left, waving their wings goodbye.”
Pilots from neighboring “brotherly” regiments treated Soviet pilots very well; at first they didn’t even believe that girls were flying Pe-2s, and then they even admired them. “Girls, don’t be shy! We’ll cover you” - was often heard in the air in broken Russian... And when friends are in the sky, even an attacking enemy fighter is not so scary.
The last day of the war. At night they reported that the war was over. The news is stunning! They had been waiting for so long, but when they found out, they didn’t believe it. Tears in the eyes, congratulations, laughter, kisses, hugs.
After the war, Galina Pavlovna returned home. The Moscow Party Committee sent Galina to work in the authorities state security. In 1960, she graduated in absentia from the history department of Moscow State University and worked as a history teacher in a high school in the city of Kamyshin, on the Volga. She completed graduate school, defended her Ph.D. thesis, and worked as an assistant professor at Moscow State University of Civil Engineering.
BELYAEVA (nee Glebova) NATALIA MIKHAILOVNA
Natalia Mikhailovna was born on March 17, 1930 in Leningrad, in the clinic named after. Otto, who is still located on Vasilyevsky Island, near the Rostral Columns. Natalia’s mother was a pediatrician, the head of children’s clinic No. 10 of the Oktyabrsky district. My father worked as a researcher at the All-Union Institute of Plant Protection, under the guidance of academician
Vavilova defended his dissertation. who fought among themselves. One shot down in the form of a torch fell to the ground, the other flew victoriously to the side. Such a terrible picture was the war for Natalia’s children’s eyes.
Life gradually got better, schools opened. During the big break, schoolchildren were given a piece of bread. They didn’t want to learn German, they went on strike against this lesson, and insulted the German teacher. Schools switched to separate education: boys studied separately from girls. Later, uniforms were introduced, black satin aprons for every day, white ones were worn for holidays.
Natalia Mikhailovna grew up as a sickly child, so in grades 1 and 2 she studied at home, studied music, and learned German. In 1939, her mother died, the girl was raised by her father and grandfather, who was also a doctor. My grandfather worked at the Military Medical Academy as an otolaryngologist with the famous academician V.I. Voyachek.
In the summer of 1941, together with her father, Natalia went on an expedition to Belarus. When they heard the announcement of the start of war, they dropped their suitcases and ran to the train station. There was barely enough space on the train in the last carriage that managed to leave Brest. The train was overcrowded, people were standing in the vestibules. My father showed his mobilization insert on his military ID and, pointing to me, an orphan, begged to be let into the carriage.
In Bobruisk, the locomotive's whistle sounded alarmingly, the train stopped and everyone was thrown out of the cars. Two planes appeared in the sky
Natalia's father was taken to the front in the first days of the war, leaving the girl in the care of her grandfather and housekeeper. My father served on the Leningrad Front, defending besieged Leningrad. He was wounded and shell-shocked, but continued to remain in service until the blockade was completely lifted. In 1944, he was transferred to Sevastopol.
In mid-September 1941, schools stopped working, grams of bread decreased, stove heating became impossible, people were burning with furniture and books. We went to the Neva for water once every 2 or more weeks with a sled and a bucket.
The war did not spare people from the remaining neighbors, and before the war, 36 people lived in 8 rooms of a communal apartment, 4 people remained alive. In January 1942, Natalia’s grandfather died in the hospital; for the last 3 months he lived at work, there was no transport, and there was no strength to walk home.
At the end of autumn and especially in the winter of 1941-1942. Natalia and her housekeeper Nadya, a girl of 18-19 years old, lay on the same bed all the time, trying to warm each other. Nadya went once every 2-3 days to buy cards, brought some bread, which she then cut into pieces, dried, and the girls, lying in bed, sucked on it to prolong the eating process.
In the spring of 1942, bread began to increase from 110 g - 150 - 180 g, it became warmer outside, and hope for life appeared. At the end of 1942, having received an invitation from the Palace of Pioneers, Natalia became a member of the propaganda team. With a teacher and 2 other boys aged 10 and 12, they went to hospitals and organized concerts, sang and recited for seriously ill patients right in the wards. The song that had the following chorus was especially popular: “Darling, distant, blue-eyed daughter, gently cover the bear, when the battle is over, your father will return home. At short camping stops, and in harsh sleepless nights, you always stood up in front of me with this teddy bear in your hands.” The soldiers kissed the children and wiped tears from their eyes. The guys finished their performances in the kitchen, where they were treated to something. The first fireworks display on the occasion of the lifting of the blockade was met on the ice of the Neva River, with hoarse voices. Then they shouted “Hurray!” on Mariinskaya Square, and in 1945 they rejoiced on the occasion of the Victory.
N 
Atalia Mikhailovna remembers the column of pitiful Germans that was being led through the center of Leningrad. There was confusion in my soul - the pride of the victors was replaced by compassion for these prisoners, but still people.
In 1948, after graduating from school, Natalia Mikhailovna entered the 1st Medical Institute named after. I.P. Pavlova, who successfully graduated in 1954, choosing the specialty of infectious disease specialist. After completing clinical residency, she defended her Ph.D. thesis. She worked as a senior researcher at the All-Russian Research Institute of Influenza, and since 1973 as an assistant and associate professor at the Leningrad Institute of Influenza.
In 1980, by family circumstances moved to Moscow. She defended her doctoral dissertation, became a professor, and since 2004, head. department at RMAPO.
Over the years of work, I have visited hotbeds of influenza, diphtheria, typhoid fever, salmonellosis, cholera, and VI Z infection in Kolmykia.
He constantly gives lectures to doctors, conducts consultations with critically ill diagnostic patients, and goes on business trips.
For about 20 years, Natalia Mikhailovna was the chief scientific secretary of the All-Union and then the Russian Scientific Society of Infectious Diseases, and the supervisor of graduate students.
Natalia Mikhailovna Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation, author of 200 scientific publications.
Currently, he continues to head the Department of Infectious Diseases of the Russian Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor.
Natalia Mikhailovna is a member of 3 scientific councils for the defense of dissertations, a member of the board of the Scientific Society of Infectious Diseases, “Honored Doctors of Russia,” and the editorial board of specialized journals.
Natalia Mikhailovna’s son is also a doctor, her grandson and granddaughter have already grown up, and her great-granddaughter is growing up. The granddaughter is also a doctor, in the 5th generation!
Natalia Mikhailovna was awarded the “Resident of Siege Leningrad” badge, medals “For the Defense of Leningrad”, “For Victory in the Great Patriotic War”, “Veteran of Labor”, “Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation”, “80 Years of the Komsomol”, and other numerous anniversary medals. He has an honorary silver order of “Public Recognition”.
Loves his family, work, Russia! Believes in her!
BARANOVICH (Simonenko) NATALIA DMITRIEVNA
Participant of the Great Patriotic War.
In 1930, her family moved to Kharkov, as her father was transferred there to work. Here Natalya Dmitrievna graduated from school and entered college. After graduation, she is assigned to the regional village of B. Kolodets, Kherson region Tam
She works as a secondary school teacher.
When the war began, the city of Kharkov fell under the occupation of German troops, and fighting took place on the Seversky Donets. The school is closed and a military field hospital is set up in its building. 3 teachers, and Natalya Dmitrievna among them, volunteer to work in it. Soon the Soviet troops are forced to retreat. The hospital is being disbanded, and some of its employees are sent to the rear. Now a military unit was stationed at the school - 312 Aviation Maintenance Battalion, 16 RAO, 8 VA - and Natalya Dmitrievna and two colleagues from the school became military personnel. She worked in this battalion until the end of the war and went a long way to Berlin, where she met Victory!
Natalya Dmitrievna was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, medals “For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”, Zhukov, Czech Republic, the badge “Front-line soldier 1941-1945”, 8 anniversary awards, medals and commemorative signs, including “65 years of victory in the Battle of Stalingrad.”
After the war, she and her soldier husband were sent to Chernivtsi. There she graduated from Chernivtsi University and began teaching at school. After the husband’s demobilization, the family moved to Moscow, her husband’s homeland. First, Natalya Dmitrievna worked as a teacher at school, then as an editor at the Research Institute of the Rubber Industry - together with her husband she worked there for 20 years. She was repeatedly presented with certificates and gratitude, and was awarded the medal “For Valiant Labor.”
After her retirement, Natalya Dmitrievna decided not to sit at home: a year later she got a job as the head of kindergarten No. 1928 in the Kirov district (now Severnoye Medvedkovo district),
In peacetime she worked with the same zeal and enthusiasm as during the war. She often received awards for her difficult work, her kindergarten was considered the best in the area, and all colleagues and parents fondly remember their friendly team.
Vladimir Antonovich, her husband, was seriously ill. He died in 1964, and Natalya Dmitrievna had to single-handedly raise her daughter, a student, on her feet. It was not easy, but now the mother is proud of her daughter: she has become a doctor of science and a professor, head of the department and author of textbooks.
Natalya Dmitrievna always tries to live and work honestly, help people to the best of her ability, maintain good physical and psychological form. She is avidly interested in everything that happens in our country and in the world. Despite having artificial lenses in both eyes, she reads and watches movies a lot. Natalya Dmitrievna truly loves people and helps them in word and deed.
Natalya Dmitrievna Baranovich is first on the left in the top row.
This year Natalya Dmitrievna turns 95 years old!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
BARSUKOV VLADIMIR EGOROVICH
Vladimir Egorovich was born on June 15, 1941, in the town of Zhizdra, Kaluga region. When the fascists occupied the Kaluga region and the city of Zhizdra, all the residents felt for themselves what fascism was: misanthropy, contempt for other peoples,
cult of brute force, humiliation of the human person.
In August 1943, the Germans forcibly took the entire Barsukov family: little Vova, his sister and mother to Lithuania to the Alytus concentration camp.
As a child, he went through a “death camp”, which remained forever in his memory.
It is impossible to remember those years without shuddering from horror and pain. At first they were placed in a barracks where there was nothing. “We were lying on the cement floor. Mom laid the children on her chest and protected them from the freezing cold of the cement, recalls Vladimir Yegorovich. - Prisoners were used for any work: loading, cleaning the territory. They fed them rutabaga and water, where some unknown pieces of meat floated. Sometimes they made their way to the camp local residents and threw food at us. We were crawling for food, and at that time the Germans were shooting at us,” Vladimir Yegorovich continues the story. In all concentration camps there was hunger and beatings. Every day the Nazis took away dozens of people who then never returned. German camps were aimed at the physical and moral destruction of people. Children especially suffered.
In September 1944, the Nazis began to transport prisoners to Germany. On the border with Poland, freight cars in which people were transported were liberated by a group of partisans. The road home was long and difficult; it took almost two months to get home hungry and half-naked, and when we arrived in the city of Zhizra, we saw the city burned down. There were only chimneys, there was not a single house. But there was still joy that we were in our homeland. “There was hope in my heart that my father would soon return from the front and life would get better,” recalls Vladimir Yegorovich, “but they received a funeral. My father died on March 15, 1945 in a battle on the outskirts of the city of Schutzendorf.”
We lived in a dugout, after 4 years, Vladimir’s mother received a loan to build a house.
From 1947 to 1958, he studied at school, then worked at the Lyudinovsky Diesel Locomotive Plant as a turner. From 1964 to 1967, he participated in a geological exploration expedition in the city of Vorkuta, where he went for company with a friend.
In 1968, he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Radio Electronics and Automation. He worked at the Academy of Medical Sciences as a senior medical engineer. equipment. In 1995, he retired as the head of the design bureau.
Vladimir Egorovich loves to play chess and dominoes with friends.
VALUYKIN GLEB BORISOVICH
Gleb Borisovich was born on October 16, 1937, in the city of Pavlovsk, Leningrad Region.
In 1941, fascist troops approached the city of Leningrad, and the blockade of the city began. All residents ended up in occupied territory. The shelling went on day and night, shells hit houses, from the fire of one house, entire streets. This is how the Valuikin family was left without a roof over their heads overnight. The family moved to live in their grandmother's house.
The main concern of the parents was the fight against hunger. Mom went out of town to the fields to collect unharvested vegetables. In the spring of 1942, many families, including the Valuykin family, were loaded into railway cars and sent to Germany. In the area of the city of Siauliai (Lithuania), families were sorted into farms. In one of which, in the landowner’s house, Gleb Borisovich’s parents worked as laborers. They did various jobs in the garden and in the yard; they went to work early in the morning and returned exhausted, wet, hungry and cold late in the evening, for which they received a roof over their heads and food.
In 1944, Red Army troops freed the prisoners, and the family returned home to Krasnoye Selo.
DEITCHMAN LEV PETROVICH
Memoirs of a participant in the Great Patriotic War
Born on February 6, 1925 in the city of Kremenchug, Poltava region in a family of workers.
In 1932, he went to school, and in 1940, to the Moscow Vocational School No. 1 of Railway Transport, during the war years
Students within the walls of the school make shells, which are then sent to the front. In 1943, by decree of the USSR Government L.P. Deitchman is called to military service. At first, the recruits were trained to be sent to the front, and in 1944, they took part in combat operations on the 1st Baltic Front, the 3rd Belorussian Front on two Far Eastern fronts, first as part of the 14th separate anti-tank artillery brigade, then 534 and 536 anti-tank artillery regiment. For participation in hostilities 14 separate I.P.A.B. awarded the Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov, the regiment was awarded the Orders of Kutuzov, and the personnel were presented with government awards. Lev Petrovich served as a carrier of shells in an artillery battery.
L.P. Deichman was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, medals “For Courage”,
“For the capture of Keninsberg”, “For the victory over Germany”, “For the victory over Japan”, etc.
In 1948, demobilized from the army. Graduated from the Moscow Food College with a degree in mechanical engineering. He worked at industrial enterprises and transport in Moscow for about 50 years. He was awarded labor medals.
Lev Petrovich is still in service, engaged in social activities, speaking to young people and schoolchildren with stories about the courage of our soldiers, about the cost of the Victory.
Despite his advanced age, he actively takes part in sports competitions not only in the region, but also in the district. He has more than 20 sports awards and letters of gratitude. He loves skiing and takes part in the annual competitions “Moscow Ski Track” and “Russian Ski Track”.
In 2014, as part of the Moscow delegation, he traveled abroad.
Currently, he is the Chairman of the Council of Veterans of the 2nd Guards Army; in 2014, he was awarded the title of Honorary Veteran of the City of Moscow.
The employees of the council, the administration of the Moscow Region, and the State Budgetary Inspectorate of the Yuzhnoye Medvedkovo district sincerely congratulate you on your anniversary!
We wish you good health, sporting victories, attention, care and respect from family and friends!
DUBROVIN BORIS SAVOVICH
Participant of the Great Patriotic War.
My maternal grandmother is from a peasant family from a village near the town of Levishevichi. Mom graduated from medical school and worked as a doctor at the Lefortovo hospital. My father was from the Ukrainian maternity hospital from the city of Uman, worked as a printing worker, and then as a commissar of the 1st Cavalry Army, later as an engineer at the TsGAM plant, and was the head of one of the large workshops.
“I started studying at the age of 6, I was a mediocre student, I didn’t like to read or write, I took everything by ear,” recalls Boris Savvovich.
In 1936, my father was arrested as an enemy of the people, he died in prison, then the “funnel” came for my mother, she was arrested because she did not inform on the enemy of the people. Nine-year-old Boris and his three-year-old sister were taken in by their grandmother. All things were sold or exchanged for food, and still they lived from hand to mouth.
There was no doctor in the camp in Minusinsk; the head of the camp appointed Boris’s mother to take over. She spent 6 years in prison and came out disabled. Mom worked as a doctor and remained in the settlement in the Ostyak-Vagul district. Being not healthy herself, she went out to see the sick on skis. She was loved.
When the war began, Boris Savvovich went to work at a defense plant as a turner, making shells for anti-tank guns, working 12 hours a day. Boris had a reservation, but in 1944, he went to the front as a volunteer. He ended up in the infantry in a rifle regiment, from which he was sent to aviation. At first he was a mechanic, then he asked to become an air gunner. He became an air gunner - the fourth member of the crew after the pilot, navigator and radio operator. The gunner must lie flat on the bottom of the aircraft and guard the rear of the aircraft. Air gunners died more often than other crew members. And on the very first day I had to face signs.
In the barracks they said: “Choose where to put your things.” I see everything is densely packed with duffel bags, and there is an empty space in the middle. I put my duffel bag there and went on a mission. When Boris Savvovich returned, he was greeted strangely: “Are you back? And we didn’t even wait.” It turned out that there was a sign that if the new shooter put his duffel bag in the place of the dead one, he was doomed.
So I was left without an overcoat. It turned out they exchanged it for Polish vodka,” recalls Boris Savvovich, “and so as not to be upset, they poured me a glass.
He fought on the 1st Belorussian Front, liberating Belarus, Poland, Warsaw, and Germany. He ended the war in Falkenberg with the rank of private. What he is very proud of is that he served in the army for a total of 7 years.
After the war, Boris Savvovich entered and successfully graduated from the Literary Institute. Gorky. How true patriot, devoted to his Fatherland, the poet Boris Dubrovin could not live a calm creative life. 30 years of close friendship with border guards gave the poet the opportunity to visit all sections of the border (except the Norwegian one). During the Afghan war, Boris Savvovich performed with artists under fire. And to the song based on his poems “The Way Home” our troops left Afghanistan. He is a member of the Writers' Union, a laureate of many international competitions and literary awards, the television competition Song of the Year “From the 20th to the 21st Century”, All-Russian competition"Victory 2005", laureate of the medal named after. S.P.Koroleva. Author of 41 books – 33 collections of poetry and 8 books of prose. 62 poems were included in the Anthology of World Poetry. About 500 of his poems became songs that were and are performed by M. Kristalinskaya, I. Kobzon, A. German, V. Tolkunova, E. Piekha, L. Dolina, A. Barykin and many others. other. His poems have been translated and published in Yugoslavia, Poland, and Germany.
Boris Savvovich is rightfully proud of his medals: the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, medals “For the Liberation of Warsaw”, “For the Capture of Berlin”, Polish medals.
EVSEEVA FAINA ANATOLIEVNA
Born on January 27, 1937, in Leningrad. When the war began, Faina was 4.5 years old, and her sister was 2 years old.
My father was taken to the front, and he held the rank of Art. Lieutenant, throughout the blockade, defended the Pulkovo Heights for almost 900 days. Faina Anatolyevna’s family lived in a nearby suburb, in the city of Uritsk, near the Gulf of Finland.
Less than a month after the start of the war, German troops found themselves in Uritsk. Residents were forced into basements with their children. And then
The Germans kicked everyone out of the basements, not allowing them to take any things, money, food, or documents. They lined everyone up in a column on the highway running along the Gulf of Finland and drove them with the dogs towards Leningrad. People ran for 15 km. Mom carried Faina Anatolyevna’s younger sister in her arms, and Faina, holding her grandmother’s hand, ran herself. When we approached Leningrad, those who fled first were lucky, including Faina Anatolyevna’s relatives. They managed to get through the foreign post, but the rest were cut off by fire. The family managed to escape, they found relatives in Leningrad and temporarily settled in a room of 16 square meters - 10 people. We lived for 7 months in a hungry hell, under constant bombing. The winter in 1941 was cold, the thermometer needle dropped to -38 0 C. There was a potbelly stove in the room, the wood quickly ran out, and it had to be heated, first with furniture, then with books, rags. My mother went to buy bread; bread was sold strictly according to ration cards; after harvesting cabbage in the fields, she collected frozen cabbage leaves on the outskirts of Leningrad. Water was drawn from the river. Not you. One day she saw a lump of flour floating on the water, there was nowhere to put it, without hesitation, she took off her skirt and brought it home. Happy walked through the city wearing only pants. At some point, a cat was slaughtered, and broth was made from its meat for a month. Leather belts were used for broth, and jellied meat was made from clester. Every month people died of hunger. Of Faina Anatolyevna’s 10 relatives, three remained alive: herself, her sister and mother. Their father saved them; he helped his wife and children evacuate through the Ladoga Road of Life to the Urals in Chelyabinsk. The Ladoga road was also bombed both day and night. In front of the car in which Faina was driving with her mother and sister, a bomb hit the car with people and it went under the ice.
Then the route to the Urals was by rail. People were loaded into a train, the carriages of which were adapted for transporting livestock; there was straw on the floor, and in the middle of the carriage there was a potbelly stove, which was heated by the military. No one walked around the carriage; people lay half dead. Along the train's route, at stops the dead were unloaded, and the children were given a saucer of warm, liquid millet porridge. In Chelyabinsk, Faina was separated from her mother. She was admitted to an adult hospital, and her daughters to a children's hospital. At the children's hospital, the girls became infected with diphtheria; after three months, Faina and her sister were discharged. They lived with Aunt Maria, my mother’s sister. She worked as a dishwasher in a factory canteen and had the opportunity to bring a handful of burnt food in the evening; this was not enough, so during the day the girls tried to get their own food. The house in which they lived was located not far from the railway, next to the factory where white clay was transported. The girls collected clay that fell from the cars and ate it all day long. It seemed sweet, tasty, buttery to them. Mom was discharged from the hospital after another 3 months, she got a job at a factory, received rations, and life became more satisfying.
To return to Leningrad, a challenge was needed. To find out if my father was alive, my mother had to go to Leningrad. After placing her daughters in an orphanage, she went home. A terrible picture appeared before her eyes: there was not a single house left in Uritsk, there was nowhere to return. She went to Leningrad to visit her father's sister. What a joy it was when she met her husband there, who after the war stopped with his sister to live. Together, the parents returned to Uritsk, found a dilapidated basement and began to improve it: the father cleared away the rubble, twisted the barbed wire, and they helped him clear the area near the house. Mom took her daughters from Chelyabinsk, the family was reunited. A father from Estonia to Uritsk managed to transport a cow that he accidentally saw in the forest; only he could milk it. The animal lived with people in the basement. During the day, the girls picked quinoa and nettles for themselves and the cow.
In 1946, Faina went to school, we walked to study, every day 3 km to the station. Ligovo. They wrote on the newspaper between the lines, there was a great desire to study, I wanted to learn as much as possible, and most importantly, learn the German language. After graduating from 7 classes, Faina entered the Leningrad Mechanical Engineering College at the Kirov Plant. She worked as a designer at the brake plant named after. Koganovich. She got married and moved with her husband to Moscow. She raised her daughter, granddaughter, and now great-granddaughter. Faina Anatolyevna has suffered through her own blockade character, which helps her live and remain optimistic for many years.
ZENKOV VASILY SEMENOVICH
Participant of the Great Patriotic War. Participant in the Battle of Kursk. Staff Sergeant.
Born on October 12, 1925, in the village. Maloe Danilovskoye, Tokarsky district, Tambov region.
After graduating from 7 classes, Vasily Semenovich entered the pedagogical school. On June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War began. Germany attacked the Soviet Union, peacetime ended, Vasily’s father was taken into the army, where in one of the battles he died defending his homeland.
Vasily Semenovich was forced to quit his studies and go to work in a printing house, first as a printer's apprentice. His
They were assigned to an experienced, highly qualified mentor, and the training took place on the job and fulfilled the norm. After just 1.5 months, Vasily was working independently. The mother raised 3 children, Vasily earned money to support the whole family.
In December 1942, Vasily Semenovich was drafted into the Red Army. Preparation went on day and night, classes lasted 10-12 hours. At the front he was a sniper and a machine gunner.
In September 1943, during the expansion of the bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper, during a shootout, he was wounded by an explosive bullet. He was treated at the hospital in Lukoyanov, Gorky region. (now Nizhny Novgorod region). After treatment, he continued to serve in the army and was sent to school to learn how to drive a motorcycle, and after studying he ended up in the Mechanized Corps as a motorcyclist. On my thorny, difficult path I saw and experienced a lot: the bitterness of retreat and the joy of victory.
Vasily Semenovich joyfully celebrated Victory Day in Germany in the Oberkuntzedorf region.
After serving in the army for 7.5 years, he was demobilized as a civilian and returned to work as a printer. Soon he was sent to study at the MIPT in the evening department, and having received a diploma, he worked as the head of a printing house, the chief engineer of the MHP printing house, from where he retired in 1988.
He took an active part in the work of the Council of Veterans of the South Medvedkovo region.
Vasily Semenovich was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, I and II degrees, the Red Star, the medal “For Victory over Germany,” and anniversary medals.
Ivanov Nikolay Alekseevich
Memoirs of a member of a public organization
former juvenile prisoners of fascism concentration camps
Nikolai Alekseevich was born in 1932, in the village of Orlovo (formerly the village of Svoboda) of the Mezhetchinsky village council, Iznoskovsky district, Kaluga region.
In January - February 1942, the village was captured by the Germans, driving the villagers out of their houses, German soldiers settled in them, and the residents were forced to live in dugouts.
The moment came when the Germans kicked everyone out of the dugouts, lined them up in a column and drove people to the West. “In Vyazma, we were united with other refugees and driven to Smolensk,” Nikolai Alekseevich recalls with pain in his heart, “Many people gathered in Smolensk, after a few days, people began to be sorted, some were sent to Germany, others to Belarus. Our family: mother, father and four children were driven to the city of Mogilev. They settled me on the outskirts of the city in a broken down barracks. I didn’t have to live long, I was taken somewhere again. This time to the village of Sapezhinka, which was located near the city of Bykhovo (Belarus). All daylight hours, adults worked in the fields, did agricultural work, processed vegetables; the Germans loved to grow Kohlrabi cabbage.
Throughout the war they were forced to live in labor for the benefit of German soldiers, and were beaten for the slightest offense.”
In the spring of 1944, Soviet troops freed the prisoners. Father Nikolai Alekseevich died, mother and children returned to their homeland. There was nowhere to live, the village was destroyed. We settled in a surviving house. Later, fellow villagers began to return, together they rebuilt their houses and improved their everyday life. In the fall, school started working, Nikolai went to 2nd grade.
From 1952 to 1955, he served in the army, in the city of Vologda, in the air defense radar forces, then served in the police. And later he worked in trade, from where he retired in 1992.
Everything turned out well in Nikolai Alekseevich’s life: 2 daughters were born, now a grandson and a great-grandson are growing up, but the horrors of wartime, no, no, are still remembered.
KRYLOVA NINA PAVLOVNA (nee Vasilyeva)
Memoirs of a young resident of besieged Leningrad.
Born on August 23, 1935, in Leningrad, st. Nekrasova, house 58 sq. 12. Nina Vasilievna’s parents – Pavel Fedorovich
and Maria Andreevna worked in opera house"People's House". My father died near Leningrad, my mother died during the siege. By the will of fate, little Nina ended up in orphanage No. 40. Until the spring of 1942, the orphanage was located in Leningrad.
When the “road of life” opened, according to documents on April 7, 1942, the orphanage in which Nina Vasilievna was located was taken to the Krasnodar Territory. Due to illness, Nina went to school late. “After what time the Germans arrived, I don’t remember that time well. - says Nina Pavlovna, - but the following picture is etched in my memory: New Year. There is a large decorated Christmas tree, and instead of a five-pointed star on the very top of the head there is a fascist sign. Another
“I remember the incident,” Nina Pavlovna continues her story, “We were hidden in some pits, if the Germans had found us, they would not have spared us.”
After the war, Nina Pavlovna really hoped that her dad was alive, she waited for her every day. She sent requests to various organizations, but when she received the terrible news, her hopes were dashed, and Nina Pavlovna became very ill.
After finishing school I entered art school, and later on assignment she left for Yaroslavl, where she met her future husband, a cadet at the Moscow Military School. In 1958, Nina Pavlovna got married and moved to Moscow to her husband’s place of service. They had two children, and now two grandchildren.
KOSYANENKO (Meinova) KHATICHE SERVEROVNA
Memoirs of a member of a public organization of former juvenile prisoners of Nazi concentration camps
The city of Simferopol, where Khatiche’s mother lived, was occupied by the Germans in 1942. There were
There were daily raids, the Germans went from house to house and forcibly took away young people to be sent to Germany.
In April 1943, after another German raid, Khatiche’s mother, like many other girls, was loaded into a railway carriage and sent to an unknown destination, and two months later, mother realized that she was pregnant. She was overcome with despair and burst into tears from grief.
Khatiche's mother was assigned to a German family to do housework, and when they found out about her pregnancy, they drove her out into the street with sticks.
Along with other captured girls, Hatiche’s mother was placed in a barracks, in a dark room without windows. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, and Italians already lived there. German soldiers drove girls to work in the fields, to factories. IN different time For years they were engaged in: planting, weeding and harvesting vegetables in the field, went to the factory to weave fabric, and at the factory they made tin cans. For the slightest offense they were put in a punishment cell, left for several days without food or water.
People's living conditions were on the verge of survival: their clothes were made of rags, their shoes were made of wooden lasts.
In such difficult conditions, women bore and kept their children alive.
In 1945, American allied troops liberated European cities from German invaders, the Germans retreated, and in order not to leave witnesses, the German government decided to drown all the barracks in which captive women and children lived. Huge hoses with strong water pressure quickly filled the barracks. Women, trying to save their children, held them at arm's length. In the barracks where Khatiche and his mother were, the water rose almost to the ceiling and suddenly stopped. A little later, American soldiers helped everyone get out. Those who could walk walked alone; many of the exhausted were carried out by the military in their arms. The women were filled with joy for the saved life; they thanked the soldiers by hugging and kissing them, and holding their children tightly to them. And they cried loudly, loudly.
Before being sent home, the liberated women were kept in Hungary for a long time. Unsanitary conditions, dirt, heat, insects all contributed to the spread of diseases. People died without food, water or medical care. Hatiche was also on the verge of death.
But the thirst to live and return to their homeland was higher than death. It was difficult then to predict what kind of torment would befall upon returning to their homeland. By order of the government, people could return only to the place from which they were taken away. Numerous interrogations and humiliations to which Mama Khatiche was subjected by state security structures did not break her strong character. For a long time they had no housing, their mother was not hired, the question of sending Khatiche and her mother to a camp was considered,
Orenburg region.
Khatich's father fought in the ranks of the Soviet army, in 1944, he and his parents were deported from Russia and the connection between the Meinov spouses was interrupted. And only in 1946, a letter came from Khatiche’s father with an invitation to Uzbekistan, the mother happily made the decision, and she and her daughter left to join her father and husband. There, Khatiche graduated from a pedagogical university, worked as a primary school teacher, got married, had 3 children in her family, and did not notice how she retired.
In 1997, the family moved to Russia, and in 2000, to Moscow.
Khatiche Serverovna likes to knit for her mood. And decorate the entrance to create a mood for your neighbors.
MANTULENKO (Yudina) MARIA FILIPOVNA
Memoirs of a member of a public organization of former juvenile prisoners of Nazi concentration camps Maria Filippovna was born on May 22, 1932, in the village of Mekhovaya, Khvastovichesky District, Kaluga Region.
In January 1942, the Germans entered the village of Mekhovaya and drove the residents to Bryansk, to a camp. “We walked 25 kilometers,”
Maria Filippovna recalls that the Germans drove the prisoners with whips. Then we traveled through Belarus by train. They brought us to the Stuttgart camp, then to Stetin, and later we were in the Hamburg camp. They lived in common barracks, all mixed up: children, men, women. They fed them with gruel (sweet and salty rutabaga soup, similar in composition to flour) and buckwheat husks. Children were given 100 grams of bread per day, adults 200 grams. People fell unconscious from hunger. One day, Maria Filippovna’s mother also fainted.
They applied kerosene to prevent lice. In September 1943, the Yudin family was taken into his employ by the Bavarian Shmagrov. Each family member had his own responsibilities around the house: the grandfather worked in the garden, the father in the stables, the mother in the vegetable garden, the brother in the calf barn, the grandmother managed the house, she cleaned and prepared food.
In the German village, Belgian, French, and Italian prisoners lived with other owners.
On April 26, 1945, the families of Russian prisoners were liberated by Soviet troops. “When we returned home,” Maria Filippovna continues the story, “we saw burned houses, all the villages in the area were burned to the ground. Cold December 1945, we lived in a hut, later we dug a dugout, in 1947 we built a house.
To earn some money, in 1948-1949, Maria Filippovna went to peat mining in the Yaroslavl region. She arrived in Moscow in December 1949. She worked in construction. In 1950, Maria Filippovna went to work at Metrostroy, as an underground pumper, and lived in a dormitory. In 1963, she received an apartment in Medvedkovo, where she still lives.
MUKHINA VALENTINA ALEXANDROVNA
Memoirs of a young resident of besieged Leningrad
Born on June 8, 1935, in Leningrad. Mom worked at the Baltic plant, dad was a sailor. When Valya was 1 year old, her father drowned.
June 22, 1941, Sunday, warm, sunny morning. And people’s mood is just as joyful and sunny. They go for a walk around the city, to the parks. They gather for dances and museums. The films “The Pig Farmer and the Shepherd”, “Jolly Fellows”, “What if there is war tomorrow...” are shown in cinemas. But the war will not come tomorrow, it already happened today, the Great Patriotic War.
Hitler hated the name of the city on the Neva, the glorious traditions and patriotism of its inhabitants. He decided to wipe the city off the face of the earth. It was proposed to blockade the city and, by shelling from artillery of all calibers and continuous bombing from the air, raze it to the ground. The blockade began on September 8, 1941.
Six-year-old Valechka remembers the bombings both day and night, and how scared it was to go outside. It is impossible to remember what this girl experienced and suffered without pain and righteous anger.
Valina’s mother, like many other workers, did not leave the frozen workshops for 12-14 hours. The motto of the Leningrad workers is “Everything for the front!” Everything for Victory!
Valya lived with her aunt, her mother’s sister. Life became very difficult: there was no electricity, heat, firewood, since there was a stove
heating. They lit the stove, and everything that burned was used for heating: books, furniture. There was no drinking water. The children were forced to follow her to the Neva River, they tied pots and flasks to the sleds, and drew water from ice holes.
But the worst thing is hunger. There was nothing to eat. “Before the war, my mother was a big fashionista - this helped us out,” recalls Valentina Aleksandrovna, “with the beginning of the war, we exchanged many of her things for food. A neighbor supplied us with duranda – it was delicious, and they made jelly from wood glue.”
Grandma Valya went to the tobacco factory and brought back cigarette casings, which were also exchanged for food. To fill empty stomachs and drown out the incomparable suffering from hunger, residents resorted to various methods of finding food. They caught rooks, furiously hunted for a surviving cat or dog, and took out everything that could be eaten from the home medicine cabinet: castor oil, Vaseline, glycerin. People had money, but it was worth nothing. Nothing had a price: neither jewelry nor antiques. Only bread. There were huge queues at the bakeries, where daily rations of bread were issued using cards. Valya remembers the siege bread - black, sticky. When it was cut into pieces. It stuck to the knife blade. Valya cleaned off this sticky mass and ate.
Someone looted apartments, someone managed to steal a bread coupon from a half-dead old woman. But the majority of Leningraders worked honestly and died on the streets and workplaces, allowing others to survive. In 1942, at the age of 31, Valina’s mother died. She returned from work and, scooping ice water from a bucket, drank to her heart's content. Her body was weakened, she contracted pneumonia and never recovered. She was taken on a sled to the Smolensk cemetery and buried. So Valya became an orphan. YES, Valya herself and her aunt’s family were so weak that they could hardly move. In 1942, residents began to be evacuated. In August, aunt’s family and Valya were sent to Altai region. The train in which they were traveling was bombed, their belongings were burned, but they themselves miraculously survived.
The return to his hometown took place at the end of 1944. The city was sharply different from the city of 1941. I had already walked the streets public transport, no snowdrifts or debris were visible. Enterprises that received fuel and electricity were operating. Schools and cinemas opened, almost all houses had running water and sewerage systems, city baths worked, and there was a supply of firewood and peat. 500 tram cars ran on 12 routes.
Valya finished 7th grade and entered a technical school. In 1955, she arrived on assignment to the Moscow hydromechanization section. She worked as a hydraulic engineer-builder for hydroelectric power stations.
During her working career, she worked on projects for the construction of the Novodevichy, Ramenskoye, Lyubertsy ponds embankments, made a great contribution to the construction of the Luzhniki stadium and many other objects.
Since 1990, Valentina Alexandrovna has been on a well-deserved rest. But her active life position does not allow her to only raise 2 granddaughters and three great-grandchildren.
Valentina Aleksandrovna is the chairman of the Council of Siege Survivors of the Yuzhnoye Medvedkovo District, an active participant in all events held in the region and district. Frequent visitor to area schools.
In 1989, she was awarded the badge “Resident of besieged Leningrad.”
Meetings with schoolchildren
PAVLOVA YULIA ANDREEVNA
Memoirs of the chairman of a public organization of former juvenile prisoners of fascism in a concentration campth
Yulia Andreevna was born on October 4, 1935, in the town of Yukhnov, Kaluga region. The city is located in a picturesque area, in a forest, with the Ugra and Kunava rivers flowing through it. Before the war, Yulia Andreevna’s father worked as a school director, and her mother was a primary school teacher.
The winter of 1941 was snowy, cold, the frost reached -30 0 C. The Germans burst into the city and began to drive all the half-naked residents out of their houses, a column more than a kilometer long lined up, “Mom grabbed the sled, sat my seven-year-old sister and me on it,” Yulia Andreevna recalls, and our torment began. They walked for a long time, surrounded on all sides by armed Germans with shepherd dogs, then drove, coming under fire from German pilots; many prisoners did not reach their destination. The survivors were brought to Roslavl and placed in camp No. 130. The territory was surrounded by barbed wire, and there were towers with machine gunners along the entire perimeter. The children were separated from their parents and forcibly placed in different barracks. The roar was terrible, small children kept asking for their mothers. The barrack was a dark room, with two tiered shelves on which lay straw. Small children were assigned to sleep on the lower bunks, older children on the upper ones. The food that was brought could hardly even be called food. There were potato peelings floating in the water, but we really wanted to eat, so we tried not to notice the stench that came from the cup. And the next day everyone vomited. They didn’t give us any bread, we forgot its taste.” The women who were sitting in the next barracks were forced to work in peat extraction in the spring, the work was hard, they took peat out of the swamp, cut it, dried it, and the Germans sent it for their needs. Children were driven to the square to watch the public hanging of Soviet prisoners of war and the execution of Jews. Children's eyes saw many terrible moments in 1 year and 3 months, while six-year-old Yulia was in the camp. “One day, shooting was heard somewhere very close, bombs were falling from the sky, it seemed that the barracks were about to collapse,” recalls Yulia Andreevna, “it’s hard to say how long the battle lasted, it seemed long, and then the door opened and 2 soldiers entered the barracks and they say that everyone is freed; those who can go outside on their own, go out; those who cannot, we will carry them out in our arms. Taking each other's hands, we began to go out; the sight of the children was terrifying: thin, exhausted, dirty, hungry. Seeing the parents, a commotion began, screaming, mothers rushed to their children, children to their mothers, it is not clear where the strength came from. Not all mothers were able to hug their children, and not all children hugged their mothers. Happiness overwhelmed some and terrible grief overwhelmed others. Many prisoners died from hunger and overwork. Distraught mothers hugged the soldiers through tears, kissed their dirty boots, and thanked them for their liberation. It was in August 1943, a column of women and children left the camp, and 2 hours later, by order of Hitler, the barracks were blown up to hide the facts
violence, but the Nazis failed to destroy living witnesses. There was no way to get home in the city of Yukhnov; we waited a week for a car and lived in an open-air square. Sometimes cars with soldiers drove by, but it was impossible to take civilians, and there was nowhere to go. When we returned to our city,” Yulia Andreevna continues to recall, “everything was destroyed and burned, there was nowhere to live, we slept on the street, ate grass, sometimes went into the forest to pick berries, but it was mined and many people died from mine explosions.” shells."
Yulia Andreevna’s father, like many men from their cities, fought at the front, so it fell on women’s shoulders to restore the destroyed city. They cleared away rubble, cleared streets, tidied up houses and moved into them. A school for children was opened on the territory of the destroyed monastery, the teacher approached from child to child, explaining the material. They wrote with quills on old yellow newspapers between the lines, the ink was made from soot. There was also nothing to wear; schoolgirl Yulia and her older sister shared one pair of felt boots and a padded jacket between them.
Despite all the difficulties that befell this fragile woman, she did not lose faith in a better life.
Yulia Andreevna is the chairman of a public organization of former juvenile prisoners in the Yuzhnoye Medvedkovo district, visits lonely members of her organization in the hospital, meets with schoolchildren at courage lessons, answers numerous children’s questions, and takes an active part in events in the Yuzhnoye Medvedkovo district.
RYAZANOV VLADIMIR VASILIEVICH
Memoirs of a participant in the Great Patriotic War.
Retired colonel.
“When the Great Patriotic War began, I finished 9th grade,” recalls Vladimir Vasilyevich. - I still remember that Molotov announcement. I was born on the banks of the Volga. It was the Mari Republic, and now it is Mary El. My father was the chairman of the artel. Then a congress was organized in Moscow. And my father took me to look at the capital. I don’t know exactly the 20th or 21st, but the next day a greeting from the country’s leadership was planned in the square. And suddenly: “Attention! Now there will be a very important government message.” The message was about the beginning of the war. And after that, there were no special occasions, everything turned up and everyone went home. I haven't even looked around our capital. My father and older brother were drafted into the army. Mother didn't work. And I have 2 more brothers, one was 13, the other was 9 years old and a sister was 4 years old. After school, I went to a factory, managed to work for 6-7 months, and mastered the profession of an electrician.”
In June 1942, at the age of 17, Vladimir Vasilyevich graduated from high school. When the schoolchildren were lined up in the school yard and the director began issuing certificates, a military commissar arrived. All young men over 18 years old were given summonses. Among the tenth graders there were 12 such boys, only four of them returned from the front. Two of them are now alive.
Vladimir Vasilyevich participated in the battles of the Great Patriotic War as part of the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts as the driver of a combat vehicle of the anti-aircraft division of the 104th Guards Order of Kutuzov, II degree, rifle division of the 9th Army. Vladimir Vasilyevich’s combat biography includes victorious battles on the territory of Hungary, Austria, and Czechoslovakia from January to May 1945.
In Hungary, he took part in the defeat of a German tank group: in the area of Lake Balaton and the capture of the cities of Szekesvehervár, Mor, Pape, etc., the capture of Vienna, St. Pölten in Austria, Jarmorzice and Znojmo in Czechoslovakia. In all battles he showed courage, courage, and resourcefulness.
He was discharged from the Soviet army in September 1975.
After his dismissal, he worked as a senior personnel inspector at Remstroytrest. In 1981-1996. military instructor at a vocational school, then until 1998, a senior engineer in the construction department of MISIS.
Vladimir Vasilyevich was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree, medals “For Victory over Germany”, “For the Capture of Vienna”, “For Military Merit”, and other anniversary medals.
Suleymanov Sauban Nugumanovich
Memories of a WWII participant
Sauban Nugumanovich was born on December 12, 1926, in the city of Chistopol in Tatarstan. Called up for the army 
when he was not yet 17 years old. The six months of preparation that Saurban underwent were very difficult: heavy physical exertion plus constant hunger. In 1943, Sauban Nugumanovich went to the front and fought on the III and I Belorussian fronts. In one of the heavy battles near Minsk, he was wounded in the leg. He was treated in a hospital in the city of Sasovo, Ryazan region. He recovered, became stronger and went to the front again. I celebrated the victory of 1945 in Berlin. He was demobilized in 1951. He studied to become a combine operator and went to work in Uzbekistan, where his uncle invited him. He got an apartment and met his wife Maya Ivanovna. She was 19 years old, he was 29 years old, they lived for 15 years in the city of Nizhnekamsk. They had 2 daughters. Sauban Nugumanovich is an excellent family man; his children and wife love him very much. The daughters brought their parents to Moscow and are helping them.
Suleymanov S.N. awarded the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Patriotic War, medals “For the Capture of Berlin”, “For the Capture of Warsaw”, two medals “For Courage”, the Zhukov Medal, the Order of Labor Glory. Sauban Nugumanovich - winner of 4 five-year plans in peacetime.
Sauban Nugumanovich is a kind, sympathetic person. On November 27, 2014, as part of events dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Sulemanov family was presented with a television.
TYMOSHCHUK ALEXANDER KUZMICH
“They managed to pull me out of the burning tank”
On June 25, 1941, Alexander Timoshchuk would have turned 16 years old. True, by this age he had only three
Education class. At the age of 11, Sasha lost his mother, and his father, left alone with five children, sold his cow out of grief and drank the money away. Sasha had to quit school and go to work on a collective farm.
“On June 22, 1941, an emka came for me,” recalls the veteran, “and I was sent to the railway school, where I studied for 6 months. I spent another 3 months gaining my mind at the railway technical school, studying the braking system of cars. We studied for 4 hours, worked for 8.
Having received a train master's certificate, Alexander accompanied military trains until mid-February 1943. “Then I ended up at Koltubanovskaya station,” recalls Alexander Kuzmich. - Lord, I think where I ended up: two rows of wire, towers all around. We were brought to a former prison camp to build barracks. We had to live in dugouts, which could fit two companies, and were heated by only two potbelly stoves. They fed us gruel and soggy bread. Soon many, including myself, fell ill with pneumonia. Not everyone survived."
In August 1943, Alexander Timoshchuk was sent to the 1st Baltic Front. At the Western Dvina station, the train was partially bombed, the survivors were given rifles and thrown into battle. “I immediately ran into a healthy red-haired German with a machine gun. When he saw me, he raised his hands. I was taken aback. But the NKVD came up from behind: “Come on, soldier, go ahead. - recalls the front-line soldier. “And near the village of Zheludy, Pskov region, I was wounded twice, I almost lost my arm.”
After hospitalization, Alexander was sent to the 3rd Belorussian Front in the 11th Guards Army under the command of General Chernyakhovsky. Once I went on reconnaissance with my comrades and found myself surrounded from which they could not escape for 15 days. “And when we got out,” says A.K. Tymoshchuk, - from the entourage, was so hungry that, upon seeing dead horses in the field, they immediately cut off a piece of meat and boiled it in swamp water. Everyone was terribly poisoned. I still can't even see the meat. And when we returned to the unit, we were like those who had left
Alexander Kuzmich had a chance to take part in Operation Bagration, during which he was once again wounded. When he recovered, an acquaintance advised him to go to the Ulyanovsk tank school, where Alexander received the specialty of commander of a T-34 gun. “In January 1945, we were formed into a crew and we went to Nizhny Tagil, where, under the guidance of experienced workers, we assembled our own tank, which we later used to fight in East Prussia,” the veteran recalls. “I especially remember the battle three kilometers from Frischhaf. During the battle, our tank was knocked out, but my comrades managed to pull me out of the burning tank.” NKVD officers interrogated me from the encirclement several times until General Chernyakhovsky intervened.
Alexander Kuzmich was awarded the Order of Courage, 1st degree, medals “For the Capture of Koenigsberg”, “For Victory over Germany” and 20 more anniversary medals.
Interview conducted by I. Mikhailova
TSVETKOVA NINA ANATOLIEVNA
Memoirs of a member of a public organization of former juvenile prisoners of Nazi concentration camps
Nina Anatolyevna was born on January 2, 1941, in the village of Baturino, Baturinsky district, Smolensk region.
In March 1943, the Germans took Nina Anatolyevna’s family to peat mining in Belarus (white peat bogs). Small children were thrown into carts, while mothers and grandmothers ran after them.
The work in development was very hard, and the time was very hungry, many children died. In May 1945, Soviet troops freed the prisoners, and the family returned to their home village.
The father returned from the front, threw a bunch of large bagels around his daughter’s neck, it was so unexpected and tasty that it could not help but bribe the child’s attitude towards him. Little Nina had never seen her father before this meeting.
Nina Anatolyevna, due to her age, does not remember those terrible years, all her memories are from the words of her mother, who is no longer alive. Now Nina Anatolyevna would question her in more detail.
In 1958, Nina Anatolyevna graduated from school and entered the Andreevsky Railway College. In 1963, she got a job at Mosgiprotrans. She built a career from a technician to the head of an estimate group. She retired in 1996 and continued working until 2013.
“Now,” says Nina Anatolyevna, “there is time to meet friends, visit exhibitions, and go on excursions.”
Ustinova (nee Proshkina) Anna Grigorievna
Memoirs of a member of a public organization of former juvenile prisoners of Nazi concentration camps Anna Grigorievna was born on January 10, 1938, in the village. Gavrilovskoye, Shablykinsky district, Oryol region.
On August 13, 1943, five-year-old Anechka was forcibly taken to Germany with her parents and younger sisters. The family was settled in
the German’s house, or rather it was a barn with straw on which the Ustinov family with small children slept. During the day, parents went to work, and the girls sat locked up in the dark. In this barn there was a small window through which Anya and her sisters loved to look out onto the street, sometimes they saw German children going to school, but most of all the girls loved to watch the stork’s nest and watch how their chicks grew.
In January 1945, the Soviet army was advancing, the Germans were retreating, and the German owner fled for his life. The Ustinov family escaped from the barn and sat in a ditch for several days, afraid to stick their heads out. When the noise of bustle and leaving carts died down, Anya’s father decided to see how things were in the village where they lived. Realizing that there was not a soul, they returned to the barn. And in the morning the liberating soldiers came, one handed Anya a small chocolate bar, she held it in her hand for a long time, not realizing that she needed to eat it, because she had never seen or tasted chocolate before. The military took the Ustinovs with them and helped them return to their native village. My father stayed to fight with the soldiers.
The Germans burned the village, leaving not a single house. The villagers returned home and huddled in cellars and basements, building huts for themselves. In the fall, school started working, Anya went to study in the 7th grade, she had to walk 5 km to get there, but no one complained.
At the age of 16, Anna Grigorievna left for the Tula region, worked at a brick factory, then in a mine.
In 1960, she married fellow villager Ustinov A.F., and her husband moved to Moscow, where they still live today.
Altai is a fertile land. Some call it golden, from the Altai word “altyn”, which translates as “gold”. Others call it excellent from the Turkic root “Al”. Translated: “excellent” or “best”. This is an azure land, it is no coincidence that artists see it as blue. The territory of Altai could accommodate the Moscow, Leningrad, Tver and Tula regions, and there would still be room for medium-sized European states. This fertile land has long been called Russian Switzerland. Altai has everything: mountain meadows with a fascinating diversity, and black soils, in no way inferior to the Ukrainian ones, and special forests (two ribbon forests, stretching from South to North for more than 400 km), and rivers. Special mention needs to be made about rivers. The Ob is one of the largest rivers in Siberia, originating in Altai from the confluence of two rivers, the Biya and the Katun, which in turn descend from the glaciers of the Altai Mountains. The Katun not only rolls water, but also boulders up to half a ton. It hums so much that no sound of the sea surf can compare with it. Wild pristine nature. On the left bank you can see deer, roe deer, and bears playing at the watering hole. “A pearl, the pride of Siberia, a fabulous land” - this is how those who have visited Altai at least once and felt its attractive power speak about Altai. I parted with my little Motherland more than 60 years ago, but despite such a long period of time, my spiritual feelings for my native land not only do not decrease, but, on the contrary, acquire significant qualities. These lines emphasize who you are, who gave you the moral and physical strength to serve the Fatherland. Altai is my homeland.
WAR
At the end of the first half of the 3rd year of the Barnaul Pedagogical College, I transferred to the correspondence department and went to work as a school teacher. I took the final exam session and exams individually. The reason was that at the end of June a meeting was to take place - a meeting of young teachers. I was the youngest in the area and had to go to this event. Having passed all the exams, I returned to my father’s house at the Kalmanka station on June 22, 1941. The morning was warm, sunny, windless. People were resting. Nothing seemed to foretell trouble. But from about 12 o'clock (8 am Moscow time) the mood of the bosses and their entourage changed, and this was noticeable. The authorities already knew about the start of the war. They began to notify the population that by 16:00 (12:00 Moscow time) they should gather at the station square for a very important government announcement. At 16 o'clock, a speech by Molotov (Minister of Foreign Affairs) was heard from the installed radios, saying that Germany had suddenly, without declaring war, attacked the Soviet Union. Terrible news. There is fear, concern and even surprise on their faces. How can this be, there is an agreement? If on June 22 after the message there was surprise, unpredictability, fear, then on June 23 there were already many people in the square near the school in the morning. The first mobilization call for first-line conscripts. This went on for several days. Then smaller parties were sent to the Army.
Seeing off is generally a painful sight. Seeing off to war is a terrible sight. Soothing speeches from men and crying from women. We, the youth, who were brought up with a sense of high patriotism and the slogans “we will defeat the enemy on foreign soil, with little blood, with a powerful blow,” had little despondency at first. But on my mind was: what if the war ends without us?! Why don't they call us? Several of us approached the military registration and enlistment office employee with this question. The answer was categorical: “Don’t interfere with work. When it’s necessary, we’ll call you.” Time passed, but there was still no agenda. Evacuated women and children began to arrive. Their stories about their experiences, about what the Nazis did, caused indignation, but to a greater extent there was anger and hatred towards the enemy. One teacher was among those evacuated. And this caused joy among the teachers. At least a little, but the load decreased.
Bad news continued to arrive from the front. The Nazis continued to seize more and more territories. The first funerals arrived (notifications of death in battles for the Motherland). Relationships between people changed. All quarrels and squabbles stopped. Work, work and work. In work they found both fulfillment of duty and satisfaction. There was joy only when reports arrived about successes on one or another section of the front. It was the third month of the war. The news kept getting worse and worse. In August, a summons came to my father. His parting words: “Until you are called, you have a family. There are a mother and three children left, the youngest is 4 years old.” My father was approaching his fifth decade. There are almost no men left - everyone has been drafted into the army. On the farm there are women, old people and men unfit for service.
STUDIES
Leningrad Military Medical School named after. Shchorsa was evacuated to Omsk from Leningrad. This school was the oldest in Russia. Created by decree of Peter I as a school for medical assistants. The school trained paramedics for the navy and ground forces. In Omsk, the school was located in an old fortress built in mid-19th century. The school was under the patronage of the Military Medical Academy. The school was named after the hero of the civil war, the legendary division commander, paramedic by training N.A. Shchors. During the evacuation from Leningrad, along with personnel and teaching staff, material, technical and educational bases were removed. The school had everything necessary to train highly qualified specialists. It had the right to use everything necessary that was available at the Omsk Medical Institute, especially the anatomical center, which was not available at the school. In general, the educational base of the school was an order of magnitude higher than that of the institute, and students of the institute periodically used it. When distributed among units, I ended up in the first platoon. The company had four platoons of forty people each. The composition of the cadets was heterogeneous. By age from 18 to 30 years. There were only a few with secondary education. Mostly with incomplete secondary education, i.e. with 7 classes of school. There were also those in the company who had already participated in battles. Squad commanders. Assistant platoon commanders were appointed from among the cadets. Cadet Azarov was appointed commander of the first squad, and cadet Sokolov, who was transferred to our school from aviation, was appointed assistant platoon commander. The course commander of the 1st and 2nd platoons was Lieutenant Kovarsky, a college graduate. The head of the school was Lieutenant Colonel Georgievsky of the Medical Service, who later became a general and head of the Military Medical Academy. The teachers were highly qualified specialists. There were more candidates and doctors of medical sciences at the school than at the medical institute. The friendliness of the teachers and excellent educational facilities ensured the mastery of the material. The teaching load was very heavy. 8-10 hours of special training, four hours of self-training, plus internal and garrison service. Studying fascinated me. I successfully mastered educational material. Particular attention was paid to military field surgery. The internship took place in military hospitals and civilian clinics. The doctors of these medical institutions highly appreciated the knowledge and diligence of the cadets when performing certain procedures. The cadets were entrusted with assisting during operations, administering anesthesia, dressing complex wounds, and much more. Of course, not all cadets were able to handle the training load. Some were awarded sergeant ranks and sent to units as medical instructors. Combined arms training and medical tactics took a lot of time.
In December 1942 the five most successful cadets were sent to the front as trainees. I was among them. The order read: to leave at the disposal of the personnel department of the Main Medical Sanitary Administration. We arrived in Moscow without incident. In the personnel department we were sent to different fronts. I had the fate to go to the Stalingrad front. I got there with great difficulty. First, he joined the military train heading south. Then on the transfer rails. I lost count of how many times my documents were checked. I found a health department in a small village - some Yar. The HR department greeted me unfriendly. The major (I don’t know what his position is), after a moment’s thought, said: “A separate company of marines has arrived, you will go there as a paramedic,” and told how to get to the Gniloaksayskaya station, where the medical battalion was located. Before that, I ran my finger over the map for a long time. He handed over the order. I entered my rank and surname on the form. At the same time, he said: the medical battalion will tell you where the company is. This meeting left a painful impression. I got to the medical battalion. After checking the documents, they said that there were wounded from the company, they would tell us how to get to the company. One sailor with a slight wound volunteered to escort me to the company. We arrived at the company in the evening. The company took up defensive positions near Zarya station. Reported to the company commander. During the report, one of those present said that we still didn’t have enough boys. The company commander cut him off, and I stood there dumbfounded. I asked where the first aid station was. There was no first aid post as such. The company commander told one of those present to take people to equip the first aid post and indicate the location. While the sailors were setting up a first-aid post (dugout), one sailor and I returned to the medical battalion to get something for the first-aid post. In the medical battalion, with delays, I went from one commander to another, received dressings, several splints, and some medications necessary to provide first aid for wounds. It turned out to be quite a burden. The sailor and I were lucky: a carriage caught up with us, which was heading just to the Zarya station. We returned to the company already after dark. The company commander ordered me to be taken through the company platoons. The acquaintance was short. The sailor said: “This is our doctor.” The company was located in trenches, and there was occasional shooting. During the explosions I bowed. The sailor encouraged me, saying, get used to it. We returned to the company commander. The sailor reported, mentioning that I bowed from the shooting. I was told that we don’t hide and don’t show our backs. I somehow quickly reacted and said: “And if you get hit, should I drag you backwards? " Laughter from those present. The company commander said: “We’ll see.” In general, the meeting is wary: a stranger - how he will behave. Everyone in the company knew each other. The company was formed in Khabarovsk and urgently transferred to Stalingrad. The company is large. About 200 people. I have been involved in battles for several days and suffered losses. The sailor was left with me as an orderly. On the second day they gave me another one. A shell crater was adapted for the first aid station, deepened and a small overlap was made. The medical battalion was not far away. This made me happy. At eight in the morning the Germans began with an artillery attack along the front line, and then transferred the fire to the depths of the defense. It was, of course, quite scary. But I tried to hold on and not show it. The Germans went on the attack: tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry behind them. Our artillery began to fire. Several German tanks caught fire. The sailors, despite the cold, took off their hats and put on their caps. There were helmets, but not on their heads. The platoon commanders swore. Useless. The wounded appeared. The first wounded was a bullet wound in the shoulder. Sectioned, bandaged, showed where to go. The same for the other wounded. There were many wounded, and their number grew during the battle. The shyness went away on its own. Work has begun. The attack was repulsed. The evacuation of the seriously wounded began. They gave several sailors to carry the wounded to the medical unit, and from there either a cart or a car. Mostly carts. They brought food in thermoses. Everything was new to me. A couple of hours later the Germans attacked again. Old script. Artillery attack, tanks and infantry. The thought in my brain is: “How not to embarrass myself.” Wounded again. Along the trench from one to the other. There was no time to think about the course of the battle. The main thing is to help the wounded and evacuate them. This intensity of fighting continued for several more days. After the first days of my participation in the battles, the company commander said: “Keep it up, cadet!” The intensity of the fighting gradually faded. The Germans were exhausted.
The company's losses were heavy. There are less than a hundred soldiers left in the company. The company already considered me one of their own. The company was replaced by motorized infantry, and we were taken to the rear. This is how my baptism of fire took place. The company became subordinate to the motorized rifle brigade. On January 20, 1943, I was sent back to school. Received written feedback. The farewell was warm, and there was some drinking. So I felt what front-line friendship, brotherhood, mutual assistance and cordiality meant. Another officer received me at the medical department. Thanked you for your service. He advised me to return to this front. Already in the carriage on the way to Omsk I began to comprehend the entire period of the internship. All the pros and cons began to emerge. It is not enough to be able to provide first aid to the wounded, you also need to solve many organizational issues, such as equipping a first-aid post, replenishing medical equipment, having a clear idea of the location of medical units, being aware of the progress of the battle, routes, methods of evacuating the wounded, and much more. But the final understanding came already at school. Four of us returned to school. One cadet died. During the internship, I was the only one from the platoon and met the rest of the cadets who were on the internship in passing. After I handed the package to the head of the training unit (the package was handed to me in the personnel department of the front medical department), I reported, or rather, talked about my internship to a group of school leaders and teachers. The head of the school was also present at the report. Such reports were also made by all the other cadets who were on internship. It turned out that the feedback about my internship was very positive. The school needed an internship for cadets at the front in order to adjust some of the training programs based on the results of the internship. This was especially true for the organization of medical services. After my report to my boss, I was asked to write a detailed report about the internship. Wrote. Then reports began on the internship in each company. An internship was an internship, but the educational process was going on. I had to make up for lost time. I had to catch up not only during self-study hours, but also at night. Now that years have passed, it is difficult to imagine how it was possible to assimilate such a mass of educational material in such a short period of time.
In addition to teachers, senior comrades from the school administration were present at the state exams in all leading subjects. I graduated from college in the first category, i.e. honors diploma, with one good grade in Latin, the rest “excellent”. At a meeting of the entire school staff, the People's Commissar's order was read out and shoulder straps were awarded. I received the rank of lieutenant of the medical service and a valuable gift - a medical diagnostic kit.
The next day there is a ceremonial formation of the company. Parting words from the head of the school and the command: “March to the front!” Farewell song of the company. In one of the buildings there was a group of girls at the lecture. It was forbidden to communicate with them. But youth took its toll. The girls spontaneously left the lecture and jumped onto the parade ground with us, despite orders to return to the lecture. They accompanied us to the train station. Many residents of Omsk gathered along the sidewalks on our way. The impression is indelible. So all the persuasion to return to school was in vain. The maiden company was with us at the station until our train departed. Passenger carriages. Everyone is used to warm-up cars. Surprise and high spirits, but, of course, everyone thought to themselves: what next? The journey to Moscow took a little time. The euphoria associated with graduating from college gradually subsided. Everyone gradually began to feel themselves in a new capacity, as an officer. If earlier we would have been called “military paramedic of the second rank,” now we are called an officer. After being hostile to this word for so long, we were now trying it on.
At the school, during fire training classes, we were encouraged to perfectly master everything that would be in the unit's arsenal. In addition to purely medical and sanitary work, I began to master the tank, especially tank weapons, the duties of a tank loader and commander. Things got to the point where I was allowed to shoot at the shooting range as a tank commander. I would like to tell you about my first recovery. Nurse Svetlana Isaakovna Shper arrived to the regiment from training. She was assigned to a company of anti-tank rifles, but she was located in the medical unit. They equipped her and also gave her a pistol. She attached a piece of paper to the trunk of a pine tree behind the medical tent and started shooting. The regiment duty officer quickly responded to the shooting at the unit's location. Got it. Shooting was prohibited. I reported to the chief of staff, Captain Khodorich, about the emergency. I was called to headquarters, where they not only read a lecture about how to demand discipline from their subordinates, but also the chief of staff, Captain Khodorych, gave me a verbal reprimand. The penalty is small, but this is the first penalty for the actions of subordinates. Subsequently, during the period of service, there were many penalties for the misconduct of subordinates, but this was the first, and therefore was imprinted in memory. Of course, I took the gun from the nurse.
Episode one. The tank army in the Oryol operation performed an unusual role. We chewed through the enemy's defenses. In the battle for the village of Borilovo, our attacks were unsuccessful. At the end of the day we retreated to our original positions. The tankers had an unwritten law - to go to each other’s rescue. They noticed if a neighboring car was hit, and if the crew jumped out. After the battle, they found out for each crew who was killed and who was wounded. There was no one from Lieutenant Markov's crew. The tankers saw that the crew was jumping out of the damaged tank. Conclusion: there may be wounded among them. The tankers approached me with a question about what to do, and with an offer to go to the rear of the Germans and find out everything. Lieutenant Markov's tank was hit behind the Germans' 2nd trench. I couldn't decide anything on my own. A whole crowd went to the regimental headquarters. I reported to the chief of staff, Captain Khodorych, about the essence of the tankers’ request. He invited the tank commander, who saw the crew leaving the tank. We found out exactly the location of the damaged tank. The chief of staff doubted it for some time, saying: “We’ll find out what’s wrong with the crew, and how many people we might lose because of this.” His soul as a tanker played a decisive role. Allowed. We knew the area. Two unsuccessful attacks were carried out in this area. Nevertheless, we planned everything down to the smallest detail. Let's go, I, the tank commander - a junior lieutenant (unfortunately, I can't remember his last name) and two reconnaissance officers from the regimental reconnaissance platoon with reconnaissance experience. The Germans passed through the first trench successfully. The Germans were in dugouts, and a sentry was patrolling the trench. The moment he passed us, we hid near the trench and crossed over. The second trench was not occupied by the enemy at all: the Germans still behaved carelessly to the point of impudence. We found the tank and went our separate ways. Three dead were found next to the tank. They took their documents. The scout signaled: “Come to me!” In a crater about 10-15 meters from the tank, he found the wounded Lieutenant Markov, who was unconscious. I'm on quick hand bandaged. The wounded man onto the raincoat and back. We passed the 2nd trench calmly. It was not possible to cross the first one calmly. They also waited for the sentry to leave. They began to drag the wounded man across the trench. At this time, Lieutenant Markov groaned. They finally dragged him through the trench. The German sentry probably sensed something was wrong and fired a burst from his machine gun. The reconnaissance sergeant gave the junior lieutenant and me the command: “Drag! We'll cover you!" There was no time for disguise anymore. We tried our best to get as far away from the German trench as possible. The Germans were alarmed. The shooting began, fortunately, indiscriminately. We were also lucky in that the Germans belatedly began to fire flares. This saved us. Our people opened fire on our flanks to knock the Germans off their guard. It was a success. This option was envisaged by Major Khodorych. They were already waiting for us in the neutral zone. They took Lieutenant Markov from us. The scouts also returned. One was slightly wounded. Until we returned, the entire regiment and motorized riflemen who acted with us were on their feet. Bozhenko took care of the wounded and his evacuation. I reported in detail to the regiment commander, who was very dissatisfied with our sortie. The morale after this march to the rear of the Germans was so high that it would have been impossible to achieve such a result with any political studies or conversations. Everyone understood within themselves that in difficult times no one would be abandoned. The chief of staff, Captain Khodorych, when authorizing the sorties, was hoping for just this. And, of course, the authority of doctors has increased immeasurably. Near Kiev, at the Vorzel station, we received replenishment of tanks with crews. What a joy it was when Lieutenant Markov was among those who arrived.
Episode two. The regiment concentrated for another attack. I have already said that we literally chewed through the enemy’s defenses. The Germans stubbornly resisted during the day, and at night they set fire and retreated to previously prepared positions. Our motorized rifles were in the trenches occupied by the Germans. A battalion from our brigade. The tankers were located 800 meters behind the infantry. I went into the trench to the front edge. I got there along communication lines and cut-off trenches. He went with the goal of picking up a dugout where a medical post could be located during the offensive. I was always accompanied by orderly Kolya Petrov, an 18-year-old boy. It was given to me from a company of machine gunners. According to my staff, I was not entitled to be an orderly. They came under bombing. The German Ju-87s dived with such a terrible howl that it put a lot of pressure on the psyche. In addition to bombs, they dropped empty barrels, cuttings of rails, etc. All this created incredible noise. One of the heavy bombs exploded nearby. I fell asleep. I woke up when Kolya brought me to my senses. It turned out that he was about 15 meters from me. He also fell asleep, but a little. He dug out and dug me up. I was unconscious. I woke up when he was casting a spell on me. He put me on his shoulders and carried me to the nearest medical unit. They examined me there. There is a wound on the left side of the head. Processed. They injected me with morphine. I was asleep. Kolya woke me up so I could eat. For some reason, the guys from the battalion first aid post (our brigade) did not inform the regiment. I slept with them for several days. The morphine did its job. Someone from the regiment saw me falling asleep and reported to headquarters. The clerks did their best and sent a notice to their homeland that he had died a brave death. People called such notices funerals. We arrived at the regiment. There is a great surprise - after all, they buried me. Then there was laughter. The deputy for political affairs said: “Nothing. You will live long." The abrasion on the back of the head has healed. The scar remains. Many years later it was necessary to take an X-ray of the skull. It was discovered that there was a fracture of the left parietal bone. This turned out to be my first wound. In 1985, at a meeting of veterans of the 4th Tank Army in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Victory, Kolya Petrov and I met. Joy and tears. Memories. After demobilization, he settled in Central Asia. We corresponded for a long time. The collapse of the USSR stopped our correspondence.
Episode three. After the liberation of one of the large villages, it seems Moshchenoe, the regiment concentrated on the outskirts of the village in a mown wheat field. The bread was collected in heaps. The tanks and our ambulances were disguised with sheaves of wheat. At first glance, everything is fine: the same field and the same haystacks. German planes made their own adjustments. After the first bombing, all the sheaves scattered from the blast waves, and our tanks became naked, i.e. open targets. The bombing lasted from 8 am to 5 pm, with a break from 12 to 1 pm. As it turned out later, we experienced 1.5 thousand sorties. One wave of planes was leaving, another was coming. The safest way to survive a bombing is in a tank. I also climbed into the tank, but after the next series of bombs I jumped out of the tank and rather into the gap. There were already three people in the gap. We were practically on top of each other. During one of the breaks - some planes were bombed, another wave was on the way - I moved into a ditch near a dirt road. The feeling is eerie. The bomb can be seen flying, and it seems that it is yours. It is difficult to withstand bombing in a tank: a closed space, bomb fragments hitting the armor create sparks from scale in the tank (they are like bumblebees), the tank rocks as if on waves. Tankers often hide under the tank. This was a serious mistake. The fragments, piercing the rollers, either fall between the rollers, immediately hitting people, or, hitting the bottom, hit them with a ricochet. Ambulances were also removed from their camouflage by explosions. A bomb exploded not far from our specialized nurse. The car fell apart like a house of cards. But surprisingly, there was a seriously wounded man lying on a stretcher in the car. He was not evacuated because the medical battalion was relocated, and we did not yet know where he was. The wounded man was thrown out along with the stretcher. But I didn't receive a single additional scratch. Miracles happen. The nurse had almost all of our medical equipment. Everything died. When they found out where the medical battalion was, we had to go and get everything we needed. Medical suppliers, like all suppliers, when they give out something, the impression is that you are getting into their pocket. This requires assertiveness and impudence. Surprisingly, not a single tank was disabled. In fact, a direct hit by a bomb on a tank is too rare. I don’t remember such an incident in the regiment. There were several wounded among the tankers and that was all. Injuries under tanks. Subsequently, we paid attention to this phenomenon (wounds under tanks) in medical classes.
One day I was informed that the head of the army medical service in the regiment was colonel of the medical service Vasiliev. We didn’t have time to clean up the mess. About ten minutes later, a group of officers led by a colonel of the medical service came to the medical unit. As expected, he gave a report. He greeted me and said: “So what kind of warrior are you, tell me about the battle at Khotynets, I want to listen.” I said that it was not me who fought there, but the soldiers. I was present. “Modesty is good. Show me the medical unit,” said the colonel. He looked around the outpatient clinics, Bozhenko introduced himself to him there, and looked at the dugout. I was pleased. I asked where the nurses live. I pointed to the dugout. She was somewhat aloof. The colonel looked in there. It was dirty and untidy. I was dissatisfied. Turning to me, he said: “Why did they allow such disgrace to happen?” I decided to turn to him with a request that two nurses be removed from the medical unit. I didn’t see them in battles, and even now I rarely see them. The colonel, turning to the head of the medical service of the corps, said that they should sort it out, since the situation was clearly not normal. The colonel replied that I would sort it out, and immediately reported that the regiment had used up more than 2 sets of individual dressing bags. The colonel turned to me. What is the reason? I reported that tank crew injuries were usually multiple, with extensive burns. One package is not enough for dressing. Therefore, tankers usually have two packages. It is impossible for a medical instructor to carry a large number of packages. Colonel Vasiliev listened and said that the lieutenant’s arguments were valid. The management has left.
LVIV – SANDOMIR OPERATION
The regiment concentrated near the village of Velikiy Gai on the edge of the forest. The officers received topographic maps of the area of upcoming actions. Ammunition was loaded, there were barrels of diesel fuel at the rear of the tanks, logs for self-pulling, in general, everything necessary. Komsomol and party meetings were held. They were open, i.e. Almost the entire personnel attended them. At the meetings, questions were raised: about tasks for the upcoming battles and about admission to the party at party meetings, admission to the Komsomol at Komsomol meetings. If admission to the party was numerous, then admission to the Komsomol was single. The majority of young people in the regiment and newcomers were already Komsomol members. Young people treated communists with great respect. Sometimes the word of a communist was no less significant than the commander’s. They joined the party not for the sake of a career, but because of their hearts. Young people saw how the communists fought and strived to be like them. We were given the task of entering the breakthrough that the infantry would make. In our direction, rifle units were unable to break through the defense. A breakthrough was made at the neighbors, where the 3rd Tank Army should enter. The corridor was made 8-12 km wide. The 3rd Tank Army entered operational depth. They also decided to let us through this corridor. There was a lot of confusion. The rear of the 3rd Tank Army, our units huddled near the city of Zolochev. The infantry was engaged in the liquidation of the encircled Brody group. The Germans and SS men of the Galicia division desperately resisted. The Germans tried to close the corridor at any cost. Our regiment as part of the brigade was not immediately able to enter the breakthrough. We had to fight off counterattacks from the enemy, who tried to close the corridor. The deputy for political affairs, Major Ternovsky, said that the RTO has two tanks under repair. The tank commanders were not fired upon. Junior lieutenants only from college. After the repairs, I was instructed to take them under my care and catch up with the regiment. At this time, the regiment, having repelled counterattacks, went into operational depth. Our route passed in the direction of Lviv from the south. By morning the tanks were on the move and, under my command, they began to catch up with the regiment. On the outskirts of Zolochev, a tank of our regiment was being repaired by a repair team from our maintenance company. The machine gunners who were on the tank were basking in the sun. We stopped and, together, fixed the problem, and three cars continued on their way. Due to the terrain conditions, the road was under fire from the enemy for 200-300 meters. We passed the turn to Peremyshlyany at high speeds at about ninety degrees. This was a turn to the regiment's route. The last car at the turn stopped. The caterpillar broke. Leaving the cars, I ran to the third car to find out what happened. Approaching the tank, I saw two jeeps and recognized the one coming out as the commander of our army, General Lelyushenko. I reported who I am and what my task is. The general was angry. Their cars were also fired upon, and then a tank blocked the road. He asked me for a map and on it he personally plotted the route and set the task. First: clear the road as soon as possible. Second: move along the intended route. Bypass populated areas and resistance centers. Cut the Lviv-Sambir highway and hold on until the main forces approach. The first task was completed quickly. The track tracks were replaced and the passage was cleared. The commander left, and we brought the tracks back to normal and continued on our way to the town of Peremyshlyany, bypassing it: there was a battle going on there. They moved quickly. They did not enter populated areas. But Staroe Selo, which was on our route, could not be bypassed. A small river, and the bridge across it is only in the village. Then, unfortunately, the engine in one car malfunctioned. Repairmen began to fix the problem. There was a wedding going on in one of the houses. An elderly man approached us - the groom and a very young bride. The man was with a glass of moonshine. He offered me a drink to the newlyweds. I said that you can’t drink alone. He gave the glass to the bride, and went for the second glass. The bride, with a trembling voice, said: “Leave quickly, they are from the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army).” I poured a glass of moonshine on the ground. We were not visible from the house. A tank was covering us. The groom came with a glass. I said that I had already drunk. He glanced sideways at the bride. Before his arrival, I managed to give the command: “For battle.” The tankers little by little began to turn the turrets. The repairmen reported that the problem had been fixed and we moved on. Thanks to the bride-to-be, we avoided possible incidents.
We quickly reached the road, our final destination. A large column of cars was moving along the road. There is a tank at the head of the column. We immediately turned around and opened fire. We knocked out the lead tank right away. He started smoking. Another tank brought up the rear of the column. We didn't notice him. He set fire to the tank of junior lieutenant Meshchersky. The crew died. Having discovered the trailing tank, we knocked it out with two tank guns. From an open place we moved 200-300 meters away to the edge of the forest and began to shoot at the column. At the edge there was a small embankment, like a parapet. On this parapet they placed machine guns removed from the tanks (frontal ones). From somewhere an armored personnel carrier and two platoons of German machine gunners appeared. They moved to attack us, firing continuously from machine guns. I was behind the machine gun. A cry for help. Someone is injured. Leaving the gunner behind the machine gun, he ran to answer the call - at that time his left leg was burned. I reached the wounded man. There was nothing scary there. Bandaged myself. The bullet went right through the lower thigh without hitting the bone. In general, we repelled this attack and continued to burn the cars in the convoy. The column of German vehicles was approximately a kilometer long. The road was clogged with burning cars. We have completed half the task. Now all that remains is to hold on and wait for our own people to approach. If the Germans had known that there were only a handful of us, they would probably have crushed us. To the west, beyond the forest, we heard the continuous hum of cars. It was possible that the Germans were retreating south from Lvov, fearing encirclement. The Germans didn't bother us anymore. Took care of his wound. I treated it and covered it with streptocide. Bandaged it. I have already said that in addition to the bag with Komsomol papers, I carried a medical bag with everything necessary to assist with wounds. That’s why the regiment continued to call me the Komsomol doctor. And so - the third wound.
CONCLUSION
Finishing your notes, you involuntarily return to what you have lived and experienced. The war ended victoriously. Behind are 1408 days and nights of incredible difficulties and heroism. The front-line soldiers returned home with their heads held high. With their inherent patriotism and great responsibility for the fate of the Motherland. They restored the national economy destroyed by the war. Revived and increased the power of the country during difficult times post-war years cold war. Many continued to serve in the Armed Forces, passing on their vast front-line experience to the youth. Commander-in-Chief of the Armored Forces Soviet army became the former commander of the 114th Guards Tank Regiment B.V. Kurtsev, the chief of staff of the 16th Guards Five Order-Bearing Mechanized Brigade Shcherbak, the reconnaissance platoon commander M.Ya. Radugin, the chief of staff of the 114th Guards Tank Regiment N.S. Merkulov became colonels, the signalman Sklyarov became colonels A.G., intelligence officer Petrov V.I., chief of staff of the artillery division Zaitsev K.S., commander of the artillery division Rublenko M.A., assistant chief of the political department Ivanov M.K. and others. Assistant to the head of the political department of the 6th Guards Mechanized Corps, Colonel V.D. Dementyev. became a professor, Colonel Potapov, Major Livshits Y.S., Senior Lieutenant Podkin V.A. became associate professors. All fellow soldiers have carried out and continue to work on the military-patriotic education of young people. I only mentioned those mentioned in my notes. Years pass, gray-haired veterans grow old. But military friendship never gets old. Just look at the veterans during the Victory Day meetings, at the anniversaries of the 4th Guards Tank Army, at their youthful enthusiasm, at their strong front-line soldier friendship. We must pay tribute, great gratitude and appreciation to Yakov Lazarevich Livshits for the creation of the Council of Veterans of the 4th Guards Tank Army and many years of work in it. Only thanks to his efforts did army veterans find out the addresses of fellow soldiers and their birthdays. It was only through his efforts that meetings of Army veterans were organized. At the meetings, fallen comrades who passed away after the war were remembered with warmth. Our Komsomol heroic youth was and is being remembered, no matter how modern historians present the history of the Komsomol. The Komsomol was an organization that fostered patriotism, pride in one’s people, internationalism, organization and high moral qualities among young people. Part of our lives is connected with this organization. In the Komsomol we matured, felt ourselves, learned what it means to be a patriot of the Motherland, what military camaraderie is. The Komsomol of the Great Patriotic War period was a multimillion-strong army of young warriors. During the war years alone, ten and a half million young people joined the Komsomol. Young people with the name of the Motherland went on the attack and with this name they died. The youth of the Great Patriotic War period are a truly heroic tribe. During the war years, 3.5 million Komsomol members were awarded orders and medals. More than 7 thousand Komsomol members became Heroes of the Soviet Union out of 11 thousand who received this high title during all the years of the war. Of the 104 soldiers awarded this title twice, 60 are Komsomol members. This heroic tribe wrote unforgettable pages in our history. The memory of the heroic defenders of the Motherland is eternal. The main purpose of these notes is to show how 17-18 year old boys and girls, having joined the Army, quickly grew up, matured and became seasoned warriors. This especially applies to soldiers born in 1923. This year, according to statistics and history, began to be called the “lost year.” Of the hundred young men and women participating in the battles, only one survived. A terrible number. I am not going to belittle warriors of other birth years. I am focusing on this year of birth only because I was born this year and, by luck, ended up among this one percent of survivors.
I am immensely grateful to my fellow soldiers who shared with me their memories that were etched in their memory. Their names should be given: Rivzh V.E., Barabanov P.I., Radugin M.Ya., Khodzhayan A.A., Vasin I.V., Sedov G.I., Khalezin P.I., Krokhmal A. P., Derevyanko I.Kh., Serovsky N.D., Aleksandrov M.M., Smetanin M.V., Mironov F.I., Zaitsev K.S., Poltashevsky Yu.V., Pelts S.G.
Time is inexorable. There are not many of us front-line soldiers left. These notes are intended for descendants, so that, reading them, they will be imbued with the pride of their ancestors and become such patriots and love and defend their Motherland just as we did.
Sent by: Svyatoslav Denisenko
May 2016
Happy Victory Day to everyone!
We ask for your prayers for all Victory for the sake of our leaders and warriors who labored, who laid down their lives on the battlefield, who died from wounds and hunger, who were innocently tortured and killed in captivity and bitter labor.
At the beginning of May, active Orthodox residents of Snezhina - our volunteers - congratulated veterans and children of war on the 71st anniversary of the Great Victory and the Day of Remembrance of St. George the Victorious. “Children of war” are those who were children in those terrible years and whose fathers, perhaps even mothers, did not return from the battlefields.
I am glad that this year we were able to visit even more of these wonderful people. Some had been going for the second or third year, while for others it was their first such experience.
It was very interesting to talk with children of war and veterans, listen to their stories about how they lived during the war, what they ate, what they drank, you can see how these people worried about that time. Children of the war spoke with tears in their eyes about that time... Our mission was to convey to them that no one will forget them, we will preserve the memory forever!
The Great Patriotic War is one of the most terrible trials that befell the Russian people. Its severity and bloodshed left a huge imprint on people's minds and had dire consequences for the lives of an entire generation. “Children” and “war” are two incompatible concepts. War breaks and cripples the destinies of children. But the children lived and worked next to the adults, trying to bring victory closer with their hard work... The war claimed millions of lives, destroyed millions of talents, and destroyed millions of human destinies. Nowadays, many people, in particular young people, know little about the history of their country, but witnesses to the events of the Great Patriotic War are becoming fewer and fewer every year, and if their memories are not recorded now, they will simply disappear along with the people, without leaving a well-deserved mark in history... Without knowing the past, it is impossible to comprehend and understand the present.
Here are some stories recorded by our volunteers.
Piskareva Lyubov Sergeevna
Piskareva Lyubov Sergeevna told us that her grandfather, Sergei Pavlovich Baluev, was called to the front on February 28, 1941 from the village of Byngi, Nevyansky district, Sverdlovsk region. He was a private, fought near the Smolensk region. When her mother was 5 months old, he shouted to her grandmother: “Lisa, take care of Lyubka (mother), take care of Lyubka!” “He held my mother in one hand, and in the other hand he wiped away the tears that flowed from him without stopping. Grandma said that he felt that they were not destined to see each other again.” Sergei Pavlovich died in September 1943 in the village of Strigino, Smolensk region, and was buried in a mass grave.
Ivanova Lidiya Alexandrovna told about her father and mother. In May 1941, my father was drafted into the Soviet Army and he served in Murmansk. But on June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War began. Germany violated the terms of the non-aggression pact and treacherously attacked our Motherland. My father, along with other soldiers of this military unit, was alerted and sent to the front. Alexander Stepanovich fought on the Karelian front. On July 6, 1941, he already took part in the first battle.
Ivanova Lidiya Alexandrovna
The letters show how hard it was for our soldiers during the war. My father's military unit was in difficult climatic conditions. There were hills all around, we lived in trenches all the time, and didn’t take off our clothes for several months. I lost several teeth due to lack of food, because... suffered from scurvy. The letter contains the following words: “I am writing a letter, and bullets are whistling overhead, and I chose a moment to announce myself.”
For a long time, Lidia Alexandrovna did not know where her father was fighting, whether he was alive, and he also knew nothing about his family. From the newspapers, Alexander Stepanovich learned that the Smolensk region, where his family lived, was occupied by the Germans, so the letters did not arrive. Contact with his family was restored only in 1943.
In February 1945, my father wrote that he was in Poland, that he had to go through many difficulties, and really hoped that they would soon cross the border with Germany. But apparently it was not destined to happen. On March 23, 1945, Guard Senior Sergeant Alexander Stepanovich Nikolaev died faithful to his oath, showing heroism and courage. Later, Lidiya Aleksandrovna and her mother learned that in his last battle, under fire, he restored 15 meters of the telephone line, while shooting 5 Germans. He didn't live to see Great victory only 1.5 months.
Alexander Stepanovich was awarded the medal "For Courage". Mother was a home front worker all this time.
Dubovkina Valentina Vasilievna
Memorized for the rest of my life Dubovkina Valentina Vasilievna(although she was only 3 years old at the time) the moment when her mother was brought a funeral for her father. “Mom was then overcome with grief from the loss of her beloved husband.”
War and post-war life was difficult, you had to work a lot and even beg for alms. And all her life, this sweet little woman has been a hard worker, and now, at 76 years old, she grows vegetables, fruits, and flowers in her garden, and pleases her grandchildren and great-grandson with homemade baked goods. She is great, despite her difficult life and losses, she remained very cheerful, full of optimism and hope for a bright future!
Our volunteer Lyudmila had a very warm impression. “They were waiting for me and prepared a treat for tea. We had a nice chat."
Kozhevnikova Valentina Grigorievna was born in the Smolensk region, the family had three children, she and two more sisters. At the age of 15 I already went to work. In 1943, Valentina Grigorievna’s family received the last letter from her father, in which it was written: “We are going into battle,” and a month later a funeral arrived. My father was blown up by a mine.
Kozhevnikova Valentina Grigorievna
Lobazhevich Valentina Vasilievna
Lobazhevich Valentina Vasilievna I was a child during the war. According to volunteer Yulia: “This is an amazing person! Although our meeting was short, it was, however, very meaningful. We learned that when her father was called to the front, her mother had five of them! How courageously they endured the difficulties of war and post-war life. I was surprised and pleased that a person has such a kind and open heart! It seemed to me that she came to visit us and gave us various gifts! God bless her and her loved ones!”
Volunteer Anna with her daughter Veronica: “We visited Ivanushkina Svetlana Alexandrovna And Kamenev Ivan Alekseevich. It was nice to see their happy eyes, full of gratitude!”
Wonderful person - Domanina Muza Alexandrovna, last year she turned 90 years old. Muza Alexandrovna continues to write poems about her family and friends, about the Ural nature, about Orthodox and secular holidays. Her works are varied, like the whole life of Muza Alexandrovna: they contain warmth and kindness, anxiety and sadness, faith and patriotism, romance and humor, ... Muza Alexandrovna grew up in a large family in Kasli. Life was both hungry and difficult. From the very first days, 15-year-old Muse, together with other boys and girls, had to meet the wounded from the train and deliver them to the hospital. In any weather, in winter on horses and in summer on boats, they were transported across Lake Sungul. In February 1942, the family received notice of the death of their father. Lines written in 2011:
We have suffered quite a bit of grief,
And the hunger was enough to bring everyone to tears.
Water with salt - replaced lard,
There was no time for sweet dreams.
We have endured everything, we have endured everything,
And torn scarves were not a reproach to us.
We are the children of war, peace, labor,
We have not forgotten our fathers yet!
Despite the fact that now Muza Alexandrovna no longer leaves the house for health reasons, she does not despair! And every time meeting her leaves bright and touching memories in my soul.
Among our dear veterans and children of war, there are quite a few whose lives are limited by “four walls,” but it is surprising how much love of life and optimism they have, the desire to learn something new, to be useful to their relatives, they read books, write memoirs, perform feasible housework. It turns out to be very difficult to find the rest at home: they go to gardens, help raise their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, take an active part in the life of the city... And, of course, at the Victory Parade they march at the head of the column of the Immortal Regiment, carrying portraits of their unreturned fathers...
On the eve of Victory Day, a note was published in the Snezhinskaya newspaper “Metro” Balashova Zoya Dmitrievna. In it, Zoya Dmitrievna talks about her fate, how during those war years their father “disappeared,” and their mother raised four daughters alone. On behalf of the organization “Memory of the Heart,” created in our city by “children of war,” Zoya Dmitrievna addresses the younger generation: “ Friends, be worthy of those who died defending our Motherland. Be attentive to the older generation, to your parents, do not forget them, help them, do not spare the warmth of your heart for them. They need it so much!».
Non-random dates:
- On June 22, 1941, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated the day of all saints who shone in the Russian land;
- On December 6, 1941, on the day of memory of Alexander Nevsky, our troops launched a successful counter-offensive and drove the Germans back from Moscow;
- On July 12, 1943, on the day of the apostles Peter and Paul, battles began near Prokhorovka on the Kursk Bulge;
- for the celebration of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God on November 4, 1943, Kyiv was captured by Soviet troops;
- Easter 1945 coincided with the day of remembrance of the Great Martyr George the Victorious, celebrated by the Church on May 6. May 9 – on Bright Week – to the cry of “Christ is Risen!” the long-awaited “Happy Victory Day!” was added;
- The Victory Parade on Red Square was scheduled for June 24 - Trinity Day.
People of different generations must remember that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers defended our freedom at the cost of their lives.
We know, we remember! We are immensely proud.
Your feat cannot be forgotten for centuries.
Thank you very much for your strength and faith,
For our freedom on your shoulders.
For clear skies, native spaces,
For joy and pride in hearts and souls.
May you live long, may God give you health.
Let the memory of the victorious spring live on.
Happy Holidays, dear friends! Happy Great Victory!
We hope that this good tradition will attract more volunteers from year to year, especially boys and girls, young parents with children. After all, the children of our time are our future!
Kristina Klishchenko
I had just started studying in the 9th grade when I received a summons to be drafted into the army, along with other guys my age, born in 1926. We were sixteen years old; in difficult times of war, with poor food, we were thin, short, and emaciated. My height was 149 cm, weight 37 kg. Those whose height was below 147 cm were lucky; they were not drafted, and they did not undergo military service at all. When I returned from the front seven years later, they had already graduated from college and were working as teachers and technical specialists.
When I was called up, both sisters were far away, my brother was fighting, and my relatives took me to the assembly point in the village. No one could wasteland. A neighbor, uncle Alexander Punegov, who had returned from the front without one leg, volunteered. He agreed to take me on a cart. Then there were no cars at all - they were all sent to the front, and they traveled mainly on foot or on horseback. Mother, who had enough flour, baked pancakes with potatoes and flour from clover flowers for the road. She was so swollen from hunger that she could not walk and just went out onto the porch - and cried, burst into tears, and this picture remained with me for the rest of my life.
A few months later, my mother died, but they didn’t tell me so I wouldn’t be nervous. But in the beginning, before I went to the front, I had the opportunity to go home for ten days.
Many relatives, acquaintances and neighbors came to see off the soldiers. Someone gave me an accordion, and I walked ahead of this whole company and played the village passage “Kebra Gora,” and the girls sang ditties that they usually performed during Orthodox holidays. I was sad in my heart because all the conscripts had someone close to them at these farewells, but I had no one except my neighbor, Uncle Oloksan.
On the outskirts of the village of Vichkodor, the column stopped and they began to say goodbye. There were a lot of tears. They didn’t know then that out of several dozen guys, only a few would return to their homeland. But their relatives felt that these fledgling chicks had not yet matured into soldiers. And they were afraid of the military millstones awaiting them...
In the Wasteland we had a snack and listened to the last parting words of Uncle Oloksan, who returned from the war as an invalid. He said that those on the front line should be very careful, vigilant, “nimble as hell.” The enemy is very strong, equipped with advanced technology, cool weapons, and many snipers. Don’t get into trouble, he said, it’s stupid.
TO ARKHANGELSK
Soldiers of the 33rd Infantry Regiment came to accompany us, the conscripts, to Arkhangelsk. At the station At Aikino, there were already diesel cars, two-axle “calf” cars.
On the way to Kotlas, five more guys our age, freed from the camps, were dropped off with us. They were all dressed in the same uniform, similar to the uniform of the Fez officers, quite good in comparison with our worn-out coats and trousers. Our new neighbors behaved defiantly and even brazenly. Taking places around the potbelly stove, taking out bread, lard, canned food, sugar from their duffel bags, they ate, heated tea in mugs and laughed loudly. Then they started smoking, but none of our guys smoked. The closed carriage quickly became foggy with smoke. When you don’t smoke, it’s especially unpleasant, especially for those on the upper bunks. When they were told, guys, smoke shag near the windows, they stood up, almost with a finger in the eye, and when one guy was about to have a snack, these camp inmates grabbed his knapsack and began to pull out the contents, threatening them with homemade knives. Then our guys couldn’t stand it, they came down from the bunks, some grabbed a log, some snatched a belt with a badge from the hands of the bandits, some just used their fists - and began to sweep them. When they stopped rocking, they shoved them under the bunks. After two stops, when the escort was informed about the incident, they were unloaded and sent to the station hospital. We were not punished, having realized who was to blame for the drama that happened.
…There were many military men on the Arkhangelsk platform, and a brass band was playing. I had never heard an ensemble in person before brass band, decided that it was the radio playing. And then - look - I saw the trumpets sparkling with gold, how musicians in military uniform played them, I was surprised how they harmoniously blew a military march. And the conductor stands in front and gestures to them. My soul felt solemn and light because we were greeted so well, as if at a big holiday.
Having lined up in a column, we were taken on foot to the Molotovsk military garrison, where first of all we were taken to the bathhouse. We washed, took a steam bath, took us out to get dressed in another department and into military uniform, starting with underwear and ending with an overcoat with a belt and a hat with earflaps. Of course, this uniform was not adjusted and was not new, used. Since we were immature and short, our overcoats fit us baggy.
Literally the next day we were driven from Molotovsk to the village of Lesozavod No. 26, where machine gunners were trained. Intensified military training began. The first step is to acquire the most basic everyday skills: for example, how to wrap a footcloth so as not to chafe your feet during a long walk, how to fold a roll from a soldier's overcoat during summer campaigns, how to wear a belt correctly and tuck in a tunic in order to have a decent appearance, even how wear a cap and a winter hat so that everyone has the same outfit. For every slightest violation (for example, the platoon commander noticed that you were standing near the stove and warming yourself, or had your hands in your pockets) they will be taken outside in a gymnast in the cold and driven through the snow, forced to crawl on your bellies. But these punishments also depend on the squad commander - junior sergeant. For example, our ml. The sergeant was more humane and never abused his duties, and next to him was Jr. The sergeant went out of his way to drive his soldiers too hard.
The food was very poor. After about three months, some soldiers were so hungry that they could barely move their legs, like decrepit old men - they were then sent to the hospital to recover.
Soldiers serving in the reserve regiment were given shag, regardless of whether you smoked or not. Most of our soldiers all smoked. And my father weaned me from this habit. He planted tobacco in the garden for himself, and in the fall he dried it in a heap so that it was stronger, dried it by putting it on slats in the attic, and chopped it finely with an ax, and packed two wooden boxes. I secretly stuffed my jacket pockets from there before going as a shepherd (the older guys were playing around, and I wanted to be on par with them). There we rolled a cigar from a newspaper and smoked. But this did not last long. One day my father noticed the remains of shag in my pocket. He grabbed me, my head between my legs, and spanked my bare ass with a belt so much that my mother began to save me so that my father would forgive me. After that, I didn’t try to indulge in a cigarette and didn’t want to at all. So in the reserve regiment I collected shag in a bag and exchanged it at the village market for flatbread from civilian men, it was an extra ration.
ADVANTAGES OF LEND-LEASE
While serving in Arkhangelsk, we were twice involved in unloading and loading American ships. In 1943, large ships with food arrived from America, as a member of the anti-Hitler coalition. Mostly we received granulated sugar in bags, cereals, powdered eggs in jars, pork stew, beans, beans, etc. We had to pay for everything. And we loaded non-ferrous metals - babbitt and aluminum ingots - onto American ships heading back. They looked very beautiful in appearance, like ice. We were very tired at the end of the shift, but we were fed very well, mainly with bean and corn porridge: each soldier received, if he wished, almost a full kettle at a time. Within a month of working there we recovered quite well. The cargo was unloaded by large port cranes, and we only transported it to warehouses in carts.
If today you work transporting sand or cereals, beans, before leaving through the checkpoint, directly pour, say, sand into each other’s bags between your underwear and warm underwear and tighten your trousers with a waist belt. Maybe the inspecting soldiers guessed, but for close-up, they will move their hands from top to bottom - and get out. They also managed to hide stewed meat, cans of condensed milk and cans of powdered eggs. During these works we were accommodated in one-story houses with a kitchen. When they returned from work, they stood on the newspaper (without shoes) and shook out their catch from the port. All edible prey was collected, cooked on the stove and enjoyed by the whole herd. So every day for some time - good treats, sweet tea with condensed milk. Then again the barracks, drill.
ROAD TO THE FRONT
We began to prepare to be sent to the front. On the platform, we were each given a dry ration: two crackers instead of bread and two pieces of lard, a briquette of concentrate - pea pearl barley or millet porridge - and two pieces of sugar. Each soldier had an iron round pot and spoon. It was later that our military industry began to produce flat aluminum pots, the lid of which served for the second course (porridge), and flat flasks with a screw cap. And the Germans also had a cloth covering on the flask.
At the station Konosha we learned that we were being taken to the South. Nature began to change outside the window, it became greener and warmer, the potbelly stove no longer needed to be heated. In Vologda we were taken out of the carriages and taken to a restaurant, where they were ready to feed us. The waiters quickly served everyone a full plate of rice porridge with milk and butter. It was very tasty, and we remembered the treat of the Vologda residents for a long time. We were treated not as soldiers, but as our own sons who were going to protect them, peaceful Russians, from the brown plague.
At one station before Moscow I saw they were selling milk. And he bought a whole bucket, treated all the guys in his carriage, it turned out to be a soldier’s mug.
We reached Ukraine. We were taken off the train and taken on foot. Around there were burnt huts, destroyed adobe houses, workshops where old women and old men were fumbling around, trying to put together a shed to shelter from the rain.
We were sent to the Rifle, twice Red Banner Sivash Regiment. This famous regiment crossed Sivash in the Crimea; in a mortal battle with the enemy, one of the ten regiments captured Sapun Mountain near Sevastopol, the assault of which cost our country thousands of lives. We, young soldiers who had not smelled gunpowder, were greeted very well by the combat soldiers. They just took a lot of food trophies from the enemy. (It must be said that the old soldier’s saying “you haven’t smelled gunpowder yet” comes from reality. When a shell or mine explodes close to you, you hear the smell of burning gunpowder.)
Our soldiers, exhausted by the meager food in the reserve regiment, began to eat up - they gave almost a full pot of corn soup with lard and sliced smoked sausage. The cook from the camp kitchen only had time to pour it into the pots with a large ladle. The soldiers quickly recovered and their spirits rose.
Among the old-timers there were people of different ages, but mostly older, there were even those who took part in our retreat and took over the German offensive. Their clothes were worn, faded, and on the backs of their tunics there were white stains from the salt that had come out in hot battles and during marches. They taught us everything that could help us survive in battle. After all, even mistakes that seem completely inconspicuous can cost lives. They also introduced us to enemy weapons, because some of them had German machine guns, and captured cartridges were stored in the service platoon. These machine guns had an advantage over ours: they were blued steel and did not rust from rain, while our weapons became rusty from the slightest dampness, so they had to be constantly lubricated. But basically we were armed with our own machine guns: Degtyarev, with a wooden butt (PPD-40), and a Shpagin machine gun (PPSh-41), but it was a bit heavy. We, machine gunners, preferred the Degtyarev and Sudaev assault rifles (PPS-42). But, I repeat, they had to be constantly lubricated. They also introduced us to how to fight against the “Tigers” and where they have weak points for throwing incendiary bottles.
Soon we were collected and taken on foot to be loaded onto the train. I had to walk for days across the Ukrainian steppes, in the heat. Occasionally we came across a village with a well or stream. Then for the first time in our lives we learned what thirst is. You’re walking along a country road – there’s not a tree, you see a dirty puddle – you rush in, scoop it up with your cap and drink until the officer snatches it away. Suddenly my neighbor in the ranks, an elderly soldier of about forty, a Leningrader, said to me: “Son, you’re drinking wrong.” I asked: what is correct? Here, he says, we’ll come to a big rest stop (it was held from 11 to 13 o’clock, during the hottest time), we’ll eat, and before we start to rest, drink as much as you like. Then we rested - the body was saturated with water. We filled our flasks with water. During the hike, after a short time you will want to drink. But this thirst, which is still tolerable, must be endured; in extreme cases, take 2-3 small sips or simply rinse your mouth. At the first halt, I did everything on the advice of an experienced soldier. And I was simply surprised, looking at my colleagues who were rushing with their caps to the dirty puddles. And most importantly, you don’t feel so thirsty, you don’t sweat so much, and this doesn’t make you so weak. After that, I passed on the old fighter’s advice to the guys, but they didn’t take it seriously. When passing through villages, they wanted to get enough water in reserve, but it turned out to be harmful.
From the south of Ukraine we came to the north, to the station. Shchors. There we rested while we loaded horses, camp kitchens, and guns. Captured weapons were also loaded - German Volker-Erma submachine guns, MP-38 and MP-40 types, with a folding metal butt. We didn’t know where they were taking us, but judging by the names of the cities along the way, they were taking us to the northwest. A terrifying picture opened up all around. All cities, railway stations, villages lay in ruins, only chimneys remained from the villages. People dug dugout holes on the hills, covered them with planks, used some kind of canvas instead of a door, built a stove from various waste and broken bricks and huddled there.
They brought us to Vitebsk and began to unload. The city was completely destroyed, not a single intact house was visible. We walked along the outskirts of the city, it was deserted and deserted, there weren’t even dogs. We, 17-year-old soldiers from the outback of Russia, saw this for the first time. Although our people lived in poverty, the houses and collective farm buildings remained intact. Seeing the places where the front passed twice, we were horrified. Occasionally, cars with boxes of ammunition, tanks and self-propelled guns overtook us, and you envy them that they do not have to walk on foot, with soldier’s equipment (a duffel bag, a machine gun, a bag with ammunition, a roll). You hear the command “stop,” “halt,” and you immediately throw yourself into a roadside ditch with your feet in the air. They made a halt in a place where there was water and it was possible to hide from German planes. They flew constantly. If a “frame” - a reconnaissance plane - flew by, immediately wait for the Messerschmitts or Junkers. In the front-line zone they bombed us savagely. The command “air” was heard more and more often, and we tried to take cover in a ditch or hole, or in the bushes, if they were nearby. Many received first aid from experienced medical instructors who had been in the battles for Sivash in Crimea. I had to watch air battles when our Yak-9 or La-7 appeared against the Messerschmitts. They were a great help.
INCREDIBLE THOUGHTS
Before reaching Polotsk, our 953rd Sivash Sevastopol Order of Suvorov Regiment was added to the 51st Army of the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of Army General Ivan Khristoforovich Bagramyan. We were given the task of cutting off the escape routes of the German Army Group North to East Prussia. Thanks to this operation, German troops in Latvia and Estonia will find themselves in the “sack”. But to accomplish this task we have to overcome incredible difficulties, since Army Group North in this area has not only large formations of human, well-armed reserves, but also a huge amount of equipment, motorized units, tank and artillery formations, armed to the teeth . But we don’t have much, except for light artillery and infantry units, albeit with the 3rd Air Army providing them with air support. I later experienced this the hard way: when they shoot at you not only from the front, but also from both flanks - it’s like absolute hell.
Before the first fight, cats scratched my soul. Although the cooks fed us corn soup with lard, we ate without appetite, thinking about what awaits you tomorrow. What devilish forces will meet us? Or German soldiers will walk across the field standing, shooting at you, with their angular helmets and black muzzles, or maybe they won’t be visible, they will fire from trenches and bushes. Or the Ferdinands, smoking exhaust gases, will move towards you with a roar, and soldiers walk between them and fire short bursts at you, and you do not have the right to return fire - let them, they say, come closer, while the artillery fires at the tanks ... My head is confused from these pictures, and I have no appetite. Besides, I don’t like boiled hot lard. He took the pieces out of the pot, wrapped them in paper and in a duffel bag, then ate them with pleasure.
They lined us up for a rally before the battle, but our appearance was far from formal.
For months on the front line, a soldier not only cannot choose the moment to wash and dry his tunic, but he cannot even wash himself. The generals, whom I saw so closely for the first time, were in decent uniform: trousers with red stripes, a cap with a red band. After the meeting, the generals with their adjutants and colonels got into their Jeeps and drove away towards the rear. And we, when we were fed, had a rest and filled our flasks with water, soon heard the command to form into columns, platoon and squadron. The riders began to assemble the carts. The ambulance carts were loaded with various stretchers, raincoats, boxes with medicines, crutches, etc. Boxes with mines and small-caliber - so-called muzzle-loading - 50-mm caliber mortars were loaded onto the mortar carts. They were carried on the front line by the mortar men themselves. Well, carts for boxes of ammunition and transportation of camping things with camp kitchens.
We were lined up in columns, the platoon commanders checked their personnel, and set off. They walked with halts until the evening; when it was already dark, we stopped in some village; not far away we could already hear the rattling of machine gun and machine gun fire. They ordered us to settle down for the night right in the forest, since officers, cart drivers and camp kitchen cooks were located in the houses. They passed it along the chain: in an hour and a half to get ready for dinner. Although we were very tired from walking and the heat, I couldn’t sleep. There was restlessness and anxiety in my soul, and not only in me, but also in others, especially young soldiers. There was one Armenian in our platoon, and he looked especially nervous because he had a young wife and a small child. I felt sorry for him that he had to worry not only about himself. He was a year older than me, with the last name Akopyan.
FIRST FIGHT
The night passed almost without sleep, in drowsiness with sleepy breaks. At dawn we were invited to receive breakfast. The cooks slept little, and they prepared food for us: first, as usual, soup from corn grits and canned food, and pearl barley porridge with lard for second. After breakfast we were lined up and given the task of operations. We had to turn around in a line and imperceptibly - sometimes on our stomachs, sometimes in short dashes - move forward to the trenches of our units. Separately, the trenches were not connected by trenches everywhere: since our troops were on the offensive, the command did not provide for long-term defense. In this offensive operation, the following was practiced: every other day, the advancing unit occupied the position of another unit, and the unit being replaced collected the dead and buried them in mass graves. And a day later - again to the front line, and they fought offensive battles. But this practice existed only if human resources allowed.
When we occupied the trenches, the fighting soldiers retreated to the rear positions to bury their fallen comrades. When we opened active fire on the German positions, they could not stand it and began to retreat unnoticed. There were relatively few of them, and they began to escape on foot - it turned out that their cars were hidden in a low ravine. We began to advance one by one towards the German trenches under the fire of the covering German lone men, and then these lone men got on motorcycles, which were also hidden from our eyes. When we reached the German trenches, we were allowed a respite in the offensive. During this time, other units arrived and dragged a 45-mm cannon, which was the only one in our regiment, to the trenches. It is very difficult for a crew to advance in a wooded area without horse traction. A treeless area opened up against our units. After a short respite, the command decided to continue the offensive. Rear units, horse-drawn vehicles - carts, camp kitchens - were ordered not to venture out of the forest into open areas until further notice. The area was downhill, and behind it was a hill where several small village huts could be seen.
When the command of the unit commanders was heard along the chain: “Forward, for the Motherland, for Stalin!”, the soldiers began to jump out of the trenches and trenches shouting: “Hurray! Hooray!" The whole chain of soldiers running towards the enemy was somehow inspiring, and I also shouted “Hurray” and ran towards the ravine. Then, from the side of the houses, the enemy opened increased fire from machine guns and machine guns with tracer bullets, although it was daytime. These sheaves of bullets, like sparks, flew at us - and flew back over our heads, instilling fear, seeing them for the first time and bringing death in reality. The Germans, sitting on a hill, could see everything in full view, every running soldier. The enemy had superiority on the ground, and we, despite this, fled as if into the devil's mouth. This was an obvious wrong decision in an offensive operation, when it was possible to take this protruding height in a roundabout way or after intensive artillery bombardment or aerial bombardment. This would have saved dozens, maybe hundreds of soldiers, and they would not have been killed and maimed.
The Germans fired tracer bullets first so they knew where their bullets were landing. As soon as they reached the middle of the beam, they were forced to stop the attack, even in short dashes, and lie down. The attack was stopped, and they were ordered to dig in, almost lying down, with their sapper shovels. But the soil was not solid; apparently, cereals had been planted there before, but then it was overgrown with turf. And we quite quickly dug a trench where we could escape from the German bullets behind an earthen parapet, and we ourselves could open aimed fire at the points where the flashes of flame from German machine guns flashed like Morse code. That Armenian dug a trench next to me. And I watch as he lay down with his face against the parapet and periodically fired bursts from his machine gun almost upward. The platoon commander noticed such a joke, approached him - and how he hit Akopyan on the hump with a machine gun! He shouted: “Where are you shooting? By crows? Conduct targeted fire! My neighbors in the trenches and I started laughing.
The Germans continued to fire intensely, but what saved us was that there was no artillery fire. And our “magpie” fired at the enemy, who was behind us, about fifty meters away. This greatly hampered the Germans and reduced enemy firing points. I could hear shouts from our soldiers: “Medical instructor!”, “Wounded!”, “Save!”... And I watched how medical instructors had to crawl, sometimes in short dashes, under machine-gun fire, approach the wounded and provide assistance, or even take them to the rear . The artillery crew also had to drag boxes of shells under fire. The regiment command was located about two hundred meters behind us, giving orders to the battalion commanders via wired communication. And the signalmen with a reel on their back had to crawl under enemy fire, and where the terrain allowed, then run, stand, or short dashes, to establish communications. Only division and corps commanders had radios, and regiment commanders rarely had them.
To reduce unit losses, the command decided to launch an offensive and take control of the heights at the beginning of darkness. Since we have almost decided where the firing points were, develop the main attacks in the direction of the gaps between the machine guns, and upon reaching the height, hit enemy targets from the flanks and rear. As soon as it began to get dark and the Germans could no longer discern the movement of our soldiers, there was a command to begin the offensive in a chain, but observing the strictest silence, so that there was no knocking of pots and shovels, no clinking of water flasks. Since there was not yet deep darkness, the Germans had not yet used rockets to periodically illuminate our positions.
And we rushed forward. The main thing was that we had to run to the bottom of the ravine, and when we climbed the mountain, the enemy could no longer see us. And the real battle with the enemy began in the trenches and trenches, unexpectedly for the Germans, sometimes with machine gun fire, sometimes hand-to-hand, sometimes destroyed by grenades. Only a few, mostly officers, could escape us, since their command posts and dugouts were further from the front line. Many Germans escaped in cars and motorcycles, with poor visibility - it was already almost complete darkness, in addition to fog.
The battle lasted about an hour. We pursued and finished off the last German soldiers. But about twenty of ours were killed and injured. We saw this the next morning. At night we scoured to find food trophies that had been left behind by the Germans during their sudden withdrawal. We disarmed the seriously wounded Germans and buried the corpses in separate graves from our soldiers.
They buried their own in a mass grave, with uniforms, without coffins or wrappings. The square grave is two by two meters and also about two meters deep. They were laid out in rows, and the mutilated were wrapped in a sheet and placed there too. I saw a similar funeral and fireworks several times there, on 1st Pribaltiysky. And later - on the Belarusian fronts - we were just advancing, and the soldiers were buried by special funeral units that followed us. The names of the soldiers buried in the mass grave were written on plywood and placed on top.
There was almost no civilian population to be seen in the villages where the fighting took place. Either they left with the partisans, or hid in nearby forests.
At first my heart felt terrible; it was hard to see and get used to. And it never escaped my mind that your turn would come, but when? And will the news reach you that you are in such and such a village and under such and such a bush... If your soldier friend - ate from the same pot with him - hid you and buried you, dug a shallow hole or trench and covered you with fluffy earth... And God decreed who will have what fate...
This is how my first day of the war passed. We rested, and the camp kitchen caught up with us, they fed us again, and we were full. After the night, we were again sent to the front line to replace the existing unit...
Short memories of veterans. These are stories of infantrymen, artillerymen, tank crews, pilots and many other Soviet soldiers of various branches of the military. Just stories, dozens of stories about the war - as they remembered it. One paragraph - one someone's story.
...When on June 22 we heard on the radio about the beginning of the war, although we were not thinking well due to our age, none of us was shocked by what happened. The conversations were only like this: “Well, the Germans attacked, so what? Our Russian guys will quickly break his back. Why did he attack? After all, he will get his due.” When I arrived at the plant, the workers were in exactly the same mood. They only said: “Where should he go to war against us? We will quickly rebuff him...” No one then expected that the war would drag on for so long....I passed a medical examination at the military registration and enlistment office, where the conscripts were checked by two doctors: “Bend over and straighten up. Good! Next!”... Together with me, Seryozha Rusov and Vanya Kudryavtsev were called up from the village, and both of them died at the front... At parting, my father told me: “Son, I beg you. Try to stay alive. Your mother won’t survive if something happens to you...”
...How much famine we suffered in '33. There was a terrible famine. Already in the army, I immediately got to Zaporozhye, they were from the western regions, trains went through their stations to Germany, so they said: Train after train - now bread, then lard, then meat, from the USSR to Germany. Then they said: “Our lard according to our tinsel!”
...Medical units, mostly filled with young girls, were sent to war. We did not yet know what real war meant, although we were great patriots. We had some kind of romance! While they were on the road, they themselves issued combat leaflets, wrote poems and sang songs. We had fun, we went to war as if we were going to a dance! And everything that was happening around seemed incomprehensible to us. At that time there was a hay harvest campaign. We drove with the doors open and saw women with braids looking at us and crying.
...We had such an upsurge, everyone was confident that our heroic Red Army would give a worthy rebuff to the enemy, the more we were surprised when listening to the reports of the Sovinformburo. We didn’t understand why our invincible army was suddenly retreating like that.
...Then war was brewing. There was a slogan: “Komsomolets on a plane.” And one more thing - “Komsomol patronizes aviation and the navy.” But I’ll be honest: I came to the flying club for a girl. There, everyone who wanted to was taken to the flying club, and girls too... She then burned up in the air... I followed her so as not to miss her.
...I remember well the years 1940-41. Often we would come to class and suddenly someone would come in crying, a girl or a boy. They immediately moved away from him because they understood well what had happened. One of the parents, or maybe both, was arrested at night... We clearly understood this. And since my father was a military man, there were many conversations on this topic at home. The point of the conversation was that there is no need to talk about this topic, there is no need to be frank, because this is quite serious and dangerous. And if you want to say what you think, please, there is a house for that. And at these moments my parents spoke to me like an adult. Not only with me, but with others too, so in these terrible times we did this.
…When we found ourselves at the Kerch berths in the area of the Voikov plant, we didn’t want to live from everything we saw. Thousands of people stood in a dense “wall” at the piers; there was no order, no organized evacuation. Our situation was hopeless. The piers collapsed under the mass of people, and when boats from Taman began to approach the shore at night, a wild fight began, it got to the point that people who were distraught and wanting to escape at all costs were shooting at each other in order to get on the boats first. Then the sailors moved away from the shore and began to take people only from the water, approaching the shore with their stern at low speeds. German aircraft constantly hung in the air, we were bombed day and night, and hundreds of corpses washed ashore in waves... People stood up to their necks in water, and even for me, with my height, the water was up to my neck, but on the first night I didn’t managed to get on the boat. In the morning there were calls from the commanders: “Everyone forward! Let's drive the Germans away! Otherwise, everyone is screwed!” We gathered on the shore, spontaneously gathered into some detachments under the command of desperate lieutenants. I simply haven’t seen any commanders with a rank higher than lieutenant on the shore these days. And so for three days in a row - all day long we hold the line of defense, with the tenacity of suicide bombers we go into attacks, throw ourselves with bayonets, and at night, those who are still alive go down to the sea, and again, standing up to their necks in the water, they hope and expect that they will get on boats and they will be taken away. The Germans continuously hammered along the edge of the coast with artillery and mortars, hit a small piece of land on which many thousands of soldiers and commanders who had retreated from the front line had gathered (and it should also be taken into account that besides them there were thousands of wounded from hospitals), and dive-bomber raids became just a nightmare for us, every exploding German bomb left heaps of meat on the ground... The entire coast was continuous rubble of broken equipment and corpses of Red Army soldiers... Only on the third night, during the bombing, I managed to board some small seiner... At the assembly point I also saw the division commander, Major Zuvalov, and our commissar. This commissar had the rank of senior political instructor, was a complete bastard and a complete anti-Semite, he had never given me peace before, and when he saw that Florinsky and I got out of the encirclement alive, he simply shook with hatred, saying, “lucky for the shady Jews”... But suddenly this commissar was arrested by “special officers”, it turned out that he had fled to Taman without permission, and even during a German tank attack he had escaped from the division and “fled across the strait”, abandoning his subordinates.
...I tried to return the plane to a horizontal position. I open my eyes to see, you can’t fly blind. I can’t open my eyes - everything is burning. In case of fire, the only salvation is to jump out with a parachute. He threw the lantern aside with both hands, unfastened the seatbelts, jumped to his feet and rushed. But I got caught on the edge of the cockpit and was pressed into the fuselage by the air. I was flying in my overcoat, apparently it got caught. While I was doing all this, I wasn’t breathing, but then I opened my mouth, breathed in hot air, and my mother’s face appeared in my eyes. I managed to think that she would probably cry and I don’t remember anything else. I woke up and felt that everything around me was soft, cold air was blowing over me. And I seem to be flying upward. It feels like I was sleeping. I asked myself the question: “What’s wrong with me?” He answered himself: “I jumped with a parachute.” My consciousness began to work. I immediately pulled the ring, but my hand slipped off. Then I felt the ring with both hands and pulled out the cable. I immediately felt that the parachute began to open. My legs flew down, I turned over, as it seemed to me, then I sank on the parachute and lost one of my tarpaulin boots.
...Suddenly the entire command staff from the company commanders and above disappeared, they left their soldiers surrounded. My company commander Melnikov also “evaporated” somewhere. Only platoon lieutenants remained in their positions, and regimental headquarters, including the headquarters of our 1062nd joint venture under the command of Major Zorin, had previously been outside the encirclement. We understood that a tragic outcome was approaching. We had five rounds left for the rifle and one incomplete belt for the Maxim machine gun that I had in my platoon. No one gave us the order to retreat or break through, and no one made any attempt to break through to our aid. There was simply no one to give orders, the commanders abandoned us!.. We were “surrendered”, betrayed...
...We were running out of ammunition, food was running out, we actually didn’t eat anything for several days, and once they started dropping bags of black crackers from PO-2 planes, but when they started dividing the crackers among the fighters, each one got at most two crackers Many Red Army soldiers were already close to demoralization from hunger and hopelessness. My company stood at the junction of the 1062nd and 1064th regiments and, two days before everything was over for us, we were given two tanks for the attack: a KV and a T-34, but nothing came of this attack. On the fourteenth, a tank lieutenant came to my dugout and said that he had seen two foals in the field behind us, and he and I went and shot them to feed the soldiers with horsemeat. I felt sorry for shooting the animals; believe me, it was easier to kill a man in a German uniform than these unfortunate foals. The soldiers at least had time to eat one last time before we were all taken prisoner.
...Everything in my memory was mixed up in endless transfers and unsuccessful battles. In October, famine began on the front line, we received only 400-500 grams of bread per day, and some of them could hardly move their legs from hunger. Once, when we ran out of cartridges, we launched a bayonet attack towards the Germans, but the Germans did not accept bayonet combat and retreated back. This is probably after the destruction of the German landing force in July forty-one, the second bright memory of the battles on the Lenfront, and everything else that happened to us in those days... is a rather sad story...
...The Germans were all healthier and taller than ours. We all grew up in hunger, in the USSR.
...Our anti-tank weapons are bottles, nothing else. That's how death is - it crawls, climbs, and there's also a German tank in the crosses! We didn’t even see them then, it was wildness for us - crosses! We are all Komsomol members. Since the tank had to be brought closer to 10-15 meters, death is creeping up on you. What kind of nerves do you need to control yourself, your feelings, to fight the enemy? If these bottles break, you die and you don’t even set fire to a single tank. In general, it was very difficult to fight with such weapons.
...Then I tell them: “Uncle, uncle, I know German!” The fact is that Yiddish is very close to German. He spoke it enough, fluently, and understood everything. Then this Zalman Kaminsky turned and asked: “Sprechen si deutsch?” I answer: “I-I!” Then a few more phrases and then he says to the commander of the first company: “He speaks and understands. Take it with you, it will come in handy!” But probably a week later an officer came to us, we were lined up and he asked: “Guys, who wants to take sniper courses?” Well, how?! Of course, I immediately stepped forward. I generally had a high opinion of myself and believed that with my arrival a radical change had occurred in the Great Patriotic War. And only after being wounded this opinion changed somewhat.
...In general, I was arrested and put in a condo. And when the guys brought me a hangover, they told me that they wanted to send me to a penal company... But only the intervention of Elena Timofeeva, the head of our flight group, saved me from this extremely unsightly fate. The guys already told me that she asked the school commissar for me, and begged, and cried, and did everything she could, but in the end, she begged him not to punish me so severely. And only thanks to her efforts, two days later I went to school in the general group... After being wounded, one day at the airfield I started talking with a girl, a senior lieutenant, from a bomber air regiment. And then, in a conversation with her, I suddenly accidentally found out that my savior Elena Timofeeva died... (According to OBD-Memorial, the flight commander of the 127th GBAP Guard, Lieutenant Elena Pavlovna Timofeeva, born in 1914, did not return from a combat mission on August 28, 1943 - approx. . N.Ch.) I was terribly saddened by this news.
...It became quiet, the shooting stopped... And then the soldiers began to crawl out of the trenches and stood in a crowd, most of them without raising their hands. The remains of two regiments, over 800 people, were captured on that damned morning. The Germans ordered everyone to throw their weapons into a pile and form several lines. It was still light when the Germans ordered: “Jude and the communists, get out of line!” It was like an electric shock, and in an instant my whole life flashed before my eyes, the faces of my family. I had already moved forward when my squad commander, career sergeant Tkach, grabbed me with his hand and did not let me get out of formation. He tore off my buttonholes with “cubes” and said: “Lieutenant, don’t come out”... Only about thirty people came out, they were immediately taken to the side, and we were driven into a ravine, put in the snow, in the bitter cold. When they were chasing us, I saw my comrade, the platoon commander from the neighboring company, the Moldavian Jew Misha Tsimbal, lying motionless in the snow, still alive, only covered in blood. I had with me my Komsomol card, my diary, which I had been keeping for the last few years, and in the pocket of my overcoat was a lemon grenade. I was well aware of the horror of my situation and decided to blow myself up with a grenade, but my fellow soldiers were sitting around and I didn’t want any of them to be hit by shrapnel, and I didn’t even have the courage to kill myself. I was only nineteen years old and I wanted to live so badly... And then I began to carefully and quietly bury the grenade and documents in the snow below me.
...When the battle ended, the Germans immediately appeared in the village. We immediately hid in our dugouts. And I remember this moment well: German soldiers burst into our dugout and tore the hats off the men. We still don’t understand: what happened? They took off my hat, looked at my long hair and left me alone. And they, it turns out, were looking for soldiers among us who had dressed in civilian clothes and escaped captivity. I only realized this later. In the army at that time everyone had a haircut with a “zero” haircut. So some of our people ran headlong. Where to hide? It was cold in the forest; winter came to us very early. Therefore, many of our soldiers who were surrounded and escaped tried to mix among the civilian population. At that time, near Leningrad, not only regiments and divisions, but even entire armies surrendered.
...We went on the attack, captured the heights, but when we occupied the narrow German trenches, there was no one left from my machine-gun platoon; everyone was killed. The battalion commander came running and started yelling: “Where are the people? Where are the machine guns?”, and hit me on the head with a pistol, I told him that all the crews were killed, and he swore at me: “Let’s fire!” I walked to my full height among the corpses across the battlefield and collected three serviceable machine guns. I saw my friend Berlin among the dead... They gave me five fighters to replace the dead, and we went on the attack again.
...Over the course of a year, we have become such specialists in production, where it is difficult for an adult, we have sharp eyes, thin, nimble fingers. It was 1942. She herself calibrated the head fuses for Katyushas, fuses for UZRGs for lemons, RGDs for anti-tank ones, and worked with a fuse cord for demolitions. Contrary to military regulations, inscriptions were made on the shells: “Beat the enemy!”, “We await with victory!” - so that the fighter feels and knows that it is his own, native hands that are giving him a projectile. And in the chaos of war, an incredible story happened. My cousin Sashka, who was at the front. While opening another box of shells in battle, I find a label with my name on it. He wrote to the plant and found me. A correspondence began. All the soldiers admired it - well, you’re lucky - your sister is giving you weapons right to the front line.
...My platoon was the last to leave. One of my fighters, no longer young, was exhausted, sat down in the snow and said: “I can’t walk anymore.” According to the regulations, I should have shot him on the spot, but I did not do this. Silently, he turned around and followed his Red Army soldiers.
...In the morning I go out onto the road, but as a manager I could move relatively freely and was not tied to any specific place. I was wondering what was ahead. Here comes a car full of wounded. I stopped, approached, and in it was already someone from our 2nd battery, who had just left for the front line that night... I was surprised, it was just crazy to me how it could be like this, just yesterday we were playing “with him and other guys” rooster,” and now he is being taken to the hospital with a broken arm. I ask: “What happened?” “We had just started to turn around when German tanks shot us. There was only one belt left from the platoon commander...” And then I again thought about what awaits us ahead?
...Our retreat, I would say, was sheer horror and a nightmare! Anyone who was not on the front line in 1941 will find it difficult to imagine the situation in which we had to visit. Take the very Moscow-Minsk road along which our retreat took place. Something terrible happened at night! The Germans released parachutes with flashlights from airplanes. There were so many of them that the whole sky glowed in them; it seemed that there was no end to these lights.
...Then there was a rule: if a car broke down, no one would repair it. Therefore, it was thrown into a ditch, and the column continued moving further. It was there that I first saw English planes, which were given the task of accompanying us all the way to Moscow.
…The wounds and contusions didn’t bother me much later, although it was they that later provoked encephalopathy and disorders of the vestibular apparatus. The war left me the most terrible memory of myself in the form of chronic gastritis; I remember well how, without food at the front, my stomach simply burned.
…If you don’t mind, I will continue my thoughts on this pointless tactic called “Forward, advance!” To do this, I will give a simple example of how this actually happened. Suppose the division commander reported to his superiors that the division had been formed, had just arrived from the rear, one might say, had arrived combat-ready and could conduct active combat operations. In reality it was nothing! After all, a lot depended on how skillfully the food convoys and shells were delivered, that is, everything depended on the successful security of the offensive. This provision did not exist! And since they began to bring us into battle with these 150 rounds of ammunition and five shells per gun and mortar, we were actually unable to take anything. I remember when we approached one village, we were given the following task: “Take Zmievka station!” And the Zmievka station was 8 kilometers from our front line. So it’s not like we couldn’t take Zmievka, the village that was located right under our noses. People were put there, one might say, completely in vain.
...When we advanced on one village near Rzhev, the weather was clear, the sun was shining brightly. And suddenly something incomprehensible began to happen: bullets whistled, mines and shells began to explode. Everything became clouded with gunpowder and became dark as if at night, although it was day. It was very scary! But we still crawled and fired at the enemy, since we perfectly understood that behind us there was a guard of these SMERSHov men. And when I was wounded and I began to crawl back (I needed to find a medical unit, I didn’t know then that the orderlies would find me so quickly), I came across this guard in front of the ditch. "What's happened?" - they asked me. “Wounded,” he said. “Crawl,” they answered me. And so they would have been returned to battle.
...We were given the following order: “Take the station at all costs!” And so our brigade, which came here, as they say, was full-fledged, full-blooded, the number of which was something like 3,200 people, was thrown at this station. On the right, another regiment approached us and, like us, was thrown there in its entirety. Meanwhile, the Germans’ positions were very strongly fortified. In particular, on one side of the station there were three Tiger tanks and on the other side two of the same tanks, and the entire station, basement and windows were covered in embrasures. And this sea of fire, as they say, met us. And it was so “good” that when I had probably thirty meters left to run to the station, for some reason I looked back and saw the following picture: almost no one was left alive and only a few were running back. Then I turned around and crawled back through the mud. I fell down, I remember, into a rut where, apparently, a tank had recently passed. And he began to really scurry. I no longer gave myself any account of my actions! We, the miraculously surviving brigade fighters, managed to run to a school building. But we didn’t know what to do, since not a single officer remained alive, which means there was no one to give us orders. In short, we spent the whole day getting ready and physically recovering, and the next day the order suddenly came again: “Take the station!” What saved us was that when we arrived at the place, the Germans left and the station was liberated. If they had not left, it is unknown how it would have ended. However, this departure was to be expected, since essentially this group of Germans was in our rear. It’s interesting that 30 years later, when I was driving my car south with my wife, I decided to drive through certain places where I had once participated in battles. And most of all I wanted to get to Friedrichovka. When I arrived there and visited the station, I saw a large memorial wall there with the names of the victims. I counted 2860 names there. These were those who died for the station, which they could not capture at that time. People, one might say, were put there in vain.
...But the next day the Germans stopped our column in the forest and, in front of the entire column, shot all our wounded, all those who could not walk quickly. Among them was a soldier wounded in the face, with his mouth torn by a bullet and a wad of bloody bandages covering the wound. When he realized that he, too, would be shot, he looked at us so fearfully and piercingly, there was so much pain and pleas for mercy in his eyes... but how could we help him.
...At the end of the day, an armada of German bombers arrived and literally bombarded us with bombs. We lay in our trenches, pressed into the ground, closing our eyes, and only whispered: “Lord forgive and save!” I’m sure everyone said so, and those who don’t admit it are lying. After all, when you see a bomb come off a plane, and you can already roughly imagine where it will fall... And at this most terrible moment, a pigeon with a broken wing suddenly landed in our trench. I still don’t understand where he came from, but apparently, fleeing the howls and bomb explosions, he realized where he could hide. As I remember now, I took him in my hands, and his heart was just ready to jump out of his chest... But I remember very well that when I saw this unfortunate bird, I thought: “That’s it, this is a sign from above, soon this nightmare will end!”
...Two prisoners were brought to Naumov. One of them was, it seems, a Pole, and the other a German. The Pole began to cry, began showing fragments from the grenade and saying with signs: “I myself wanted to surrender, but the Russian threw a grenade at me.” Our soldier told him: “You went into captivity when you saw a grenade.” The German also began to cry, took out his wallet and showed a photograph: here, they say, are my wife and my three children. He also said: “Ich arbeite!” (“I am a worker” translated from German). He apparently knew that the worker was an honorable class in the Soviet Union, and really hoped that they would take pity on him and not shoot him. They began to interrogate them, and we found some soldier who knew German. Naumov then said: “Pour some alcohol and let them drink, but don’t give them any snacks.” They were given a drink and they drank. After this they were interrogated. Then Naumov ordered: “Take me away!” But who will take them to the camp? After all, there was a great risk of death if they were left alive. I think they were simply shot. They themselves understood very well that in such a situation no one would take them anywhere, so they got scared and cried.
...We stayed on vacation in Keikino for about two days. There was a lot of alcohol there, and many of us got drunk there: because some drank their hundred grams, some didn’t drink, and some drank for five people at the same time. And when they were completely drunk, they took out an accordion and began to sing songs to it. This gave me a very strong inner feeling: “How is this possible? How can you lose so many people and then sing songs?” So such mood swings during the war were felt all the time. Therefore, it is true in the song: “Who said that you need to give up singing in war? / After the battle, the heart cries for music doubly.”
...I think it’s appropriate to say a few words here about women in war. Of course, you can speak lofty words about patriotism and a sense of duty, but I don’t like it when such concepts are often thrown around. Many girls and women went to the front because they felt purely feminine, which means they feel unbearably sorry for the men who went to war. They went with them to share everything, but they had to drink to capacity, there was nowhere else to go... As for the attitude of the men towards them, it was different. They thought a lot about this relationship, there were different conversations, even the most indecent ones.
...To all my troubles, the camp police, composed mainly of Ukrainian traitors, who were called “sergeants” here, were constantly looking for Jews and former political instructors among the prisoners, and when I saw among the policemen my former colleague from the “school of junior lieutenants,” a Pole named Anton, I understood that if he noticed me among the prisoners, he would immediately recognize me and hand me over to the Germans for execution. And the Jews identified among the captives faced a cruel death: they could be dipped in cold water, and then left naked for the whole day in the cold until you froze to death; another time, a Red Army Jew betrayed by a traitor-policeman was tied with a rope to a car and dragged around in circles in the car. him on the ground, and the Germans looked at his suffering and laughed. The quickest death for a Jewish prisoner of war in this camp was if the guards set dogs on him, which instantly bit the victim to death.
...And then I heard someone’s panicked voice: “The head of the hospital is wounded!” And we, the three senior operating nurses, as soon as we heard this, got up and ran through the sleepers. Two of us were killed immediately. One was even torn in half: one part of the body flew in one direction, the other in the other. But I managed to run away and then get to the head of the hospital.
...He called me on the radio and said: “Receive the radiogram!” And there it was necessary to transfer letters by letter in Morse code. I had almost no experience at that time and I messed something up. But it turned out that he was scolding our commander through Morse code. In the movies they show war as ideal. In fact, at the front, commanders were constantly swearing at each other. In a combat situation this is quite natural.
...The situation in the country was so difficult that everyone was recruited to the front indiscriminately. We didn't even have any medical examination. They asked: “Well, is everyone healthy?” We replied: “Zdorrr-rows.” And they took us to the 2nd Volkhovstroy.
...When we were in besieged Leningrad, they fed us very poorly there. The food was terrible! I even remember such an incident. We were sent to break down wooden houses for firewood. Then there was nothing to heat the stoves with! I went into the house where there used to be some kind of club. I walked through the concert hall when suddenly I met a soldier. I also thought: where could he come from here? But it turns out it was a large mirror. I became so thin and thin that I didn’t recognize myself. There was one long skeleton with ribs. In the reserve regiments in Leningrad, people simply died. And at the front, compared to Leningrad, the food was very good. We were mostly given dry rations. Potatoes, canned food, and American stew were also provided. By the way, they started giving us American stew even when we were in Leningrad. This saved us a lot!
...In the camp, among the prisoners there were anti-German, anti-Ukrainian, anti-Semitic and anti-Stalinist sentiments. We hated the Germans as our tormentors and murderers, as cruel beasts and invaders. This is understandable, of course. Anti-Stalinist sentiments were most clearly manifested when the Germans told us that Stalin had said: “We have no prisoners, we have traitors.” And so many of the prisoners, who were ten years older than me, even before the war hated Stalin with his collective farms, repressions and the White Sea Canals, but after this statement by the “leader of the peoples,” most of us in the camp were already cursing him out loud. Anti-Ukrainian sentiments were caused by the fact that Ukrainians en masse went to serve the Germans and in police battalions, and in many concentration camps, for example, in Peski and Kresty, the camp police consisted of 80% Ukrainians. They were considered a “completely corrupt nation”... Anti-Semitic sentiments among the prisoners appeared thanks to the continuous systematic German anti-Semitic propaganda and because the “extremes” in any situation were always Jews, and the Germans and “Vlasov” agitators constantly tried to convince the prisoners that the damned war had begun because of the Jews, who are all “damned communist Jews.”
...One of our foreman sent a cook on a horse-drawn cart to take lunch to one of the batteries of our 153rd regiment in the area of that very village of Dyatlitsy. We had to go through the forest. The cook went, but did not find the battery and got lost. I went out to the edge of the forest and suddenly saw two German tanks. He turned around and galloped in the opposite direction. But the tanks noticed him and moved after him, they wanted to grab lunch and him as a living language. The cook rushed, not knowing where, in the very direction where the very battery he was looking for was disguised. They noticed their cook on the battery, and two German tanks were chasing him. The Germans got carried away in the pursuit and lost their vigilance. As a result, the tanks were shot at point-blank range by our 76-mm cannons. The cook was awarded the medal “For Courage” for this unexpected feat. By the way, Colonel Naumov, commander of the 308th Infantry Regiment of our division, also wrote to me after the war about that very incident: that thanks to the cook, two German tanks were knocked out.
...He, of course, dropped by to see his relatives, and they asked him: “Well, how did you, Sasha, fight at the front?” - “Yes, I fought.” - “So you’re not killed or wounded.” Everyone was surprised how this man was at the front, has two orders, but at the same time was not killed or wounded. People had doubts...
...I was sent to the 22nd separate communications regiment. One day, a bomb hit right into the building of our barracks, where we lived then. And 30-40 girls who served with us died right before our eyes. We dragged these dead girls into the basement. All of us who survived were moved to a neighboring barracks. And in the morning I was assigned as a sentry to guard this basement with the dead signalmen. They were covered there with raincoats. I remember this moment: the wind blows through the broken windows and lifts these raincoats, I get scared, they seem alive to me, it becomes scary... For the first time in my life I saw the dead. I couldn’t stand it when the shift came, I said: “I’m afraid to stand here!” And then they replaced me. Then these girls were buried. They were all from Leningrad and served in our unit as radio operators and telephone operators. So this death left a heavy feeling in my soul, although later I saw a lot of deaths at the front.
...Soldiers learned to sleep standing while moving on the march. Someone grabbed my belt behind me, I grabbed the belt of the person in front, and slowly fell asleep. If someone stumbled and fell, then I have heard it before. So the whole thing was well organized for us. Of course, after being “on the defensive” for several days, I fell asleep involuntarily. But, of course, we slept not only while moving on the march. How was this thing organized? Suppose I changed from the dugout while standing “on defense.” After this there was a need to sleep. But in winter there were no buildings nearby. So I did the following: I dug a hole in the snow and laid out a tent where I went to sleep. Immediately after this, in order to be warmer, they buried me in the snow. And I slept. The place, however, had to be marked with something so that they could dig you up later. And they also made a small hole for air.
...When no more than 30 people remained from the battalion, we were all gathered into a group. The battalion commander and chief of staff, located in a specially dug dugout covered with snow, gave me these commands: “Forward, advance!” I had to advance with these thirty military personnel towards the village, which the division was unable to capture on February 19th. The order turned out to be completely impossible to implement. As soon as a soldier rose to attack, he immediately fell onto the battlefield. But I don’t know who died out of these thirty. We had no weapons; we went into battle with revolvers.
...When I hear talk today that front-line soldiers went on the attack shouting “For Stalin, for the Motherland!” Hurray, let's go!”, I cannot confirm this. I've never seen this before. It's all a lie. We had no impulse to fight specifically for Stalin. We did our duty and did not fight this war for the sake of Stalin.
...Think: during the Second World War, Germany enslaved almost all European states, but our country survived. This is what socialism is, this is what Stalin is! I confirm: we really went on the attack shouting: Hurray! For the Motherland! For Stalin!
...We only shouted “HURRAY!” "For Stalin!" They didn’t shout - why the hell is that necessary?! At first this was not the case at all. It started later. I only shouted “Hurray!”
...When they went on the attack, no one shouted “For Stalin.” Then during the attack there was no sound at all. There was dead silence. The one who shouted something, as a rule, died immediately. This was the case, for example, in the battles for the station in Fridrikhovka. One of our officers shouted: “For the Motherland-oooh!” Take! Forward!" He was instantly destroyed. In general, I consider this battle a fantasy or some kind of enchanted case: when there was almost no chance of survival and literally only a few were saved, I did not receive a single scratch. And somewhere in Western Ukraine we fought for one small town. Having positioned ourselves in front of a small river, behind which there was a village, we prepared for the attack. On the other side of the river, near the bridge, there was a German Tiger tank, its gun was pointed in our direction. We had very few people. It seems that we were then assigned to someone else's unit. The commander shouted: “For the Motherland! For Stalin!" And as soon as he had time to shout this, there was a direct hit from a shell. There is nothing left of him. As they say, there was a man, and there is no man.
...My attitude towards Stalin was not unambiguous, at one time I even had a good attitude towards him... But after demobilization I came to Dolinka to my mother, looked at what was happening around, learned a lot from people who served their sentences under Article 58 and then finally understood what country do I live in and what is Stalin like? And when the 20th Congress took place and most of Stalin’s crimes became known, I finally decided on my attitude towards Stalin - he was and is a monster, a murderer and a villain who ruined our country... When one of the veterans begins to “flood” that “...in the name of Stalin we went on the attack,” this means that he himself did not go on the attack. No one has ever shouted “For Stalin!” before a battle or when going on the attack, and anyone who claims otherwise is simply lying shamelessly.
...Vodka was sometimes given during reformation. But at the front itself, as they say, there was no time for that. What kind of vodka could there be there when they didn’t even give us ordinary food? On the collective farm or among the residents we find just grain - rye, wheat, and if you're lucky, potatoes. In the Don we began to kill fish with grenades. They chose where there were more thawed patches, jammed it with long poles, and tried to pull it closer. It worked. It didn’t matter what kind of fish we came across. Every little thing, everything went well. They were hungry, there was no bread, and they started cooking the rye in the evening, all night long, it swelled, but did not boil over like cereal. It got to the point where we ate it, and then it came out in the toilet undigested. But the worst thing I remember was this grain with the addition of fish and, most importantly, without salt. It was something terrible! I never realized that salt had such a meaning. This is grass, it’s impossible to eat, but you need to eat, otherwise you’ll just starve!
...In the hospital we went AWOL; I already had a medal “For Courage,” which I was very proud of. I remember the guys broke the thermometer and advised me to rub the medal with mercury to make it shine even more. I rubbed it, but the red letters “For Courage” fell out.
...When we went on the offensive and received the command “Prepare to attack!”, then, of course, something like jitters set in. It was scary, of course! We were heading towards death. Actually, in the first days of the fighting we were very afraid of everything. My only thoughts were: “That’s it, this is probably the last day of my life!” After all, bullets flew over you like bees, shells and mines exploded nearby, and when you were crawling on the ground, you couldn’t even take off your helmet - otherwise there would have been a hole in your head.
...I was also armed with a spoon, which I cast while in Vyazma. One friend there had a spoon with a handle in the shape of a naked woman, and we all cast our own spoons according to this model. Fortunately, a downed German plane lay near the camp.
...As for food, during four months of continuous fighting we only ate cabbage from our kitchen once. And so they ate mainly by going into the village and climbing through boxes in houses in search of food. Where they found bread, where milk, where eggs, and where they found some kind of chicken, scorched it and ate it. They often took food from dead Germans. So that's how we survived.
...At times we even envied the infantrymen - he ran across and lay down, but then we still had to drag a gun, and at least a couple of trays of ammunition. So these penalty officers are great! Just tell me, they always helped! And their role is known: either to the point of blood or to death.
...When I jumped and lay down in such a trench, two soldiers were already lying under me. Since I was the third in this trench, my back was somewhat higher than the parapet. But I hid my head and legs. And suddenly a piercing wheeze was heard below me: “Oh-oh!” Snoring followed. "What?! – I asked in surprise. “Is it hard to hold?” But he fell silent. When this whole story ended, it turned out that a fragment flew under my hand and hit him in the back. And thus he was killed.
...What we really felt from the help was that we received American cars: jeeps and Studebakers, and passenger cars - Jeeps - for the authorities. We had a Studebaker. We, the artillerymen, are very grateful to this machine. She saved us, I don’t know how: she has 2 driving axles, there is also a winch: you can hook it to a tree on a cable, turn on the motor and it will reel in and pull out. This was indispensable for us, and then, in order to carry our guns - 2.5 tons - we needed not a pair of horses, but tractors, and they are slow-moving. Studebaker reached speeds of 50 or even 70 km/h, and we became more mobile. We began to move after the enemy for 20-30-40, or even 50 km. This is a huge advantage!
...It was near the house of apparently some rich Pole. The headquarters was concentrated there. The scouts were concentrated there... Well, this whole command group. And we are all in open trenches. In order to somehow protect themselves from the rain, some made a niche for themselves in the wall of the trench. But I didn’t do it because I saw that when a mine or shell exploded nearby, the niche would collapse and collapse. Moreover, the person was pulled out already dead. Cloak tents were issued only to 82 mm mortar men and heavy machine gunners to cover machine guns and mortars. And so, when the rains started in September, there was only one place left dry. This is a cap under the helmet, and just squeeze out the rest.
...Those soldiers who fought on the right side of the Don, they saw the German strength and saw their strength, what we fought with and what they fought with. There was little faith that our Victory would come; they were much stronger than us. But, you see, they convinced us that we were stronger in spirit, but can you really catch his spirit?! And you see a German, armed to the teeth.
...Another rush forward several kilometers, but then the command: “Stop!” The battalion stood up. I remember such a wide hillock and a huge potato field on the left. New command: “Ten steps to the left. Get down! Halt." And everyone lay down in between. In the rain, in greatcoats, straight into the mud... Then Vanya Baranov comes running with his scouts and reports to the battalion commander: “Comrade Major, a hundred meters above there is a huge barn with hay. We checked, it's not mined, nothing. Let's go guys there." Here I saw for the first and last time how the battalion commander begged, literally begged people. Well, Sirotkin had to know that. He walked on these potatoes between us and said: “Well, guys, get up! Well, a little further up and there’s a barn.” There was a halt for about thirty to forty minutes, but not one got up, not one... Then they finally got up and moved on. I repeat, incredible tension, it is beyond human capabilities. If you had told me before the war that I would have to endure this at the age of eighteen, I would not have believed it.
...They brought me to Angarstroy, and the ship went to America. Our captain was Bondarenko. My duties as a barmaid included serving the command staff. This is, serve first, second. In general, lunches and cleaning the quarters of the captain and first mate. We walked for about half a month. We arrived in Portland. We loaded ourselves with granulated sugar and went back. In America, of course, everything is different. Even the air is different. I remember the Americans were crying that they had granulated sugar on ration cards. And I think: “Well, they’re still complaining, but my mother is dying of hunger in Leningrad.” This all happened in March - April 1942.
...I had normal clothes, I had boots, for example. We - the soldiers - did not understand this. The red boots were not ours, but English ones, and we walked in them and thought they were ours. They will give us food, we think it’s ours, but it’s not ours. Especially sausages. English ones in tins. Good ones! There was just one smell... It really was sausage, they don’t make that kind of sausage in our country now!
...I remember well how, even before the war, a car arrived in our village at night. Six healthy, hard-working men disappeared without a trace. The ends, as they say, are in the water. I also had a comrade at the front who commanded the first platoon. He was much older than me, born in 1903, and could easily pass for my father. Before the front, he served in the NKVD. So, he told me the following about his work: he personally received assignments from the leadership to travel around villages and arrest a certain number of people.
...The food supply at the bridgehead was very bad. All day the crossing was either bombed or shelled. Only at night they brought huge thermoses of millet porridge. And this millet porridge has already gone sour. For example, I couldn’t eat it, well, I couldn’t. I was as hungry as a dog, but I was not able to eat this porridge. They said: “Guys, it’s not our fault. This porridge was served to us in the morning, but we only came to you at night. There was no way to pass." During my entire stay at the front, I was never given vodka.
...Now I myself can’t even believe that we were able to live in the trenches in an open field, in the snow, in the cold, without undressing, without taking off our shoes, without water, without heating for three whole months... How we survived all this, I don’t understand.
...One time I was walking along the road to the regimental headquarters, almost sleeping as I walked, and suddenly I felt people “flowing around me” from all sides, I opened my eyes, and along the road they were leading a crowd of captured Germans, about thirty people, in formation, and they were walking around me with both sides. The prisoners overtook me, and when I approached the headquarters, I heard wild screams and screams. Our “son of the regiment” stood drunk and in tears at the headquarters; the Germans were brought up to him and he shot them all one by one... How these captured Germans screamed terribly before being shot.
...Then we went on the attack, and Volodya Klushin chased the German officer. But his machine gun ran out of cartridges and he, removing the disk, threw it at the fleeing German. He turned around, fired twice, and one bullet hit Volodya in the left side of his chest, under the nipple... He fell, we took his documents, and sent a funeral to his mother. It seems that before the 15th anniversary of the Victory, we gathered almost for the first time, all the veterans who were able to come. We agreed to celebrate Victory Day and collected money for a banquet. When my turn came and I gave my money and said my last name, a man sitting nearby came up and said: “Listen, where are you going?” We all addressed each other as you. I answer: “To the Chernyshevskaya metro station.” - “And I should go there too.” They went out and he asked: “Well, how are you doing with the mortar man?” I say: “Listen, you’re wrong. I’m not a mortar man.” - “Well, early in the morning of September 18, weren’t you the one who fired from the fifty-kopeck rifle?” And only then did I begin to guess who I was talking to: “Volodya, is that you?” He answers: “Yes.” I ask: “Why haven’t you responded for so many years? They killed you? A German officer shot you in front of me, and I remember how you were lying around, and the guys were pulling out your documents.” - “Well, as you can see, he’s alive...” As the doctors explained to him, the bullet passed a millimeter from the heart at the moment of its contraction. Instead of the subway, we went to some tavern and got so drunk that we crawled home, supporting each other. Well, this is the case, of course... And many years after the war, Volodya Klushin went to Estonia. He really wanted to find this trench where this “meat grinder” took place. His wife Nina Andreeva told me about this. They came there on their vacation. A local teacher drove them in his car, they searched for several days and finally found them. The crumbling trench was preserved, and Ninka told me: “I was standing at the top, Volodka jumped down there, leaned his elbows on the parapet and suddenly crawled down. Lost consciousness...” He, of course, was immediately taken to the local hospital and there they brought him back to order. I then asked him: “Vovka, what’s the matter? What happened to you? Heart?" He replies: “No heart, nothing like that. It was just a sunny day, exactly the same as the one when we were there. I jumped into the trench and saw the Krauts coming across the clearing straight towards me... I raised my hands, but there was nothing in my hands. And that’s it, I can’t tell you anything more...” These are the strongest experiences.
...An infantryman has great fear: you go on the attack, they shoot at you, and you have to go! You can only lie down on command, overcoming such fear is great courage, they are all heroes.
...These I-16s appeared, there were seven of them, they were about to land. And then our anti-aircraft gunners started shooting at them. This all happened before our eyes. The pilot flies low, shows red stars. There was great confusion because the Germans sometimes used our signs to strike, and people no longer knew who to shoot at. The plane caught fire, the pilot jumped out, the parachute opened, we thought that he would be saved, but there was not enough height, and he crashed. The others sat down. A car arrived, and the anti-aircraft gunner ran: “I shot it down!” His comrade says to him: “Yes, you shot it down.” Look who you hit."
...I remember this moment: a blue-eyed sailor guy is walking. The rest of the sailors trail behind him. And what’s interesting: they don’t carry, but drag rifles. So tired, so hungry that they could no longer carry their weapons. For example, what kind of order did the Germans have? After they have been on the front line for a week, they are sent to the rear. There they are in the fresh air, play volleyball, and eat well. What did we have? They put everyone at Stalingrad, there was no rest, they were constantly in combat readiness, and, moreover, they were fed poorly.
...Every big boss always had a woman as a telephone operator. What is she forced to do? If she doesn’t lie with him today, then tomorrow she will go to the infantry. It's better to be near this commander. Afterwards Makarenko served with me in Germany, and got married in Germany, and lived with this Polina. So what! It also seems like a violation, but there is a woman, and there is a man... Women, it was very difficult for them too! There was the greatest respect for them, nothing can be said here. Even going to the toilet is a dangerous thing, because there are men all around. I know the commander of a machine gun company, whom I would reward, I don’t know how! She has everything in order in the trench, everything is sewn on her, boots. She is a tough lady - she held the soldier like that! Commander of a machine gun company! Claudia was a nurse, healthy, and carried the deputy battalion commander! Any role is difficult, even the laundresses in the rear, and I take them most seriously. Now, by the way, there are more people alive than men. The men have died out and you see women in the hall.
...No one knew that I was a believer. I didn't emphasize this. He would go somewhere to the side and silently pray in the morning and before going to bed. I did not stay in the hospital for long. Everything healed very quickly. The bullets didn't touch the bones. Still, the Lord God protected me.
...In Leningrad I was in hospital No. 1014, at 48 Moika. When I was just brought in, I remember the head of the department, medical service colonel Sara Moiseevna, came into the ward surrounded by his retinue; unfortunately, I don’t remember her last name. I was sent to the operating room. It was necessary to remove the tampon, and when the nurse, such a healthy guy, pulled on it, I screamed and said that I wouldn’t let him. She turned to me and swore. I must say that she smoked, and she had such hands... Well, in general, a real surgeon. He asks: “Why won’t you give it?” - “I won’t give it to you and that’s all,” because it’s already painful, and even when they’re pulling from the inside... It feels like you’re going to die... She says, in the spirit of, like, take this fool off the table. They took me down, put me on the floor, and Sara Moiseevna said: “Wash his hands with alcohol. Let him take it out himself.” They wash my hands, and she leans over me and says: “Close your eyes!”, and puts a mask on my face. I didn't even realize it was anesthesia. He says: “Count!” I counted to fifteen or twenty when she jerked and took out this tampon. Everything is clear, hundreds of wounded have been brought in, and there is no time to bother with me alone. There was a real conveyor belt going on, and it was necessary to move faster, faster. So it was all justified. But the next time they brought me in for a dressing, I screamed again and said: “That’s it, you won’t deceive me again!” She says: “On the floor. Wash his hands. And don’t be afraid, I won’t wear a mask. Pick yourself, but if you pick at the wound, I’ll give you court martial!” This was said in all seriousness, because some did this on purpose so as not to go to the front again. I peeled off the edges, and she came up to me and said: “Well, well done!”
...Once we were forced to cover our own with artillery fire. Penalties were surrounded on the Miuss front, Saur-mogila, they could not fight back in any way and drew fire on themselves. The Germans were approaching them. It was all forced... We were sorry, we knew they were there.
...In the field they stood up on the defensive and began to dig in. And this picture stands before my eyes as if alive now. An open field, snow all around, and a “frame” flying above us. Of course, there is no smell of any kitchen. As it turned out later, our kitchen then, together with the cavalrymen, galloped 50 kilometers to the rear, and was found only on the third day. And what a shame. The barrier detachment detained everyone, and the kitchen, the only source of joy on the front line, did not have time to stop... The law of meanness.
...At this time, a German machine gun came to life, firing from the window of the only house standing on our flank. The company commander began yelling again: “Altshuller, calm down the machine gunner!” I fired and hit on the second shot. The machine gun fell into the street, and the machine gunner hung from the window. The guys told me about this later. A close explosion deafened me and I lost consciousness. Seeing this, my partner Sonya told the orderly: “Pull him out, and I’ll cover you.” The orderly crawled towards me, and at that time the Germans jumped out from behind the house and opened heavy fire. Sonya covered us with her fire and saved the orderly and me, but she herself was hit in the collarbone by a bullet, which is why left hand She remained paralyzed. After the war, by the way, she wrote me letters and invited me to visit. Moreover, she wrote with humor: “I understand that you cannot be the godfather of my children due to the national problem, but at least come and have a look at them.” After the war, she had four children: three boys and a girl.
...The Yak-1 aircraft were not of good quality, they had a flaw: oil leaked from the crankshaft and got onto the pilot’s canopy. In an air battle, you don’t have to think about how to shoot down, but simply survive! The planes were rather weak. This messer realized that he seemed to have wounded me, and began to finish me off. I brought the plane out of a tailspin - into a frontal attack. The German thought that I would not go head-on. But what do I care? I also press the triggers, but I actually can’t see the target, because my visor is all greasy. In short, we went through this with him - and parted ways. I arrived at the airfield alone, reporting to the regiment commander that a group of messengers met us in the Kharkov area, and an air battle began. Those two never returned from the battle, and I became deaf - I climbed up to 5,000 meters without oxygen, but remained alive. That was the end of my flight.
...And when we went further along the country road, I suddenly needed to go into the bushes. I walked in, sorry, sat down... And suddenly I saw a “Fritz” sitting not far from me, an officer, in the same position. I grabbed my pants, jumped out onto the road and literally shouted: “German!” Vanka Baranov and the guys rushed there and only returned 10-15 minutes later. They finished him off there, and the guys gave me a small “Parabellum” they had taken from him and a gorgeous fountain pen, then they called them “eternal pen”. I kept it for a very long time afterwards. It was so beautifully made that I wrote my dissertation on it and later, when I taught at school, I had it.
...I wasn’t very well oriented and chose the observation point for the enemy’s front line carelessly: I went out into the bushes at the edge of the forest, in view of the village of Chernushka, pulled out a map, let’s look at it and mark it, and at that moment a single shot rang out from the German positions, it hit me into a field bag with an explosive bullet. A piece of bullet tore out a piece of my flesh right here, the scar still remains. I didn’t feel it right away, I plopped down in the bushes next to my soldier, and he said to me: Comrade junior lieutenant, your gun went off. Then I noticed, I saw blood, but I’m young, and this is the time - I pressed an individual bag to the wound, bandaged it, and I myself had some kind of inner joy: I suffered at the front, received a wound, shed blood. Satisfied, he returned to his position, I wrote a letter to my mother, saying, Mom, don’t worry, I’m lightly wounded. She's there... jumping in fright. There were many of us, junior lieutenants and platoon commanders. And it’s a pity that so little is said about the contribution to the Victory that such yesterday’s tenth-graders made, such Vanka platoon leaders at the forefront, led people and died themselves. Out of a hundred people born in 23-24, only three survived, the rest died.
...They gave me our three-line rifle, but with a German Zeiss optical sight. The three-ruler is a wonderful rifle. If you shoot her properly, what do you think? It's a reliable weapon and very simply made. The German sight was considered better than ours only because it had a gutta-percha eyecup. Ours was somewhat longer and did not have a softening eyecup, so when firing, many guys were afraid of recoil, and because of this, shooting accuracy suffered.
...I remove the pin from the grenade, the grenade remains cocked, and as soon as I release my hand, there’s an explosion and I’m gone! I’ve already thought how many of our people have died - and I still have to die. So I’d rather die from my grenade. This thought has not yet passed when I stumble upon a German armored personnel carrier, we were walking in rye, taller than a man, the rye is good. So they collided with it - the body and sides, all iron, they were sitting, I screamed: “Hands up!” Showed them the grenade. They weren't expecting me, just where did I come from? They immediately jumped up and held their hands up, I had an instant thought: “What am I going to do with them, because I myself am already surrounded.” I didn’t throw the grenade, but threw it over the side and looked in the grenade’s wake - it rolled across the floor and right at the feet of one German. He jumped, got scared. A stone under the car closer to the cabin, and then an explosion! I don’t know what happened to them in the back, but I know that the car was torn, and where the Germans were, how they were beaten, I don’t know, I didn’t see them. There wasn't even anyone left in the cabin. The explosion was so strong that the car was blown apart. They probably still had their ammunition there. Our guys from the 33rd division were right there, they were running after me and they saw this whole picture. They ran up and carried me away, and they began to blow on my cheeks and in my mouth, they realized that I was shell-shocked, completely muffled... I could barely hear the conversation: “Yes, this is someone else’s soldier, why are you messing with him? Let’s go, otherwise it will happen to us too.” Another says: “No, he’s not a stranger, you see - he killed the Germans?! This is yours! And that’s it - I feel like some kind of stone is rolling towards me, I lose all my strength and consciousness, everything is torn away from me... I don’t remember how they transported me across the Don. I just remember, but I don’t know how long, the sound of wheels on the railway - they knock at the junctions - then the knock reached my ears, and where am I, and again I’m going into some hole. I came to my senses in Ryazhsk, Ryazan region, already in the hospital, there were doctors or nurses in front of me, some were in white coats, and I realized that I was saved.
... There were fierce battles here, it was difficult because we had swampy terrain, lakes, tanks, no aircraft support, all military equipment was deployed in the central areas of the battles. We had such a case during the transition: a small soldier of a mortar crew, carrying a slab, and for a minute it weighed 16 kilograms, and so, he said: I can’t walk, I don’t have the strength. They tried to persuade him, but he said, shoot me, he said, I can’t go. We unloaded him, took everything, the sergeant-major fastened him to himself with part of his belt, and pulled him until he got his second wind. Then this boy became a good soldier.
...And somewhere two kilometers from the airfield he sat down. Well, we took the pilots. They brought me to the regiment commander and began interrogation. The pilot speaks Russian.
- Where did you learn Russian?
- You.
He was either in Moscow, or in Kyiv, in the flight units... Well, at the end of the conversation, Pavel Terentich asks:
- Tell me openly - will you defeat us?
- No. But we will teach you fools how to fight.
Well, after that he gathered us... It’s like we - seven or eight of our planes saw one German, and everyone is on him, everyone wants to shoot down... And this is wrong... He says - “If you want a result, work in pairs.” . And so things started to happen. In general, we were not prepared for war, of course, there were heavy losses.
...All the dead were then dragged into craters and filled to capacity. Then their bodies froze and became covered with snow. In fact, no one buried them then.
...When closer to spring we arrived at this bridgehead, all the craters filled with water and these corpses floated to the surface with their backs. It became impossible to breathe. But then our command realized that an epidemic could start because of this, and they made the following decision: drag the dead into large craters that were formed due to large high-explosive shells, and dump them there. They still remained there, no one reburied them. There are no roads there, a completely empty area. And the recent reburial of our fallen soldiers in Sinimäe is a drop in the bucket. Many are still lying there!
...Don’t believe that people on the front line didn’t get sick. They were still so sick. I already told you that Kolya Bodrov was simply tormented by otitis media, and Trunov, for example, was tormented by furunculosis. And this is what happened with Kiryanov. When he developed serious problems with his liver, almost jaundice began, he was admitted to the hospital. But after his recovery, he ended up not with us, but with the infantry, and trampled with them to East Prussia. And only when we met in Pompiquene, he began to beg our chief of staff to be taken back, but this was only possible with great difficulty.
...One night they suddenly caught up with soldiers; as it turned out later, it was a penal company. And I think it’s stupid, of course, that they were thrown into battle. They carried out a weak artillery barrage for about ten minutes and they went to take the heights with virtually “Hurrah!” The Germans, of course, immediately became alarmed and opened heavy artillery fire. In general, not only were these penalty soldiers beaten, but many of ours also died, because the 1st battery was ordered to accompany them in the attack and support them with fire. But where is it, in an open field without digging in... In general, this attack ended ingloriously, I think it was in vain that people were killed...
...There were additions to the winning accounts. Of course, this could happen. The Germans had only 5 thousand planes, and we shot down 10 thousand. How to understand this?
...At the end of May we were removed and taken to rest in the rear, about a hundred kilometers away. There we were immediately transferred and began to be fed according to the rear norm, and this is water and water. In the very first week, a woman from a neighboring village comes to the regiment commander in the morning to complain: “My cow is missing.” We began to investigate, and it turned out that it was not ordinary soldiers who stole it, but two of our best intelligence officers, who were awarded medals “For Courage” for the battles in Sevsk. No one else was awarded to us, only them. We were all suddenly gathered, lined up, and regimental commander Nikolai Vasilyevich Dmitriev said: “I myself awarded these fellows, but they stole a cow from my aunt... From a mother who needs to feed her children!” I won’t tell you how he swore, but then he himself tore off these medals from them and ordered them both to be sent to a penal company...
...It happened like this once in the Baltic states: they transfer us from one section of the front to another, a very difficult march - early spring, lakes, swamps, frozen water, and on top there was such a mess of snow and ice. It's very hard to walk. We finally got onto the road, we were walking, and suddenly we heard a brass band playing military marches! We immediately picked up the pace, before that we had been trailing along. According to the ranks they say: division commander, division commander! He understood that in this state we would not be able to go straight into battle, we needed to be cheered up and instilled with fighting spirit. We all walk smart, in step, and again they pass through the ranks: girls, girls! To the right of the road there are female snipers, all young. We opened our mouths and walked and stared.
...The company commander, Captain Smirnov, was traveling with us in the carriage. The captain plays the guitar and suddenly calls me: “Will you sing along with me a Jewish song? - “Exchange forty million for me.” But I had never heard this song before and he was surprised: “How is it that you, a Jew, don’t know it?” There were four of us Jews in the platoon, two from Odessa. And when the captain began to play, Mishka came up, followed by the others, and began to sing along with him. Then two or three more songs, and the guys started asking for more. But he put down the guitar, saying that he couldn’t sing on an empty stomach: “I would give anything to eat and drink.” Mishka asks: “Would you give everything away?” The captain replies: “That’s it!” Then Mishka says: “Well, then take off your sheepskin coat.” And when we stopped, Mishka quickly ran away and found out that we would stand for two hours. He returned and said to me, another soldier and my friend Sashka: “Put on the red patrol bands and take the machine guns!” He, Lyosha Kuznetsov and another one took all this junk, but everything was new. These snow-white short fur coats are so beautiful. We went to the square where there was a market where Lithuanians sell smoked meat, moonshine, and freshly baked bread. He asks the price, gives away the sheepskin coat, and puts food in his duffel bag. And so on to the second, third... And we go behind and take note. Then we approach the first Lithuanian and say: “There is a war going on, and you are stripping the army!” Do you want to take a walk with us to the commandant’s office?” Of course: “No, no, no!” and gives away his sheepskin coat. In short, we took all the sheepskin coats and felt boots back and returned with food and drink. There was enough for the whole carriage, because everyone brought a duffel bag of food on their back and two “cidors” in their hands. What was there... The guys got drunk and had fun. We sang songs with a guitar.
...And one day a seriously wounded German officer came to us. He didn't know a single word of Russian. And that means they put him in a separate room. In the morning I go to see him, and he screams hysterically and points at something. I do not understand anything. But there were those who knew German, and they translated for me: “Rats are running around. He's afraid of rats." I reported this to the doctor so that he could take some action. The doctor said to him: “My dear! Our people were afraid when you hanged many of our people. So just be patient with the rats. Lie down."
...The task of our corps and division, as I understand it, was to make a hole in the enemy’s defenses, so our losses were very large, and because of this we did not have sniper groups. The snipers also had to go on the attack, they said that they could do it a little behind, but what kind of place is there behind when Vanya Budarin, our platoon commander, is running... Lord, what can we talk about?
...I looked around: nearby the girl anti-aircraft gunners were shooting with all their might, they were firing from anti-aircraft guns at these planes that we hated, the sounds of “bump-bump-bump” were heard, but everything was to no avail. Their commander was either in the rank of senior lieutenant or in the rank of captain. And then I found a covered truck next to them. It turned out that it belonged to them. I immediately ran up to them and said: “Give me the car. My hospital director is wounded.” They told me: “Okay! But you can take one of ours then.” Agreed. I put our hospital director in the back of the car. But there were still many empty seats left. I decided to use this chance and shouted loudly: “Who else can come and get into the car? There is room in the back!!!” And then an incident happened that I will never be able to forget. My operating room nurse is running towards the back of the car. Intestines are spilling out of her tattered belly, but she tucks them in and holds them in place as she runs. Then, of course, we put it in the back. But what to do next? We were only very roughly told: somewhere here in the forest there is a newly formed military hospital, go there. And where he? How to look for it? We didn't know any of this.
...I remember they once gave me a Vlasovite as an orderly, a young, handsome boy, about 15-16 years old, Ukrainian. For some reason, I didn’t go to the neighboring camp for several days. And suddenly I met girls from this camp. This Vlasov man was walking next to me. “Oh-oh-oh,” the girls exclaimed, “Zhenya, what a handsome orderly you have. That’s probably why you don’t come to visit us.” And you know what? He blushed and cried and said, “You know, you can look at me. And I am a Vlasovite, and therefore I have no right to look at you.” And then he told me his story: “You know, I came to the Germans when I was only 12 years old. The Germans occupied our village. And we boys, you know, were very curious, we all hung around their guns. So I ended up with the Germans.” I don’t know the further fate of this boy. I felt very sorry for him.
...At night we successfully crossed neutral and walked eight to ten kilometers. Suddenly one of our two observers crawls up and says: “Fritz is coming!” We look, indeed, a German is walking along the path and whistling some kind of song. “Warm”, coming straight towards us... They took him, he didn’t even have time to utter a word. They tied my hands and imprisoned me. I started interrogating him. But at first he couldn’t even speak, his teeth were chattering so much. It turned out to be an old man, fifty-two years old. He works as a stoker in a hospital or rest home for pilots located nearby. But we didn’t need such a “language”, and we didn’t need its pilots. Well, what can they tell us? The question arose, what to do? There is no way to return without a “language”, which means you have to move on. They began to consult what to do with the prisoner, and the “Fritz” understood everything... And turning to me he asked: “Papir!” They gave him a piece of paper and a pencil. He wrote and, giving me the note, explained that he lives in Bremen, that he has three children, and he asks us, if we survive, to deliver this note to the address he wrote on it. In the note, he wrote that he was seriously wounded and would probably never return... I transferred our conversation to the guys. They sit and don’t answer. Well, of course, it’s not easy for an old man, unarmed, you know... And then he says that ahead, about two hundred meters away, there is a rock road. The commander left one person with the prisoner, ordering him to kill the German if he heard shooting. One chief sergeant took with him an officer's cloak, a cap and a large field gendarmerie badge that was worn around his neck. As soon as we lay down in the bushes on both sides of the road, a passenger car appeared - an Opel Captain. The dressed-up chief sergeant goes out to the middle of the road, stands up spectacularly and points to the edge of the road with his baton. The car stopped and we immediately jumped out. There were two officers in the car. One, when he saw us, pulled out a pistol and shot himself. The other sat and trembled, holding some kind of briefcase in his hands. The driver jumped out and ran, well, a burst of machine gun fire hit him in the back... They pulled out the officer, he turned out to be the deputy chief of the operations department of either a division or a corps. They put his own trouser belt around the captured major's neck and led him by it. Where should he go? And his trousers didn't hold up well. So, we went back and suddenly everyone started running at the same time. Imagine, we all felt sorry for the German, who was supposed to be finished off by the soldier remaining with him if he heard shots on the road... We ran up, and he was sleeping peacefully and even snoring. And next to him is a “Fritz”, bound hand and foot, gagged, and staring in horror at him and at us. At night we safely crossed the front line and handed over the German captain to the headquarters. They also wrote a long letter there, in which they told how, thanks to this old man, the rock road was discovered, a valuable “tongue” was taken, and they asked to let our “Fritz” go home. They handed him this letter and, showing him where to go, sent him alone, without an escort, to the collection point for prisoners. This was memorable, because they themselves did not yet know whether they would return alive, and they felt sorry for the old German.
...We were given porridge in briquettes. This concentrate could be placed in hot water and within a few minutes the porridge was ready. And short poems were printed on the packs of these concentrates. On millet, for example, they say: “Help yourself to millet porridge, / and feed the enemy steel, / so that the enemy, not invited, / does not trample his native land!” On another briquette there was a picture of a German descending by parachute. The one with the swastika on his sleeve, and sorry, with a huge butt. And below there is a Red Army soldier who is holding a bayonet and the German butt is already a few centimeters from the bayonet. Under the picture it was written: “You were looking for a landing site on the Soviet line. / Fly, fly, a place to land is already ready for you.”
...Women at the front were pitied, respected, helped in everything, because they felt that only this was our salvation, only they could save us, no one else. Well, that's how it should be. The Germans have machine guns and machine guns, but we only have rifles. What about the rifle? Sand gets into it and the shutter does not want to move. So the German overpowered us, squeezed us, and let’s run back! And I ran back. Oh, how I slipped away! My winding unwound, I fell down, quickly wound it up and run again, otherwise the Germans would take prisoner. When I was running through a village that had recently been taken, I always remembered this episode: one of the old-time soldiers was hit in the stomach. This soldier was lying behind the fence, and I was just running and ran into him. He stuffs his intestines into his stomach with his hands and says: finish me off, finish me off. Who's going to finish you off?!
...It was especially difficult for ordinary nurses. After all, for 70 people in the tent, only one sister was allocated, who, moreover, no one had yet replaced. And she was with these wounded around the clock, comforting them, reassuring them, talking to them on various topics. This was her main responsibility. I remember when we were somewhere “on the defensive,” wounded began to arrive, but there weren’t enough nurses. And so, I come to the tent to the wounded and say: “Where is the sister? We need to take her for dressing...” To which one of the wounded said to me: “Speak quietly, she is sleeping. We won’t let her wake up.” This is how they loved the nurses in the hospitals. And it even happened: when my sister fell off her feet from fatigue and fell asleep, the wounded soldiers themselves replaced her, looked after the other wounded and said: “Let him sleep! I'm tired..."
...One sniper came to give birth to us during the war. I don’t know where they recruited them from? But she was very vulgar, and we were not used to rudeness there. And as soon as she gave birth, she left the child and ran away from our hospital to the front. Where was the child supposed to go? And we had one nurse working for us, a Muscovite. She was born without a father and was the only child of her mother. And her mother wrote to her: “I want you to be alive. Give birth to a child somewhere and come to me!” And so this nurse took the baby and went to her home in Moscow. We sewed gauze diapers for her and gave them to her from the bottom of our hearts, giving her a scarf and wrappings. It's a pity I never found out her address. It would be interesting to know what happened to this boy? Now he would probably be over sixty.
...This was my first fight. There were 370 of us. They gave the command. We started screaming and screaming. The Germans fled, we beat some of them. We reached this position and captured the height. We dug in. The night is coming. Everything is quiet, whether there is a connection or not, I don’t know. The Germans cut us off and again captured the trenches through which we broke through. The platoon commanders decide what to do next and say: we will fight our way back. In the morning we lined up and went to attack in the back of the Germans. We made our way through them again, with relative ease. But when we broke through and began to move along the no-man's land, disaster struck. The Germans opened such artillery fire on this place! We crawled out. We were gathered, lined up in a ravine, and it turned out that there were only 70 of us left.
….Once again this happened: somehow we came under heavy shelling in the Baltic States, we lay down, mine explosions were falling very close - fear! Everyone plopped down on their belly, I looked - and before my eyes - blueberries! And the berries are so big, there’s a lot of them! They didn’t care about everything, they began to collect it while lying down with their lips. Then everything was black. I immediately remembered Izmailovo, how we went into the forest to collect it. It would seem that war is a terrible thing! And here it is – blueberries.
...We nurses were constantly hungry. We were given only a cracker or a piece of bread per day. But we continued to work. Let's eat some crackers, drink a glass of boiling water, and get down to business again. We worked a lot. But the wounded didn’t ask whether we had eaten this morning or not, whether we were tired or not. They were interested in one thing: how they could get help as quickly as possible. They always moaned: “Sister, help-iii!” This was the situation: you didn’t know who to approach. And there were only four of us nurses who served them. But we were young and never refused them.
...Then we were fed mainly with pearl barley porridge, which was brought by the army kitchen at night, when the shelling subsided. To this was added a quarter loaf of bread and very occasionally some American pork stew. Since there were many dead horses in the field, we tried to cook horse meat, but the meat was tough and almost inedible.
...What was going on in this hospital! We were, one might say, already under fire as doctors and therefore knew the main rules of war. These doctors knew none of this. We brought the wounded, whom they saw for the first time. The entire hospital staff began to cry bitterly out of compassion. Then their chief surgeon tells me: “Wash yourself!” This surprised me a little. I answered him directly: “I can’t wash myself, because we have a two-hour readiness period. Now the army is preparing for an offensive. And if this is the case, I should be on the spot right away. Moreover, about half of my staff was wounded and killed.”
...There is one more thing. At the front, we were all believers to some extent, regardless of whether we were communists or not. They shoot at us or bomb us, but in their hearts almost everyone says: “Lord, blow me away!” I give you my word. Everyone was a believer at heart. - “God grant that it doesn’t kill you!” - “God grant that if they wound you, the wound will be small.” - “God grant, if death, then instantaneous, so that he dies immediately and that’s it, since this cannot be avoided.” Let the atheist communists not boast that they do not believe in God, they believed in him in their souls.
...Near the town of Kloga we broke into the camp. Concentration camp... There were six fires there. People shot in the back of the head lay on stacked logs covered in diesel fuel. On them were again logs and again people, and so on in three or four tiers... And in this camp we captured more than thirty SS men, but most of them were Estonians. My friend Sashka approached some barn and opened the gate. He was only 22 or 23 years old, but when he opened the gate, I saw how a man instantly grows old... He didn’t turn gray, no. It’s just that his back was somehow hunched over... I and some other guys came up and we all saw in this warehouse rows of children’s slippers, women’s hair, children’s clothes lying in piles... Then Vanya Budarin came up, looked, and when he turned around... I have such a scary face I never saw it again... He says to me: “Did you see the toilets there?” And nearby there were huge wooden toilets, worth twenty points each. On the wall of the barracks there was probably a fire shield on which crowbars and shovels hung. Vanya tells me: “Take crowbars and shovels. Tell the Germans to tear down the boards with these glasses." They approached the Germans, showed them, and explained what needed to be done. They did. Then he told us to cut the wires. Showed what size it was. Then he ordered the Germans to put their hands behind their backs and said to us: “Now tie their hands.” They are screaming, but where to go? And when they tied the hands of the SS men, he turned to me and said: “Now take them there and drown them all in shit!” I was stunned, I stood motionless, and suddenly he furiously shouted: “Are you a Jew or not?!” But I stood rooted to the spot. Vanya repeated: “Get everyone there now!” More guys came up, about five of them, and we took them all... Fortunately, they had their hands tied. At this time, the second landing group landed and Major Kondratenko was running towards us. He runs up and asks: “Where are the prisoners?” It’s just that when we landed, we radioed that prisoners had been captured. Budarin says, pointing to the toilet: “Over there...” The major shouted: “Who did this?!” I don’t know what pushed me, but I took a step forward. In such a rage, he began to tear at his holster, but then Vanka stepped between us and said: “Comrade Major, I ordered him. Better come to the barn." He shouts: “... your mother! Why do I need this barn?!” Budarin insists: “No, you come, come.” The major went into the barn... He came out and said: “If you survive and are nominated for a reward, I will tear the leaf with my own hands. If next time, due to your fault, there are no prisoners left, I will “slap you” without hesitation, and no commander will save you. Do you understand?”, turned around and left. I told this to you so that you understand at least a little that war is a truly terrible thing... The terrible thing, in fact, is not that he could shoot me, but that such collisions happened, it’s all inhuman. And this needs no justification. We did what we had to do! Something without which the country could not be saved, but remembering it is extremely difficult...
...This weapon was called “Farewell, Motherland!” Its essence is that it should go along with the infantry. Therefore, when the enemy sees infantry and a bunch of guns there, who will he shoot at? It is clear that based on the guns. That's why I got a real war. War is war: the smart one will profit, the handsome one will kiss, and the fool will fight. The most important thing is that they will break it - we think - well, now we’ll rest, at least get some sleep, but they’re going for ammunition, they’re bringing a forty-five again - get it!
...The whole farm was on fire and the Germans were running around it like partridges. And at this time the liaison officer of our first platoon commander comes running: “Senior Lieutenant Kremenchuk has been killed. I injured". The messenger himself was wounded in the stomach. I went up to help him, and everything just poured out of there, his entire stomach was shot through with several bullets. He: “You shoot me, I’m not a tenant!” Me: “How are you not a tenant? We’ll send you to the hospital now!” - “What kind of hospital is there!?”
...In war, as a rule, we moved on foot. Two hundred kilometers - all on foot, one hundred eighty, ninety - all on foot. There were two times when we were quickly transferred by cars. And not only that - with his feet, but also with a forced march, running. Because they broke through in one place, we need to go after them, develop an offensive, but there is no one! We are removed from one area, we run to where the urgency is greatest. Like this.
...Company commanders really did not like snipers. This was especially evident in defense. After all, life was more or less calm in the defense; the soldiers were somehow settling into life. The Germans generally loved comfort. Here's a very common example. Between us and the Germans there is the only well in the entire area. And during the day, both we and the Germans took turns going to him for water. And then a guy like me arrives, let’s say. And so this guy shot from his Berdanka with an optical sight at the German at the well and that’s it, goodbye to a quiet life. In response, the Germans brought down heavy fire from their six-barreled mortars, “donkeys” as they were called then. This is terrible... Everyone has to climb into “fox holes” in dugouts and can’t stick their head out, nothing... And all this, because of some “Fritz”, who perhaps hasn’t been hit yet. That's why they didn't like snipers, they didn't like them. I remember twenty years after the war, at one of the meetings I suddenly saw my fellow countryman, who was also a sniper. I saw two orders of “Glory” on his chest and when we started talking, I asked him: “Fedya, how many Fritz did you put in?” He looked at me intently, laughed and said: “Not a single one!” I didn’t believe it: “What are you doing, how are you?” And he answered me: “Our deputy battalion commander told me: “Don’t disturb our peace, but we’ll do what needs to be done. You will have marks on the butt, you will receive a reward, don’t worry.”
...For example, at Stalingrad, because it was frosty, we were given frozen bread, it was impossible to cut it and before eating it, it had to be heated on a fire, you can’t take it with a knife, you can only chop it with an ax, but it flies apart.
...For our native party, Estonia was a Soviet Republic, but for us it was still a foreign country. And they behaved accordingly. I remember well a two-story house: a pharmacy downstairs, a store on the second floor. The soldiers ran upstairs, and there lay large bundles of good fabrics. Immediately the guys began to tear and cut off pieces of these fabrics. We sat down on the floor, took off our boots, threw off the decayed footcloths and wrapped our feet in this luxurious fabric... There was a dairy plant nearby, something else, so we collected whole helmets of eggs... What was there. They took everything they could get their hands on. Of course, the Estonians saw all this and watched in horror, but the guys were hungry and angry. Which one, ask, they just took it away.
...They came at us twice, the ground shook... In front of me, the orderly’s left cheek was torn off, and he smiled with his right side, because he had the legal right to go to the rear... It’s such a meat grinder here...
…One day, from the hospital where he was recovering from a serious wound, an elderly Jew came to us for replenishment. He told me that three of his brothers had already died in battle. This soldier in our company was wounded again; during artillery shelling, he was cut by shrapnel, and he became blind. This signalman was lying alone on a snow-covered field, and heard a crunch, someone was walking towards him on the snowy crust, he saw nothing, he thought it was the Germans, prepared to die, and began shouting patriotic slogans: “Death to the German occupiers!” and the like, and the Red Army soldiers tell him: “Calm down! We are ours!”, and they dragged him to the rear, to the medical battalion...
...Suddenly, from around the corner, an Opel Blitz - a German lorry or two-ton - jumps out and rushes at great speed. Our offensive had just begun, and the Germans hoped to slip through to their own. One of the guys managed to throw a grenade, but it hit the side of the car and fell into our ditch. We were blown away by the wind, but Igolkin didn’t have time to jump out... I see Igolkin standing. His hand is raised and his fingers hang. He was a strong man, probably about twenty-eight years old, and he said to me: “Come here, take out the knife!” We had such landing knives. He took his left hand with his right hand, put it on the parapet and said: “Cut!” Can you imagine cutting? And he has blood and soil there, everything is mixed up. I stand and don't move. Then Gnedin comes up and takes the knife from me, but here I was smart enough. I pulled his hand away and said: “Let’s quickly get him to the “pmp” - the regimental medical center... Two months have passed, we are standing in this town of Irru. And then one fine day the door swings open and Igolkin enters. He was treated, his fingers were sewn on, and he came to us, can you imagine? Then he said that he did some special exercises to develop his fingers. And here he stands and holds two huge vessels with moonshine in both hands. And behind them stand two recruits loaded with sausage and all sorts of other snacks. Igolkin fought until the end of the war. Thank God, he remained alive and then went to his home in Siberia.
...The national composition of the batteries was quite diverse. We had Altaians, Ukrainians, and Jews. Of all the nationalities, the “Yeldashi” fought rather weakly; we called them the Central Asian republics; they were not suitable. But everyone else fought well. Now they are scolding Ukraine, but the Ukrainians fought very well then, and the Georgians, it was a single family at the front, no national discord, nothing. There were no intentions there - what difference does it make who he is? – We do the same thing together!
...After all, what we were afraid of during the war was tanks. The worst thing was the tank. Because there was nothing to fight the tanks except guns and Molotov cocktails.
...Some people still believe that one of the reasons for our victory at Stalingrad is that “General Moroz” was on our side. But the Germans, they say, were not ready for the frost and were not resistant. And in response I say: “Why didn’t we and the Germans freeze equally? It’s minus 30 degrees for them, and minus 10 degrees for us, or what?” We were also in the cold without apartments and without anything. There really were frosts and they greatly complicated the fighting: neither the infantry nor the artillery could dig in, it was impossible to hide. Only some natural relief, shelters. Moreover, it’s still winter and everything is perfectly visible against a white background! Not everyone had camouflage suits.
...The Germans are on the other side, we are on this one. They will put us in a boat of some people and transport us there. And the German from there will fire at the boat and the end of the boat - they pull us back on a rope, wounding someone. And so we tried several times and I was wounded in the other arm.
...When I was returning back, and then there had just been shelling, I heard a cry: “Help, help!” When I looked around, I found our seriously wounded soldier. I told him: “I’ll see the orderly now and send for you.” But when I got to the place where the shelling took place, I didn’t meet anyone. And so he moved on. I somehow forgot about the wounded man. But what could I do? Firstly, I had nothing to provide him with timely assistance and bandage him. And secondly, I didn’t know what to do and how to do it, how to bandage it. Now, of course, I would help him. But then our wounded soldiers lay in heaps in craters along with the dead. So this still haunts me.
...The Germans generally fired mortars well. And we are bad, always bad. Our artillery was good, but our mortar training... I don’t know why.
...There were severe frosts near Stalingrad. The weak died first. The person weakens and becomes warm. He gets out of the trench, lies down on the parapet - falls asleep and freezes. But at night you can’t see it. And so - many.
...We didn’t shoot down a single plane during the entire war: neither anti-aircraft guns, nor our two 100-mm guns. Once, when we were standing right above Stalingrad and, as they say, it was already felt that we would defend the city, two German planes flew at us. What kind of fire we opened on them! We shot with all the means we had. We decided: yeah, since the plane is flying, then let’s shoot there. And what? They were not shot down anyway; they flew back on their own.
...When we were preparing for battle for the first time. Lay down. We took up a firing position. And the German was probably also preparing to attack. How they rose there in their positions - a dark cloud! Lined up in chains. What about us? The first year we serve, we lie down - it’s scary, our knees are shaking. We are waiting for this “cloud” to come towards us. But they didn't go. They called off their attack. And then, tomorrow, they lifted us up and went there. This was the worst thing. Then my heart turned to stone, and it wasn’t so scary.
...The soldiers called all the women “Rama”. Zoya and Valya didn’t speak there... They shouted: the frame, the frame is coming! And the women responded: “Keep your dick straight!”
...I remember: we were walking across a field, and something grabbed my stomach. He grabbed me so much that I couldn’t put on my pants, I was very weak. And our medical instructor thought that I was already finished, he felt my pulse, my pulse was barely there. Well, they left, and I stayed in the field. I remember gnawing on some kind of head of cabbage, but it was tasteless. And they went further through the field and into the forest. There they dug themselves in the forest and dug trenches. I don’t remember how many hours I spent in the field, but they let me go, I got up and followed them. He came to his platoon and dug himself a trench. And the next morning a medical instructor came and looked - and I was sitting in a trench. He says: look - alive! And I thought that you were already finished.
...I just fell into a crater, and when I came to my senses, the self-propelled gun was already three meters away from me. I clearly remember that when she crawled nearby, I saw snowflakes melting on her side... And, probably in the heat of the moment, I stood up and threw a bottle at her. Then there were already self-igniting ones, which did not need to be set on fire first. It immediately flared up, and I, without even picking up the machine gun, rushed into the forest. He ran not towards the battalion, but down to a nearby country road. At the same time, he probably roared, because I remember, snot, tears were flowing, blood was gushing into my felt boots, I looked around and saw that two of these tankmen, SS men, were running after me. I am faster and they are faster... I will stop and so will they. I didn’t think very well then and jumped out onto the road, and “Dodges” with 76-mm guns were walking along it. I sat down right next to the road and the Jeep in front stopped, an officer jumped out and leaned over me. I remember seeing the shoulder straps of a lieutenant colonel. As I later found out, it was the artillery regiment commander: “What’s the matter?” I say: “The tank is there!” I didn’t know whether he was coming or not. The lieutenant colonel commanded, they immediately unhooked two guns and dragged them there by hand. I sit there, about twenty minutes later the guns return, and the gun commander reports. They killed one of those tankers and dragged the second one with them. The lieutenant colonel leans over again and asks: “Did you burn Ferdinand?” I answered something. He says: “Give me the Red Army book.” What kind of book is there, I’m sitting there, dying. Then, it seems, his adjutant took the book from me. They wrote something off and handed it back to me. A dressing bag was placed on the wound under the stomach. Then, seeing that I was unarmed, they put a carbine in my hands, got into the cars and drove away. I’m sitting with this carbine, and I’m getting worse and worse. Suddenly I see a “Fritz” coming towards me in the fog from the other side. I lay down, pulled the shutter and shot him point-blank. He fell about seven to ten meters away. I raised my head and suddenly such a choice curse word... Only in the navy did I hear such a thing. It turns out that it was my foreman. He pulled me onto himself and dragged me to the medical battalion.
...When we dug in, a rumor reached us that on such and such a street there was an unlooted store and there was wine and food there. Our stores before the war - there was nothing to talk about, nothing to see there. And there are dozens of varieties of wines, including German, French and Italian, Bulgarian, Polish and God knows what else. He drank and fell asleep. I woke up from the cold - I was frozen. I didn't have a watch. I opened my eyes, lay on my back, and my stars were jumping. I had no experience of being drunk, and I didn’t think it was from drinking, I immediately thought that we were being bombed and the earth was shaking. Then I listened - there were no explosions. Then I realized that apparently I was so drunk that my stars were jumping. I remembered about the connection, got up and immediately sobered up a little, but I didn’t know which way to go, it was dark, the area was unfamiliar. I heard some kind of hubbub, conversations, moreover, Russians or Germans - I didn’t know - I was careful (I didn’t want to die), and began to slowly follow this hubbub. Moreover, I could not understand in any way whether the Germans or the Russians were speaking, maybe they were still drunk, maybe they were too far away, but I couldn’t distinguish the speech. It’s just that the side from which the speech came was clearly audible. I stretched my arms forward (in case you fall again), and began to slowly move towards the sounds. Suddenly he ran into some large face ahead. The muzzle is so healthy and unshaven. I outlined her - a beard, some kind of rough, and our driver was my fellow countryman from the Stalingrad region and we had a firm agreement that if they were killed or wounded, I would definitely write a letter to my family, I had his address, and he had mine address. I ask: “Vasily Nikolaevich, is that you?” - He’s silent, sniffles, doesn’t say anything. I realized that it was not him. Well, I have this thought: What if it’s not ours, but a German? I ask: “Who?” - Silent. I ask in German - he is also silent. He puffs, but doesn’t answer. Quite a mystery! I begin to go down this beard, and what surprised me is that this beard is painfully long. And what literally sobered me up: Suddenly the beard ends and the legs start moving right away. Without a belly. And then it dawned on me that it was I who had gone into the reeds. He grabbed the horse by the tail. It’s good that the horses are front-line, they huddled close to the man. The horse is generally a smart animal. When she is bombed, shells explode, there is shooting, she is already accustomed to the sounds. And that’s why she was tolerant of my advances.
...There was a war in the penal company that I could neither understand nor understand. Where was I sent? What did we do? How did we do? I can `t get it. I remember we attacked some village. We dispersed and moved towards this village. The German opened fire and we walked across open ground. Who commanded me? What should I do? I don't know. I see that one was killed, a second, a third, there are already fewer of us. I approached the German positions so that I could hear German commands (I understand: “Prepare hand grenades!”). And there is no one to attack, everyone is beaten. I fell and am lying there. Where should I go? Night fell and I crawled back. This was my second fight.
...Snipers were taught to work in pairs, and I was assigned to pair with Parfenova Sonya, a Siberian born in 1923, originally from Tomsk. Sonya was such a large, portly girl, and to put it bluntly, I was far from being built like a guard. And I remember when I was introduced to her, she looked at me with regret. As I realized many years later, she simply felt sorry for me, because by that time she had already lost two partners, and I was the third...
...Then I look: ours have drifted away, the Germans are already visible, they are coming out from behind the trunks, but they are not going on the attack yet, they are waiting to see if ours will run, well, they almost didn’t wait. I look - one soldier is running from the left flank, I shout to him, “Back!” Brothers Slavs, hold on!” (Note - says veteran Semyon Zilbershten) And then I was hit in the chest, I fell on all fours, my hat flew off, the gun was in my hand and there was blood from my throat, there was blood on my face, it was difficult to breathe. Will our soldiers really give up this height?! The task was to hold! But then help arrived, and our medical instructor Shamovtsev ran up to me, raised his hat, put it on his head, grabbed me like a child - such a healthy man! He took me from the battlefield to a quiet place.
...At the front there was some kind of dull fear. The human mind was more present in us: you understood that there was no other way out and orders must be followed. And if someone wanted to run away somewhere, it was the state of an animal, not a person. We somehow got over it. Of course, I could run away and desert somewhere. But how could I escape? First of all, I was patriotic. And secondly, he understood perfectly well how all this could end. In the best case, I would have been sent to some penal company, in the worst, I would have been shot. And then I would be a traitor, not a patriot. Each person at the front had his own concepts. For me, what was the whole point of being at the front? Hide this fear. I showed that I was not afraid in war and gradually got used to this idea. I had no other way to overcome my fear.
...Here we see a “Fritz” lying around and a carbine to the side of it. Vanya tells me: “Take the carbine!” He himself bent over the German and, taking out the cartridges from him, began to hand them to me. I’m standing with this Belgian carbine, I’ve loaded a cartridge into the barrel. And suddenly Ivan says: “Don’t move!” He takes out the horn from his “PPS” and begins to carefully fill it with cartridges. I stand there and don’t understand anything, and he again: “Don’t move!” Well, I don't move. He filled it carefully, pulled back the lever, inserted the horn, clicked the bolt and shouted: “Shoot!” I looked back... Two hefty SS men were crawling out of the bread bin right behind us. We've already passed them, why did they end up there? No more than eight to ten meters. I was literally dumbfounded, for the first time I saw living Germans so close... But I shot at the first one. The bullet hit him in the cheekbone and flew out at the back of his head... He turned sideways, fell onto his face with his knapsack up, and Ivan shot the second one. If I had the opportunity, I would film this scene. I stand, look at them point-blank, and cannot move my leg. From fear or from what, I don’t know. Ivan calmly walked up to mine, sat on his sacrum, unfastened his backpack, took out a razor and asked me: “Are you shaving?” And I didn’t shave then. He threw away this razor and something else. He took out a flat, round, orange plastic box in which the Germans stored margarine. He unscrewed the lid and slipped it under his left armpit. He began to take margarine out of this jar with his finger and began to wipe his finger on the German’s right shoulder, which was not splattered with brains... Then he wiped the box dry with grass, took out a pack of shag from his pocket, crushed it, and poured out the shag. With his right hand he took the lid out of his armpit, wrapped it, put it in his pocket, and stood up: “Let’s go!” I still remember all this down to the smallest detail, because I stood there in a daze... Ivan had been fighting since 1942 and was already calm about such things, but my legs can’t move.
...The commander has measured out 8 meters for you, and you must dig them out in an hour or two. And in the entire profile, that is, up to the head. Even less than two hours, because it was getting light. The load was terrible. That's why we ate a lot. Now I have such a stomach - I will die if I eat as much as I could eat then. Once, the two of us ate a piglet in one sitting. Now I can’t imagine this.
...Two Filimonenko brothers served with us - gorgeous crests. Such good guys. Vanya fought since 1941 and I have never seen anyone else receive medals: “For the Defense of Odessa”, “For the Defense of Sevastopol”, “For the Defense of the Caucasus” and “For the Defense of Leningrad”. He was wounded several times, and for the battles near Odessa he was awarded the medal “For Courage,” which he treasured very much. It was of the old type, on a square block with a red ribbon and was fastened with a “nut”. He had three more medals “For Courage”, but later ones, on pentagonal blocks, attached to a pin. And when we were standing in Estonia, the following story happened. It's just a circus. We lived in a German barracks. Suddenly at night the cry of a drunken Ivan: “Rota rise!” He picked us up and pointed to his chest, on which hung a small red block, but there was no medal on it. Ivan got really drunk then. Lined us up in a chain. They collected some German newspapers there. They twisted them into bundles, lit them and wandered around for probably an hour and a half. They cursed and swore, but they still found it - it turned out that he had lost it not very far away.
...We staged a sketch and showed it not only in the hospital, but also organized concerts for the city. The sketch is like this: I, the commander of a partisan detachment, dressed in a German uniform, appear in the village to the headman, he tells me: who is the Komsomol member, who supports the partisans, all that and when he finishes, I take off my cap, pull out a pistol, he falls to his knees , I shoot - “A dog’s death!” and that's where it ends. The political officer gave me his pistol and a cartridge, I pulled out the bullet, left a little gunpowder and filled it with bread crumbs, and used this cartridge. Once, in my excitement, I shot wide, but hit him in the sandal! He shouts “What have you done, what have you done!”, runs backstage, I follow him - I’m scared.
...After all, the German was shooting all the time. It’s just that some stray bullet might hit us in our direction. At first it was like this: we have silence, but they are constantly shooting at us. Then we started, one was sleeping, the other was on duty, constantly awake, shooting. The Germans were very active in defense. It’s dark here, but the Germans are constantly shooting flares and they parachute down. Our guys didn't shoot. The Germans shouted: “Rus, when will you pay for the electricity?”
...I'll tell you one case. Believe me, it was like that. We were told to move to a different direction from this house. We ran along the trench. There is a soldier ahead of me, then I then again, again, again... And a mine explodes in front of the soldier running in front of me. I think so, now it will fall. But he doesn’t fall, but turns around, covered in mud, and says: “It’s okay for me.” We ran up and looked, but the mine unfolded like a daisy and the fragments did not fly.
...The next day, in the room opposite our room, they showed a feature film, I think the title was “T-9 Submarine.” All the guys except me and the pilot went to watch. But I suddenly wanted to watch a movie too, and when the last one left, I asked him to move two stools towards me. They left, that is, how they left, some on crutches, some with a stick, and I dragged my body onto the first stool. He sat down, then moved to the second one. I moved the first one forward, closer to the door and climbed onto it. So it probably took me half an hour to get out into the corridor and get to the room where the film was being shown. The guys opened the doors and pulled me in, but then I collapsed, losing consciousness.
...Our senior operating sister was a girl named Vilgelius, a Latvian by nationality, who was originally from Leningrad. We knew that she had been married since she was 15 (an extremely rare case at that time), although she had no children. One day our hospital did not have time to turn around properly. And suddenly our entire staff encountered a foot column of marines. Vilgelius was also standing with us. And there are surprises! A young boy burst out of the column, who turned out to be her husband. He, of course, asked for time off. And we organized a joint overnight stay for him and his wife for one or two times. And what? She got pregnant. This was already in 1942 in Mozhaisk. But since our entire hospital was overcrowded, we sent a pregnant nurse in a car with one young driver. They also loaded it with straw just in case. And this Vilgelius later told us how they were driving: every time, as soon as the fight began, the driver stopped the car and ran into the forest, waited until she calmed down there, then returned again and got behind the wheel. And when she gave birth, Berkutov arranged for her to be admitted to the high command hospital in Borovikha. One day I was there at a conference of Western Front nurses and met her. And suddenly I see this: the wounded are lying on a stretcher, and a one-and-a-half-year-old child is spinning around next to them. They play with it, turn it over and feed it. In short, the wounded raised him!
...After each shelling we had to change our position. They ran along the trench. It was impossible to go upstairs because there were fragments, fragments, fragments... And here a man lay face up and dead. And we have to go. Step on his chest or stomach. ... Somehow I don’t feel at ease. And so you put one foot between his legs, and the other on his shoulder and run. He lies there until the funeral team removes him. The losses were very large. Out of our group of 19 people, 14 people were killed and wounded in less than half a month.
...And if we talk about parcels in general, then how much donor blood was sent to us in boxes from all over the Soviet Union! Such parcels arrived by plane from everywhere: from Tomsk, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk and even from the Botkinsky district of Moscow. As the senior operating nurse, by the way, I was responsible for this. And I remember this incident well. A whole batch of blood arrived in square jars (at that time the ampoules were square, not round). And this is what was discovered: each ampoule contained half a centimeter of white film. I was scared, I even inadvertently thought: maybe there was some kind of infection, different microbes or bacteria? I turned to Berkutov, who constantly looked after me, so to speak: “Alexander Nikolaevich, I have such a story with blood.” To which he very calmly answered me: “You take it and heat it up. What do you want? This is what our people eat. How? Various surrogates." As it turned out, it was just fat. I warmed it up and then continued the blood transfusion again. Everything turned out to be ok!
...It even got to the point of being funny: the Americans sent us women white cambric panties and white stockings. Of course, we didn’t even put them on; we had many other worries besides this. They also sent us cans of American stew. We all called them “Second Front” as a joke.
...In January 1943 I was drafted into the army. I was 17 years and 4 months old. At the recruiting station they could have rejected me because I didn’t reach the meter-fifty mark. And my weight was 38 kilograms. This was such a “powerful” man. The nurse brought me to the military commissar and said: “He weighs 38 kilograms and is up to a meter tall - he’s not fifty.” The military commissar waved his hand and said: “He’ll survive in the army.”
...I carried a grenade specifically to explode. When we had not yet reached Nikolaev, I saw how a soldier threw a grenade at a German, one German exploded. And there are two more of them for one of ours. There was one behind and one more on the right, I was a little far away, but I saw it well, and they were pouncing on our soldier, as they piled on, and our grenade exploded and they all exploded. Then, near Nikolaev, I saw how this Muscovite girl was cut. I was afraid all the time so as not to be captured, so that the Germans would mock me. I wasn’t so afraid of bullets and shells.
...I flew because I was ordered to. What was I meant for? For war. And I knew that the war would not end in 1942, and it would not end in 1943. We haven't been to Ukraine. When will we get there again! I wanted the Americans to help... We need to finish this. Because I want to live, after all, I’m 21 years old. When Ukraine was liberated and Poland entered, it became clear that we would win. Groups of our German troops were visible from the air. You can see how they are advancing, how the operations are going. We saw that we had learned to fight. After all, during the first two years of the war we did not know how, we did not know how to fight at all.
...On this bridgehead there were Vlasovites and Germans against us. We were in captured German trenches, and there were only 50 meters between our positions. So the Vlasovites shouted “Ivan, come out, let’s talk!” This means that they leave unarmed, and ours comes out with a machine gun. They stand in the middle, no one shoots. They start talking: “We’ll capture you anyway,” the Vlasovites say, “we have smokes and everything else.” Well, these are the conversations. There is nothing to do on defense. (laughs). If we had political workers, they would scold and prohibit such conversations. But they were not there, and on the front line they did what they wanted.
...Here's how to go “to the yard”? There are soldiers all around and in an open field, we don’t walk through the forest and ravines all the time. Where to sit? And so the soldiers stood up, covered it with a cloak-tent, and then she sat down here. How difficult it is! And there was menstruation. I used cotton wool, and when I wore underpants, I had them. Everything would dry out, it would become so hard, but sometimes we crossed some streams or rivers, I only had to stretch out a little, and if during the battle, I did nothing, I just endured everything. I’ll get it, remember, remember, and again, but what are you going to do...
...We had a soldier wounded there, he was a handsome soldier, tall, well, I couldn’t fall in love, but I just felt sorry that he was handsome! He was wounded - the bullet hit his temple, closer to the eye, and came out of the temple, his eyes popped out... I bandage it and cry. He says: “Sister, why are you crying?” - “Yes, I’m crying - I feel sorry for you!” He: “Why are you sorry, I’ll die soon.”
...Khrushchev’s son, Leonid, arrived in this regiment. He was a bomber and joined us as a fighter pilot. We went on one of the flights near Bryansk as part of the regiment. There was no air battle, and Leonid disappeared. We arrived at the airfield, reported that everything was fine, but he disappeared. Then Golubev, the regiment commander, sent two units to this area to search. We flew at low level, searched, but never found it. Then I read that he died in an air battle. But I believe that there was no air battle.
...During the war, this happened once - one guy from the year 24 was arrested for singing the following song at a party:
"When Lenin died,
Stalin was punished:
“Don’t give me enough bread,
Don’t show me any meat.”
This is how he sang it, he was taken away by the “black funnel” and then returned only 10 years later... It turned out that in prison he was building a railway somewhere on the Amur.
...It is interesting that on each tent there were inscriptions in large block letters. For example, on the American tent there was the following inscription: “As a gift to the Soviet Union from the Red Cross Society of the United States of America under the chairmanship of Leonora Roosevelt.” Or almost the same inscription on English tents: “As a gift to the Soviet Union from the English Red Cross Society, chaired by Miss Churchill.”
...Where I was born, they say not why, but why, not Or, but Ale. I remember in our village there are guys walking with an accordion and singing: “Ale you nya vi, nya see. Hello, can you hear me, can you hear me. The Red Banner is carried forward..." This is a kind of Pskov dialect. And then a guy came with the replenishment. He comes up to me and says: “Let’s get acquainted.” We met and started talking. I tell him: “Listen, you’re a hoarder.” He was surprised: “How do you know?” - “Because me too.” He told me that he lived throughout the occupation in a small village about twenty kilometers from Bezhanitsy. Then someone called me. He asks me: “What is your last name?” I answer: “I am a Jew.” He stared at me and asked: “Oh, what is a Jew?” I explained it to him as best I could. I repeat that there was no prejudice towards people like this guy.
...My uniform was all male, and I did not go there as a woman. My last name was Bovin, and so they write in the document Bovin O. A. Oleg Alekseevich or Alexandrovich, it is written Red Army soldier. Whatever tobacco was given to the soldiers, they gave it to me too.
...When I was first thrown to the front line, I ran along with the soldiers. The commander saw it and said: “Sister, you shouldn’t be near them, you should lag behind a little, because there may be wounded there too, go 10-15 steps behind.” I had two names: Button and Button. They didn't call me Olya. I'm small, especially in trousers in winter. And pull it out! How will I drag the wounded? Here is a raincoat, a strap is sewn on one edge, the soldier lies on the tent, or I will transfer him there if he cannot... so I pull it. How old am I? But the soldiers were even bigger! And I pulled them, strained like this to a certain place. An order... what could I do? I couldn't do anything! So I spent time in the infantry. Oh, it was so difficult!
...They crossed the Dnieper. And then we only have a little distance to reach the shore and a shell falls nearby, and we are turned over, along with the wounded. And I’m drowning, I didn’t know how to swim, I’m from the village, I didn’t swim in the river. And thank you, of course, they see that I was a well-behaved girl, they pulled me out. They say: “Eh, you, rescuer, are drowning yourself!”
...The “silt” has a smaller radius of turn and I caught it on the turn. Shot a good burst into his belly, and he pecked on our territory. Just before the ground, the pilot leveled the car and ground it into the snowdrifts. And I left. Then there were rumors that ours were flying German planes. I thought maybe I had hit mine. I think I'll go and have a look. Turned around. The pilot climbed out of the cockpit, and the soldiers were already running towards him. I looked at the plane and saw crosses. Somehow I made it to the airfield. The steering and depth rudder were damaged, and the water-oil coolers were pierced by a bullet. He reported about the battle, about five of ours shot down. He did not talk about the downed Messerschmitt. In the morning the regiment commander calls. I think: “That’s it! He probably flunked ours...” He went in. They asked me to sit down. Major General Kamanin and two civilians were sitting near the window. I sat down. “Talgat Beletdinov, did you fly on the 13th yesterday?” I jumped up. - “Sit. Sit. Did you shoot down the plane? - “It was a fascist plane!” – I almost shouted loudly. The major even laughed: “Exactly, exactly, a fascist plane.” I immediately calmed down. Kamanin says: “You shot down a pilot who shot down many planes in France, Poland and here. Do you, Begeldinov, know what you did? New tactics have been discovered in attack aircraft. It turns out that attack aircraft can fight fighters, and can even shoot down.”
...The battalion commander gathered the infantrymen and ordered the scout commander; “Lieutenant, select ten machine gunners and go on reconnaissance, across the river to the village.” At three o'clock in the morning we set off. The bright moon shines quietly all around, only the weak ice crackles underfoot, dusted with snow. We walk through the field and approach the village. Right next to the road, on the outskirts, we see a house. We knock on the shutters and hear people asking in Polish: “Who’s there? “Your people, Russians, open up!” A frightened Polish woman opens the door. The lieutenant asks: “Are there any Germans?” And we already see: there are two bunk beds, which means there were Germans. The hostess replies: “They left in the evening.” Other members of the household also woke up, and when they recovered from their sleep, they immediately turned their attention to me. And one woman said, looking at me with surprised eyes: “So little lady, but she’s fighting?” I replied that everyone, young and old, is fighting. The homeland must be defended. She looked at me and didn't say anything.
...The way the Germans were supplied with medicines and the way we were supplied with them were two big differences. The same was true for their quality. We lacked everything: even dressings. The Germans had everything canned. To the point that they received berries. Only later, when in 1944 we crossed the Baltic states, we began to receive captured German medicines. By the way, their sterile bandages or cotton wool were very good.
...I received “triangles” regularly. In addition to Masha’s fiancée, my sister, who was also at the front, also wrote to me. And my mother wrote from home. In 1942, my sister was born, and by that time my father was already in the army, and my mother had to cope alone with both a small child and the household. To help her somehow, I sent home my officer's food certificate. They lived on it.
...Ask any soldier, he will tell you about the same thing: he doesn’t know why we are going, where we are advancing. He only knows the impressions and rumors that were circulating. They tell me, for example: this is the bend of the Bug, there is a bridge and the Germans are retreating along it, which is why they are offering such resistance. But I cannot say this, I was told so myself. We found one war participant here, and at the meeting I listened to him talk about his military events. He was awarded the Order of Glory and medals. And so I listen and listen and think: “What is he talking about?” He talks about some achievements, about some battles, and so on, that is, about what is known at headquarters. And I understand that he did not fight, was not on the front line. You should be fighting, not hanging around at headquarters.
...To be awarded, you must be nominated for an award. Submissions should be written by those who see me on the front line: the platoon commander, company commander or battery commander. Imagine the commander who is there, on the front line, next to you. He has nothing but a bag and soldiers. They were wounded - they left, new ones were given. People changed often, what kind of ideas are there? For example, I don’t remember the soldiers with whom I fought; I cannot now name the names of these young and very smart guys. Soldiers were rarely, rarely rewarded.
...Somehow the task was completed, and we were landing at another airfield. We came to the village, and near one house along the fence there were Germans standing with rifles! We came closer and looked at each cigarette in their mouth. It turns out that it was our infantrymen who placed the frozen corpses and gave them rifles.
…I’ll tell you one feeling, it was common to many. I thought they would kill me tomorrow. This is stupid, I understand it now. So why do I need to think about this, about shoulder straps and so on? I am sure that today or in a week, I will still be killed, I will still not survive this war. That was the thought, even if you burst.
...Who are basically the most obedient, hardworking and patient soldiers? The guys are from the villages, because from childhood they know the value of work. And as life has shown, many of the city people don’t know how to work, and most importantly, and the saddest thing is that they don’t want to.
...I encountered girls at the front as soon as I found myself in the position of company commander. The fact is that in my company there was only one girl as a driver. So my drivers immediately asked me to send her on flights only with the same guy, because they already lived as husband and wife and traveled together, and I did not violate their union.
...As agreed in advance, he stepped to the right, and I stepped to the left. But he immediately stepped on a mine, next to which there was some kind of container with gasoline. She, of course, rushed, and how he screamed... He was burning all over, and I couldn’t save him, but something pushed me. I rushed to him and that’s it... I don’t remember anything else. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was a beautiful, beautiful, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl sitting next to me. She smiled and stroked my head. The room was for two, and next to him lay, it seems, an Azerbaijani. The doctor came in and handed over the fragments that had been extracted from me: “Well, your Jewish blood has been spoiled. So she gave her Polish blood, this Catholic.” He turned to the other and said: “Well, you’re a Muslim, I don’t know how you’ll figure it out now. Now the one who gave you blood will come. She's half-German. Do you understand? Half-German!” The girls gave us their blood.
...In the spring of forty-four I had the opportunity to personally see the front commander Zhukov. We marched forward and moved to the front line; the tank of company commander Salikov was the lead tank. Several Jeeps rushed past us, one of which, as it turned out, contained Zhukov. An ambulance with the wounded was stuck on the road in front of us, and Zhukov, enraged that the movement had stalled, ordered our tank paratroopers to throw the car with the wounded into a ditch...
...I had to listen to a lot of things during the war, including “Jewish face” and other things from “this repertoire.” One day I was standing by a tank, a staff captain passed by and sarcastically asked me: “Well, how are you fighting, little Jew?” By nature I am a calm and non-conflict person, and I didn’t intend to hit every such bastard in the face, I just understood well by the middle of the war that Jews in the country of the Soviets were considered “second-class citizens,” but we, three Jews who served in tank crews in our 1 1st tank battalion, must, no matter what, honestly fulfill their duty to the Motherland.
...I remember another episode from our stay in Koenigsberg. We burst into some kind of museum. I remember it was a two or three-story brick building. They began to wait for the rest of the guys to gather, because the entire street was under fire, and it was impossible to move forward. Foot soldiers walked behind us, and after us several soldiers, led by a captain, ran into the museum. I remember this well. In the room where we were, there were display cases containing some coins or medals. The captain came up, looked, turned to one of his soldiers and said: “Take off the sidor.” The soldier took it off and the captain told him: “Shake out everything you have there.” The soldier took out crackers and something else. The captain does not calm down: “That’s it, I said it!” He tries to explain: “There are cartridges and two grenades.” - “I ordered!” Well, what can the soldier do? He shook everything out. Then he hit the glass with his elbow in his overcoat, called two soldiers and said: “Take out the glass!” when they took it out, he began to collect the coins and put them in this bag. And so he cleaned three or four display cases in a row...
...I really became scared, because it was enough for one of the fighters to say in the calculation, for example, that “... the Messer has better vertical maneuver than the Yak..”, so the very next morning he was arrested, and then it was a straight line road to the tribunal - “for counter-revolutionary propaganda and praise of enemy technology”...
...Another forced march. The sun is rising, and the battalion is walking through the forest. We are going with all our strength, as they say, “to the teeth.” The forest ends, the road turns, a huge clearing rises on the right and a forest in the distance. Suddenly we see from above, about eight hundred meters away, a thick chain is running straight towards us... The battalion commander shouts: “Into the ditch! To battle! Get ready! Don’t shoot without a command!” I lay down, next to Sashka Kurunov, we were waiting... I clearly remember that I was lying and thinking: “Lord! Now this battle would begin, but we’d have to lie down for two hours...” Well, it was impossible to walk any longer, impossible... That’s it, we lay there, frozen, such pleasure... And suddenly: “Rise! Form up!” Then this huge chain runs up. It turned out that these were our girls, whom the Germans had kidnapped to build some structures. The Germans left, and the girls somehow found out that the Red Army soldiers were coming and immediately rushed towards us. They ran up, hugged, kissed, cried, laughed, and the guys cursed and pushed them away. Because we have to go again, again, go again, oh...
...In the Ternopil region we stood on the defensive for quite a long time, and one night a sergeant and a private were brutally killed at an outpost, they violated the corpses, and carved stars on their bodies. There was a village near the OP, and the regiment commander immediately realized that there were “local boys” at the OP, and then, by order of the commander, control platoons were assembled from the entire regiment, and they were joined by one battery with guns - the soldiers prepared to comb the village in search of bandits. The regiment commander turned to the locals: “Give up the bandits yourself! Don’t take things to the extreme!”, and they answered: “No one!”, and then regiment commander Shuyakov ordered to deploy the battery and fire a volley at the village. After the very first shells from each house, fire was opened on the Red Army soldiers, the entire village was “Bandera”... As a result, this entire village was blown to pieces by our 1864th regiment, burned to the last log...
...Sending us to the infantry was a punishment for our personnel. A fighter could be “merged” into a shooter for various minor offenses or for “caught clap.” Or simply, if the commander doesn’t like you, if you show your character, then you will quickly be “packed” into either a penal company or ordinary infantry... And then there will be certain death. Sergeant Gindullin, from our battery, took the vodka that was being brought to the captain and drank it himself, for which he was immediately sent to the infantry. At the very end of the war, in Germany, when they began to seriously fight against rapists and marauders, the caught rapists were no longer sent to a penal company, but were given camp sentences by the tribunal; in our country, one sergeant received 10 years in prison for such a crime.
...When they broke into Pillau, now Baltiysk, the fighting was no longer so strong, and the city was almost not damaged. So we quickly passed it, and I remember there on the shore there is the Frische-Nerung spit. And we didn’t sleep for two days, we literally fell from fatigue, and suddenly we ran into four to five hundred people, in short, more than our battalion. They pressed them to the sea, and it turned out that they were Vlasovites, or maybe not. In short, Russian men are armed and dressed in German uniforms. They surrendered and then, as I later realized, our battalion commander was faced with the question - what to do? After all, the battalion was ordered to move on and leave them behind, this meant most likely destroying the remnants of the battalion. And then he made this decision... He sent the entire battalion further, leaving one platoon. About twenty people were separated from the prisoners, and the rest were shot there on the shore... Those who remained were forced to drag the corpses into the sea... And I believe that the battalion commander simply had no other choice. And at the front there were many such terrible things that there was nowhere else to go.
...I began to return to my unit, I approached - and there was shooting, I don’t know what kind, almost from all guns: “Hurray! Hooray!" I think: “Well, that’s it, the Germans are going on the attack, probably for a breakthrough... roar, noise, I come closer, I already see my own people, I think: “They’re shooting like that - they’ll kill you to hell!” I’m crawling towards my men, I look - he’s standing there shooting, I tell him: “Where are you shooting?” He: “So the war is over! Why the hell are you crawling? That’s how I crawled on my stomach, so to speak, and met Victory.
...They gave us the command to line up on the main street. There is silence along the column and you can hear them say: the war is over, Germany has surrendered, the Act of Unconditional Surrender has been signed. And how everyone will scream! Not right away, there was some kind of pause: believe it or not, it’s a joke or not a joke. From rocket launchers, machine guns, machine guns, pistols, let's shoot up! Hurray, the war is over! The elderly are in tears, and I stand confused: fir-fly, what am I going to do now? I left ninth grade, my job is war, I can’t do anything else. It’s just that I look like I’m an officer, but I’m stupid.
...When it was time to fire us, cases of looting began and the Germans began to be robbed. The soldiers need to return, but with nothing - the soldier is “naked”. An order was issued: “Stop the looting by any means.” Two soldiers were caught, they shot the mother and child, but the mother survived and told everything. Right away there was a trial, the trials were demonstrations: everyone was brought into the halls and told, this way and that, the court decision. They lined up the regiment and shot both of them. All! All looting stopped.
...What I can say with absolute certainty is that we only defended the country with our breasts, without taking into account the people and the losses. They persecuted people, just for Victory... As they say, “Everything for the front, everything for Victory!” I think that Hitler still made a big mistake when he treated our people so cruelly. Now, if he had said: “Live!”, then who knows how things would have turned out?
...I hid my nationality as best I could, otherwise it was impossible to be in captivity. I even told my best friends Lebedev and Shubenko about this on our last day in Germany, when I was sent with an officer train of former prisoners of war for state inspection, and they remained waiting for a train with privates and non-commissioned officers to be sent from our transit point. The three of us sat down, drank schnapps “on the road,” and began exchanging addresses. Lebedev dictates his – “Gorky, Piskunova Street”, and then I say – “Vitebsk region, Orsha city, Molokov Street No. 17, but now our house has burned down, a fellow countrywoman told me...”, and then I see Lebedev writing my last name further “Efremov,” and I tell him, “Don’t rush. I'll spell out your last name. Write one at a time. F..R..A..Y..M..A..N...” He looked at me, understood everything, then rushed to hug me and cried: “Arkasha... How could you stand it for so long!”...
...When I quit, they gave me bread for a month. And mom and dad only had a cow left, and she saved them. They had no bread, there was famine there in Alekseevka. What did I see! I saw a child dying on the street in the summer, lying in the dust and dying. A bunch of old women have gathered, groaning and aahing, but how can they help. And at the same time, activist stores were created, that is, all high-ranking officials and communists bought whatever they wanted: butter, sugar. And then I had this thought: “What did I fight for?!”
...When the city of Gleiwitz was captured, we were given a rest for three days, in other words - do what you want. And in the city, every street is full of shops untouched by the war, stocked with food and alcohol. So those who did not have any “moral brakes” began to rob and rape German women. We had such a senior sergeant, commander of the communications department Bogachev, so in every city we captured, he raped women. The political officer, in front of whose eyes the sergeant was raping another German woman, decided to intervene and told Bogachev: “Stop it!”, but the division commander Khlopov stopped the political officer: “You, captain, mind your own business. This is his well-deserved trophy!”
...When we first entered Germany, some of our soldiers shot civilians. I remember that we followed the infantry into a German house and saw the corpses of women and children. Of course, they immediately reported this to the commander. And literally immediately after that we received an order: “Do not touch civilians. Whoever touches will be severely punished!” But, of course, not everyone did this.
...We walked to Prague through the Sudeten Mountains, along the highway, on which the Germans created a lot of rubble from fallen trees. While sorting through these rubble, we all got dirty in the sap of trees, and our decrepit cotton uniform looked like rags in the eyes of the Czechs, one of them even told us: “But your clothes are not very good,” to which we answered him: “But We are winning the war!
...At that time I was corresponding with one girl whom I met at the VNOS post. When I returned from the front to the school, I wrote again - there was no answer. Six months later, one girl, Natasha, wrote that the VNOS post was transferred from the Poltava region to the west, closer to the front, near the city of Dobromil. Bandera's men attacked the post - they killed all the girls and destroyed the equipment, just on Victory Day. Natasha was the only one left alive; she was considered killed. Border guards came running, she, of course, spent six months in the hospital, they stitched her up, she wrote me a letter: “Annushka loved you so much, but, alas, she died!”... I decided to join the border troops. He asked, “Where are they recruiting?” - “Ukrainian border district.” I asked - “Dobromil?” I was young, only 19 years old, head over heels in love, and I decided to serve there to fight Bandera, and to visit the grave of Anya and her girlfriends. This is how my border service began.
...In our unit there was one girl who fell in love with a gunner from another battery. Once, when the Germans disabled his gun, it was crawling from another battery under fire on its bellies towards him. They were then both given punishment. And after the war, he finally found her (the girl was from Samara)! They got married and have five children. And all the children are musicians. And that guy was always our lead singer.
...At first, violence, robberies and looting happened at every turn in the captured German cities, and then the authorities “tightened the screws” and began to fight such “banditry.” The commander of our division, Lieutenant Colonel Prudeus, ordered the entire personnel of the batteries to be lined up, everyone’s duffel bags should be turned out, and all the “trophies” found on the soldiers were, on his orders, burned on the spot. Prudeus said: “We are not looters!”, and forbade the personnel to send parcels permitted by the order of the Active Army. There was some truth to this, because in order to collect things for the parcel, all the soldiers went to German houses and collected “clothes”... Most of the looting was done by the Poles, who immediately filled Stettin, they behaved like animals, raped German women and threw them right out of the windows of the upper floors onto the pavement, and the German goods were dragged in sacks towards them.
...Banks of blood came with letters from the donors themselves. Some were very touching. For example, these: “I work at a factory, my husband is at the front, I have two children. I give my blood for the wounded. Beat the Germans! Or: “I, a third-year student, give blood...” And what did we do with these notes? When the blood came to us in the third department, we carefully cut them off with scissors and put them in the pocket of our robe. If I gave a blood transfusion to some village man, I would give him a letter from some worker. If she gave a transfusion to some handsome officer, she gave him a letter from some student. Somewhere in 1944, during the offensive, we stopped in Mozhaisk. And then the brigade commissar ran up to me: “Do you remember how they gave me a letter when they gave me a blood transfusion?” - he asked. “I remember,” I say. - So what?" Then he hands me a photograph of a girl unknown to me and says: “But look at the photograph. I married her! It turns out that immediately after being cured in the hospital, he went to the institute and married the donor. We had a good time sitting and talking in the tent. But then, when they began to leave, this brigade commissar walked me a little along the pontoon bridge. And there he quietly said: “Zhenya! But my wife and I share blood different groups. You shuffled the letter." All I said to this was: “But then they wouldn’t have gotten married.” He smiled and said goodbye.
...When the Americans occupied the Grevesmühl area, all former Soviet citizens: prisoners of war, Ost workers, and others were collected in a refugee camp. The Americans fed us excellently, as if for slaughter, and almost every day agitators, representatives of the American military administration, arrived at the camp in 3-4 Dodges, who called on us to stay in the West, prepared documents to leave for America, promised a considerable amount of raise money and getting a job in the USA. They told us: “What awaits you all in Russia is either execution for treason, or NKVD camps in Siberia, no better than the German ones. Come to your senses! Stalin will never forgive you for being captured! We offer you a free life in a free country!”, and many of the “East workers” and a considerable part of the former prisoners of war signed up with the Americans for exit registration. But the majority decided to return to the USSR, we believed that they would deal with us fairly, because we were captured in battle, and did not voluntarily go over to the enemy’s side. In June, representatives from the Soviet occupation zone frequented the camp; by their habits and behavior they were either political instructors or “Smershevites”; they made appeals, distributed leaflets and kept telling us: “The Motherland is waiting! The Motherland has forgiven everything! You haven’t seen your family and friends for four long years, and they are waiting for you! Don't be afraid of anything! I, like many, had a moment's hesitation, but I believed that some of my family might still be alive, and I felt obligated to go back and try to find them.
...There was one curious case to some extent: a former prisoner, entering the dugout for the first interrogation, saw a red banner near the wall, and suddenly clicked his heels in German, threw one hand up and shouted: “Heil Hitler!” He was immediately arrested and taken away from us.
...Poured into piles. Misha says: “First of all, I want us to remember those who did not live to see this day, until the bright day of Victory! Including my father, mother and younger sister, who died at the hands of the Nazis.” Suddenly we hear sobs. The girl stands at the door and cries. The old man says: “Granddaughter, Mariyka, come here, sit next to me.” Then he explained that her father died at the front, and her mother was raped by the Germans, and she committed suicide. Then they gave the floor to one woman: “For those who will live after us, who will enjoy the fruits of victory!” And then she burst into tears too. In general, it is both solemn and tragic – a holiday with tears in our eyes. They got married later, Misha and Mariyka. They played a modest wedding.
...Recently late in the evening I was returning back to my home. He walked along Energia Street and turned onto the sidewalk. And suddenly a group of young guys comes towards me. One of them pulled me by the shoulder. I rushed and wanted to run away, but he hit me and knocked me to the ground. The other one, who was standing next to him, started to lay me down and punched me in the jaw. “Bastards! – I told them. What are you doing? I'm an old man." After that they left me. I still didn’t understand why I was beaten. And they didn’t even take my new jacket. I was covered in blood then. I didn’t go to my daughter - I didn’t want to upset her. So what does power have to do with it? As bad as, indeed, good people is, were and will be at all times. And the German would have killed me without hesitation at all. For him it was a piece of cake. What does this mean? That human qualities were, are and will be different.
...I arrived in Orsha early in the morning and did not recognize my hometown. Much was broken and destroyed. At the site of our burnt house there were only blocks of snow, and I moved on to my uncle’s house. I walk through the entrance yard, approach the gate and see my father and uncle harnessing a horse to a cart. I began to shake from excitement, my legs wouldn’t move forward, I couldn’t say a word... I somehow squeezed it out of myself, said: “Dad!”, My father turned around and didn’t notice me. Only a minute later I was able to overcome my excitement and say again: “Dad!”, and then my uncle Eina shouted to my father: “Arie! It’s Froim who’s returned!” My father rushed into the house shouting: “Froim is back!”, and my whole family: mom, dad, brother on crutches, sister and husband, everyone ran out to meet me. We stood and cried. Three of us from the family went to the front, me, my brother and my brother-in-law, and here we stand: two front-line cripples on crutches, and I, the third, crippled for life by captivity... Brother Lev told me: “At least take off your hat, otherwise I don’t look like myself at all”... So I returned home...
...Peaceful life began. But if, on the one hand, it is a great happiness that the war is over, then on the other, such an unpleasant thing as boredom has begun. Just don't get me wrong. I, too, was very glad that this massacre finally stopped, but we are already accustomed to such a rich, interesting life, full of events and emotions. When, for example, during an offensive, different cities and localities are constantly changing in front of you, some events are happening, and these are new, sometimes very vivid impressions. And suddenly it all ended at once, it was like putting a free bird in a cage.
...My attitude towards the Soviet government changed when Stalin changed his attitude towards our prisoners and said: “We have no prisoners. We have only traitors to the motherland." What happened? In 1941, entire divisions of our soldiers were captured and surrounded. They were hit for the only reason that we had poor supplies in the army, three cartridges for one rifle. With such weapons it was difficult to avoid capture. Then they were in German concentration camps and experienced real horrors there. And when not all, but some of them returned to their homeland, they were put in their camps. How do we even understand this? Stalin was so cruel that many of our officers at the front were simply afraid to say his name. Because they could have immediately pointed a finger at that officer and he would have been imprisoned.
...In 1945, the first year consisted of 90% girls and only 10% boys. There were especially few men my age. Everyone said that men my age were a rare find. Almost all my peers died.
...And on May 9, something unimaginable began in the hospital. Someone took out hidden pistols and began firing out of the windows into the sky. And the hospital didn’t come to its senses for probably a week. Despite the fact that there was security at the entrance, people came to us. Elderly, young, brought vodka and something else. Well, you can understand everyone. We survived, well, survive in such hell... What kind of medicine is there... An unconscious, bestial feeling in the best sense of the word surged. Survived, survived! The war is over! All! Well, it seemed that only “paradise” was waiting for us ahead, and everything would be okay.
...I did not hide at the plant that I was a prisoner of war, but until Stalin died, I knew that I could be imprisoned under Article 58 at any moment, since former prisoners were considered outcasts. It was only later, when the writer Smirnov, the author of “Brest Fortress,” stood up in defense of former prisoners, when the film “Baltic Sky” appeared, the attitude towards us changed for the better. And before that... No one was interested in the fact that before being captured, I honestly fought on the front line for four months, commanded a rifle platoon, went on attacks, shot at the enemy and risked my life, and was captured when I found myself in a hopeless situation, without ammunition, in completely surrounded along with other soldiers who were betrayed and left to die by their own command. Any rear and staff trash who was not even one day on the front line, who did not know what the encirclement was like in 1941 and what we had to endure in the German camps, all this trash after the war settled in all the offices of the Soviet and party bodies and looked at us, the former prisoners, with mockery and contempt. I was even afraid to write a letter to Lebedev and Shubenko, fearing that a letter from a fellow prisoner could “set them up”; I was afraid to look for Tkach and Beridze, because I knew that I, “branded by captivity,” could harm them... Once at my factory I I saw a man who was like two peas in a pod, who was dying before my eyes in the “Big Camp” in 1941, and I then fed him pieces of bread, trying to save him or at least prolong his life. And I did not dare to approach this man and ask whether he was in captivity in this camp or not.
...From Germany’s allied countries we exported everything that our country was entitled to for reparations. They transported equipment, equipment, and other cargo day and night. Once I even had to transport something extremely secret, wrapped in a tarpaulin, under guard. But we were strictly ordered not to touch the cargo, and I still don’t know what I was carrying then.
...This war was terrible and truly Great. We suffered unjustifiably large losses and it cannot be said that we had the greatest, most wonderful commanders. If they were like that, there would not be such losses. And so the Price of Victory turned out to be terribly high... I think that our country still cannot wake up from this. And a lot more can be said, but there was something else... After all, there are two sides to this “coin”. I’ll tell you two more episodes, excuse the verbosity. When I was in Copenhagen, I visited the “Museum of Freedom” and asked the director a question: “Why do you have such huge stands dedicated to Stalingrad?” And he walked, his assistants and Danish children were there too. He turned around and saw the order pads on me. Perhaps I am an immodest person, but I always wear them and never take them off. So the director comes up to me and, pointing to the stocks, says: “If there had been no Stalingrad, there would have been no Danes!” Although you yourself know very well that the Germans considered them close to a superior race.
...You know, I'm very glad that I met you. But not because you will write about me, not at all. I personally didn’t do anything special at the front. I just feel obligated to talk about the many worthy people with whom fate brought me together during the war. In fact, I have already forgotten a lot, but I still keep something in my memory, and where to put it all and to whom to throw it out... At one time I was thinking of writing memories in the form of front-line notes, I even came up with the name “My 747 days of war” , but then there was not enough time, then there were various worries, and now there is no strength and the mood is not at all the same. But I want the memory of these people to remain. We need you to stay! Just think about it, many of those people died many, many years ago. Moreover, they died very young and did not leave behind children, because they simply did not have time to start families. And just imagine, they have been lying in the ground for a long time, they may have no relatives left in the whole wide world, and suddenly after so many years a lot of people learn about them and remember them...