Chapter 6 There are two wars in our building...

On Kakhovskaya Prospekt in Minsk, there is a gray slate building, the same multi-storey building that half our city has grown darker with age.But there is something special about this building. When I opened the door of this building, someone said to me: "There are two wars in one unit in our building." Sergeant Orr Ja Vasilyevna Podveshchenskaya served in the Baltic Navy, and her husband, Saul Henrikhovich, served as an infantry sergeant. Everything repeats... I spent a while looking at their family photo albums again. The photo albums are carefully and cherished, and they are always placed in the most conspicuous place for the guests to see. Of course, it is also for myself to look at often .Each album was given a title: Our Family, The War, and The Grandchildren.I really like this respect for private life, recording the deep love of past experiences and loved ones.Although I have visited hundreds of residences and entered different families, both intellectuals and ordinary people; Give people insight into their family and relationships.Presumably constant wars and revolutions teach us to keep in touch with the past, to weave elaborate webs of blood relatives, to go back far, and to be proud of them.People are eager to forget the past, to erase its traces, because the mass of testimonies they have amassed threatens to become a crime, often at the cost of their own lives.After the generation of grandparents, no one knows anything about the time, so there is no need to trace the source.Human beings create history, but live in front of them.Memory is always short.

But there are different people here... "Is this me?" said Olga Vasilyevna, laughing, as she sat next to me on the sofa, holding a photograph in her hands.In the photo, she is wearing a sailor costume with battle medals all over her chest. "Every time I see these pictures, I am always amazed. When our granddaughter was six years old, Saul showed her the pictures and she asked me: 'Grandma, you used to be a boy, didn't you?' " "Olga Vasilyevna, were you at the front when the war started?" "No, at first I evacuated to the rear... I left my home and my youth behind. Along the way, the train was strafed and bombed, and the enemy planes almost flew close to the ground. I remember, a group of technicians Boys graduating from school jumped out of the car. They were all wearing black military overcoats. Isn’t this a living target? They were all killed in the end. The enemy plane was just flying on the ground... At that time, all I had was this feeling, They're counting heads and shooting...can you imagine?

"We worked in the factory, and the family took care of the food. We lived well, but we were so anxious... I wrote to the Military Service Commission, the first, second, third... I didn't receive it until June 1942 When the notice of enlistment arrived, we crossed Lake Ladoga and entered the besieged Leningrad on an open-air barge, under the strafing of enemy planes. I remember the first day in Leningrad most clearly: it was a white night, Teams of sailors in black uniforms were patrolling the streets. I could feel the tension, I couldn't see a single resident, only the flashing lights, and the sailors came and went, wearing broadbands like they did during the Civil War. Belt. Can you imagine? It's like in the movie...

"The city has been surrounded. The enemy's encirclement is very close. The Kirov factory could have been reached by tram No. 3, but now it is the front line. As long as the sky is clear, the enemy will start shelling, and some Target bombardment, bombardment, bombardment... A large number of warships are moored by the pier. Although they are all camouflaged, they are still hit. We are responsible for the smoke screen. We are a special smoke bomb team, and the commander is a former torpedo boat Captain Alexander Bogdanov, captain of the detachment. Most of the girls have received a technical secondary school or a first-year university education. Our task is to use smoke screens to cover and protect warships and civilian ships. As soon as the bombardment started, the sailors said: "Girls , let's put the smoke bombs, we'll be safe with the smoke screens.' We carry a special mixture and drive around in the car while everyone else is hiding in the bomb shelter. Only we, as the saying goes, are The Germans are shooting at the place where the smoke screen is cast...

"I tell you that our sources of supplies were also blocked at that time, but we held on... Firstly, because we were young, this is an important one; secondly, the citizens of Leningrad moved us: we still have a little The supply, although it is at the lowest level; and the residents of Leningrad often collapse from hunger and die while walking. Several children often come to us, and we use our meager rations Give them a little. They are not children at all, but little old men, little mummies. The children tell us what their food was during the siege, if it could be called that at all: leather belts or new shoe soup, Wood glue jelly, sawdust pancakes...all the cats and dogs in the city were eaten, all the sparrows and magpies were gone, and even the big and small mice were caught and eaten...they were burned alive and eaten...later , those kids didn’t come anymore, we waited for them for a long time. Probably died of starvation, I thought so... In the middle of winter, there was no fuel in Leningrad, so the superiors sent us to the city to demolish houses, and some places still had some wood Buildings. When we walked towards these wooden houses, I felt really uncomfortable... A house stands there perfectly, but the people who live in it are dead, fleeing, most of them are dying, and now we want to The house was demolished. What was it like to see the utensils and other household utensils left on the table. So at the beginning, for about half an hour, no one could bear to lift the crowbar, can you imagine? Everyone They all stood there blankly, and finally the commander had no choice but to go up and poke the crowbar into the wooden house, and then we started to move.

"We also have to cut wood and carry ammunition boxes. I remember once I lifted a wooden box, and the box was heavier than me, and I fell to the ground with a thud... It's a thing. And Another thing (how difficult we were, because we were women after all) was this: I became a district captain, and my district team was all young lads. We spent all day on the speedboat, which was very small , there is no toilet on it. When the boys need to relieve their hands, they can solve the problem through the side of the boat. But what should I do? Twice, I couldn’t hold it anymore, so I jumped over the side of the boat and jumped into the water to swim. The lads saw it and shouted, "Captain fell into the water!" and pulled me up. Of course, this is a trivial matter, but for a girl like me, it is a small matter. How important! I was sick afterwards... Can you imagine? You asked about the weight of the weapon itself? It was too heavy for a woman. We were given rifles when we first joined the army, and the rifles were longer than us When the girls walked, the bayonet was half a meter higher than us.

"Male soldiers adapt to everything more easily. We women face this ascetic life, and we are very distressed in every way. We miss home, mother, and comfortable days. There is a Moscow girl named Natasha Day in our army. Lena, she received a medal for bravery, and her superiors gave her a few days off to go home as a sign of encouragement. When she returned to the army after visiting the house, we all ran to sniff her, really, line up one by one The team took turns to smell it, and everyone said she brought back the smell of hometown. We were so painfully homesick at the time... Every envelope with Dad's handwriting made us happy... Whenever we had a moment to rest, we sat down to embroider Some things, like headscarves, handkerchiefs and so on. The government gave us leg wraps, but we turned them into scarves and weaved fluffy lace. I really want to do something for women! In the army, women’s things are too It was unbearable to have less. We would have given any excuse to show our nature, if only for a moment, to sew something with our needles and thread. Of course we had laughed and had fun, but No one has ever really been able to laugh and have fun like they did before the war."

The tape recorder can record the language, can save the intonation, there are intermittent crying and panic.I understand that when one speaks, there is more to it than what is left on paper.It always makes me regret not being able to record the other person's eyes and gestures, their lives as they speak, their own lives, their unique lives.Those are their real "original texts". "Yes, we seem to be two wars," Saul Henrihovich joined our conversation. "Whenever we reminisce, I feel that she remembers her war and I remember mine. She gives you The same things I said about my unit, how homesick, how to line up to sniff the girls who came back from home, etc. But I forgot all these things... slipped by... At that time, such It's such a trivial thing...not worth mentioning. She hasn't told you the story of the navy cap yet, Olya, how did you forget that?"

"Of course I haven't forgotten it, it's unforgettable... I'm always afraid to recall this story, every time I'm afraid... The thing is, at dawn that day, our army's speedboats went out to sea, and there were dozens of speedboats... We quickly We heard the battle started, and we listened attentively, waiting for the result... The battle lasted for several hours, and even hit a place very close to the city at one point, and finally the artillery gradually stopped. Before dark, I walked to the shore: Saw a lot of sailor beanies floating on the waterway leading to the estuary, one after the other. Navy caps and large patches of red blood drifting with the waves... and fragments of speedboats... this is where our men were killed Fell into the sea. I stood on the shore for a long time, until the beanie floated away in the water. At first I was counting the number of sailor hats, but then I couldn't count them. And I can't leave, I can't bear Read on. The passage into the sea is the joint burial tomb of our comrades in arms...

"Saul, where's my handkerchief? I have to carry it all the time... Where is it?" "I remember many of the stories she told, but as it is often said now, it is necessary to 'chop the head and the tail' for future generations. What I often tell the children is not my war, but hers. I found that , the children like her stories more.” Saul Henrihovich continued his own thinking, “The stories I tell contain more specific military terms, while her stories are more human touch. Human touch often More fascinating, more touching than the actual thing. Actually we also have women soldiers in our infantry, and as soon as one of them comes to us, we straighten our backs. You can't imagine it... This sentence is also mine Borrowed from Olga. But you really can't imagine how exciting a woman's laughter and voice are on the battlefield!

"You ask whether love can be produced on the battlefield? Of course! The women we meet on the battlefield are all beautiful wives and faithful companions. Those who marry in war are the happiest people, the happiest Yes. We fell in love on the front line, between fire and death. It was a strong bond. Of course I don't deny that there are some bad things, because the war is long and there are all kinds of wars on the battlefield. but what I remember most is beauty, purity, and nobility. "War has made me a better person...that's for sure! I've grown as a person by suffering on the battlefield. I've seen so much misfortune, and I've suffered a lot myself. On the battlefield In fact, the unimportant things in life are always thrown away because they are superfluous, and only there you know that. But the war takes its revenge on us... only we are afraid to admit it... the war has caught up with us... ...not only all of us, but our daughters' fates are set. That's why their mothers, the veterans of the front, always educate their daughters according to the moral standards of wartime, according to the education they themselves received at the front Fathers, fathers too. As I told you, a man at the front is plain: what he is, what he is, cannot be concealed. Their daughters have no idea People in society are completely different from their family members, and they are not warned that there are mean things in the world. Therefore, when these girls marry, they are easy to fall into the hands of cheaters. They are good at deceiving them, because deceiving them has no Trouble. It happened to the children of many of our front-line comrades. So did one of our daughters..." "For some reason, we just don't tell our children about war. Maybe it's because we're afraid, or maybe we can't bear it. Is that right?" Olga Vasilyevna mused, "I didn't bring the ribbon I wore them home. Because I broke them once by chance and didn't connect them again. After the war I was the director of a food factory, and once I went to a meeting where the boss of a trust also had a A woman saw the medal ribbon I was hanging on her body and shouted in public: "Why do you hang up the war medal like a man like this?" I don't know why she doesn't think I have so many war medals. When it's just the two of us in the room, I tell her all about my time in the Navy. She looks uncomfortable and I don't. Lost interest in wearing medals since then. I don't wear them now, although I'm still proud of them. "It took decades before the famous journalist Vera Tkachenko wrote about us in the party's central organ Pravda, raising the issue that we were still at war. She said quite a lot The frontline female soldiers are still single, unable to start a family, and many of them even do not even have housing. Facing these sacred women, we have a clear conscience. Since then, people on the frontline have somewhat attracted For 40 to 50 years, they still lived in dormitories. Finally, the state began to allocate separate housing for them. I have a girlfriend. I don’t want to mention her real name, but she suddenly lost her temper ...she was an assistant medic...was wounded three times. After the war she went to medical school. She didn't find any of her family. They all died. She was so poor that she went around giving people every night Scrubbing floors to make ends meet. But she never admitted to anyone that she is a disabled soldier and enjoys government subsidies, she tore up all the papers and certificates. I asked her: 'Why did you tear up the Invalids certificate?' She burst into tears Get up and say: "Who else will marry me?" I said to her: "So what? You have done the right thing." But she cried louder: "Maybe these papers are wrong to me now." Helpful because I'm very sick.' Can you imagine her crying? "To celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of the victory in the Russian Navy for the first time in the glorious city of Sevastopol, the local government invited a hundred naval veterans of the Great Patriotic War from various fleets, including three women. Two of them are My girlfriend and I. The Admiral bowed to each of us, thanked us in public and kissed our hands. How can this be forgotten?!" "Do you want to forget the war?" "Forgot? How did you forget..." Olga asked again. "We have neither the ability nor the right to forget." Saul Henry Hovich broke the silence. "Olya, do you remember? Every Victory Day, we always see an old mother with a sign as old as herself hanging around her neck, which says: 'I'm looking for Kurnev Thomas Vladimilovich, who disappeared during the siege of Leningrad in 1942. 'You can guess from her face that she is already in her eighties. How many more years will she have to look for? Will definitely find her life The last hour. So are we." "I want to forget the war, I really want to forget..." Olga Vasilyevna said slowly, murmured, as if to herself, "I want to live a life free from war, Even if it's just for one day. Don't recall the war...even if it's just one day..." I have a good memory of the two of them in front-line photos, and they gave me a photo.They are so young in the photo, much smaller than me now.All this immediately gave me new thoughts, which gradually became clearer.Looking at these pictures of youth, I seem to pick up another meaning from the interview I just listened to and recorded.Between me and them, the age difference disappeared.