Writing “Let’s worship those years”
9Maya is a bright, joyous date, the 65th anniversary of the Great Victory. It is a holiday not only of the Russian people, but of all mankind, to whom fascism is hated. My “little homeland” Smolenschina, standing in the way of the main forces of the German army, fully experienced the cup of suffering and destruction.
On June 22, 1941, the German fascist invaders attacked our Motherland. On the third day of the war, enemy planes already bombed Smolensk, Vyazma, Roslavl and other towns and villages of the region. A lot of people died under the ruins of the destroyed buildings.
The outbreak of war did not cause panic among the inhabitants, although the situation changed literally in a matter of hours. In the early days, a wave of meetings took place in the region, in which people branded the aggressor and assured Stalin and the government that they would do everything to win. Mobilization began, which took place in an organized way, with a great patriotic upsurge.
But, despite the heroism and courage of Soviet soldiers, in the autumn of 1941, under the pressure of superior enemy forces, our troops were forced to leave the Smolensk region. For over two years the fascists were in charge here.
Hitler’s soldiers scoured the houses, taking from the population bread, cattle, clothes. Mass arrests and executions began in towns and villages. People were driven to concentration camps, poisoned in cars – gas vans, shot, hung. On the territory of the Smolensk region, Hitler’s torturers tortured and killed 350,000 people.
I was born when, fortunately, the war ended long ago. In our village Vasilievskoe every year there are fewer veterans of the war, people who survived the occupation. Therefore, so rare are the meetings with eyewitnesses, their unforgettable memories of that hard time.
That’s what Maria Vasilyevna Klitina told me about the war, a primary school teacher who worked at the Vasilievskaya school for over forty years. Unfortunately, Maria Vasilyevna
– I married before the war. She gave birth to three children: two daughters and a son. My husband, a military man, served in the Red Army. When the war began (we learned about its beginning on the third day), I lived in Vasilievsky with young children.
Especially remembered how once in December of the 41st year, once again, Germans appeared in the village. We arrived on several carts together with Russian policemen. Immediately went to the huts, loudly knocking at the windows, doors, ordering people to quickly meet and leave. Hastily gathered the children, we went out-there were already a lot of people on the street. All frightened, many cried. Everyone knew that there was nothing good to wait for. My neighbor came up and advised me to take, if any, anything from the food. I collected a bundle of food, but there is nowhere to put it: one child on one hand, another on the other, and Alk, the eldest daughter, holds on to the skirt. I put this bundle between the children sitting on my hands and stand. Opposite the fascist, young, healthy, in a helmet, with a submachine gun, he looked at me for about five minutes, then he came over, snatched the bundle. Bore a horse (it was tied to a fence) poured into the feeder. I did not utter a sound of fear, but only thought to myself. “They are like fascists, they have no compassion for us, they came to kill us”
Then all the residents were driven to Vyazma. And, if it were not for an accidental meeting with Soviet soldiers, apparently breaking out of the encirclement, I do not know what would have happened to us. When the battle ensued, people first fell to the ground with fear, and then they began to scatter wherever they went. So, thanks to our soldiers, I stayed alive with the children.
Another case told me Vasilyeva Evdokia Mikhailovna.
– When the war began, I lived with my parents near Kaluga, in the village of Olsha. I was nine years old. At us fascists happened arrival. They will come, they will take away everything they can from the locals and leave.
War is a war, but life went on, and families created people at that difficult time. Here in our village one young man decided to marry. He was not taken to the front, because he was one-legged: just before the war, one leg was torn off him by a flask. Previously, girls were disdaining to marry behind the cripple, but how healthy children were taken to the war, so this is the groom. I offered to marry such a beauty – she agreed. We decided to play a wedding. Do not say “play”, but just somehow mark it. The case was in the summer of 1943.
They gathered who remained from their relatives. Everyone brought what they could and what was. I put a bottle on the groom. Do not have time to congratulate the young, as on a motorcycle drove two Germans. Immediately into the house – as if they knew that there was a wedding. People did not even have time to hide what was on the table. Fritzes raked the food from the table, reviewed everything in the hut, in the henhouse, which they found-in a backpack, they rattled something in their own way and left. Guests and “young” are neither dead nor alive. So they celebrated the wedding.
Next morning Germans come to the village by car – about ten people, with dogs. Immediately went to their homes, driving everyone out onto the street, to a single person. When the people assembled, the German officer in Russian said: “Yesterday, two of our soldiers went to your village on assignment and did not return. You killed them? Who? Answer or be shot.”
Lord, what has begun! Women were scampered, followed by children. The man that those fascists visited was trying to explain how the whole thing was. His relatives vowed before the officer that their soldiers had not been touched.
The officer began to talk about something in German. Then the Nazis gave the adults a shovel and forced to dig a deep hole. Now everyone understood that they were digging a grave for themselves.
When the pit was ready, all residents were put along it. Only the officer prepared to give command to his soldiers, as from the direction of the forest came the rumble of a motorcycle.
And in two or three minutes everyone saw: they were the same Fritz. They go, they sing songs. The fascists recognized them, began to shout something, waved their hands. And the officer ordered the residents to go home. As my mother told me later, most likely, these two Germans got drunk on the road, slept in the woods, and in the morning drove for the additive. Had they stayed for a moment, the invaders would have destroyed the whole village.
War is very scary. I know that if it were not for the victory of the Soviet troops over fascist Germany, our grandmothers, grandfathers, parents and us now would not be on this earth. I really want the younger generation to treat with respect and gratitude to the war veterans, the children of war, the workers of the rear. A low bow to them that they did not spare health and life, but they saved the Native land.
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