I can not believe it.On the back of these photos, Edwar's handwriting, with faded blue pen ink, scrawled the name of a city and a date:
Leningrad, 1942
He took part in the battle of Leningrad?When the great siege of the century happened, he was at the historical scene, one of the German soldiers who besieged the city?The picture shows two German soldiers with steel helmets - I believe they just placed the wreath on the tombstone...
What is this?A packet of letters?Edvor's letter to Maria from the Leningrad battlefield?Was it taken from the attic?
I used to go up to that attic. When the wooden ladder was retracted, it was a piece of the ceiling. When I pulled it down, it became the stairs. The ladder was very steep and almost vertical.Climb up and step on the floor—actually the ceiling, which creaks with your careful footsteps.In the dimly lit attic, there are several heavy wooden boxes, some with brass locks, covered with dust, and I don’t know how many generations have been put there.
There's a wooden box, painted pirate blue, that I opened, and it's full of your father's and Heinz's childhood toys and little clothes.Of course, it was all packed by Maria.At that time, I was still thinking, this Germanic nation is really different from the Americans, but rather like the "old soul" of the Chinese, who pays attention to the inheritance of the torch.
But why have I never heard anyone mention that Edvor has so many letters from the battlefield?
Siege of Leningrad.
The German army had already approached the city in August 1941. On September 8, Leningrad's external traffic was completely cut off. The food in the city was only enough for one to two months.No one expected that the siege lasted for almost three years, nine hundred days.On January 27, 1944, the German army withdrew, and only 1.5 million people remained in the bustling city of 2.6 million residents.Some of the people who disappeared in the past three years fled, but starved to death under the German artillery blockade. The most conservative estimate is 640,000 people.
Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, is located at 59°93' north latitude, and the temperature in winter can drop to minus thirty-five degrees.The siege cut off not only bread and milk, but also fuel and raw materials.The only food and fuel should be given priority to troops and factories.It is difficult for civilians to survive the Russian winter in the dark night without lights and heating.The siege began on September 8, and the first to be slaughtered were the cats and dogs in the city, and then the rats.At the beginning, some people died of starvation and freezing, and were dragged by horses on flatbed carts to the suburbs for burial.Gradually, horses were also killed and eaten.The body of the dead is sometimes hidden in the cellar by the family, because as long as no one knows that he is dead, the rations allocated can be taken.The corpses sent to the suburbs were often dug out and eaten in the middle of the night.
After the destruction of Leningrad, people found Tanya's diary.Tanya is an eleven-year-old girl. She watched her family members die one by one. She wrote very honestly how she stared at her mother who was not dead. You can eat their rations.From the eyes of her mother looking at her silently, she knew in her heart-mother knew exactly what her daughter was longing for.
Tanya's relatives died one by one.As each person died, she wrote down the name, date and hour of death in the diary.The last one read, "Only Tanya is left".
But Tanya herself didn't live long, and the diary she left behind was later taken out in the Nuremberg Trial as evidence of the "crimes against humanity" by the German army besieging the city.
Hitler thought that the occupation of Leningrad was to get something out of his pocket, and he even prepared the invitations for the celebration banquet. He did not expect that the Russians could be so strong and resolute, and they just stood up, winter after winter.Not to mention the corpses strewn all over the city, the soldiers of the German army could not escape the same minus 35 degrees, in the snow-covered trenches outside the city, sick and dead.One hundred and twenty-five thousand German soldiers were killed.
Edvo's letter home, was it written in a trench outside Leningrad?
1942-2-10
Dear Maria, it is a particularly sunny day, and the black pines look so rich against the white snow.We are probably less than a hundred kilometers away from Leningrad.The wheels of the cannon cart made a pattern in the snow.When passing through an open field, I was still worried that the position of the troops was too exposed, but at the same time I saw the endless white plains, and the dense pine trees in the distance were like the embroidered borders of white doily, which made me think: this beautiful land, When will there be peace and happiness?
The brothers all carried heavy weapons and equipment and walked in the snow with difficulty.During the march, someone passed me and turned to me and said, "Are you from the Third Division? Did you see the sunset just now?"
I know what he's talking about.Today's sunset is a round of fireball, shining the golden and blue-purple light on the black pine spire, which is as holy as the roof of the church.
I miss you and the children irresistibly.
1942-04-02
Dear Maria, today we say goodbye to John.He was hit by a Soviet grenade the day before yesterday and fell down on the spot.The chariot loaded with gunpowder became his temporary "hearse", on which the brothers wove a "wreath" for him with pine branches. The "hearse" drove slowly to the grave, and everyone stood at attention and saluted John.
Last year John was in the same trench as me during a gunfire.He was very young, only nineteen years old, and he was not very good at distinguishing the sound of machine guns and shells, his face turned pale with fright, and his hands shook violently.Now, he can lay down his burden and rest forever.
1942-08-11
Dear Maria, you must be busy harvesting wheat on a warm day in August, right?I can't help but think of the summer song of the wheat field.Songs always make me homesick.Yesterday, I saw the setting sun descending from the top of the mountain again. Such indescribable tenderness finally gave me a little comfort from the bottom of my heart in this sad and terrible place.
This letter, the color of the paper is so old, but it is wrapped in a rose-colored silk scarf.It looked familiar; Maria, who often wore a rose-coloured silk scarf, still wore it in her eighties when her face was wrinkled.
