I remember a wounded German soldier lying on the ground and clutching at it from pain, and our soldier came up to him: “Don’t touch, this is my ground! Yours is there, where you came from…”
Antonina Grigoryevna Bondareva
LIEUTENANT OF THE GUARDS, SENIOR PILOT
I went to war after my husband…
I left my daughter with my mother-in-law, but she soon died. My husband had a sister, and she took my girl. And after the war, when I was demobilized, she didn’t want to give my child back to me. She told me something like this: you can’t have a daughter, since you abandoned her when she was little and went to war. How can a mother abandon her child, and such a helpless one at that? I came back from the war, my daughter was already seven years old; I had left her when she was three. I met a grown-up girl. When she was little, she didn’t eat enough, didn’t sleep enough. There was a hospital nearby; she would go there and act and dance, and they would give her some bread. She told me later…At first she waited for her papa and mama, but later—only for her mama. Her father had been killed…She understood…
I often remembered my daughter at the front, I never forgot her for a minute, I dreamed of her. I missed her a lot. I cried, knowing I wasn’t the one telling her fairy tales at night. She fell asleep and woke up without me…Somebody else braided her hair…I wasn’t upset with my sister-in-law. I understood…She was very fond of her brother. He was strong, handsome; it was unthinkable that such a man could be killed. But he died straight off, in the first months of the war…Their planes were bombed on the ground in the morning. In the first months and probably even in the first year of the war, the German pilots ruled the skies. And he died…She didn’t want to let go of what was left from him. The last thing. She was one of those women for whom family, children, were the most important thing in life. Bombing, shelling, and all she can think of is, how come the child didn’t get her bath today? I can’t blame her…
She said I was cruel…had no woman’s soul…But we suffered greatly at war. No family, no home, no children…Many of us left our children at home, I wasn’t the only one. We would sit under a parachute, waiting for our assignment. The men smoked, played dominoes, and we, while waiting for a signal to take off, sat and embroidered handkerchiefs. We stayed women.
Here’s something about my navigator. She wanted to send a picture home, so we tied a kerchief—someone had a kerchief—to hide her straps, and covered her army shirt with a blanket. And it was as if she was wearing a dress…And so we took the picture. It was her favorite picture…
My daughter and I became friends…We’ve been friends ever since…
* * *
OF LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE JOY OF MEETING A CAT DURING THE WAR
* * *
Lyubov Zakharovna Novik
NURSE
It took me a long time to get used to the war…
We were attacking. And when a wounded soldier came, bleeding from an artery…I had never seen such a wound, blood spurting out…I rushed for the doctor. But the wounded man shouted, “Where? Where are you going? Tie it with a belt!” Only then did I come to my senses…
What do I feel sorry about? One little boy…This seven-year-old kid was left without a mama. His mama had been killed. The boy was sitting on the road next to his dead mother. He didn’t understand that she was already gone; he waited for her to wake up, and kept asking for food…
Our commander didn’t leave the boy there, he took him along: “You have no mama, sonny, but you’ll have lots of papas.” So he grew up with us. As the son of the regiment. From the age of seven. He reloaded the cartridge disks of the PPSH-41 submachine gun.
When you leave, my husband will be angry. He doesn’t like these kinds of conversations. He doesn’t like the war. But he didn’t go to war, he’s young, younger than me. We don’t have children. I always remember that boy. He could be my son…
After the war I felt sorry for everybody. For men…For roosters, for dogs…I still can’t stand the pain of others. I worked in a hospital. The patients loved me because I was gentle. We have a big garden. I’ve never sold a single apple, a single berry. I just give them away, I give them away to people…I remained like that after the war…My heart’s like that…
Lyudmila Mikhailovna Kashechkina
UNDERGROUND FIGHTER
I didn’t cry then…
I was afraid of only one thing…When comrades were captured, several days of unbearable waiting: would they stand firm under torture or not? If they didn’t, there would be more arrests. After a certain time, it became known that they would be executed. We had an assignment: to go and see who was to be hanged that day. You walk down the street and you see: they’re already preparing the rope…You can’t cry, you can’t linger for an extra second, because there are spies everywhere. And so much—this is the wrong word—courage, so much mental strength was needed to keep silent. To pass by without tears.
I didn’t cry then…
I knew what was coming, but I only understood, I only really felt everything, when I was arrested. I was taken off to jail. They beat me with boots, with whips. I learned what a fascist “manicure” was. Your hands are put on a table and some sort of machine sticks needles under your nails…Simultaneously under each nail…Hellish pain! You immediately lose consciousness. I don’t even remember, I know the pain was horrible, but I don’t remember it. I was drawn on logs. Maybe that’s not the word, maybe I’ve got it wrong. But this is what I remember: there was a log here and a log there, and they put you in between…Then some kind of machine is turned on…And you hear how your bones crunch, get dislocated…Did it last long? I don’t remember that either…I was tortured on an electric chair…That was when I spat in the face of one of the torturers…Young, old, I don’t remember anything. They stripped me naked, and that one came up to me and grabbed me by the breast…I could only spit…I couldn’t do anything else. So I spat in his face. They sat me on the electric chair…
I’ve had very little tolerance for electricity ever since. I remember it just starts jolting you. Now I can’t even iron my laundry…All my life it’s been so. I start ironing, and I feel the current through my whole body. I can’t do anything that’s related to electricity. Maybe I needed some sort of psychotherapy after the war? I don’t know. But I’ve already lived my life this way…
I don’t know why I’m crying so much today. I didn’t cry then…
They sentenced me to death by hanging. They put me in the cell for the condemned. There were two other women. You know, we didn’t cry, we didn’t panic: we knew what awaited us when we joined the underground fighters, and so we remained calm. We talked about poetry, remembered our favorite operas…We talked a lot about Anna Karenina…about love…We didn’t even mention our children, we were afraid to mention them. We even smiled, cheered each other up. So we spent two and a half days…In the morning of the third day they called me. We said goodbye, kissed without tears. There was no fear. Apparently I was so used to the thought of death that the fear was already gone. And so were the tears. There was some sort of emptiness. I no longer thought of anyone…
We drove for a long time, I don’t even remember how long. I was saying goodbye to life…But the truck stopped, and we…there were about twenty of us…We couldn’t get out of the truck, we were so worn out. They threw us on the ground like sacks, and the commanding officer ordered us to crawl to the barracks. He urged us on with a whip…Near one of the barracks a woman was standing, breastfeeding her child. And somehow, you know…There were dogs and guards, all dumbfounded, standing there and not touching her. The commanding officer saw that scene…He rushed at her. He snatched the baby out of its mother’s hands…And, you know, there was a pump there, a water pump, and so he smashed the child against that iron. His brains gushed out…Milk…And I see the mother fall…I understand, I’m a doctor…I understand that she’s had heart failure…
…They led us to work. They led us through the city, through
familiar streets. We just started to go down, there was a steep hill, and suddenly I hear a voice: “Mama, mamochka!” And I see my aunt Dasha standing there, and my daughter is running from the sidewalk. They happened to be walking down the street and saw me. My daughter ran and immediately threw herself on my neck. And just imagine, there were dogs, they were specially trained to attack people, but not a single dog moved from its place. They’re trained to tear you to pieces if you come close, but here none of them moved. My daughter ran up to me, and I didn’t cry, I only said, “My little daughter! Natashenka, don’t cry. I’ll come home soon.” The guards stood there, and the dogs. Nobody touched her…
And I didn’t cry then…
At the age of five my daughter read prayers, not poems. Aunt Dasha taught her to pray. She prayed for her papa and mama, for us to stay alive.
In 1944, on the thirteenth of February, I was sent off to a fascist hard-labor camp…I wound up in the Croisette concentration camp, on the shores of the English Channel.
Spring…On the day of the Paris Commune, the French organized our escape. I left and joined the maquis.*1
I was awarded the French Order of the Croix de Guerre…
After the war, I came back home…I remember…The first stop on our land…We all jumped off the train and kissed the ground, embraced it. I remember I was wearing a white smock. I fell to the ground, kissed it, and put whole handfuls in my bosom. I thought to myself, surely I won’t ever part with it again, my very own land…
I arrived in Minsk, but my husband wasn’t home. My daughter was at Aunt Dasha’s. My husband had been arrested by the NKVD; he was in prison. I went there…And what do I hear there?…They tell me, “Your husband is a traitor.” But my husband and I worked together in the underground. The two of us. He was a brave, honest man. I realized that someone had denounced him…Slander…“No,” I say, “my husband can’t be a traitor. I believe him. He’s a true Communist.” His interrogator…He started yelling at me, “Silence, French prostitute! Silence!” He had lived under the occupation, had been captured, had been taken to Germany, had been in a fascist concentration camp—it was all suspicious. One question: how did he stay alive? Why didn’t he die? Even the dead were under suspicion…Even them…And they didn’t take into consideration that we fought, we sacrificed everything for the sake of victory. And we won…The people won! But Stalin still didn’t trust the people. That was how our Motherland repaid us. For our love, for our blood…
I went everywhere…I wrote to all the authorities. My husband was released after six months. They broke one of his ribs, injured his kidney…When he was captured by the fascists, they smashed his skull, broke his arm. He turned gray there, and in 1945 the NKVD made him an invalid for good. I took care of him for years; I pulled him out of his illnesses. But I wasn’t allowed to say anything against them; he wouldn’t hear of it…“It was a mistake,” that’s all. The main thing, he thought, was that we won. That’s all—period. And I believed him.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry then…
Nadezhda Vikentyevna Khatchenko
UNDERGROUND FIGHTER
How do you explain to a child? How do you explain death to him…
I was walking down the street with my son, and dead people were lying there, on one side and the other. I was telling him about Little Red Riding Hood, and around us were dead people. It was when we were returning from the evacuation. We arrived at my mother’s, and he wasn’t well. He crawled under his bed and sat there for whole days. He was five years old, and I couldn’t get him to go outside…
For a year I struggled with him. I couldn’t figure out what was the matter. We lived in a basement—when someone walked by in the street, we could only see his boots. And so one day he came out from under the bed, saw someone’s boots out the window, and began to scream…Afterward I remembered that a fascist had hit him with his boot…
Somehow, in the end, it passed. He was playing in the yard with other kids, came home one evening and asked, “Mama, what’s a papa?”
I explained to him, “He’s fair, handsome, he’s in the army.”
And when Minsk was liberated, the first to burst into the city were the tanks. And so my son came running home crying: “My papa’s not there! They are all dark, none of them are fair…” It was in July, and the tank crews were all young, tanned.
My husband came back from the war an invalid. He came back not young, but old, and I was in trouble: my son was used to thinking that his father was fair, handsome, but a sick old man came back. And for a long time my son didn’t accept him as his father. He didn’t know what to call him. I had to get them accustomed to each other.
My husband came home from work late, and I met him: “Why are you so late? Dima was worried: ‘Where’s my daddy?’ ”
He, too, after six years of war (he had also fought against the Japanese), had lost touch with his son. With his home.
And when I bought something, I said to my son, “Daddy bought this, he cares about you…”
Soon they became closer…
Maria Alexandrovna Arestova
ENGINEER
My biography…
Since 1929 I worked on the railroad. I was an assistant engineer. At the time there were no female locomotive engineers in the Soviet Union. But I dreamed. The head of the locomotive depot threw up his hands: “This girl, she just wants a man’s profession.” But I persevered. And in 1931 I became the first one…I was the first female engineer. You wouldn’t believe it, when I was driving the locomotive, people gathered in the stations: “A girl is driving the locomotive.”
Our engine was just undergoing a blowdown—that is, it was getting repaired. My husband and I took turns driving, because we already had a baby, and we settled on this: if he drove, I stayed with the baby; if I drove, he stayed home. On that very day, my husband had returned, and I was supposed to go. I woke up in the morning and heard something abnormal in the street, noisy. I turned on the radio: “War!”
I told my husband, “Lenya, get up! War! Get up, it’s war!”
He ran to the depot and came back in tears: “War! War! Do you know what it is—war?”
What are we to do? What do we do with the baby?
I was evacuated along with my son to Ulyanovsk, to the rear. They gave us a two-room apartment. The apartment was nice, even now I don’t have one like that. They took my son in the kindergarten. All was well. Everyone loved me. What else! A female engineer, and the first one…You won’t believe it, I lived there a short time, less than half a year. I couldn’t stay longer: how is it, everyone’s defending the Motherland, and I sit at home!
My husband came. “So, Marusya, are you going to sit here in the rear?”
“No,” I said, “let’s go.”
At the time they were organizing a special reserve unit servicing the front. My husband and I asked to join it. My husband was a senior engineer, and I was an engineer. For four years we drove a freight car, and our son with us. He didn’t even get to see a cat during the entire war. When he got hold of a cat near Kiev, our train was being heavily bombarded, five planes were attacking us. He hugged her and said, “Dear kitty, I’m so glad I got to see you. I never see anyone. Come and sit with me, let me kiss you.” A child…Children need children’s things…He fell asleep saying, “Mama, we have a cat. Now we have a real home.” You can’t make up something like that…Don’t leave it out…Be sure to write about the cat…
We were constantly being bombarded, shot at by machine guns. Their target was the locomotive; their main objective was to kill the engineer, to destroy the locomotive. The planes flew down and hit the freight car and the locomotive. And my son was sitting in the freight car. Above all, I was afraid for my son. I can’t describe it…When they bombed us, I took him with me from the freight car to the locomotive. I grabbed him, pressed him to my heart: “Let us die from the same shrapnel.” But could that be? Clearly, that’s why we stayed alive. Write that down as well…
&nbs
p; My locomotive was my life, my youth, the most beautiful thing in my life. Even now I wish I could drive trains, but they won’t let me—I’m old…
How frightening to have a single child. How foolish…Now we live together with my son’s family. He’s a doctor, the head of his department. We have a small apartment. But I never go anywhere on holidays, I never go away on vacation…I can’t describe it…I don’t want to be away from my son, from my grandchildren. I’m afraid to part with them even for a day. And my son doesn’t go anywhere. He’s been working for nearly twenty-five years, and never once has he used a travel voucher. At work, they noticed he never asked for one. “Mama, I’d rather stay with you”—that’s what he says. And my daughter-in-law is the same. I can’t describe it…We don’t own a country place only because we can’t part, even for a few days. I can’t live without them even for a minute.
Whoever has been to war knows what it is to part even for a day. For a single day…
* * *
OF THE SILENCE OF THOSE WHO COULD NOW SPEAK
* * *
Valentina Evdokimovna M—va
PARTISAN LIAISON
To this day I speak in a whisper…About…That…In a whisper. After more than forty years…
I’ve forgotten the war…Because even after the war I lived in fear. I lived in hell.
Here was the Victory, here was joy. Here we were already gathering bricks, metal, and starting to clean up the city. We worked day and night; I don’t remember when we slept or what we ate. We worked and worked.
The Unwomanly Face of War Page 31