When Mussolini translated this inscription, he cried out: "This people cannot be defeated." Now it is easy to talk about the senselessness of the resistance of the defenders of the Brest Fortress, that the front was already far away. But it was precisely such fierce pockets of resistance that prevented the Nazis from fulfilling their plan and taking Moscow before winter. These are precisely those drops of blood that undermined the power of the German machine.
Or like this melted clock, with the hands stopped at 4 in the morning. These are all symbols of that bygone era. Let's just walk through the ruins of the Brest Fortress...

The German command expected to capture the fortress within a few hours, but the 45th division of the Wehrmacht was stuck in Brest for a week and, with significant losses, suppressed separate centers of resistance of the heroic defenders of Brest for another month.

Main entrance to memorial Complex"Brest Fortress"

The obelisk of the Fortress-Hero is visible in the center.

This is a baked brick, the Germans burned out the premises of the casemates with flamethrowers, in which the defenders of the Fortress hid

The Brest Fortress was built in the middle of the 19th century on the site ancient city, on the islands formed by the Western Bug and Mukhavets rivers, their branches and canal systems. It consisted of 4 fortifications: Central (Citadel), Terespol (Western), Volyn (Southern), Kobrin (Northern).

The citadel is an island surrounded by a closed two-story barracks 1.8 km long with walls almost two meters thick. Its 500 casemates could accommodate 12 thousand soldiers with the equipment and food supplies necessary for combat operations. The niches of the walls of the barracks with loopholes and embrasures were adapted for firing from rifles and cannons.

The Citadel was covered by Kobrin, Terespol, Volyn bridgeheads. The Kobrin fortification was erected on the site of the Kobrin suburb. It consisted of 4 bastion forts and 3 ravelins. It was connected with the Citadel by the Brest and Bialystok (Brigitsky) gates and bridges across the Mukhavets River.

The sculptural composition "Thirst", symbolizing the most tragic part of the defense of the hero-fortress Brest - the tormenting thirst experienced by her heroic defenders due to the Germans blocking access to the river.
Now the helmet always contains water and bouquets of flowers from grateful visitors.

"Bayonet" of the Brest Fortress, installed in the center of the citadel. The monument is dedicated to the defenders of the fortress, a stele in the form of a Russian rifle bayonet - faithful friend in combat and defense. Below the obelisk is located mass grave the defenders of the fortress. A symbol of heroic events - the "Bayonet" obelisk sparkles in the sun with titanium facets - this composition, unique in scale and work, was installed in 1971 and is one of the highest statues in the world.

St. Nicholas Cathedral. The cathedral was built in 1856-1879. Subsequently, the temple was repeatedly visited Russian emperors, from Alexander II to Nicholas II. After the annexation of Brest to Poland in the 20th century, the cathedral was converted into a church according to the project of the architect Julian Lisetsky, having undergone significant changes in the facade area. And before the war, films were shown here ...

Guard of honor

Peace and War

Fortress building. The Kholmsky Gate was one of the four gates of the Ring Barracks leading to the citadel of the Brest Fortress, named after the former name of the city of Helm, since once the road from the gate led to southbound towards this city. Built in classic style early XIX century. They lead to the bridge across the southern branch of the Mukhavets River.

It was here that fierce battles took place in the first days of the war.

I ran into a patrol, the feeling that I was transported in a "time machine" to 41 years

The Terespol Gate was the first to receive the main blow from the Germans from the southwestern side. In the building of the gate, which resembled the architecture of the Kholm Gate, there was a tower in which families of border guards lived - wives, children, and water supply from the bank of the river passed here. Bug and supplied the nearby barracks and the entire fortress with water. To the left of the gate there were barracks, stables, ammunition depots. In the first days of the battles, all the buildings were badly destroyed and many commanders, their families and soldiers died, and the fortress was left without water.

Without words...

Monument to the heroes-border guards at the Terespol Gate. Cast in bronze and made of granite, the sculptural composition conveys the tragic atmosphere of those days. Marching in open attack border guards, behind a stylized wall of fortifications, a mother with a child and a woman giving a wounded soldier some water, symbolically from a helmet. All of them froze in a single impulse not to let the enemy through, not to give him the opportunity to cross the borders marked by a border post with the coat of arms of the USSR.

There are 2 museums on the territory of the Brest Fortress. Museum of War-Territory of Peace, opened with the help of Gazprom Transgaz Belarus

It is more modern and tells about the horrors of war and the cost of human life.

This is a medallion of soldiers, in which information about the soldier was stored, it was from them that the names were restored.

Thousands and millions Soviet people ended up in German camps

But according to this photo, the remains of the soldiers who defended the fortress were found

An improvised firing wall.

Why did they fight?

Old photographs convey the atmosphere of that time

And this is the traditional Museum of the Defense of the Brest Fortress.
The construction of the fortress on the site of the center of the old city and the Brest castle began in 1833 according to the project of the military topographer and engineer Karl Ivanovich Opperman. Initially, temporary earthen fortifications were erected, the first stone in the foundation of the fortress was laid on June 1, 1836. Main construction works were completed by April 26, 1842. The fortress consisted of a citadel and three fortifications that protected it. with total area 4 km² and the length of the main fortress line is 6.4 km.

March 3, 1918 in the Citadel, in the so-called White Palace was signed Brest Peace. The fortress was in the hands of the Germans until the end of 1918, and then under the control of the Poles.

In 1920 during Soviet-Polish war was taken by the Red Army, but soon lost again, and in 1921, according to the Peace of Riga, it went to the Second Commonwealth. During the interwar period, the fortress was used as a barracks, a military warehouse and a political prison.

1941...

These are the pass letters that the Germans threw off the planes

And this is the preserved inscription on the walls of the fortress

And here you can see what the fortress was in 1944

Road of memory, along the lit candles.

Meeting-requiem "Candle of Memory".

It's just very strong, to tears, when you see the portraits of the defenders, where they were found during excavations.

“I am dying, but I do not give up. Farewell, Motherland! ”, - the well-known graffiti scrawled in the Bialystok Gate area, on the wall of the barracks of the 132nd separate battalion escort troops of the NKVD of the USSR. Yes, citizens are anti-Soviet, almost certainly this entry was left by an escort from the NKVD, but now is not about that. This graffiti is clearly dated July 20, 1941, the war has been going on for almost a month.
Among those "people of the first hour of the war" who began it at dawn on June 22 and continued for many weeks, there were many natives Kirov region. More than 50 names of our countrymen are known who took the first blow of the enemy in the fortress - the hero and its environs. The list, in fact, is far from complete, because even the exact number of participants in the defense of the Brest Fortress is still not known (various figures are given from 11 to 15 thousand people). Very few fighters managed to survive those battles of the summer of 1941, and almost all the survivors went through the horror of German captivity.
Here are the memories of our countrymen - the defenders of the Brest Fortress.

Zhuravlev Evgeny Vasilyevich - (Pizhansky district) Private 455th rifle regiment. Fought near the Three-Arrow Gate. On July 1, seriously wounded. Got captured. After the war, he lived in the village of Bezvodnoe.

“On the night of June 22, I took up duty as a sentry in the gun park. It was calm across the river. True, except for two deaf machine-gun bursts. But they did not cause me anxiety: shots were heard beyond the Bug before.
I surrendered my post to my fellow countryman, Alexander Efremov, from Piazza, and returned to the guardhouse. In less than half an hour, the fortress shuddered from the most powerful artillery strikes and drowned in a deafening roar. Everything collapsed and burned. The fortress was choking in smoke.
Alexander Efremov died that night at the post. My other fellow countryman, Pyotr Laptev, who guarded the train at the freight station, which arrived from the west, did not return from his post either: at about four in the morning, at a prearranged signal, the doors in all the cars of this train flew open, and fascist machine gunners jumped to the ground, who, having removed sentries, moved to fortresses.
... Our group was headed by Lieutenant Sorokin. We took up defense at the Treharochny Gate and repelled enemy attacks at the bridge over the Mukhavets. They stayed for nine days. There was no food, there were not enough cartridges, thirst was tormented, although water was nearby. Rarely did anyone manage to make their way to the river under the cover of night in order to scoop up a sip of water with a helmet. And if they succeeded, then the water was given to the wounded - there were more and more of them.
I was wounded on the tenth day, when it was decided to withdraw. I was making a smoke screen for the retreat, and at that moment a bullet burned me. I fell. I woke up from the blow of a fascist boot. They put me on a stretcher and carried me. I understood: this is a prisoner ... "
He spent four years away from his homeland in fascist concentration camps Evgeny Zhuravlev, miraculously survived.

Klopov Konstantin Vasilievich - a native of Kirov, sergeant of the 333rd Infantry Regiment. Fought in the area of ​​the Terespol Gates of the Citadel. On June 26, while trying to get out of the encirclement, he was wounded and captured by the Nazis. In the spring of 1944, he escaped from a POW camp and joined partisan detachment. After connecting with units of the Soviet Army, he participated in battles on the territory East Prussia. February 14, 1945 was seriously wounded. Awarded with the Order Glory III degree. He worked in the Kirovlesstroy trust.

"... At night, at four o'clock, frames flew out in our room, and blast wave threw us out of bed.
At first I was confused, but soon I realized: it was the Nazis who attacked. We need to be organized. Several of my comrades ran to the frontier post. By that time, the enemy had already captured the Western Gate and was firing so heavily that many were immediately killed and wounded. Under a hail of fragments of shells and bullets, we crawled to the ammunition depot in order to get weapons. Three or four gunners from the regimental battery at that time were dragging a 75-millimeter cannon to the Western Gate. We jumped out and helped pull her up and set her on direct fire.
The gunners repulsed the attacks of the Nazis for about an hour, until the enemies put the gun out of action with a direct hit. These guys did a great job: in the first minutes, when complete confusion reigned, they, at the cost of their lives, made it possible personnel The 333rd Infantry Regiment put itself on alert and deploy forces for defense ...
A senior lieutenant ran out of the headquarters of the frontier post, but was killed. Following him, apparently his wife jumped out with a son of 4-5 years old. The boy, seeing his father lying down, threw his mother's hand, sat down on the road near the dead man and, shaking him by the sleeve, called: "Daddy, daddy!" The Nazis, ignoring the fact that the baby was in front of them, opened fire on him. The bullet broke the boy's arm below the elbow. He continued to call for his father with large, frightened eyes. His hand hung lifelessly, but he did not cry. We carried him through the embrasure into the basement.
On the afternoon of June 22, for the first time, I had to come face to face with the Nazis. They were well-fed tall fellows with skull and crossbones patches on their sleeves and helmets. They climbed, not understanding anything, all drunk, and shouting something. Most of them lay down at our embrasures, and some took refuge in the building of the church.
On the 23rd and 24th, attacks became less frequent, but on the other hand, artillery attacks and bombings from aircraft were more frequent.
On June 25, the three of us (Berezkin, Ilyichev and I) went out to the Western Gate and through the attic of the barracks, in which the battalion of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was located, went to the South-Western Gate. The building was badly damaged, devastated by fire, but not occupied by anyone. At the very southwestern gate we encountered the Germans. They did not expect to see us here and therefore, after the first throw of the grenade, they fled. There began a heavy shelling. We were forced to leave. The next morning, it was ordered to prepare for a counterattack by forcing Mukhavets in order to push back the enemy grouping, which had wedged along the river into the center of the fortress and prevented it from connecting with neighboring fighters.
The counterattack was lightning fast. Two short runs - and we are already in the river. The water boiled with shells and bullets. Many of our comrades died here. In the middle of the river, apparently, I was a little deafened, I woke up already at the very shore. After destroying the enemy firing points, our group split up. Some broke through in the direction of the northeastern part of the fortress, others pursued the retreating Nazis to the Warsaw-Minsk highway. At this time, our group took up defensive positions on the right flank.
Along the highway, heavy vehicles with infantry and artillery and other Combat vehicles. Of the weapons, I still had a machine gun, the rest had TT pistols.
Here on open space, the forces became completely unequal. For some half an hour, the site of our defense was literally plowed up by bombs and shells. During this raid, I was wounded by a shrapnel in the thigh of my right leg. When the shelling ended, two cars quickly drove up the highway, covered with panels with a red cross. We didn't even shoot at them, thinking they were Red Cross vehicles. But on the other hand, they immediately opened fire from two machine guns and two dozen machine guns. It turned out they were armored vehicles.
With a butt blow I was forced to get up, and with the help of my comrades I got to the highway. Here it only dawned on us that we were captured by the Nazis ... "

Ispolatov Nikolai Mikhailovich - a native of Kotelnich, a private of the 44th Infantry Regiment. Fought on the Kobrin fortification. June 27 was taken prisoner. Came through fascist camps. After an unsuccessful escape in the winter of 1944, he was tortured by the Gestapo. On April 7, 1945, with a group of prisoners, disarming the sentry, he goes into the mountains, where he meets with French partisans.
"... On June 24, through one fighter, an order reached us that said that every fighter and commander must fulfill his duty to the Motherland to the end.
Somehow a rumor spread that ours had driven the Nazis out of Brest. And as if confirming this, a Soviet aircraft appeared in the night sky. Behind the walls of the fortress, enemy guns began to speak. All night no one closed their eyes. Everyone waited silently. It seemed that even the wounded in the dark corner were not moaning so loudly. Everyone hoped. There was a new, fourth night. When hope disappeared, they decided to break through.
I remember this well last night in the Brest Fortress. There were only three of us left in the casemate. We crawl from stone to stone. The stars are burning in the sky. Even the stone glows from them. And between the stones is darkness. We choose darkness and crawl. The air smells of burning. I can not breathe. But everyone is afraid to cough. Suddenly, a rocket flared up in the starry sky. It became as bright as day. We pressed to the ground. Night fell again.
It's over, everyone thought.
At that moment, a bright trail of tracer bullets was clearly visible. Machine guns fired. Bullets whistled. burned right ear. We stubbornly continue to crawl. Fire flashed. An inhuman force lifted it up and threw it on a grand scale into the darkness, to where the stones...
... On the evening of June 27, I came to my senses. The eyes were bad. The rumor seemed to be lost forever. We lay on the ground, bleeding. And on the other side of the Bug everything was on fire. Silent explosions and artillery shots shook the air. The fortress fought ... ".

Kharin Fedor Fedorovich - a native of the Slobodsky district, a private of the 31st autobattalion. He held the defense near the Kholmsky Gate. On June 28 he was shell-shocked and taken prisoner. He fled from the camp, but was captured by Polish traitors and thrown back into the camp. May 8, 1945 was released Soviet Army. After the war, he worked as a driver at a leather and footwear factory named after V.I. Lenin. In 1971 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
On the evening of June 21, my fellow countryman Misha Ponomarev and I watched a film about Valery Chkalov in the Citadel and noticed that there were too many unfamiliar soldiers and officers among the spectators.
Explosions deafened us at night. We jumped out of our beds and rushed to the doors. They did not open: the collapsed ceiling blocked the exit. We jumped out of the windows (the barracks was on the second floor) and ran to the building of the 333rd Infantry Regiment, where there were underground casemates. People were already running here screaming. Some were dressed, others were in underwear. And all around it thundered, blazed. They tore the locks off the door and, letting the women and children go ahead, went down to the basement. When they came to their senses a little, they rushed in search of clothes and weapons.
For several days we held the defense at the Kholmsky Gate, together with the border guards and soldiers of the 333rd Infantry Regiment. The forces were clearly unequal, but we held on as long as we had the strength.
I was shell-shocked on the fifth day of the war. I remember that they wrapped me in a sheet and dragged me to a barn where the seriously wounded lay. There was no hope for salvation...

Marenin Alexey Ilyich - a native of Yuria, a cadet of the regimental school of the 44th rifle regiment. Machine gunner. He held the defense at the Terespol and Kholmsky gates. Contused twice. On July 8, having crossed Mukhavets, with a group of fighters escaped from the fortress and crossed the front line. After treatment in the hospital, he fought in the Red Army. Participated in the battles near Stalingrad, on Oryol-Kursk Bulge, liberated Kyiv, Chernigov, Lvov, participated in the Vistula-Oder operation. Awarded with orders Glory III degree and the Red Star, medals.
"It is impossible to forget those days. They cost a lifetime.
Is it possible, tell me, to forget the roar of women and the crying of children, whom it was decided to hand over to enemy captivity?! We went to this, already extreme, measure only so that they would survive and then be able to tell the truth, how, bleeding, the fortress fought to the last breath. I still have their screams and cries in my ears!
I was a machine gunner and held the defense in the area between the Kholmsky and Terespolsky gates. I well remember the leaders of the defense - Lieutenant Kizhevatov, Senior Lieutenant Bytko, Captain Zubachev ... All of them died as heroes.
On June 24, we swore an oath to each other to hold out to the last bullet. We have fulfilled this vow. There really were less and less cartridges left every day, and the Nazis, as if sensing this, launched impudent propaganda. Through the loudspeakers, in pure Russian, they urged us to surrender, guaranteed life and all sorts of benefits. In response, each time we put up red flags on the bayonets of rifles, which infuriated the Krauts.
I remember that Sergeant Major Meyer, a German from the Volga region, was among us, so he painted caricatures of Hitler on Nazi leaflets. Once he depicted the Fuhrer as a pig, so this drawing was attached to the back of a captured fascist and, having given a kick in the ass, they sent it to their own ... "

List of Kirov residents - defenders of the Brest Fortress:
Anisimov I.A. (Zuevsky district)
Ashikhmin I. (Sloboda district)
Barantsev V.G. (Yuryansky district)
Barantsev M.I. (Yuryansky district)
Vedernikov A. (Sovetsk)
Vylegzhanin N.N. (Yuryansky district)
Gorev N.S. (Orlovsky district)
Efremov A. (Pizhansky district)
Zharovtsev V. (Pizhansky district)
Zhuikov (Pizhansky district)
Zhuravlev E.V. (Pizhansky district)
Zverev A.A. (Pizhansky district)
Zverev N.G. (Pizhansky district)
Zykov I. (Pizhansky district)
Ivantsov V.A. (Nolinsky district)
Izergin (Pizhansky district)
Ilyin (Pizhansky district)
Ilyichev V.A. (Slobodskoy district)
Ispolatov A.M. (Kotelnich)
Ispolatov N.M. (Kotelnich)
Kazakov V.V. (Sanchursky district)
Kandakov E.I. (Sanchursky district)
Kargopoltsev (Sloboda district)
Klopov K.V. (Kirov)
Kozlov A.M. (Orichevsky district)
Korobeinikov N.E. (Yuryansky district)
Kostin N.I. (Kirov)
Kostromin A. (Pizhansky district)
Kochkin A.V. (Kirov)
Koshkin A.A. (Sanchursky district)
Kraev P.N. (Kiknur district)
Laptev P.A. (Pizhansky district)
Marenin A.I. (n. Yurya)
Marenin S.N. (Yuryansky district)
Mashkin G.I. (Pizhansky district)
Milkov N.I. (Pizhansky district)
Motovilov L. (Pizhansky district)
Motovilov N. (Pizhansky district)
Mukhachev N.I. (Darovsky district)
Nekrasov M.I. (Kotelnich)
Pashkin A.E. (n. Nagorsk)
Perevozchikova M.G. (Kirov)
Polovnikov N. (Yuryansky district)
Ponomarev M. (Slobodskoy district)
Priemyshev S.G. (Zuevsky district)
Rezvukhin I.V. (Slobodskoy district)
Reshetnikov A.D. (Nolinsky district)
Savinykh (Pizhansky district)
Simonov N.D. (Yuryansky district)
Sitnikov P.I. (Kirov)
Skobelkin A.K. (Yuryansky district)
Suslov A.I. (Yuryansky district)
Titov I.A. (Kirovo-Chepetsky district)
Tokarev K.A. (Tuzhinskiy district)
Kharin F.F. (Slobodskoy district)
Chemodanov A. (Pizhansky district)

Everlasting memory heroes!

Russians do not give up, or why Russia wins

The catchphrase "Russians don't give up!" spread all over the world during the First World War. During the defense of the small fortress Osovets, located on the territory of present-day Belarus. The small Russian garrison only needed to hold out for 48 hours. He defended himself for more than six months - 190 days!
The Germans used all the latest weapons achievements, including aviation, against the defenders of the fortress. Each defender had several thousand bombs and shells. Dropped from airplanes and fired from dozens of guns, 17 batteries, including two famous "Big Berthas" (which the Russians managed to knock out at the same time).
The Germans bombed the fortress day and night. Month after month. The Russians defended themselves in the midst of a hurricane of fire and iron to the last. There were very few of them, but the offer to surrender was always followed by the same answer. Then the Germans deployed 30 gas batteries against the fortress. A 12-meter wave of chemical attack hit the Russian positions from thousands of cylinders. There were no gas masks.
All living things on the territory of the fortress were poisoned. Even the grass turned black and withered. A thick poisonous green layer of chlorine oxide covered the metal parts of guns and shells. At the same time, the Germans began a massive shelling. Following him, over 7,000 infantrymen moved to storm the Russian positions.
It seemed that the fortress was doomed and already taken. Thick, numerous German chains came closer and closer ... And at that moment, from a poisonous green chlorine fog, a ... counterattack fell upon them! There were a little over sixty Russians. Remains of the 13th company of the 226th Zemlyansky regiment. For every counterattack, there were more than a hundred enemies!
Russians went to full height. In the bayonet. Shaking from coughing, spitting out, through rags wrapped around their faces, pieces of the lungs onto bloody tunics ...
These soldiers plunged the enemy into such horror that the Germans, not accepting the battle, rushed back. They trample each other in a panic, tangle and hang on their own barbed wire fences. And then, from the clubs of poisoned fog, it would seem that already dead Russian artillery hit them.
This battle will go down in history as the "attack of the dead". During it, several dozen half-dead Russian soldiers put 14 enemy battalions to flight!
The Russian defenders of Osovets never surrendered the fortress. She was abandoned later. And by command. When the defense has lost its meaning. The enemy was not left with either a cartridge or a nail. Everything that survived in the fortress from German fire and bombing was blown up by Russian sappers. The Germans decided to take the ruins only a few days later ...
The Russians did not give up even during the years of the Great Patriotic War. Brest fortress, Adzhimushkay dungeons, Kyiv football match with death, the resistance movement in Western Europe, Stalingrad house Pavlova, fascist dungeons...
The Russians did not just not give up, but defeated well-armed, trained and well-fed SS men even in the death block of the Mauthausen death camp. Think about this phrase "death camp death block"! Its prisoners, having risen in revolt, in fact with bare hands conquered death.
The answer to the question why the Russians do not give up and win is given by the following deathbed inscriptions and letters.
Inscriptions of the defenders of the Brest Fortress on its walls
We will die, but we will not leave! We will die, but we will not leave the fortress.
I'm dying, but I don't give up! Farewell, Motherland.
20/07-41
Note of the participants in the battles near Kiliya
Held up last drop blood. Savinov group. For three days they held back the offensive of significant enemy forces, but as a result of fierce fighting near Kiliya, four people remained in the group of Captain Savinov: the captain, me, Lance Sergeant Stop and soldier Omelkov. We will die, but we will not surrender.
Blood for blood, death for death!
July 1941

Often in death critical situation, a person leaves some message or letter about what happened to him and what are the circumstances of his current situation. Thus, he makes himself felt, and very often the information that he provided makes it possible to understand the whole essence and logic of the events that happened to him. It's normal psychological situation- being practically in a hopeless situation for himself, a person still wants to be heard or seen by people who could understand him. In the war, the records left by soldiers or officers made it possible to understand what happened to their unit and what it was like. further fate. One of the most striking recent examples, when a note left shed light on what is happening with people who are in mortal danger, is a note by Lieutenant Commander D. Kolesnikov, a member of the crew of the Kursk submarine that sank in 2000. As it turned out from this note, the crew of the nuclear submarine did not die completely and concentrated in the last, as yet unflooded 9th compartment of the submarine. But in addition to the notes that people leave in a critical situation for themselves, the so-called records on stones are also very common. Stones can also speak, shedding light on what is happening with people. "Talking Stones" are monuments to those people who finally decided to declare themselves and convey this information to others. Most a prime example"talking stones" are the inscriptions on the walls of the Brest Fortress.

More recently, enthusiasts and active forum participants http://fortification.ru/forum/index.php?topic=3453.255 found inscriptions on the walls of the ring barracks in the southwestern part of the Central Island (to the left of the Terespol Gates). This section of the ring barracks is the best preserved and has not been restored. In addition to the traditional inscriptions “Kolya was here” or “Svetka + Lekha = love”, you can also find autographs with the names of the Brest Fortress servicemen.


The inscriptions were dated 1931, 1940 and other years and contained mainly the names of those who left these inscriptions.


There were even inscriptions in Georgian.
A curious fact, in fact, it would be nice to go on a raid and study the fortress walls. At the same time, I immediately remembered the most famous and legendary "talking stones" - the inscriptions left Soviet soldiers and officers in June-July 1941.


The inscription reads as follows: “We were three Muscovites - Ivanov, Stepanchikov, Zhuntyaev, who defended this church, and we swore an oath: we will die, but we will not leave here. July 1941". Unfortunately, the inscription was partially subjected to ideological censorship, the word "church" was slightly retouched, because according to the canons of that time, religion was considered "opium for the people." Below is a photo of this church.





In fact, this building was not a church. It was related to religion during the Polish rule (1921-1939). And after Brest was occupied by units of the Red Army, this building became known as the Red Army Club of the 84th joint venture.
As for the inscription on the wall of the church, according to S.S. Smirnov there was a sequel. The inscription wall itself has not survived. The words left on the wall were as follows:
“I was left alone, Stepanchikov and Zhuntyaev were killed. The Germans were in the church itself. The last grenade remained, but I won’t give myself up alive. Comrades, avenge us!”
The next well-known inscription left on the outer wall near the Terespol Gate.


Its content reads: “There were five of us: Sedov, Grutov I., Bogolyub, Mikhailov, Selivanov V. We took the first battle on June 22, 1941 - 3.15 hours. We will die, but we will not leave.” It is quite possible that this inscription was left by the border guards, who moved from the territory of the Western Island along the bridge to the Terespol Gate. In general, in the event of a combat alarm, units of the 6th and 42nd quarters stationed in the fortress rifle divisions they were supposed to begin an organized withdrawal from the fortress and go to concentration points. In fact, the writing on the wall is an actual violation of the order. However, given that the border guards were not subordinate to the People's Commissariat of Defense, I fully admit that this inscription was left by them. In addition, the presence of inscriptions is confirmed by Valentina Sachkovskaya (Zenkina), who was the daughter of the foreman of the musician platoon and passed by the Terespol Gate after the battles in the fortress. Draws attention fixed on the wall exact time the beginning of the offensive of the 45th infantry division of the Wehrmacht - 3.15 am.


The following inscription, left in the western part of the ring barracks: “There were three of us, it was difficult for us, but we did not lose heart and we will die like heroes. 1941 June 26”
In 1958, in the ruins of the White Palace, employees of the archive of the Brest Fortress found an inscription on the wall " We die without shame".


The original inscription is kept in the Museum of the Defense of the Brest Fortress.


And here, in fact, is the building of the White Palace in June 1941.


The building itself has not survived to this day, since most of it was blown up by German sappers along with the defenders of the fortress. The building of the White Palace itself is the last center of organized defense on the central island of the citadel.
Well, let's move on to last entry, which was recorded and preserved to this day. Without a doubt, this is the most famous and soul-stirring autograph of the 20th century.


The inscription made on the wall of the barracks of the 132nd separate battalion of the escort troops of the NKVD of the USSR reads as follows:
. Just below the inscription was the word "Dying...". Apparently, the last strength left the unknown and he died. Most valuable information the date was July 20, 1941. That is, the battles in the fortress continued on the 29th day of the war, when the advanced units of Army Group Center were already in the Smolensk region. In his report to the command of the 4th Army, the commander of the 45th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht, Lieutenant General F. Shliper noted: “ Losses are very heavy. For all the time of the fighting - from June 22 to June 29 - we lost 1121 people killed and wounded. The fortress and the city of Brest are captured, the bastion is under our complete control, despite the cruel courage of the Russians. The soldiers are still being fired upon from the basements - lone fanatics, but we will soon deal with them.". Who were these loners? And how long did it last recent fights in a fortress? Thanks to the "talking stones" it is already known for certain that the fighting went on in the second half of July.
The commander of the 44th joint venture, Major P.M., is considered the last official defender of the Brest Fortress. Gavrilov. He, exhausted and wounded, was captured by the Germans on July 23, 1941 in the northern part of the fortress.
Who was the last defender or among the last defenders of the fortress, historians failed to establish. The facts are known that the shooting continued in August. From the diaries of non-commissioned officer Max Klegel, date - August 1, 1941: “ Two of ours died in the fortress - a half-dead Russian stabbed them with a knife. It's still dangerous here. I hear gunfire every night". The estimated date for the end of resistance in the fortress is August 20. Just at that time, photographs began to appear in the German military press, showing soldiers of a flamethrower platoon "performing combat mission"on the territory of the Brest Fortress. The last survivors were burned alive by fire.

It is also known that the military commandant of Brest, W. von Unruh, was given the task of "putting the fortress in order" by August 20, as high-ranking officials were soon to arrive. On August 26, the territory of the Brest Fortress was visited by A. Hitler and B. Mussolini.

And although the authorship of most of the inscriptions on the territory of the Brest Fortress could not be established, the fact of fierce battles in the fortress a month after the start of the war is indisputable. Original inscription "I'm dying, but I'm not giving up! Farewell, Motherland. 20/VII-41" stored in Moscow in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces.