I came to the war like that. To fight. But during the war I heard quiet conversations…At night, the wounded smoked in the corridors. Some slept, some didn’t sleep. They talked about Tukhachevsky, about Yakir…*2 Thousands had disappeared! Millions of people! Where? The Ukrainians told…How they had been driven into the kolkhozes. Forced to obey…How Stalin had organized famine; they themselves called it the “Death-by-Hunger.” Golodomor. Mothers went mad and ate their own children…And the soil was so rich there that if you planted a twig, a willow would grow. German prisoners would put some in parcels and send it home. That soil was so rich. Meters deep of black earth. Of fertile soil. The conversations were quiet…In low voices…Those conversations never occurred in groups. Only if there were two people. A third was too many, the third one would have denounced…
I’ll tell a joke…I’m telling it so as not to cry. It goes like this…It’s nighttime. In the barracks. Prisoners are lying and talking. They ask each other, “Why were you locked up?” One says—for telling the truth. A second—because of my father…And a third answers, “For being lazy.” What?! They’re all surprised. He tells them, “We were sitting at a party in the evening, telling jokes. We got home late. My wife asked me, ‘Should we go and denounce them now, or tomorrow?’ ‘Let’s go tomorrow. I want to sleep.’ But in the morning they came to take us…”
It’s funny. But I don’t feel like laughing. We should weep. Weep.
After the war…Everyone waited for their relatives to come back from the war, but we waited for them to come back from the camps. From Siberia…Of course! We were victorious, we had proved our loyalty, our love. Now they would believe us.
My brother came back in 1947, but we never found my father…Recently I visited my war friends from the front in Ukraine. They live in a big village near Odessa. Two obelisks stand in the center of the village: half the village died of starvation, and all the men died in the war. But how can we count them in all of Russia? People are still alive, go and ask them. We need hundreds like you, my girl, to tell our story. To describe all our sufferings. Our countless tears. My dear girl…
* * *
*1 The Volkssturm was a national militia organized by the Nazi Party during the last months of World War II. It drafted males between the ages of sixteen and sixty.
*2 Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893–1937) and Iona Yakir (1896–1937) were two of the most important Soviet military leaders, theorists, and reformers. Both were arrested and shot during the purges of 1937.
The phone keeps ringing. I write down new addresses, receive new letters. And it’s impossible to stop, because each time the truth is unbearable.
Tamara Stepanovna Umnyagina
JUNIOR SERGEANT IN THE GUARDS, MEDICAL ASSISTANT
Ah, my precious one…
All night I was remembering, collecting my memories…
I ran to the recruiting office: I had a hopsack skirt, white rubber sneakers on my feet—they were like shoes, with a buckle. All the fashion then. Here I was in that skirt, those sneakers, volunteering to go to the front, so they sent me there. I got into some sort of vehicle. I reached the unit, it was an infantry division, stationed near Minsk, but they told me I wasn’t needed there. The men would be ashamed, they said, if seventeen-year-old girls started fighting. And anyhow we would soon crush the enemy. Go back to your mama, little girl. I was upset, of course, that they wouldn’t let me fight. So what did I do? I went to see the commander in chief. He was sitting with that same colonel who had dismissed me, and I said, “Comrade even higher superior, allow me to disobey the comrade colonel. I won’t go home anyway, I’ll retreat with you. Where would I go, the Germans are already close.” And after that they all called me “Comrade Even Higher Superior.” It was the seventh day of the war. We began to retreat…
Soon we were drenched in blood. There were many wounded, but they were so calm, so patient, they wanted so much to live. Everybody wanted to survive until the day of victory. We waited: any day now…I remember, I was all soaked with blood—up to, up to, up to…My sneakers were torn; I already went barefoot. What did I see? The train station near Mogilev was being bombarded. And there was a train carrying children. They started throwing them out through the windows, little children—three or four years old. There was a forest nearby, so they ran toward the forest. The German tanks immediately drove out, and the tanks drove over the children. There was nothing left of those children…Even now you could lose your mind from that scene. But during the war, people held on. They lost their minds after the war. They got sick after the war. During the war gastric ulcers healed over. We slept in the snow, we had flimsy overcoats, and in the morning we didn’t even have runny noses.
Later, our unit was encircled. I had so many wounded, and not a single truck was willing to stop. The Germans were right on our heels; any moment now they would trap us in their circle. Then a wounded lieutenant handed me his pistol: “Can you shoot?” How could I? I had only watched them shoot. But I took the pistol and went with him to the road, to stop trucks. There, for the first time, I cursed. Like a man. A nice, well-rounded curse…All the trucks passed by…I fired a first shot in the air…I knew that we couldn’t carry the wounded in our arms. Impossible. They begged us, “Listen, boys, finish us off. Don’t leave us like this.” A second shot…I pierced the hood…“You fool!! Learn to shoot first.” They stepped on the brakes. Helped us to load them.
But the most terrible was ahead of us, the most terrible—Stalingrad. What sort of battlefield is that? It’s a city—streets, houses, basements. Try dragging the wounded out of there! My whole body was one single bruise. And my pants were covered with blood. Completely. The first sergeant scolded us, “Girls, we have no more spare pants, don’t ask.” And our pants would dry and get stiff. They don’t get stiff from starch the way they do from blood; you could cut yourself on them. There wasn’t a single clean spot; by spring there was nothing left to turn in. Everything burned. On the Volga, for instance, even the water burned. Even during the winter, the river didn’t freeze, but burned. Everything burned…In Stalingrad there wasn’t a single inch of dirt that wasn’t soaked in human blood. Russian and German. And gasoline…And grease…They all realized there was nowhere left, we couldn’t retreat. Either we would all die—the country, the Russian people—or we would be victorious. That became clear to everybody, we had reached such a moment. We didn’t say it out loud, but everybody understood. Generals and soldiers both understood…
Reinforcements arrived. Such young, handsome fellows. Before the battle, you looked at them and knew they’d be killed. I was afraid of new people. I was afraid to get to know them, to talk to them. Because they were here, and then they were already gone. Two or three days…You kept looking at them before the battle…This was 1942—the worst, the hardest moment. One time, out of three hundred of us, only ten were left at the end of the day. And when we were the only ones left, when things calmed down, we began to kiss, to cry, because we were suddenly alive. We were all family for each other. We became family.
Before your eyes a man is dying…And you know, you can see, that you can’t help him in any way; he only has a few minutes to live. You kiss him, caress him, speak tender words to him. You say goodbye. Well, you can’t help him any other way…I still remember those faces. I see them all, all those boys. Somehow, as the years passed, I might have forgotten at least one of them, at least one face. But I didn’t forget anyone, I remember them all…I see them all…We wanted to make graves for them, with our own hands, but it wasn’t always possible. We left, and they stayed. You bandage his whole head, and under the bandages he’s already died on you. And he gets buried with his head covered in bandages. Another one, if he died on the battlefield, at least he was looking to the sky. Or he dies and asks, “Close my eyes, dear nurse, but carefully.” The city is destroyed, the houses. Of course it’s terrible, but when people are lying there, young men…You can’t catch your breath, you run…To save them…It seems like you don’
t have the strength to go on for more than five minutes, you don’t have enough…But you keep running…It’s March, there’s water under your feet…We weren’t supposed to wear our felt boots, but I slipped them on and went. I crawled around all day wearing them, and in the evening they were so wet that I couldn’t take them off. We had to cut them. But I didn’t get sick…Can you believe it, my precious one?
When the fighting at Stalingrad ended, we were ordered to evacuate the most seriously wounded on steamboats and barges to Kazan, to Gorki. It was already spring, somewhere in March or April. But we found so many wounded, they were in the ground—in trenches, in dugouts, in basements. There were so many of them, I can’t even tell you how many. It was horrible! We kept thinking, when we carried the wounded from the battlefield, that there would be no more, that we had evacuated them all, that there weren’t any in Stalingrad itself. But when everything was over, it turned out that there were so many, it was unbelievable…Unimaginable…On the boat I was on we had gathered those with missing hands, missing legs, and hundreds sick with tuberculosis. We had to treat them, to encourage them with gentle words, comfort them with a smile. When they sent us, they promised we’d finally get to rest from battle; they said it was even like a reward, like an encouragement. But it turned out to be even worse than the Stalingrad hell. On the battlefield, you pulled a man out, gave him some aid, and handed him over—you had confidence that he was all right now, they had taken him away. You go on, you crawl after the next one. But here they’re in front of your eyes all the time…There they wanted to live, they were eager to live: “Quick, nurse! Quick, dear!” But here they refused to eat, they wanted to die. They jumped off the steamboat. We had to watch them. Protect them. There was this one captain, I had to sit by his side even at night—he had lost both arms and wanted to put an end to his life. Once I forgot to warn the other nurse, I went out for a few minutes, and he threw himself overboard…
We brought them to Usolye, near Perm. There were already new, clean houses there, all especially for them. Like in a youth camp…We carried them on stretchers, but they were in agony. I felt like marrying any one of them. I’d have carried him in my arms. On the way back, the steamboat was empty. We could rest, but we didn’t sleep. The girls lay there and suddenly started howling. We sat and wrote them letters every day. We designated who would write to whom. Three or four letters a day.
Here is a detail. After that trip, I began to hide my legs and face during battle. I had pretty legs; I was so worried they’d be mutilated. And I worried for my face. That’s the detail…
After the war, for several years I couldn’t get rid of the smell of blood; it followed me for a long, long time. I do the laundry—and I smell it. I cook dinner—again I smell it. Somebody made me a present of a red blouse, and back then it was a rarity, there wasn’t much fabric, but I didn’t wear it because it was red. I couldn’t stand that color anymore. I couldn’t go to the shop for groceries. The meat department. Especially in summer…And seeing chicken meat, you understand, it’s very similar…As white as human flesh…My husband would go…In summer I couldn’t stay in town at all, I tried at least to get away somewhere. As soon as summer came, it felt as if war was about to start. When the sun heated everything around—trees, houses, asphalt—everything had that smell. It smelled like blood to me. Whatever I ate or drank, I couldn’t get away from that smell! Even clean bedsheets smelled like blood…
May 1945…I remember we took a lot of pictures. We were very happy…The ninth of May—everybody shouted, “Victory! Victory!” Soldiers rolled in the grass—Victory! They tap-danced. Ay-da-ya-a-a…
Fired into the air…Whatever we had, we fired it off…
“Cease fire at once!” ordered the commander.
“But there’ll be ammunition left. What for?” We didn’t understand.
Whatever people said, I heard only one word—Victory! And suddenly we wanted desperately to live! And how beautifully we’d begin to live now! I put on all my decorations and asked to be photographed. For some reason I wanted to be surrounded by flowers. They photographed me in some flowerbed.
The seventh of June was a happy day, it was my wedding. The unit organized a great feast for us. I had known my husband for a long time: he was a captain, a company commander. We swore to each other, if we survived, we’d get married after the war. They gave us a month’s leave…
We went to Kineshma, that’s in the Ivanovo region, to his parents. I went there as a heroine; I never thought a frontline girl could be greeted like that. We had been through so much, had saved so many children for their mothers, husbands for their wives. And suddenly…I learned about insults, I heard offensive words. Before that, all I heard was “dear nurse,” “darling nurse.” And I wasn’t common-looking, I was pretty. I had a brand-new uniform.
In the evening, we sat down for tea. His mother took her son to the kitchen and wept, “Who have you married? A frontline girl…You have two younger sisters. Who will want to marry them now?” And today, when I remember that, I want to weep. Picture this: I had brought a record, I liked it a lot. It had these words: “and you sure have the right to go around in fancy shoes…” It’s about a frontline girl. I played it, and the older sister came and broke it right in front of me, meaning, you have no rights. They destroyed all my photographs from the front…Ah, my precious one, I have no words for that. No words…
Back then, we had coupons for food, little cards. My husband and I gathered our coupons and went off to exchange them. We came, it was a special depot, there was already a line, we stood in it and waited. When my turn came, the man standing at the counter suddenly jumped over—straight to me, and started kissing me, embracing me and shouting, “Boys! Boys! I’ve found her. I recognized her. I really wanted to meet her, I really wanted to find her. Boys, she’s the one who saved me!” And my husband was standing next to me. The man was a wounded man I had pulled out of a fire. While there was shooting. He remembered me, but I? How could I remember them, there were so many! Another time I met an invalid at the train station: “Nurse!” He recognized me. And he wept: “I always thought, if we met, I’d kneel to you…” But he had lost a leg…
We’d had enough, we frontline girls. And after the war we got more. After the war we had another war. Also terrible. For some reason, men abandoned us. They didn’t shield us. At the front it was different. You crawl—a bullet or piece of shrapnel comes…The boys protected us…“Take cover, nurse!” someone would shout and fall on you, covering you with his body. And the bullet gets him…He would be dead or wounded. Three times I was saved like that.
We returned from Kineshma to the unit. We arrived and learned that our unit wasn’t demobilizing, we were going to de-mine the fields. The land was to be given to the kolkhozes. For everyone else the war was over, but for the sappers it still went on. The mothers already knew we had won…the grass had grown very tall…But all around were mines, bombs. The people needed the land, so we had to be quick. Every day our comrades died. Every day, after the war, there were funerals…We left so many people there in the fields…So many…The land had already been given to the kolkhoz, a tractor comes along, somewhere there’s a mine hidden, there were even antitank mines, and the tractor’s blown up, the driver’s blown up. And there weren’t many tractors. There weren’t many men left. To see those tears in the village, after the war now…Women howled…Children howled…I remember we had this soldier…Near Staraya Russa, I forget which village…He was from there himself, he went to de-mine his kolkhoz, his own fields, and died there. The village buried him there. He had fought the entire war, four years, and after the war he died in his native place, in his native fields.
As soon as I begin telling this story, I get sick again. I’m talking, my insides turn to jelly, everything is shaking. I see it all again, I picture it: how the dead lie—their mouths are open, they were shouting something and never finished shouting, their guts are ripped out. I saw fewer logs than dead men…And how frighteni
ng! How frightening is hand-to-hand combat, where men go at each other with bayonets…Bare bayonets. You start stammering, for several days you can’t get the words out correctly. You lose speech. Can those who weren’t there understand this? How do you tell about it? With what face? Well, answer me—with what face should I remember this? Others can somehow…They’re able to…But me—no. I weep. Yet this must be preserved, it must. We must pass it on. Somewhere in the world they have to preserve our cry. Our howl…
I always look forward to our holiday. Victory Day…I look forward to it, and I dread it. For several weeks I purposely collect laundry, so that I’ll have a lot of it, and I do the laundry all day. I have to keep busy with something, I have to be distracted for the whole day. And when we meet, we don’t have enough handkerchiefs—that’s how our front liners’ gatherings go. A sea of tears…I don’t like war toys, children’s war toys. Tanks, machine guns…Who thought of that? It wrenches my soul. I never bought or gave war toys to children. Not to mine, not to others’. Once somebody brought a little warplane and a plastic machine gun into my house. I threw them out on the spot. Immediately! Because human life is such a gift…A great gift! Man himself is not the owner of that gift.
Do you know what thought we all had during the war? We dreamed: “If only we survive…People will be so happy after the war! Life will become so happy, so beautiful. People who have been through so much will feel sorry for each other. They’ll love each other. They’ll be changed people.” We never doubted it. Not a bit.
The Unwomanly Face of War Page 34