Stories by Vladimir Bogomolov about the defenders of Stalingrad

Vladimir Bogomolov. Feat of the guards

Our tankers received orders to break through the enemy’s defenses in the area of ​​the Petrov plant. The enemy met the Soviet vehicles with powerful barrage fire from batteries. But this did not stop the guards. They burst into the fascists' location and began to destroy equipment and manpower.

The crew of junior lieutenant Mikhail Kitiya acted boldly and decisively. With fire and tracks, he destroyed eight guns, nine machine guns and three fascist bunkers.

But then the tank hit a mine and froze in place. Immediately eight enemy tanks surrounded the damaged vehicle. Mikhail Kitiya and his friends were asked to surrender. However, the heroes decided to enter into an unequal battle, but would not disgrace the honor of the guards.

With well-aimed fire they disabled three more fascist tanks. But then our combat vehicle caught fire. The Nazis expected that now the Soviet tank crews would open the hatch and climb out with their hands raised. But instead they heard a song sung by the guards:

This is our last and decisive battle,

Will rise with the Internationale

human race...

The enemy was rushing to the southern outskirts of Stalingrad. The Nazis decided to overcome the Oak Ravine to take to the streets of the city. But then a platoon of senior sergeant Mikhail Khvastantsev stood in their way as an impregnable fortress. Twenty tanks and a landing force of machine gunners were moving to the positions of the fighters.

There are already five hundred, four hundred meters left to the battery.

The Nazis decided that our fighters had fled in panic. But Khvastantsev and his friends were preparing for a mortal fight. And when the tanks approached 300-200 meters, the guards opened fire.

The enemy could not stand it and turned back. But the calm did not last long. German bombers appeared above our artillerymen. Bombs fell with a howl, pillars of earth, smoke and fire rose.

The commander ordered the wounded to leave the position and entered into single combat with the tanks, which were heading for a new assault on the battery. Using the surviving cannon, he knocked out another fascist vehicle, but the shells ran out.

The enemy column and machine gunners split into two groups and surrounded the daredevil in a semi-circle. But Khvastantsev was not taken aback: with well-aimed fire from an anti-tank rifle, he knocked out another tank. The rest moved forward. Then Mikhail jumped out of the trench and threw a grenade under the tracks of the lead tank. The car shuddered, but continued to advance towards the trench.

Khvastantsev barely had time to jump into the trench when the heavy tracks began to iron the ground. The tank passed. Mikhail jumped out again and threw the last grenade after him: the tank caught fire... But at the same moment Khvastantsev was hit by machine gun fire.

The commander died, but the enemies did not break into the city. Our new battery approached the battlefield: the artillerymen threw the Nazis back from the Oak ravine far into the steppe.

The attacks of the Nazis became more and more furious, and it became more and more difficult for our soldiers to restrain the onslaught of the brutal enemy. There were fewer and fewer fighters left in the defense areas. But I had to hold on. "No step back!" - this was the order of the Supreme Command Headquarters.

It seemed to the Nazis that one more effort, one more new throw - and the city of Stalingrad would be taken...

Meanwhile, at the direction of the State Defense Committee, the General Staff, together with the front commanders, was developing a plan for encircling and defeating the fascist armies in the Stalingrad area.

- Shall we go to Mamayev Kurgan, grandfather? - the boy asked when they got back on the tram.

- Yes, grandson! We'll definitely go there. After all, this mound is the most important in the battle for our city.

- And I know why Mamayev Kurgan is the most important.

- Why? - Grandfather asked.

- Because the war was buried in it. We learned a song about Mamayev Kurgan at the gathering of our October star.

- Come on, what kind of song is this?

And Vanya sang:

There is silence on Mamayev Kurgan,

Behind Mamayev Kurgan there is silence,

The war is buried in that mound.

A wave quietly splashes onto the peaceful shore.

Grandfather rubbed the ends of his mustache, looked at Vanya, stroked his head and said:

- That's right, grandson! The song says it very true!

Vladimir Bogomolov. Mamaev kurgan

In mid-September, the enemy, having received fresh reserves, intensified attacks. The fascist German troops managed to break through to the city center, to the Tsarina River, and reach the Mamayev Kurgan, gaining a foothold on certain heights...

The fascist generals understood that if they managed to hold on to certain heights and capture Mamayev Kurgan, then they would be able to shoot through Stalingrad in all directions, and then finally capture the city. And in these difficult and dangerous days for the city, the command of the Stalingrad Front from the General Headquarters reserve allocated the 13th Guards Division of Major General Rodimtsev to help the city’s defenders.

The guardsmen were assisted from the air by pilots under the command of Generals Golovanov and Rudenko. The artillerymen of the Stalingrad Front fired at enemy positions with heavy fire.

Rodimtsev's guardsmen successfully crossed to the right bank and with an unexpected counterattack drove back the enemy who had broken through to the city center.

But the dominant heights above the city, including part of Mamayev Kurgan, were still in the hands of Nazi troops.

The guardsmen of General Rodimtsev's division were given an order: to knock out the enemy from Mamayev Kurgan.

All day long, Major Dolgov’s regiment stormed the heights. The Nazis installed machine guns and mortars at the top of the heights and continuously fired at the advancing fighters.

But the guards, sometimes crawling, sometimes running, got to the top. It was already dark when the fighters reached the middle of the slope. At night, Captain Kirin's battalion burst into the Nazi trenches. The machine guns did not stop talking for a minute, and grenades were exploding. Tracer bullets cut through the dark night sky. Iron clanged: it was our soldiers who, in hand-to-hand combat, beat the Nazis on their helmets with their rifle butts. The fighters screamed, the wounded moaned.

Finally the Nazis wavered and began to retreat. The guardsmen completely mastered the heights.

But at dawn the Germans went on the offensive again. Enemy mortars hit, planes began to bomb our positions.

Fire and smoke covered the entire summit.

Two infantry regiments and enemy tanks moved to the heights to attack.

Twelve times our fighters fought hand-to-hand with the enemy. First the guards rolled back down, then the fascists retreated. But the Nazis never managed to return the top of the mound.

On the third day, the Nazis sent up reinforcements - a whole division already went to Dolgov’s regiment. For every one of our fighters there were up to ten Nazis.

Enemy guns roared again, tank tracks ironed the trenches, and fascist planes dived. But nothing frightened the defenders of the mound.

They didn't flinch. They fought to the death.

A heavy tank was heading towards the trench of Komsomol sailor Misha Panikakh.

The Komsomol member prepared for a fight - he picked up a bottle with a flammable mixture, but at that moment an enemy bullet broke the bottle. The liquid instantly ignited and doused the daredevil. Misha Panikakha rose above the ground like a burning torch and, holding the second bottle in his hands, went towards the enemy tank...

During the battle the communication line was damaged.

The lieutenant sent one soldier to repair the damage. But he did not reach the broken wire.

They sent a second one, but it didn’t arrive either.

They sent a third one - Matvey Putilov.

A few minutes passed and the phone started working. But Putilov did not return.

Sergeant Smirnov crawled in his wake and saw the signalman dead near the crater, his teeth clamped to the ends of the broken wire. Apparently, while crawling, Matvey was seriously wounded, weakened, having lost a lot of blood, and was unable to connect the ends of the broken wire with his hands.

The signalman took the ends of the wire into his mouth and clamped them with his teeth. That’s when the telephone at the command post started working.

Maybe Matvey Putilov was not wounded by a fragment from a mine or shell, but was knocked out by an enemy sniper? Just then a German sniper, the head of the Berlin sniper school, appeared on the mound. He put many of our soldiers out of action.

The fascist was so disguised that it was impossible to detect him.

Then the commander summoned the communist Vasily Zaitsev. Zaitsev was an excellent sniper.

He said this on the mound: “There is no land for us beyond the Volga!” And his words became an oath for all the defenders of Stalingrad.

The commander called Zaitsev and gave him the task of finding and destroying the fascist.

Zaitsev crawled to look for a convenient place for himself, and the fascist probably noticed him: as soon as Vasily took off his helmet and put it on the parapet of the trench, a bullet - bang! - and pierced the helmet.

Zaitsev hid and waited for the fascist to shoot again and reveal himself.

An hour passed, then another...

The fascist is silent.

“Nothing,” thinks Zaitsev, “we’ll wait.”

For several hours the fighter lay with bated breath and waited.

In the morning, when the cold sun had just illuminated the ground, a shot was heard - a German sniper spotted someone.

This was enough for Zaitsev's sniper bullet to hit the target.

On the right slope of Mamayev Kurgan, near a small ravine where a small stream flows, stood the battalion of Captain Benyash.

The Nazis attacked the battalion’s trenches eight to ten times a day. The Germans were left without water, and the stream flowed along the bottom of the ravine. So they decided to recapture the ravine.

For more than a hundred days the fighters held back the enemy’s attacks, but the Nazis never drank from the water from this stream.

Our command was preparing a plan for a general offensive. It was important to keep everything deeply secret from the enemy. To transport soldiers and military equipment, ammunition and food along the railways, 1,300 wagons were sent daily; 27 thousand vehicles were involved in transporting military cargo. The transfer of troops and equipment was carried out secretly.

At the headquarters of the fronts - Southwestern (commander Army General N. F. Vatutin), Don (commander Lieutenant General K. K. Rokossovsky), Stalingrad (commander Colonel General A. I. Eremenko) - the counteroffensive plan was clarified and studied in detail : it was decided to squeeze the main enemy grouping in the Stalingrad area - the armies of Paulus and Hoth - into giant pincers, strike at them rapidly to the north-west and south of Stalingrad, and then go to the area of ​​​​the city of Kalach-on-Don, close the ring of the enemy group and defeat the fascist army.

And on November 19, 1942, after a long artillery preparation, in which 1,500 guns took part, the implementation of the master plan for the counteroffensive began.

The troops of the Southwestern and Don Fronts went on the offensive, and on November 20 the troops of the Stalingrad Front went on the offensive.

Vladimir Bogomolov. There is silence in the city on the Volga

A little to the right of Captain Benyash’s battalion stood the mortar battery of Senior Lieutenant Bezdidko.

The mortarmen of this battery became famous for hitting the enemy without missing a beat.

The Nazis did everything they could to destroy our mortars: they bombed from airplanes, tried to cover the positions of the brave men with artillery, sent machine gunners... But the Bezdidko batteries withstood everything, survived!

And when in January 1943 the order was given to go on the offensive, Bezdidko’s mortar men opened hurricane fire on the enemy.

The guardsmen's volleys were well-aimed - half an hour after the enemy shelling, a wide gap was made in the positions, into which our tanks and infantry rushed.

The Nazis could not stand it and began to rapidly retreat. It was difficult for our soldiers to pursue the rapidly retreating enemy through the deep snow.

Suddenly the soldiers see shells exploding ahead...

They hear tanks thundering and a loud and menacing “Hurray!” rolling over the steppe.

"Their!" - rushed joyfully through the ranks of the fighters. - “Ours!” And an hour later, behind a hollow near Mamayev Kurgan, the soldiers met the first tank, which was coming to the aid of the city’s defenders. And after him the rest of the fighting vehicles of General Chistyakov’s army moved.

Behind the cars with a loud “hurray!” infantrymen were advancing - troops of the 21st Army. They linked up with the 62nd Army.

The fighters hugged each other in joy, jumped and tumbled in the snow. An accordion appeared from somewhere, the accordion player stretched the bellows, played loudly, and the merry dance of the winners began in a circle.

330 thousand Nazi soldiers and officers, commanded by Field Marshal Paulus, found themselves in a ring and could not get out of the encirclement. Our command offered those surrounded to surrender.

And Field Marshal Paulus on January 31, realizing that resistance was futile, despite Hitler’s order: fight, fight, fight at all costs, capitulated along with his headquarters.

The surrounded enemy divisions surrendered.

Since the morning of February 2, 1943, on the outskirts of the city near the Barricades, Tractor and Red October factories, separate groups of Nazis tried to resist our fighters, but at four o’clock in the afternoon there was silence in the city on the Volga.

Through the ruins of the city destroyed during the fighting, along its outskirts, columns of captured Nazi soldiers stretched and stretched. They were led by our fighters, they were led by the victors.

And all over the world it became clear that the Soviet people, their heroic army inflicted the most crushing defeat on the fascist troops and were able to put an end to the Nazi invaders.

Three days of mourning were declared throughout Nazi Germany.

As soon as silence fell in the city, the residents of Stalingrad began to restore their city, which was almost completely destroyed by the enemy.

And the victorious soldiers continued to develop the offensive, liberating other cities and villages of our Motherland from enemies.

The path of the Soviet victorious soldiers was in

one direction - to Berlin!

There is silence on Mamayev Kurgan.

People slowly climb up the granite stairs. There are a lot of people.

Soldiers are coming, as gray-haired as Vanya’s grandfather. There are orders and medals on soldiers' tunics and military jackets.

Young people are coming - boys and girls.

Boys and girls are walking with pioneer ties, October stars...

Citizens of the country of the Soviets are coming to bow to the memory of the heroes.

The whole world knows the Mamayev Kurgan and its ensemble-monument. And there is no person on earth who has not heard about Stalingrad, about this heroic height - Mamayev Kurgan.

Vladimir Bogomolov. Eternal flame

Clearly typing the step, there is a changing of the guard of honor of the pioneers of the hero city. In their hands are real machine guns, with which their fathers and grandfathers fought for the city on the Volga.

"One two Three!" — boys in red ties walk up the stairs to the granite obelisk that towers over the mass grave of the defenders of Stalingrad.

"One two Three!" — the honor guard of pioneers disperses.

“One-two!” - they replace their comrades at the post.

The flames of the Eternal Flame curl upward.

The music sounds solemn.

Everyone standing at the mass grave in the park on the Square of Fallen Fighters takes off their hats...

Vanya and grandfather are also filming.

People stand silently.

They honor the memory of those who gave their lives for the victory over the enemy, for the victory over Hitler's fascism.

Vanya raises his head and looks at his grandfather, at his jacket, at his orders and medals.

- “For the defense of Stalingrad!” - the boy’s lips whisper. - This is what it is, a medal that grandfather values ​​so much!..

Vanya looks at his grandfather, at the medal, at the pioneers standing on the guard of honor at the Eternal Flame, and thinks that he will soon grow up and become a pioneer, and will do many good deeds to gain the right to walk in the ranks of the guard of honor and take the honor watch at monument to heroes.

L. Cassil.

Monument to the Soviet soldier.

The war went on for a long time.

Our troops began to advance on enemy soil. The fascists have nowhere to run anymore. They settled in the main German city of Berlin.

Our troops attacked Berlin. The last battle of the war has begun. No matter how the Nazis fought back, they could not resist. The soldiers of the Soviet Army in Berlin began to take street by street, house by house. But the fascists still don’t give up.

suddenly one of our soldiers, a kind soul, saw a little German girl on the street during a battle. Apparently, she has fallen behind her own people. And they, out of fear, forgot about her... The poor thing was left alone in the middle of the street. And she has nowhere to go. There is a battle going on all around. Fire is blazing from all the windows, bombs are exploding, houses are collapsing, bullets are whistling from all sides. He's about to crush you with a stone, or kill you with a shrapnel...

Our soldier sees that a girl is missing... “Oh, you little bastard, where has this taken you, you wicked thing!”

The soldier rushed across the street right under the bullets, picked up the German girl in his arms, shielded her from the fire with his shoulder and carried her out of the battle.

Soon our soldiers had already raised the red flag over the most important house in the German capital.

The Nazis surrendered. And the war ended. We won. The world has begun.

They have now built a huge monument in the city of Berlin. High above the houses, on a green hill, stands a hero made of stone - a soldier of the Soviet Army. In one hand he has a heavy sword, with which he defeated the fascist enemies, and in the other - a little girl. She pressed herself against the broad shoulder of a Soviet soldier. His soldiers saved her from death, saved all the children in the world from the Nazis, and today he looks menacingly from above to see if the evil enemies are going to start a war again and disrupt the peace.

Sergey Alekseev

First column.

(stories by Sergei Alekseev about Leningraders and the feat of Leningrad).

In 1941, the Nazis blocked Leningrad. The city was cut off from the entire country. It was possible to get to Leningrad only by water, along Lake Ladoga.

It was frosty in November. The water road froze and stopped.

The road stopped - that means there will be no supply of food, that means there will be no supply of fuel, there will be no supply of ammunition. Leningrad needs a road like air, like oxygen.

There will be a road! - the people said.

Lake Ladoga will freeze, and Ladoga (as Lake Ladoga is called for short) will be covered with strong ice. The road will go on the ice.

Not everyone believed in such a path. Ladoga is restless and capricious. Blizzards will rage, a piercing wind will blow over the lake, and cracks and gullies will appear on the ice of the lake. Ladoga breaks its ice armor. Even the most severe frosts cannot completely freeze Lake Ladoga.

Capricious, treacherous Lake Ladoga. And yet there is no other way out. There are fascists all around.

Only here, along Lake Ladoga, can the road go to Leningrad.

The most difficult days in Leningrad. Communication with Leningrad stopped. People are waiting for the ice on Lake Ladoga to become strong enough. And this is not a day, not two. They look at the ice, at the lake. The thickness is measured by ice. Old-time fishermen also monitor the lake. How is the ice on Ladoga?

It's growing.

Takes strength.

People are worried and rushing for time.

Faster, faster,” they shout to Ladoga. - Hey, don't be lazy, frost!

Hydrologists (those who study water and ice) arrived at Lake Ladoga, builders and army commanders arrived. We were the first to decide to walk on the fragile ice.

Hydrologists passed through and the ice survived.

The builders passed by and withstood the ice.

Major Mozhaev, commander of the road maintenance regiment, rode on horseback

Withstood the ice.

The horse train walked across the ice. The sleigh survived the journey.

General Lagunov, one of the commanders of the Leningrad Front, drove across the ice in a passenger car. The ice crackled, creaked, became angry, but let the car through.

On November 22, 1941, the first automobile convoy set off across the still-unhardened ice of Lake Ladoga. There were 60 trucks in the convoy. From here, from the western bank, from the side of Leningrad, trucks left for cargo to the eastern bank.

There is not a kilometer ahead, not two - twenty-seven kilometers of icy road. They are waiting on the western Leningrad coast for the return of people and convoys.

Will they come back? Will you get stuck? Will they come back? Will you get stuck?

A day has passed. And so:

That's right, the cars are coming, the convoy is returning. There are three or four bags of flour in the back of each car. Haven't taken any more yet. The ice is not strong. True, the cars were towed by sleighs. There were also sacks of flour in the sleigh, two and three at a time.

From that day on, constant movement on the ice of Lake Ladoga began. Soon severe frosts struck. The ice has strengthened. Now each truck took 20, 30 bags of flour. They also transported other heavy loads across the ice.

The road was not easy. There was not always luck here. The ice broke under the pressure of the wind. Sometimes cars sank. Fascist planes bombed the columns from the air. And again ours suffered losses. The engines froze along the way. The drivers froze on the ice. And yet, neither day nor night, nor in a snowstorm, nor in the most severe frost, the ice road across Lake Ladoga did not stop working.

These were the most difficult days of Leningrad. Stop the road - death to Leningrad.

The road did not stop. Leningraders called it “The Road of Life”.

Sergey Alekseev

Tanya Savicheva.

Hunger is spreading deathly through the city. Leningrad cemeteries cannot accommodate the dead. People died at the machines. They died on the streets. They went to bed at night and didn’t wake up in the morning. More than 600 thousand people died of hunger in Leningrad.

This house also rose among the Leningrad houses. This is the Savichevs' house. A girl was bending over the pages of a notebook. Her name is Tanya. Tanya Savicheva keeps a diary.

Notebook with alphabet. Tanya opens a page with the letter “F”. Writes:

Zhenya is Tanya's sister.

Soon Tanya sits down again to her diary. Opens a page with the letter “B”.

Page starting with the letter "L". We read:

Another page from Tanya's diary. Page starting with the letter "B". We read:

“Uncle Vasya died on April 13. at 2 am. 1942." One more page. Also with the letter "L". But it is written on the back of the sheet: “Uncle Lyosha. May 10 at 4 p.m. 1942.” Here is the page with the letter "M". We read: “Mom May 13 at 7:30 am. morning 1942." Tanya sits over the diary for a long time. Then he opens the page with the letter “C”. He writes: “The Savichevs have died.”

Opens a page starting with the letter “U”. He clarifies: “Everyone died.”

I sat. She looked at the diary. She opened the page to the letter “O.” She wrote: “Tanya is the only one left.”

Tanya was saved from starvation. They took the girl out of Leningrad.

But Tanya did not live long. Her health was undermined by hunger, cold, and the loss of loved ones. Tanya Savicheva also passed away. Tanya died. The diary remains. "Death to the Nazis!" - the diary shouts.

Sergey Alekseev

Fur coat.

A group of Leningrad children were taken out of Leningrad, besieged by the Nazis, along the “Dear Life”. The car set off.

January. Freezing. The cold wind whips. Driver Koryakov is sitting behind the steering wheel. It drives the lorry exactly.

The children huddled together in the car. Girl, girl, girl again. Boy, girl, boy again. And here's another one. The smallest, most frail. All the guys are thin, like thin children's books. And this one is completely skinny, like a page from this book.

Guys gathered from different places. Some from Okhta, some from Narvskaya, some from the Vyborg side, some from Kirovsky Island, some from Vasilievsky. And this one, imagine, from Nevsky Prospekt. Nevsky Prospekt is the central, main street of Leningrad. The boy lived here with his father and mother. A shell hit and my parents died. And the others, those who are now traveling in the car, were also left without mothers and fathers. Their parents also died. Some died of hunger, some were hit by a Nazi bomb, some were crushed by a collapsed house, and some had their lives cut short by a shell. The boys were left completely alone. Aunt Olya accompanies them. Aunt Olya is a teenager herself. Less than fifteen years old.

The guys are coming. They clung to each other. Girl, girl, girl again. Boy, girl, boy again. In the very heart is a baby. The guys are coming. January. Freezing. Blows the children in the wind. Aunt Olya wrapped her arms around them. These warm hands make everyone feel warmer.

A lorry is walking on the January ice. Ladoga froze to the right and left. The frost over Ladoga is getting stronger and stronger. The children's backs are stiff. It's not children sitting - icicles.

I wish I had a fur coat now.

And suddenly... The truck slowed down and stopped. The driver Koryakov got out of the cab. He took off his warm soldier's sheepskin coat. He tossed Ole up and shouted: . - Catch!

Olya picked up the sheepskin coat:

How about you... Yes, really, we...

Take it, take it! - Koryakov shouted and jumped into his cabin.

The guys look - a fur coat! Just the sight of it makes it warmer.

The driver sat down in his driver's seat. The car started moving again. Aunt Olya covered the boys with a sheepskin coat. The children huddled even closer to each other. Girl, girl, girl again. Boy, girl, boy again. In the very heart is a baby. The sheepskin coat turned out to be big and kind. Warmth ran down the children's backs.

Koryakov took the guys to the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga and delivered them to the village of Kobona. From here, from Kobona, they still had a long, long journey ahead of them. Koryakov said goodbye to Aunt Olya. I started saying goodbye to the guys. Holds a sheepskin coat in his hands. He looks at the sheepskin coat and at the guys. Oh, the guys would like a sheepskin coat for the road... But it’s a government-issued sheepskin coat, not your own. The bosses will immediately take off their heads. The driver looks at the guys, at the sheepskin coat. And suddenly...

Eh, it was not! - Koryakov waved his hand.

His superiors did not scold him. They gave me a new fur coat.

Stories by Sergei Alekseev

BEAR

In those days when the division was sent to the front, the soldiers of one of the Siberian divisions were given a small bear cub by their fellow countrymen. Mishka has gotten comfortable with the soldier's heated vehicle. It’s important to go to the front.

Toptygin arrived at the front. The little bear turned out to be extremely smart. And most importantly, from birth he had a heroic character. I wasn't afraid of bombings. Didn't hide in corners during artillery shelling. He only rumbled dissatisfiedly if shells exploded very close.

Mishka visited the Southwestern Front, then was part of the troops that defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad. Then for some time he was with the troops in the rear, in the front reserve. Then he ended up as part of the 303rd Infantry Division on the Voronezh Front, then on the Central Front, and again on the Voronezh Front. He was in the armies of generals Managarov, Chernyakhovsky, and again Managarov. The bear cub grew up during this time. There was a sound in the shoulders. The bass cut through. It became a boyar fur coat.

The bear distinguished himself in the battles near Kharkov. At the crossings, he walked with the convoy in the economic convoy. It was the same this time. There were heavy, bloody battles. One day, an economic convoy came under heavy attack from the Nazis. The Nazis surrounded the column. Unequal forces are difficult for us. The soldiers took up defensive positions. Only the defense is weak. The Soviet soldiers would not have left.

But suddenly the Nazis hear some kind of terrible roar! “What would it be?” - the fascists wonder. We listened and took a closer look.

Ber! Ber! Bear! - someone shouted.

That's right - Mishka stood up on his hind legs, growled and went towards the Nazis. The Nazis didn’t expect it and rushed to the side. And ours struck at that moment. We escaped from the encirclement.

The bear walked like a hero.

“He would be a reward,” the soldiers laughed.

He received a reward: a plate of fragrant honey. He ate and purred. He licked the plate until it was shiny and shiny. Added honey. Added again. Eat, fill up, hero. Toptygin!

Soon the Voronezh Front was renamed the 1st Ukrainian Front. Together with the front troops, Mishka went to the Dnieper.

Mishka has grown up. Quite a giant. Where can soldiers tinker with such a huge thing during a war? The soldiers decided: we’ll come to Kyiv and put him in the zoo. We will write on the cage: the bear is an honored veteran and participant in a great battle.

However, the road to Kyiv passed. Their division passed by. There was no bear left in the menagerie. Even the soldiers are happy now.

From Ukraine Mishka came to Belarus. He took part in the battles near Bobruisk, then ended up in the army that marched to Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

Belovezhskaya Pushcha is a paradise for animals and birds. The best place on the entire planet. The soldiers decided: this is where we’ll leave Mishka.

That's right: under his pine trees. Under the spruce.

This is where he finds freedom.

Our troops liberated the area of ​​Belovezhskaya Pushcha. And now the hour of separation has come.

The fighters and the bear are standing in a forest clearing.

Goodbye, Toptygin!

Walk free!

Live, start a family!

Mishka stood in the clearing. He stood up on his hind legs. I looked at the green thickets.

I smelled the forest smell through my nose.

He walked with a roller gait into the forest. From paw to paw. From paw to paw. The soldiers look after:

Be happy, Mikhail Mikhalych!

And suddenly a terrible explosion thundered in the clearing. The soldiers ran towards the explosion - Toptygin was dead and motionless.

A bear stepped on a fascist mine. We checked - there are a lot of them in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

The war marches on without pity. War has no weariness.

Stories by Sergei Alekseev

STING

Our troops liberated Moldova. They pushed the Nazis beyond the Dnieper, beyond Reut. They took Floresti, Tiraspol, Orhei. We approached the capital of Moldova, the city of Chisinau.

Here two of our fronts were attacking at once - the 2nd Ukrainian and 3rd Ukrainian. Near Chisinau, Soviet troops were supposed to surround a large fascist group. Carry out the front directions of the Headquarters. The 2nd Ukrainian Front advances north and west of Chisinau. To the east and south is the 3rd Ukrainian Front. Generals Malinovsky and Tolbukhin stood at the head of the fronts.

Fyodor Ivanovich, - General Malinovsky calls General Tolbukhin, - how is the offensive developing?

“Everything is going according to plan, Rodion Yakovlevich,” General Tolbukhin answers General Malinovsky.

The troops are marching forward. They bypass the enemy. The pincers begin to squeeze.

Rodion Yakovlevich, - General Tolbukhin calls General Malinovsky, - how is the environment developing?

The encirclement is proceeding normally, Fyodor Ivanovich,” General Malinovsky answers General Tolbukhin and clarifies: “Exactly according to plan, on time.”

And then the giant pincers closed in. There were eighteen fascist divisions in a huge bag near Chisinau. Our troops began to defeat the fascists who were caught in the bag.

The Soviet soldiers are happy:

The beast will be caught again with a trap.

There was talk: the fascist is no longer scary, even take it with your bare hands.

However, soldier Igoshin had a different opinion:

A fascist is a fascist. A serpentine character is a serpentine character. A wolf is a wolf in a trap.

The soldiers laugh:

So what time was it!

Today the price for a fascist is different.

A fascist is a fascist, - Igoshin again about his.

That's a bad character!

It’s getting more and more difficult for the fascists in the bag. They began to surrender. They also surrendered in the sector of the 68th Guards Rifle Division. Igoshin served in one of its battalions.

A group of fascists came out of the forest. Everything is as it should be: hands up, a white flag thrown over the group.

It’s clear - they’re going to give up.

The soldiers perked up and shouted to the fascists:

Please, please! It is high time!

The soldiers turned to Igoshin:

Well, why is your fascist scary?

Soldiers are crowding around, looking at the fascists coming to surrender. There are newcomers to the battalion. This is the first time that the Nazis have been seen so close. And they, newcomers, are also not at all afraid of the Nazis - after all, they are going to surrender.

The Nazis are getting closer, closer. Very close. And suddenly a burst of machine gun fire rang out.

The Nazis started shooting.

A lot of our people would have died. Yes, thanks to Igoshin. He kept his weapon ready. Immediately the response opened fire. Then others helped.

The firing on the field died down. The soldiers approached Igoshin:

Thank you brother. And the fascist, look, actually has a snake-like sting.

The Chisinau “cauldron” caused a lot of trouble for our soldiers. The fascists rushed about.

They rushed in different directions. They resorted to deception and meanness. They tried to leave. But in vain.

The soldiers squeezed them with their heroic hand. Pinched. Squeezed. The snake's sting was pulled out.

Mityaev A.V.

A bag of oatmeal

That autumn there were long, cold rains. The ground was saturated with water, the roads were muddy. On the country roads, stuck up to their axles in mud, stood military trucks. The supply of food became very bad. In the soldier's kitchen, the cook cooked only soup from crackers every day: he poured cracker crumbs into hot water and seasoned with salt.

On such and such hungry days, soldier Lukashuk found a bag of oatmeal. He wasn't looking for anything, he just leaned his shoulder against the wall of the trench. A block of damp sand collapsed, and everyone saw the edge of a green duffel bag in the hole.

What a find! the soldiers rejoiced. There will be a feast on the mountain of Kashu sva-rim!

One ran with a bucket for water, others began to look for firewood, and still others had already prepared spoons.

But when they managed to fan the fire and it was already hitting the bottom of the bucket, an unfamiliar soldier jumped into the trench. He was thin and red-haired. The eyebrows above the blue eyes are also red. The overcoat is worn out and short. There are windings and trampled shoes on my feet.

Hey bro! - he shouted in a hoarse, cold voice. - Give me the bag here! Don't put it down, don't take it.

He simply stunned everyone with his appearance, and they gave him the bag right away.

And how could you not give it away? According to front-line law, it was necessary to give it up. Soldiers hid duffel bags in trenches when they went on the attack. To make it easier. Of course, there were bags left without an owner: either it was impossible to return for them (this is if the attack was successful and it was necessary to drive out the Nazis), or the soldier died. But since the owner has arrived, the conversation will be short.

The soldiers watched silently as the red-haired man carried away the precious bag on his shoulder. Only Lukashuk could not stand it and quipped:

Look how skinny he is! They gave him extra rations. Let him eat. If it doesn't burst, it might get fatter.

It's getting cold. Snow. The earth froze and became hard. Delivery has improved. The cook was cooking cabbage soup with meat and pea soup with ham in the kitchen on wheels. Everyone forgot about the red soldier and his porridge.

A big offensive was being prepared.

Long lines of infantry battalions walked along hidden forest roads and along ravines. At night, tractors dragged guns to the front line, and tanks moved. Lukashuk and his comrades were also preparing for the offensive. It was still dark when the cannons opened fire. The planes began to hum in the sky.

They threw bombs at fascist dugouts and fired machine guns at enemy trenches.

The planes took off. Then the tanks began to rumble. The infantrymen rushed after them to attack. Lukashuk and his comrades also ran and fired from a machine gun. He threw a grenade into a German trench, wanted to throw more, but didn’t have time: the bullet hit him in the chest. And he fell. Lukashuk lay in the snow and did not feel that the snow was cold. Some time passed and he stopped hearing the roar of battle. Then he stopped seeing the light, it seemed to him that a dark, quiet night had come.

When Lukashuk regained consciousness, he saw an orderly. The orderly bandaged the wound and put Lukashuk in a small plywood sled. The sled slid and swayed in the snow. This quiet swaying made Lukashuk feel dizzy. But he didn’t want his head to spin, he wanted to remember where he saw this orderly, red-haired and thin, in a worn out overcoat.

Hold on, brother! Don’t live in timidity!.. he heard the orderly’s words. It seemed to Lukashuk that he had known this voice for a long time. But where and when I heard it before, I could no longer remember.

Lukashuk regained consciousness when he was transferred from the boat onto a stretcher to be taken to a large tent under the pine trees: here, in the forest, a military doctor was pulling out bullets and shrapnel from the wounded.

Lying on a stretcher, Lukashuk saw a sled-boat on which he was being transported to the hospital. Three dogs were tied to the sled with straps. They were lying in the snow. Icicles froze on the fur. The muzzles were covered with frost, the dogs' eyes were half-closed.

The orderly approached the dogs. In his hands he had a helmet full of oatmeal. Steam was pouring out of her. The orderly stuck his helmet into the snow to tap the dogs because it was dangerously hot. The orderly was thin and red-haired. And then Lukashuk remembered where he had seen him. It was he who then jumped into the trench and took a bag of oatmeal from them.

Lukashuk smiled at the orderly with just his lips and, coughing and choking, said: “And you, red-haired, have not gained weight.” One of them ate a bag of oatmeal, but he was still thin. The orderly also smiled and, stroking the nearest dog, answered:

They ate oatmeal. But they got you there on time. And I recognized you immediately. As soon as I saw it in the snow, I recognized it.

"The Tankman's Tale" Alexander Tvardovsky

What’s his name, I forgot to ask him.

About ten or twelve years old. Bedovy,

Of those who are the leaders of children,

From those in the front-line towns

They greet us like dear guests.

The car is surrounded in parking lots,

Carrying water to them in buckets is not difficult,

Bring soap and towel to the tank

And unripe plums are put in...

There was a battle going on outside. The enemy fire was terrible. We broke through to the square forward.

And he nails - you can’t look out of the towers, - And the devil will understand where he’s hitting from.

Here, guess which house is behind

He sat down - there were so many holes, and suddenly a boy ran up to the car:

Comrade commander, comrade commander!

I know where their gun is. I scouted...

I crawled up, they were over there in the garden...

But where, where?.. - Let me ride on the tank with you. I'll give it straight away.

Well, no fight awaits. - Get in here, buddy! -

And so the four of us roll to the place. The boy is standing - mines, bullets are whistling,

And only the shirt has a bubble.

We've arrived. - Here. - And from a turn we go to the rear and give full throttle. And this gun, along with the crew,

We sank into loose, greasy black soil.

I wiped off the sweat. It was choked by fumes and soot: A big fire was going from house to house.

And I remember I said: “Thank you, lad!” - And he shook hands like a comrade...

It was a difficult fight. Everything now feels like a dream, and I just can’t forgive myself:

From thousands of faces I would recognize the boy,

But what’s his name, I forgot to ask him.

Conversations about War

THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

Dear guys, you were born and live in peacetime and do not know what war is. But not everyone can experience such happiness. In many places on our Earth, military conflicts occur in which people die, residential buildings, industrial buildings, etc. are destroyed. But this cannot be compared to what World War II was like.

World War II is the largest war in human history. It was unleashed by Germany, Italy and Japan. 61 states were drawn into this war (14 states on the side of Nazi Germany, 47 on the side of Russia).

In total, 1.7 billion people or 80% of the total population of the Earth took part in the war, i.e. out of every 10 people, 8 took part in the war. That’s why such a war is called a world war.

110 million people participated in the armies of all countries. World War II lasted 6 years - from September 1, 1939 to May 9, 1945

The German attack on the Soviet Union was unexpected. A blow of unknown force was struck. Hitler attacked the Soviet Union (that’s what our Fatherland used to be called) immediately over a large area - from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains (almost along our entire Western border). His troops crossed our border. Thousands and thousands of guns opened fire on peacefully sleeping villages and cities, enemy planes began to bomb railways, train stations, and airfields. For the war with Russia, Germany prepared a huge army. Hitler wanted to turn the population of our Motherland into slaves and force them to work for Germany, he wanted to destroy science, culture, art, and ban education in Russia.

The bloody war continued for many years, but the enemy was defeated.

The Great Victory that our grandparents won in World War II over Nazi Germany has no analogues in history.

The names of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War are forever preserved in the people's memory.

This year 2016 marks the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory in World War II. It is called the “Great Victory” because it is a victory of sensible people in the most terrible world war in the history of mankind, which was imposed on it by fascism.

Why is the war called the Great Patriotic War?

THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR is the largest war in human history. The word "great" means very large, enormous, enormous. In fact, the war occupied a huge part of the territory of our country, tens of millions of people took part in it, it lasted for four long years, and victory in it required an enormous effort of all physical and spiritual strength from our people.

It is called a Patriotic War because this war is fair, aimed at protecting one’s Fatherland. Our entire huge country has risen to fight the enemy! Men and women, elderly people, even children forged victory in the rear and on the front line.

Now you know that one of the most brutal and bloody wars in Russian history was called the Great Patriotic War. The victory of the Red Army in this war is the main event in the history of Russia in the 20th century!

The German attack on the Soviet Union was unexpected. During these June days, tenth graders were finishing school, and schools were holding graduation parties. Boys and girls in bright, elegant clothes danced, sang, and greeted the dawn. They made plans for the future, dreamed of happiness and love. But the war cruelly destroyed these plans!

On June 22 at 12 noon, Minister of Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov spoke on the radio and announced an attack on our country by Nazi Germany. Young people took off their school uniforms, put on overcoats and went to war straight from school, becoming fighters in the Red Army. The soldiers who served in the Red Army were called Red Army soldiers.

Every day, trains carried soldiers to the front. All the peoples of the Soviet Union have risen to fight the enemy!

But in 1941, the people wanted with all their might to help their country, which was in trouble! Both young and old people rushed to the front and enlisted in the Red Army. In the first days of the war alone, about a million people signed up! Lines formed at the recruiting stations - people were trying to defend their Fatherland!

In terms of the scale of human casualties and destruction, this war surpassed all wars that have taken place on our planet. A huge number of people were killed. More than 20 million soldiers were killed on the fronts in combat operations. During the Second World War, about 55 million people died, almost half of them were citizens of our country.

Fascist Germany.

When did the Great Patriotic War begin?

Why is it called that?

Which country started the war?

What did Hitler want to do to our people?

Who stood up to defend the Fatherland?

CHILDREN AND WAR

Difficult, hungry and cold war years are called dashing, evil years of war. It was hard for all our people, but it was especially hard for young children.

Many children were left orphans, their fathers died in the war, others lost their parents during bombings, others lost not only their relatives, but also their home, others found themselves in enemy-occupied territory, and others were captured by the Germans.

Children - weak, helpless, found themselves face to face with the cruel, merciless, evil force of fascism.

War is no place for children

War is no place for children!

There are no books or toys here.

Explosions of mines and roar of guns,

And a sea of ​​blood and death.

War is no place for children!

The child needs a warm home

And mothers tender hands,

And a look filled with goodness

And lullaby songs sounds.

And Christmas lights

Fun skiing from the mountain, Snowballs and skis and skates, Not orphanhood and suffering!

Here is the story of two little girls whose fate was affected by war. The girls' names were Valya and Vera Okopnyuk. They were sisters. Valya was older, she was already thirteen years old, and Vera was only ten.

The sisters lived in a wooden house on the outskirts of the city of Sumy. Shortly before the war, their mother became seriously ill and died, and when the war began, the girls’ father went to the front. The children were left completely alone. Neighbors helped the sisters enter a vocational school at a tractor factory. But soon the plant was evacuated beyond the Urals, and the school was closed. What was to be done?

Vera and Valya were not at a loss. They began to stand guard on the roofs of houses, extinguish incendiary bombs, and helped the sick and old people go down to the bomb shelter. A few months later the city was captured by the Germans. The girls had to see and experience all the horrors of the occupation.

One of them recalled: “They kicked people out of their houses, drove them on foot, and took them away in cars. Some never returned to their home. The Germans herded people into the square and forced them to watch as our people were hanged. There was hunger, cold, and no water in the city.”

The sisters decided to flee to Kyiv. They made their way along paths along the highways, collecting spikelets that had fallen from cars during transportation. We spent the night in haystacks. The girls wandered for a long time until they finally found themselves on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Some kind old woman took pity on the hungry, ragged and dirty children. She warmed them up, washed them, gave them boiling water to drink, and treated them to boiled beans. The sisters stayed to live with this grandmother. Her sons beat the enemy at the front, the old woman lived alone.

But then our troops entered the city. There were so many tears and joy! All the young people - boys and girls - ran to the military registration and enlistment offices. The sisters also ran, but they were told that they were still too small. However, they had such a bitter childhood that the girls considered themselves completely adults. They wanted to work in the hospital, but they refused here too. But one day many wounded soldiers were brought to the city, and the doctor told the sisters: “Come on, girls, help.”

“That’s how it turned out that we stayed in the hospital,” Vera recalled.

The girls began to help the orderlies, learned to make bandages, and fed the wounded Red Army soldiers. If they had a free hour, the sisters organized a concert for the soldiers: they read poetry, sang songs with a guitar, and danced. They wanted to cheer up and cheer up the wounded soldiers. The soldiers fell in love with girls!

One day, Vera, among the soldiers walking through the city, saw her uncle, her father’s brother. She rushed towards him. And soon the girls received their first letter from their father. The father thought that the sisters had died, and was infinitely glad that Vera and Valya were found, asked them to take care of themselves, wrote that when the war ended, they would be together again. The whole hospital cried over this letter! Vera recalls.

The war distorted the fates of not only the children who found themselves at the front, but also those who were in the rear. Instead of a carefree, happy childhood with fun games and amusements, small children worked ten to twelve hours on machines, helping adults make weapons to defeat the enemy.

Everywhere in the rear, industries were created producing defense products. Women and children aged 13-14 worked on the machines. “The kids, poorly dressed, swollen from hunger, never getting enough sleep, they worked equally with the adults. As the head of the workshop, my heart sank when I saw them warming themselves by the stove or napping at the machine,” recalled a veteran of a military plant in Korolev, Moscow Region. V.D. Kowalski.

Another veteran, N.S. Samartsev said: “We couldn’t reach the workbench, and they made special stands for us from boxes. They operated by hand - hammer, file, chisel. By the end of the shift, we were off our feet. Just get 4-5 hours of sleep! We didn’t leave the workshop for two weeks at a time, and only at the beginning of the month, when the stress was less, did we sleep at home.”

The schoolchildren tried their best to help the front-line soldiers raise their morale, instill faith in victory, and encourage them with kind words.

They wrote letters to the fighters and collected parcels for them. They sewed and embroidered tobacco pouches, knitted warm woolen mittens, socks, and scarves.

The song “Little Valenka” plays, music. N. Levi, ate. V. Dykhovichny.

Tell us about the life of children during the difficult war years.

How did children help adults in the rear?

What did schoolchildren send to the soldiers at the front?

VICTORY DAY HOLIDAY

On the way to the Great Victory of the Russian people there were defeats in battles and many important victories and events: the defeat of Nazi troops near Moscow, the liberation of Russian cities, allied countries, but one of the main ones was the signing of an act of unconditional surrender between Nazi Germany and the victorious countries (Great Britain , Soviet Union, United States of America and France).

This happened on May 9, 1945 in the capital of defeated Germany - Berlin. From that day on, the whole world knew that Nazi Germany was completely defeated. Every year on May 9, people solemnly celebrate this date. In our country, May 9 is a public holiday dedicated to Victory Day. On this day, people do not work, but congratulate war veterans and celebrate.

The bloody war continued for many years, but the enemy was defeated, and Germany signed an act of unconditional surrender.

May 9, 1945 has forever become a great date for Russia. For the sake of this happy day, millions of people died fighting for the freedom of Russia and the whole world. We will never forget those who burned in tanks, who threw themselves from the trenches under hurricane fire, who lay down with their chests on the embrasure, who did not spare their lives and overcame everything. Not for the sake of awards, but so that you and I, guys, can live, study, work and be happy!

The names of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War are forever preserved in the people's memory. Alexander Matrosov sacrificed his life, covering the embrasure of the enemy pillbox with himself. Alexander Matrosov saved the lives of his comrades.

General D.M. Karbyshev, finding himself in the clutches of the enemy, did not give up, did not betray his Fatherland and was brutally tortured by the Nazis. After much torture, he was taken naked into the bitter cold and doused with water until the general turned into an ice statue.

The young partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was brutally tortured by the Nazis, but did not betray her comrades.

There are a lot of heroes of the Great Patriotic War. But the names of many thousands of soldiers who accomplished feats and gave their lives for their Motherland, unfortunately, remained unknown.

The “eternal flame” burns near them, and flowers are laid at them by those whose peaceful life they defended in battle.

No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten! Great victory Great war victory We must not forget!

Grandfathers fought in battles

Sacred Motherland.

She sends for battle

Your best sons.

She helped with prayer

And with your righteous faith.

In the great war, victory We must not forget,

Our grandfathers stood up for us

And life, and the Motherland!

On May 9, 1945, the first Victory Parade took place in Moscow. Thousands of people with bouquets of flowers took to the streets of the capital. People laughed, cried, strangers hugged each other. This, in fact, was a holiday for the entire people “with tears in our eyes”! Everyone rejoiced at the greatest victory over the enemy and mourned the dead.

Victorious soldiers walked along the streets of the capital in orderly rows. They carried the banners of the defeated enemy to Red Square and threw them onto the paving stones of the ancient square.

Women, children, youth and elderly people greeted the brave fighters with tears of joy, gave them flowers, hugged them, and congratulated them on their victory.

On this day, a ceremonial parade of troops took place on the capital’s Red Square, and in the evening the sky over Moscow flashed with the bright lights of a victorious fireworks display.

Since then, the Victory Day - May 9 - has become a truly national celebration! The streets of the capital bloom with smiles of joy, lush bouquets of flowers and bright balloons, and solemn music sounds.

In memorable places of the capital - on Poklonnaya Hill, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, on the square in front of the Bolshoi Theater, front-line veterans gather. Their chests are decorated with orders and medals received for their exploits in the Great Patriotic War. They share with us, their grateful descendants, stories about the dashing wartime, and meet with their military friends. Celebrations take place in all cities of Russia!

Years go by. Sixty years have passed since the Great Victory. Alas! The war veterans have grown old, many of them are over eighty years old. There are fewer and fewer living participants in the war.

Dear friends! Let us be grateful to them for winning a fierce battle with the enemy and defending our native land and peaceful life for us. Let us be worthy of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers!

The song “Victory Day” plays, music. D. Tukhmanova, lyrics. V. Kharitonov.

1. When do we celebrate Victory Day of our people in the Great Patriotic War?

2. Tell us about the heroes of the war.

3. How is Victory Day celebrated in our country?

4. What monuments and memorials to fallen soldiers do you know?

VICTORY.

In terms of the scale of human casualties and destruction, the Great Patriotic War surpassed all the wars that took place on our planet. A huge number of people were killed. More than 20 million soldiers were killed on the fronts in combat operations.

During the Second World War, about 55 million people died, almost half of them were citizens of our country.

The horror and losses of World War II united people in the fight against fascism, and therefore the great joy of victory swept not only Europe, but the whole world in 1945.

In the battles for their Motherland, Soviet soldiers showed amazing courage and fearlessness. The battle was fought for every piece of land.

The enemy has been defeated!

On May 9, 1945 we celebrate Victory Day over Nazi Germany. This is how a war veteran remembers this day: “It was Victory Day. It's truly joy with tears in your eyes. Everyone jumped out of the dugouts because there was shooting all around. But then shouts were heard: “The war is over!” All strangers to each other, strangers, we hug, cry, laugh.” Our soldiers marked the end of the Great War with fire from thousands of guns, machine guns, machine guns, rifles, like a fireworks display. And then there was amazing silence. Not a single shot... This peaceful silence was so awaited by millions of people, already accustomed to bombings, explosions, the howl of sirens, the roar of guns. Listen to how a Russian soldier who found himself in a foreign land, not far from a German city, celebrated the first day of peace.

The first day of peace, fragrant thick silence,

There is no shot or explosion. This morning the war ended, And even though there was a foreign side all around, I miraculously survived, I’m alive!

Friends I remembered those who never

Will not go out to mow at dawn

Who does not throw a net into the river,

Who will not be showered with dew in the spring?

I didn't want to kill or burn,

I felt only the call of my native land,

But in my memory I swore to save my Friends,

that they died in a foreign land!

The song “We need one victory” by B. Okudzhava is played.

1.When do we celebrate Victory Day over Nazi Germany?

2. Ask your mom, dad, or grandmother to tell you about who from your family took part in the Great Patriotic War.

3.What is their fate?

"Symbols of Victory - orders, medals and banners."

Target:Introduce children to the military awards that were awarded to soldiers during the Great Patriotic War, to the Victory Banner that was hoisted over the Reichstag; to cultivate respect for the military exploits of fighters and commanders, pride in one’s people, and love for the Motherland.

Equipment: collection of stories “Children-Heroes of the Great Patriotic War”; stand with photographs of orders and medals; image of the Victory Banner, visual didactic guide “The Great Patriotic War in the Works of Artists” (Mosaika-Sintez publishing house), reproductions of paintings by O. Ponomarenko “Victory”, V. Bogatkin “Storm of the Reichstag”, musical recordings of songs from the times of the Great Patriotic War.

Progress of the lesson.

At the beginning of the lesson, we listen to a fragment of the song “Victory Day” (music by D. Tukhmanov).

Educator: What holiday is this song talking about? (This holiday is called Victory Day.)

What kind of victory was this? (It was a victory in the war.)

What is this war called? (This war is called the “Great Patriotic War.”)

What do you think the word “fatherland” means? (The country in which we were born and live. The country of our parents - fathers and mothers and our ancestors. Our homeland is Russia.)

Educator: Children, soon our country will celebrate Victory Day. On this day, on the streets of the city you can meet veterans - warriors of that distant war. The May holiday - Victory Day - is celebrated by the whole country. Our grandfathers wear them. Military orders. Today we will see awards - orders and medals that were awarded to soldiers during the Great Patriotic War. (Looking at photographs with orders.) Educator: The Great Patriotic War lasted four and a half years. It brought a lot of troubles and grief to the Russian people - many cities and villages were turned into ruins, thousands of people died. Defending their homeland, soldiers and commanders fought without sparing their lives.

Educator: Why do you think a warrior could receive an order or medal?

In the first years of the war, fighters and commanders were awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Red Star, and medals “For Courage” and “For Military Merit.” (Look at the illustrations.)

During the battles, it was necessary to highlight the exploits of the fighters and celebrate the art of the military leaders. Then the Orders of the Patriotic War, Suvorov, Kutuzov, Alexander Nevsky and others were approved.

For the valiant defenders of the hero cities, special medals were made “For the Defense of Leningrad”, “For the Defense of Sevastopol”, “For the Defense of Moscow”.

Even children were awarded orders and medals (photos of children).

Educator: Guys, do you think awards were given only at the front? And those people who worked in the rear also performed feats? Were there any female heroines among the defenders of the Fatherland? Today we have learned a lot about the awards that were used to honor heroes during the Great Patriotic War. We will preserve the memory of these people forever.

To preserve the memory of the war heroes, monuments have been erected in cities and towns; the Eternal Flame burns near the Kremlin wall in the capital of our Motherland, the hero city of Moscow, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This is the fire of our memory, a symbol of what we remember about those events. There is another very important symbol - the Victory Banner.

Educator: Let's look at the image of the Victory Banner.

What color is the Victory banner? (The Victory Banner is red.)

What is shown on the banner? (The Victory Banner depicts: a star, a sickle and a hammer, inscriptions.)

In those days, our country Russia was part of a state called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The national flag of the Soviet Union was red with a gold star and a gold hammer and sickle. The hammer and sickle are symbols of labor and workers, those who work in factories and factories, grow bread, the star is a symbol of the defenders of the Fatherland. These symbols are also depicted on the Victory Banner, only they are painted on the panel with white paint. The inscriptions on the Victory Banner indicate which military unit this banner belonged to.

Events related to the Victory Banner took place at the very end of the Great Patriotic War. And before that, in difficult battles, Soviet troops liberated their homeland from cruel invaders. They liberated many other countries: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, and finally took the capital of Nazi Germany, the city of Berlin, by storm.

In the center of the city, battles broke out for every house, for every street. The storming of the fascist government building, the Reichstag, was especially difficult. To overcome the stubborn resistance of the Nazis, we had to fight for every floor, for every room. And finally, assault groups of Soviet soldiers climbed to the roof.

The Victory Banner fluttered over Berlin - this meant that the war was over and the long-awaited victory had been won. Then the Victory Banner was transported to Moscow to participate in the Victory Parade. I propose to draw the Victory Banner.

Overcoat

Why are you saving your overcoat? – I asked my dad. - Why don’t you tear it up and burn it? – I asked my dad.

After all, she is both dirty and old,

Take a better look,

There's a hole in the back,

Take a closer look!

That's why I take care of her, -

Dad answers me, -

That’s why I won’t tear it up, I won’t burn it, -

Dad answers me. -

That's why she's dear to me

What's in this overcoat

We went, my friend, against the enemy

And they defeated him!

War. Brutal war

This is not the first month...

Life is tense, like a string,

The capital is in danger.

The country was blooming. But the enemy is around the corner

He carried out a raid and went to war against us.

At that terrible hour, becoming a steel wall, all youth took up arms,

To defend our native Fatherland.

Let there be peace

May the sky be blue

Let there be no smoke in the sky,

Let the menacing guns be silent

And machine guns don’t fire so that people and cities can live...

Peace is always needed on earth!

Firework

Hurry, hurry, get dressed!

Call the guys quickly!

In honor of the big holiday, guns are fired.

Everything was quiet around

And suddenly - fireworks! Firework! Rockets burst into flames in the sky

Both there and here!

Above the square

Over the rooftops

Above festive Moscow

Soars higher and higher

The fountain of lights is alive!

To the street, to the street

Everyone is running happily

They shout: “Hurray!”

Admiring

For the holiday

Peaceful rhyme

One two three four five!

Red, white, yellow, blue!

Copper, iron, aluminum!

Sun, air and water!

Mountains, rivers, cities!

Work, fun, sweet dreams!

And let the war come out!

Victory Day

May holiday -

Victory Day

The whole country celebrates.

Our grandfathers put on

Military orders.

The road calls them in the morning

To the ceremonial parade,

And thoughtfully from the threshold the Grandmothers look after them.

Remember it forever! (excerpt)

Wherever you go or go,

But stop here

To the grave this way

Bow with all your heart.

Whoever you are -

Fisherman, miner,

Scientist or shepherd, -

Remember forever: here lies

Your very best friend.

Both for you and for me He did everything he could: He did not spare himself in battle

And saved the Motherland.

Monument to Glory

In a clearing, close to the camp,

Where wild rosemary blooms all summer,

Looking at the road from the obelisk

Infantryman, sailor and pilot.

Imprint of a happy childhood

Preserved on the faces of the soldiers,

But they can’t escape anywhere now

From the military severity of dates.

“In the same green June,”

An elderly foreman told us,

She took them, cheerful and young,

And the war did not bring me home.

At dawn, holding the machine guns,

The soldiers were going to storm the heights...”

To our ageless counselors

We placed flowers at our feet.

We're not here because of the date.

Like an evil splinter, the memory burns in my chest.

Come to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on holidays and weekdays. He protected you on the battlefield, fell without taking a step back,

And this hero has a name - the Great Army, a simple soldier.

No, the word “peace” will hardly remain,

When there will be wars people will not know.

After all, what was previously called the world,

Everyone will just call it life.

And only children, experts on the past, Having fun playing war, Having run around, will remember this word, With which they died in the old days.

Didactic and outdoor games.

Didactic game “Name the proverb”

Target: to consolidate children’s knowledge of proverbs about soldiers, military duty, about the Motherland, to cultivate interest in Russian folklore.

Every child who gets a ball in their hands remembers and pronounces a proverb about courage, strength, courage, and explains its meaning. “Die yourself, but save your comrade”

“From your native land - die, don’t leave”

“Stand to your death”

"Stand boldly for what is right"

“To live is to serve the Motherland,”

“The happiness of the Motherland is more valuable than life,”

“It’s not the hero who expects a reward, but the hero who goes for the people.”

Didactic game “Before and Now”

Target: consolidate children’s knowledge about the history of Russia and the way of life of our ancestors; introduce children to antiques; learn to find an analogue in the modern world; cultivate interest in the past of our country; develop speech and logical thinking of preschoolers.

Equipment: 10 cards in A4 format with images of antiques and modern objects; Cardboard circles with a diameter of 4 cm in two colors: blue and red.

Played by 2 to 10 players. Each player has one large card depicting objects of antiquity and objects of the modern world; cardboard circles of two colors. The role of the leader is performed by the teacher. Children are asked to cover with red circles pictures depicting objects of modern life; Use blue circles to cover pictures depicting antiques. Consider the objects of the modern world depicted in open pictures; give them the correct name and explain their purpose.

Didactic game “Defenders of the Fatherland”

Target: consolidate children's knowledge about the different branches of the Russian army; consolidate knowledge about the characteristics of military service and the necessary conditions for its successful completion; cultivate a sense of pride in the defenders of the Fatherland; develop speech and the ability to classify objects.

Equipment: 9 cards in A3 format. In the center of each card is an image of a soldier of various branches of the military (pilot, artilleryman, paratrooper, sailor, submariner, tanker, border guard), as well as a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. The free space around the warrior is divided into 6 squares. Handout cards depicting various military-themed objects and events (tank, gun, machine gun, binoculars, cap, ship, tablet, parade, Eternal Flame, etc.).

From 1 to 9 children can take part in the game. The presenter (teacher or child) distributes large cards to the participants in the game, mixes small cards among themselves and shows them one at a time to the children. The children’s task is to determine whether the object or event being shown belongs to a representative of one or another branch of the military, and to justify their answer. If the child answers correctly, he receives a small card and covers the empty square on the large card with it. The game continues until all the small cards have been dealt.

Didactic game “Great People of Russia”

Target: to consolidate children’s knowledge about great compatriots; to teach how to select the necessary items that relate to a given person and his type of activity for an appropriate portrait; cultivate interest and respect for the historical past of Russia, pride in great compatriots and their achievements; develop speech and logical thinking of preschoolers.

Equipment:11 cards (25x20cm) of different colors, on which in the center

portraits depicted: A.V. Suvorov, M.I. Kutuzova, I.N. Kozhedub, A.P. Maresyeva, A.M. Matrosova. Under each portrait there are 3 free white circles.

Up to 11 children can take part in the game. The teacher hands out large cards with portraits of great people on them. Shows children small circle cards with drawn objects characteristic of a particular type of activity.

The teacher invites the children to determine which of the historical characters depicted in the portraits would suit this item and explain why. The child who answered the question correctly takes the card for himself and covers the circle under the portrait with it. The game continues until all the circles on the cards are covered.

Outdoor game “Who is faster?”

On chairs arranged in several rows, as in the army, there is a tunic, overalls, cape, budenovka, and cap. On command, children must dress or dress dolls as quickly as possible. The winner is the one who performs all the actions faster than others and correctly. The winner is appointed commander. He opens the envelope and announces which military unit the children will visit next.

Outdoor game "Tug of War"

The children of both teams are divided into pairs. Each pair is given a gymnastic stick.

Members of one team stand on one side of the designated line. At the leader’s signal, team members try to pull the enemy to their side.

Outdoor game "Sappers"

Two teams move from one side to the other, stepping only on the planks.

When, in the large hall of the front headquarters, the commander's adjutant, looking at the list of those awarded, named another name, a short man stood up in one of the back rows. The skin on his sharpened cheekbones was yellowish and transparent, which is usually observed in people who have lain in bed for a long time. Leaning on his left leg, he walked towards the table. The commander took a short step towards him, presented the order, firmly shook the recipient’s hand, congratulated him and handed him the order box.

The recipient, straightening up, carefully took the order and box into his hands. He thanked him abruptly and turned around clearly, as if in formation, although his wounded leg hampered him. For a second he stood indecisive, looking first at the order lying in his palm, then at his comrades in glory gathered here. Then he straightened up again.

May I contact you?

Please.

Comrade commander... And here you are, comrades,” the recipient spoke in an intermittent voice, and everyone felt that the man was very excited. - Allow me to say a word. Now, at this moment in my life, when I accepted the great award, I want to tell you about who should be standing here next to me, who, perhaps, deserved this great award more than me and did not spare his young life for the sake of our military victory.

He extended his hand to those sitting in the hall, on the palm of which the golden rim of the order gleamed, and looked around the hall with pleading eyes.

Allow me, comrades, to fulfill my duty to those who are not here with me now.

“Speak,” said the commander.

Please! - responded in the hall.

And then he spoke.

You probably heard, comrades,” he began, “what a situation we had in area R. We then had to retreat, and our unit covered the retreat. And then the Germans cut us off from their own. Wherever we go, we run into fire. The Germans are hitting us with mortars, hammering the woods where we took cover with howitzers, and combing the edge of the forest with machine guns. Our time is up, the clock shows that ours have already gained a foothold on a new line, we have drawn off enough enemy forces, it’s time to get home, it’s time to delay the connection. But, we see, it’s impossible to get into any of them. And there is no way to stay here longer. The German found us, pinned us in the forest, sensed that there were only a handful of us left here, and took us by the throat with his pincers. The conclusion is clear - we must make our way in a roundabout way.

Where is this roundabout way? Which direction should I choose? And our commander, Lieutenant Andrei Petrovich Butorin, says: “Nothing will work out here without preliminary reconnaissance. You need to look and feel where they have a crack. If we find it, we’ll get through.” That means I immediately volunteered. “Allow me, I say, to try, Comrade Lieutenant.” He looked at me carefully. This is no longer in the order of the story, but, so to speak, on the side, I must explain that Andrey and I are from the same village - Koreshi. How many times have we gone fishing to Iset! Then both worked together at a copper smelter in Revda. In a word, friends and comrades. He looked at me carefully and frowned. “Okay,” says Comrade Zadokhtin, go. Is the task clear to you?”

And he himself led me onto the road, looked back, and grabbed my hand. “Well, Kolya,” he says, let’s say goodbye to you, just in case. The matter, you understand, is deadly. But since I volunteered myself, I don’t dare refuse you. Help me out, Kolya... We won't last here for more than two hours. The losses are too great...” - “Okay, I say, Andrey, this is not the first time you and I have found ourselves in such a situation. Wait for me in an hour. I'll see what's needed there. Well, if I don’t return, bow to our people there, in the Urals...”

And so I crawled, hiding behind the trees. I tried in one direction, but no, I couldn’t get through, the Germans were covering that area with thick fire. Crawled in the opposite direction. There, at the edge of the forest, there was a ravine, a gulley, quite deeply washed out. And on the other side of the gulley there is a bush, and behind it there is a road, an open field. I went down into the ravine, decided to get close to the bushes and look through them to see what was happening in the field. I began to climb up the clay, and suddenly I noticed two bare heels sticking out just above my head. I looked closer and saw: the feet were small, the dirt had dried on the soles and was falling off like plaster, the toes were also dirty and scratched, and the little toe on the left foot was bandaged with a blue rag - apparently it had been damaged somewhere... For a long time I looked at these heels, at the toes , which moved restlessly above my head. And suddenly, I don’t know why, I was drawn to tickle those heels... I can’t even explain to you. But it washes away and washes away... I took a thorny blade of grass and lightly scratched one of the heels with it. At once both legs disappeared into the bushes, and a head appeared in the place where the heels stuck out from the branches. So funny, her eyes are frightened, she has no eyebrows, her hair is shaggy and bleached, and her nose is covered in freckles.

Why are you here? - I say.

“I,” he says, “are looking for a cow.” Haven't you seen it, uncle? The name is Marishka. It's white, but there's black on the side. One horn sticks down, but the other is not there at all... Only you, uncle, don’t believe me... I’m lying all the time... I’m trying this. Uncle, he says, have you fought off ours?

Who are your people? - I ask.

It’s clear who the Red Army is... Only ours went across the river yesterday. And you, uncle, why are you here? The Germans will catch you.

“Well, come here,” I say. - Tell me what is happening here in your area.

The head disappeared, the leg appeared again, and a boy of about thirteen slid down the clay slope to the bottom of the ravine, as if on a sled, heels first.

Uncle,” he whispered, “quickly let’s get out of here somewhere.” The Germans are here. They have four cannons near that forest over there, and their mortars are installed on the side here. There is no way across the road here.

And where, I say, do you know all this?

“How,” he says, “from where?” Am I watching this for nothing in the morning?

Why are you watching?

It will be useful in life, you never know...

I began to question him, and the boy told me about the whole situation. I found out that the ravine runs far through the forest and along its bottom it will be possible to lead our people out of the fire zone. The boy volunteered to accompany us. As soon as we began to get out of the ravine into the forest, there was suddenly a whistle in the air, a howl, and such a crash was heard, as if a large floorboard had been split into thousands of dry chips all at once. It was a German mine that landed right in the ravine and tore up the ground near us. It became dark in my eyes. Then I freed my head from under the earth that had poured on me and looked around: where, I think, is my little comrade? I see him slowly raise his shaggy head from the ground and begin to pick out clay with his finger from his ears, from his mouth, from his nose.

This is what it did! - speaks. “We’re in trouble, uncle, with you being rich... Oh, uncle,” he says, “wait!” Yes, you're wounded.

I wanted to get up, but I couldn’t feel my legs. And I see blood floating from a torn boot. And the boy suddenly listened, climbed up to the bushes, looked out onto the road, rolled down again and whispered:

Uncle, he says, the Germans are coming here. The officer is ahead. Honestly! Let's get out of here quickly... Oh, how many of you...

I tried to move, but it was as if ten pounds were tied to my legs. I can't get out of the ravine. Pulls me down, back...

Eh, uncle, uncle,” says my friend and almost cries himself, “well, then lie here, uncle, so as not to hear or see you.” I’ll take their eyes off them now, and then I’ll come back after...

He himself became so pale that his freckles appeared even more, and his eyes sparkled. “What is he up to?” I think. I wanted to hold him back, I grabbed him by the heel, but no matter what! Just a glimpse of his legs with grimy toes spread out above my head - on his little finger, as I can see now... I lie there and listen. Suddenly I hear: “Stop!.. Stop! Don't go further!

Heavy boots creaked above my head, I heard the German ask:

What were you doing here?

“I’m looking for a cow, uncle,” my friend’s voice reached me, “it’s such a good cow, it’s white itself, but there’s black on its side, one horn sticks out, but the other is not there at all.” The name is Marishka. You did not see?

What kind of cow is this? I see you want to talk nonsense to me. Come here close. What have you been climbing here for a very long time, I saw you climbing.

“Uncle, I’m looking for a cow,” my little boy began to whine again. And suddenly his light bare heels clearly clattered along the road.

Stand! Where are you going? Back! I'll shoot! - the German shouted.

Heavy forged boots swelled above my head. Then a shot rang out. I understood: my friend deliberately rushed to run away from the ravine in order to distract the Germans from me. I listened, gasping for breath. The shot struck again. And I heard a distant, faint cry. Then it became very quiet... I was having a seizure. I gnawed the ground with my teeth so as not to scream, I leaned my whole chest on my hands to prevent them from grabbing their weapons and hitting the fascists. But I shouldn’t have revealed myself. We must complete the task to the end. Our people will die without me. They won't get out.

Leaning on my elbows, clinging to the branches, I crawled... I don’t remember anything after that. I only remember when I opened my eyes, I saw Andrei’s face very close above me...

Well, that’s how we got out of the forest through that ravine.

He stopped, took a breath and slowly looked around the entire hall.

Here, comrades, to whom I owe my life, who helped rescue our unit from trouble. It’s clear that he should stand here, at this table. But it didn’t work out... And I have one more request to you... Let us honor, comrades, the memory of my unknown friend - the nameless hero... Well, I didn’t even have time to ask him what his name was...

And in the large hall, pilots, tank crews, sailors, generals, guardsmen, people of glorious battles, heroes of fierce battles quietly rose to honor the memory of a small, unknown hero, whose name no one knew. The dejected people in the hall stood silently, and each in their own way saw in front of them a shaggy boy, freckled and bare-footed, with a blue stained rag on his bare foot...

AT THE BLACKBOARD

They said about teacher Ksenia Andreevna Kartashova that her hands sing. Her movements were soft, leisurely, round, and when she explained the lesson in class, the children followed every wave of the teacher’s hand, and the hand sang, the hand explained everything that remained incomprehensible in the words. Ksenia Andreevna did not have to raise her voice at the students, she did not have to shout. There will be some noise in the class, she will raise her light hand, move it - and the whole class seems to listen, and immediately becomes quiet.

Wow, she’s strict with us! - the guys boasted. - He notices everything right away...

Ksenia Andreevna taught in the village for thirty-two years. The village policemen saluted her on the street and, saluting her, said:

Ksenia Andreevna, how is my Vanka progressing in your science? You have him there stronger.

Nothing, nothing, he’s moving little by little,” the teacher answered, “he’s a good boy.” He's just lazy sometimes. Well, this happened to my father too. Isn't that right?

The policeman embarrassedly straightened his belt: once he himself sat at a desk and answered Ksenia Andreevna’s board at the blackboard and also heard to himself that he was a good guy, but he was just lazy sometimes... And the chairman of the collective farm was once Ksenia Andreevna’s student, and the director machine and tractor station studied with her. Over the course of thirty-two years, many people have passed through Ksenia Andreevna’s class. She was known as a strict but fair person.

Ksenia Andreevna’s hair had long since turned white, but her eyes had not faded and were as blue and clear as in her youth. And everyone who met this even and bright gaze involuntarily became cheerful and began to think that, honestly, he was not such a bad person and it was certainly worth living in the world. These are the eyes Ksenia Andreevna had!

And her gait was also light and melodious. Girls from high school tried to adopt her. No one had ever seen the teacher hurry up or hurry. And at the same time, all work progressed quickly and also seemed to sing in her skillful hands. When she wrote the terms of the problem or examples from grammar on the blackboard, the chalk did not knock, did not creak, did not crumble, and it seemed to the children that a white stream was easily and deliciously squeezed out of the chalk, like from a tube, writing letters and numbers on the black surface of the board . "Do not rush! Don’t rush, think carefully first!” Ksenia Andreevna said softly when a student began to get lost in a problem or a sentence and, diligently writing and erasing what he had written with a rag, floated in clouds of chalk smoke.

Ksenia Andreevna was in no hurry this time either. As soon as the sound of engines was heard, the teacher sternly looked at the sky and in a familiar voice told the children that everyone should go to the trench dug in the school yard. The school stood a little away from the village, on a hill. The classroom windows faced the cliff above the river. Ksenia Andreevna lived at the school. There were no classes. The front passed very close to the village. Somewhere nearby battles rumbled. Units of the Red Army retreated across the river and fortified there. And the collective farmers gathered a partisan detachment and went to the nearby forest outside the village. Schoolchildren brought them food there and told the partisans where and when the Germans were spotted. Kostya Rozhkov, the best swimmer of the school, more than once delivered reports from the commander of the forest partisans to the Red Army soldiers on the other side. Shura Kapustina once bandaged the wounds of two partisans injured in battle herself - Ksenia Andreevna taught her this art. Even Senya Pichugin, a well-known quiet man, once spotted a German patrol outside the village and, having scouted out where he was going, managed to warn the partisans.

In the evening, the children gathered at the school and told the teacher about everything. It happened this time too, when the engines began to rumble very close. Fascist planes had already raided the village more than once, dropped bombs, and scoured the forest in search of partisans. Kostya Rozhkov once had to lie in a swamp for an entire hour, hiding his head under wide leaves of water lilies. And very close by, cut down by machine-gun fire from an airplane, a reed fell into the water... And the guys were already accustomed to raids.

But now they were wrong. It wasn't the planes that were rumbling. The boys had not yet managed to hide in the gap when three dusty Germans ran into the school yard, jumping over a low palisade. Car glasses with casement lenses gleamed on their helmets. These were motorcycle scouts. They left their cars in the bushes. From three different directions, but all at once, they rushed towards the schoolchildren and aimed their rapid-fire pistols at them.

Stop! - shouted a thin, long-armed German with a short red mustache, who must be the boss. - Pioneer? - he asked.

The guys were silent, involuntarily moving away from the barrel of the pistol, which the German took turns thrusting into their faces.

But the hard, cold barrels of the other two machine guns pressed painfully into the backs and necks of the schoolchildren.

Schneller, schneller, quickly! - the fascist shouted.

Ksenia Andreevna stepped forward straight towards the German and covered the guys with herself.

What would you like? - the teacher asked and looked sternly into the German’s eyes. Her blue and calm gaze confused the involuntarily retreating fascist.

Who is V? Answer this very minute... I speak some Russian.

“I understand German too,” the teacher answered quietly, “but I have nothing to talk to you about.” These are my students, I am a teacher at a local school. You can lower your revolver. What do you want? Why are you scaring children?

Don't teach me! - the scout hissed.

The two other Germans looked around anxiously. One of them said something to the boss. He became worried, looked towards the village and began to push the teacher and the children towards the school with the barrel of a pistol.

Well, well, hurry up,” he said, “we’re in a hurry...” He threatened with a pistol. - Two small questions - and everything will be fine.

The guys, along with Ksenia Andreevna, were pushed into the classroom. One of the fascists remained to guard the school porch. Another German and the boss herded the guys to their desks.

“Now I’ll give you a short exam,” the boss said. - Sit down!

But the kids stood huddled in the aisle and looked, pale, at the teacher.

“Sit down, guys,” Ksenia Andreevna said in her quiet and ordinary voice, as if another lesson was beginning.

The guys carefully sat down. They sat in silence, not taking their eyes off the teacher. Out of habit, they sat down in their seats, as they usually sat in class: Senya Pichugin and Shura Kapustina in front, and Kostya Rozhkov behind everyone, on the last desk. And, finding themselves in their familiar places, the guys gradually calmed down.

Outside the classroom windows, on the glass of which protective strips were glued, the sky was calmly blue, and on the windowsill there were flowers grown by the children in jars and boxes. As always, a hawk filled with sawdust hovered on the glass cabinet. And the wall of the classroom was decorated with carefully pasted herbariums. The older German touched one of the pasted sheets with his shoulder, and dried daisies, fragile stems and twigs fell onto the floor with a slight crunch.

This cut the boys' hearts painfully. Everything was wild, everything seemed contrary to the usual established order within these walls. And the familiar classroom seemed so dear to the children, the desks on whose lids the dried ink smudges shone like the wing of a bronze beetle.

And when one of the fascists approached the table where Ksenia Andreevna usually sat and kicked him, the guys felt deeply offended.

The boss demanded that he be given a chair. None of the guys moved.

Well! - the fascist shouted.

Here they only listen to me,” said Ksenia Andreevna. - Pichugin, please bring a chair from the corridor.

Quiet Senya Pichugin silently slipped from his desk and went to get a chair. He didn't return for a long time.

Pichugin, hurry up! - the teacher called Senya.

He appeared a minute later, dragging a heavy chair with a seat upholstered in black oilcloth. Without waiting for him to come closer, the German snatched the chair from him, placed it in front of him and sat down. Shura Kapustina raised her hand.

Ksenia Andreevna... can I leave the class?

Sit, Kapustina, sit. - And looking at the girl knowingly, Ksenia Andreevna barely audibly added: “There’s still a sentry there.”

Now everyone will listen to me! - said the boss.

And distorting his words, the fascist began to tell the guys that the Red partisans were hiding in the forest and he knew it very well and the guys knew it too. German intelligence officers more than once saw schoolchildren running back and forth into the forest. And now the guys must tell the boss where the partisans are hiding. If the guys tell you where the partisans are now, naturally, everything will be fine. If the guys don’t say it, naturally, everything will be very bad.

Now I will listen to everyone! - the German finished his speech.

Then the guys understood what they wanted from them. They sat motionless, just managed to glance at each other, and again froze on their desks.

A tear slowly crawled down Shura Kapustina’s face. Kostya Rozhkov sat leaning forward, placing his strong elbows on the tilted lid of his desk. The short fingers of his hands were intertwined. Kostya swayed slightly, staring at his desk. From the outside it seemed that he was trying to free his hands, but some force was preventing him from doing this.

The guys sat in silence.

The boss called his assistant and took the card from him.

Tell them,” he said in German to Ksenia Andreevna, “to show me this place on a map or plan.” Well, it's alive! Just look at me... - He spoke again in Russian: - I warn you that I understand the Russian language and what you will say to the children...

He went to the board, took a chalk and quickly sketched out a plan of the area - a river, a village, a school, a forest... To make it clearer, he even drew a chimney on the school roof and scribbled curls of smoke.

Maybe you’ll think about it and tell me everything you need? - the boss quietly asked the teacher in German, coming close to her. - Children won't understand, speak German.

I already told you that I've never been there and don't know where it is.

The fascist, grabbing Ksenia Andreevna by the shoulders with his long hands, roughly shook her.

Ksenia Andreevna freed herself, took a step forward, walked up to the desks, leaned both hands on the front and said:

Guys! This man wants us to tell him where our partisans are. I don't know where they are. I have never been there. And you don't know either. Is it true?

We don’t know, we don’t know... - the guys made a noise. - Who knows where they are! They went into the forest - that's all.

“You are really bad students,” the German tried to joke, “you can’t answer such a simple question.” Ay, ay...

He looked around the class with feigned cheerfulness, but did not meet a single smile. The guys sat stern and wary. It was quiet in the class, you could only hear Senya Pichugin snoring gloomily on the first desk. The German approached him:

Well, what’s your name?.. You don’t know either?

“I don’t know,” Senya answered quietly.

And what is this, do you know? - and the German pointed the muzzle of his pistol at Senya’s drooping chin.

I know that,” Senya said. - Automatic pistol of the “Walter” system...

Do you know how many times he can kill such bad students?

Don't know. Consider for yourself... - Senya muttered.

Who is this! - the German shouted. - You said: do the math yourself! Very well! I'll count to three myself. And if no one tells me what I asked, I will shoot your stubborn teacher first. And then - anyone who doesn’t say. I started counting! Once!..

He grabbed Ksenia Andreevna’s hand and pulled her towards the wall of the classroom. Ksenia Andreevna did not utter a sound, but it seemed to the children that her soft, melodious hands themselves began to groan. And the class buzzed. Another fascist immediately pointed his pistol at the guys.

Children, don’t,” Ksenia Andreevna said quietly and wanted to raise her hand out of habit, but the fascist hit her hand with the barrel of the pistol, and her hand fell powerlessly.

Alzo, so, none of you know where the partisans are,” said the German. - Great, we'll count. I already said “one”, now there will be “two”.

The fascist began to raise his pistol, aiming at the teacher’s head. At the front desk, Shura Kapustina began to sob.

Shut up, Shura, shut up,” whispered Ksenia Andreevna, and her lips hardly moved. “Let everyone be silent,” she said slowly, looking around the class, “if anyone is scared, let them turn away.” No need to look, guys... Goodbye! Study hard. And remember this lesson of ours...

I will now say “three”! - the fascist interrupted her.

And suddenly Kostya Rozhkov stood up in the back row and raised his hand:

She really doesn't know!

Who knows?

“I know...” Kostya said loudly and clearly. - I went there myself and I know. But she wasn’t and doesn’t know.

Well, show me,” said the boss.

Rozhkov, why are you telling lies? - said Ksenia Andreevna.

“I’m telling the truth,” Kostya said stubbornly and harshly and looked into the teacher’s eyes.

Kostya... - began Ksenia Andreevna.

But Rozhkov interrupted her:

Ksenia Andreevna, I know it myself...

The teacher stood, turned away from him, dropping her white head on her chest. Kostya went to the board where he had answered the lesson so many times. He took the chalk. He stood indecisively, fingering the white crumbling pieces. The fascist approached the board and waited. Kostya raised his hand with a chalk.

Here, look here,” he whispered, “I’ll show you where...

The German approached him and bent down to better see what the boy was showing. And suddenly Kostya hit the black surface of the board with both hands with all his might. This is done when, having written on one side, the board is about to be turned over to the other. The board turned sharply in its frame, squealed and hit the fascist in the face with a flourish. He flew to the side, and Kostya jumped over the frame, dove, and hid behind the board as if behind a shield. The fascist, clutching his bloody face, fired aimlessly at the board, putting bullet after bullet into it.

In vain... Behind the blackboard there was a window overlooking the cliff above the river. Kostya, without thinking, jumped through the open window, threw himself off the cliff into the river and swam to the other bank.

The second fascist, pushing Ksenia Andreevna away, ran to the window and began shooting at the boy with a pistol. The boss pushed him aside, snatched the pistol from him and took aim through the window. The guys jumped up to their desks. They no longer thought about the danger that threatened them. Now only Kostya worried them. They wanted only one thing now - for Kostya to get to the other side, so that the Germans would miss.

At this time, hearing gunfire in the village, the partisans who were tracking down the motorcyclists jumped out of the forest. Seeing them, the German guarding the porch fired into the air, shouted something to his comrades and rushed into the bushes where the motorcycles were hidden. But through the bushes, piercing leaves, cutting off branches, a machine-gun burst from the Red Army patrol, which was on the other side, lashed...

No more than fifteen minutes passed, and the partisans brought three disarmed Germans into the classroom, where the excited children burst into again. The commander of the partisan detachment took a heavy chair, pushed it towards the table and wanted to sit down, but Senya Pichugin suddenly rushed forward and snatched the chair from him.

No, no, no! I'll bring you another one now.

And he instantly dragged another chair from the corridor, and pushed this one behind the board. The commander of the partisan detachment sat down and called the chief of the fascists to the table for interrogation. And the other two, rumpled and quiet, sat next to each other on the desk of Senya Pichugin and Shura Kapustina, carefully and timidly placing their legs there.

“He almost killed Ksenia Andreevna,” Shura Kapustina whispered to the commander, pointing to the fascist intelligence officer.

“That’s not exactly true,” the German muttered, “that’s not right at all...

He, he! - shouted the quiet Senya Pichugin. - He still had a mark... I... when I was dragging the chair, I accidentally spilled ink on the oilcloth...

The commander leaned over the table, looked and grinned: there was a dark ink stain on the back of the fascist’s gray pants...

Ksenia Andreevna entered the class. She went ashore to find out if Kostya Rozhkov swam safely. The Germans sitting at the front desk looked in surprise at the commander who had jumped up.

Get up! - the commander shouted at them. - In our class you are supposed to stand up when the teacher enters. Apparently that’s not what you were taught!

And the two fascists obediently stood up.

May I continue our lesson, Ksenia Andreevna? - asked the commander.

Sit, sit, Shirokov.

No, Ksenia Andreevna, take your rightful place,” Shirokov objected, pulling up a chair, “in this room you are our mistress.” And here at that desk over there I have gained my wits, and my daughter is receiving her education here from you... Sorry, Ksenia Andreevna, that I had to allow these cheeky people into your class. Well, since this has happened, you should ask them properly yourself. Help us: you know their language...

And Ksenia Andreevna took her place at the table, from which she had learned many good people in thirty-two years. And now in front of Ksenia Andreevna’s desk, next to the chalkboard, pierced by bullets, a long-armed, red-mustachioed brute was hesitating, nervously straightening his jacket, humming something and hiding his eyes from the blue, stern gaze of the old teacher.

“Stand properly,” said Ksenia Andreevna, “why are you fidgeting?” My guys don't behave like that. That's it... Now take the trouble to answer my questions.

And the lanky fascist, timid, stretched out in front of the teacher.

THREE "FABZUNES"

An air raid alert brought three boys into our yard. On the plaques of the belts I saw the letters P and U. They entered in a ladder: senior, middle, junior. Their fingers were dark, and under their eyes there were black semicircles from soot. They were returning from work, were in a hurry and did not wash themselves off.

So this is where we'll spend the night, director? - asked the smallest one, busily looking around our yard.

“Yes, it turns out we need to settle down,” answered the one who was called the director.

For the third day we won’t get home,” said the middle one, flashing his dazzling teeth.

We soon became friends with them. I learned that they had indeed been unable to get home for the third night. Their shift ends late. And along the way they are delayed by anxiety. Today they went to the cinema. But here's the chance: alarm caught them on the road again.

The commandant entered the yard and ordered three friends to go down to the bomb shelter. They reluctantly complied. Having gone down to the shelter, the guys immediately found some kind of plywood, and since there were a lot of people and all the places were already occupied, this plywood was immediately turned by inventive friends into some kind of bed. Hugging each other tightly, the friends fell asleep a moment later. They woke up when the commandant shouted from the stairs: “Men, up! We need to put it out."

All three immediately jumped out into the yard. A passing fascist bomber dropped dozens of incendiary bombs onto the roofs of buildings and into the courtyard. The people in our yard had already been shot at and this time they were not at a loss. The bombs were immediately extinguished with sand and water. But suddenly, from a crack in the gate of a small garage that stood near our house, some suspicious light flickered. It turned out that the bomb had broken through the roof and entered the garage. Unremoved cars and a motorcycle stood there.

Before anyone had time to realize anything, I saw how the “director” exposed his back, the middle boy climbed onto it, and the youngest climbed onto the back of the middle one. He grabbed onto the frame of a window located high above the ground in the wall of the garage, hung, pulled himself up, broke out the glass with his elbow and disappeared into the garage, from where smoke was already coming out, illuminated by a red flame.

When a minute later the garage door was broken open, we saw between two cars, next to a brand new motorcycle, our little guest, who was furiously stamping and jumping on a pile of sand. There was no fire anywhere anymore.

Hey! - said the boy, who was teased as “director”. - rear O Rovo, Kostyukha! This is probably cleaner than Mitka and I yesterday at Krasnaya Presnya.

What about yesterday? - I asked.

No, we carried away the wood pile there in time before it caught fire.

After that, the three friends went back down to the shelter and a minute later fell asleep again on their plywood. As soon as the all-clear sounded, the guys got up, rubbed their sleepy faces with sooty hands and left the yard. They were thanked. They were praised in return. But they left without looking back.

Suddenly the younger one ran into the yard again. Two of his comrades appeared at the gate at some distance from him.

“Uncle,” the little one turned to the commandant, “the motorcycle that almost burned down is “Red October”, isn’t it? Yes?.. Yeah! And Vitka says: this is a Harley.

And he looked triumphantly at his friends. And then all three of them left, and we heard a song that they must have reworked in their own way:

“Three rabbits, three cheerful friends - all reliable, fighting people...”

THE TIME WILL COME...

So, that means, no matter how you count, you’re twelve years old,” said the boss, trying in vain to frown, although he had a desire to hurry up the guys, “year of birth, therefore, 1929. Very good.” And the last name of one of you is Kurokhtin, his name is Yuri. So?

“Yes,” answered, looking at the floor, a stocky boy with a rabbit earflap pulled low over his eyebrows and with a homemade backpack on his shoulders.

And that one, therefore, will be Zhenya the Pin? Did you make a mistake?

There was no answer. Large gray eyes looked sadly at the boss, the eyelashes of which were sticking together from tears. It was useless to deny.

They were detained the other day at a station near Moscow. Moscow was already very close. An hour and a half would have passed, no more, and the chimneys, roofs, spiers, towers and stars of the capital would have risen from the horizon.

Yurik Kurokhtin knew Moscow well. This is where he was born. Here, on Pokrovsky Boulevard, in one of the side streets, he went to school for the first time and was now already a fourth grader. But now he did not study in Moscow. At the beginning of the war, he and his mother went to a distant Siberian city, where he met Zhenya. Now they left there secretly. Yurik came up with all this. He persuaded Zhenya to go with him to participate in the battles near Moscow and defend the capital from the Nazis. They traveled without tickets, they were dropped off every now and then, they crawled into the carriage again, and hid.

And all the way Yuri whispered to Zhenya about Moscow. He told how his father took him one day on November 7 to Red Square and from the white stone guest stands he clearly saw the Red Army parade and the festive procession of working Moscow. And then his father picked him up, and he saw Stalin, who stood at the top of the mausoleum, leaning on the granite barrier, and waved his hand in a friendly manner to the hundreds of thousands of people walking past him. Little Muscovite Yuri Kurokhtin whispered to Zhenya Shtyr all the way about his wonderful city, about his Moscow. And before Zhenya’s eyes arose a huge, crowded city, which Zhenya had never seen in reality, but which had been in Zhenya’s dreams and dreams more than once. And the pointed towers of the Kremlin, and the curly greenery of the parks, and the huge zoo with wild animals, and the planetarium with its hand-made stars, and the matte surface of the asphalt streets, and the running stairs of the metro, and the freshness of the Volga streams flowing into the the city, and Moscow people, hasty and businesslike, but welcoming and friendly, passionately loving their great city.

And now the Nazis were attacking Moscow with all their might. Yurik lost weight from worry about his city. Anxiety soon gripped Zhenya too. And they decided to go to defend the capital. They were detained not far from Moscow by telegrams that were sent by their parents in pursuit of the fugitives. Now they stood in the office of the military commandant of the station.

Why did you come anyway? - the boss asked and could not cope with his eyebrows, which never wanted to frown.

The boss made a strange sound, as if he had sneezed to himself, but again became serious and stern.

Well, what about you, boy? - he turned to Zhenya.

I'm not a boy at all. I'm quite a sister...

The boss was amazed:

Whose sister?

Draw... Just medical... For the wounded.

Stop, stop, stop,” muttered the boss, taking the telegram from the table. - It is clearly stated here: “Two schoolchildren, twelve years old. Yuri Kurokhtin and Zhenya Shtyr.” And you say - sister.

Yuri came to Zhenya’s aid:

She is a girl, she just disguised herself as a boy so that she would be taken into the Red Army, and then she would say everything and become a sister. And I wanted to bring cartridges to the machine gunners.

The boss stood up and looked at both of them carefully.

Eh, hurry ups! - he said. - This is not what you started. The time will come for you. Now go home and leave these things behind. You, right, consider yourself great heroes: you ran away from home, dropped out of school. But if we talk to you in a military way, then you are simply a troublemaker - that’s all. Where is this good? What kind of discipline is this? Who will study in schools, eh? I'm asking you.

The boss fell silent. He looked around at everyone who was in the office. The boys also raised their heads. Strict military men stood around them.

And then the children were put into the carriage of a train that was coming from Moscow, and were entrusted to the care of an elderly conductor. And the guys went back.

It’s okay,” the conductor consoled the unlucky fugitives, “they’ll manage there without you.” Look, look what kind of force is coming to help.

The train stopped at a siding. The conductor took the green flag and left. Yurik and Zhenya jumped off the shelf and ran to the window. A military train was heading towards Moscow. The train stood at the siding for a long time, passing train after train. And military trains, long trains, on the platforms of which were riding something heavy, covered with a tarpaulin, and on the steps stood guards, wrapped in warm shaggy sheepskin coats, with rifles in their hands, walked and walked toward Moscow. Then the train moved on. And no matter how long he walked - a day, two, three, a week - Zhenya and Yura saw everywhere people in helmets, in warm hats with red stars. There were a lot of them. Thousands, and maybe millions... With well-harmonized voices, they sang a song about a great victorious campaign, the time of which would soon come.

ALEXEY ANDREEVICH

Alexei Andreevich should have a tight dark mustache, a thick voice, broad shoulders, a respectable appearance... So thought the commander of the military unit, which was located near the bank of the N. River. The commander never saw Alexei Andreevich in person, but heard about him every day. A week ago, the soldiers, returning from reconnaissance, reported that a barefoot boy met them in the woods, took seven white stones, five black ones out of his pockets, then pulled out a rope tied with four knots, and finally shook out three pieces of wood. And looking at the goods taken from his pockets, the unknown boy said with a stomp that on the other side of the river seven German mortars, five enemy tanks, four guns and three machine guns had been spotted. When asked where it came from, the boy replied that Alexey Andreevich himself sent it.

He came to the scouts tomorrow and the next day. And each time he rummaged in his pockets for a long time, pulling out multi-colored pebbles and slivers, counting the knots on the string and saying that Alexey Andreevich sent him. The boy did not say who Alexey Andreevich was, no matter how much he was questioned. “It’s wartime - there’s no point in talking too much,” he explained, “and Alexey Andreevich himself did not order anything to be said about it.” And the commander, daily receiving very important information in the forest, decided that Alexey Andreevich was some brave partisan from across the river, a mighty hero, with a thick mustache and a low voice. For some reason, this is exactly how Alexey Andreevich seemed to the commander.

One evening, when warmth came from the wide river and the water became completely smooth, as if frozen, the commander checked the guard posts and got ready to have dinner. But then he was informed that some guy had arrived at the outpost sentries and was asking to see the commander. The commander allowed the boy to pass through.

A few minutes later he saw in front of him a short boy of about thirteen or fourteen years old. There was nothing special about him. The boy seemed simple-minded and even a little slow-witted. He walked with a slightly unsteady gait, and his too-short trouser legs swung from side to side over his bare feet. But it seemed to the commander that the boy was only pretending to be such a simpleton. The commander sensed some kind of trick. And indeed, as soon as the boy saw the commander, he immediately stopped yawning around, pulled himself up, took four firm steps, froze, stretched out, gave the pioneer salute and said:

May I report, Comrade Commander? Alexey Andreevich...

You?! - the commander did not believe it.

I'm the one. Head of the crossing.

How? What is the manager? - the commander asked.

Crossing! - came from behind the bush, and a boy of about nine poked his head through the foliage.

And who are you? - asked the commander.

The boy crawled out of the bush, stretched out and, looking first at the commander, then at his senior comrade, diligently said:

I'm here for special assignments.

The one who called himself Alexei Andreevich looked at him menacingly.

For errands,” he corrected the baby, “it’s been said a hundred times!” And don't interfere while the elder is talking. Do I need to teach you all over again?

The commander hid his smile and looked at both of them carefully. Both the elder and the little one stood at attention in front of him.

This is Valek, my guarantor,” the first explained, “and I am the head of the crossing.”

The little “guarantor” kept moving the toes of his bare, dusty feet, his heels neatly moved together, out of excitement.

Manager? Crossing? - the commander was surprised.

Yes sir.

Where is your crossing?

“In a well-known place,” the boy said and looked at the little one. He just sniffled: we understand, don’t be afraid.

Where did you come from?

From the village. Over there, behind the forest.

What's your last name? - the commander asked.

As for my last name, I’ll only tell you later, otherwise my family might be harmed. The Germans find out and they will take revenge on me.

Why will the Germans take revenge on you?

How for what? - The boy was even offended. Valek couldn’t help but chuckle; the elder looked at him sternly. - How for what? For the crossing.

What kind of crossing is this? - the commander got angry. “He’s twisting my head here: crossing, crossing... but he doesn’t really explain anything.”

Can you stand freely? - asked the boy.

Yes, stand freely, stand as you want, just tell me plainly: what do you want from me?

The guys stood up “freely”. At the same time, the little one carefully put his leg to the side and funny twisted his heel.

“An ordinary crossing,” the elder began leisurely. - So there is a raft. Called “Coffin for the Nazis.” They tied us up ourselves. There are eight of us, and I am the manager. And we transported three of our wounded from the bank where the Germans were to this side. They are there, in the forest. We hid them there and created disguises. It’s just hard to drag them far. Now we have arrived to you. They need to be taken to the village, the wounded.

Well, the Germans didn't notice you? How are you traveling on your raft under their noses?

And we are all under the bank, under the bank, and then we have a trench there, we cross from it to the other side. There is a bend in the river here. So we can't be seen. They noticed, started shooting, and we had already arrived at our destination.

Well, if you’re telling the truth, well done, Andrei Alekseevich! - said the commander.

Alexey Andreevich,” the boy quietly corrected, modestly looking to the side.

Half an hour later, Alexey Andreevich and his “guarantor” Valek led the commander and orderlies to the wounded, who were hidden in the forest, where the river had made a deep hole in the bank and thick tree roots were intertwined like a hut.

Right here! - Alexey Andreevich pointed out.

Four guys jumped out from under the roots, climbing along the shore.

Attention! - Alexey Andreevich commanded and turned to the commander: - The pioneer crossing team is assembled. The wounded are right here, there is a guard posted at the ship. The crossing is ready for combat missions.

Hello comrades! - the commander greeted.

The guys answered unanimously; Only from behind a tree hanging over the shore did the word “Hello” sound with some delay. And Alexey Andreevich explained that these were two guards on duty who were guarding the hidden raft. Soon, three seriously wounded Red Army soldiers were placed on stretchers by orderlies. Two of the wounded soldiers were unconscious and only occasionally moaned quietly; the third, grabbing the commander’s elbow with his weakened hand, moving his lips heavily, kept trying to say something. But all he could come up with was:

The pioneers... the kids... are very grateful from the soldiers... the pioneers... They would have disappeared... But here they are...

The orderlies carried the wounded to the village. And the commander invited the guys to have dinner at his place. But Alexey Andreevich said that the time was right for work and he could not leave.

The next day, Alexey Andreevich brought the commander a piece of paper on which a plan for the location of the Germans was drawn. He drew it himself, making his way to the other side.

Didn’t you notice how many machine guns and guns they have? - asked the commander.

“Now you will get everything exactly,” answered Alexey Andreevich and whistled. Immediately a lanky guy with glasses poked his head out of the bushes.

This is the accountant on our raft, Kolka,” explained Alexey Andreevich.

Not an accountant, but a bookkeeper,” the lanky one corrected gloomily.

Accountant! It's been said a hundred times! - said Alexey Andreevich.

The “accountant” had an exact list, tied in knots on a rope, collected from pebbles and sticks, of all the machine guns and guns that the Germans had installed on the other side.

What about armored cars? Haven't you seen it?

You should ask Seryozhka about this,” answered Alexey Andreevich, “I deliberately dispersed it among everyone, so that everyone would have a little bit.” But the Germans won’t recognize you by the pebbles and splinters. It happens in everyone's pocket. If anyone gets caught, the rest will finish theirs. Hey, Seryozhka! - he shouted, and immediately a bald-haired and tanned hulk came out from behind the bushes. He had a dozen shells representing German armored cars and tanks.

Maybe you need rifles? - Alexey Andreevich suddenly asked sternly.

The commander laughed:

What, you not only make rafts, but also rifles? So, what?

“No,” Alexey Andreevich answered without smiling. - We have ready-made ones, made in Germany. Send for them to the crossing in the evening, at zero fifteen minutes. Just to be sure.

At a quarter past twelve, as agreed, the commander himself arrived at the crossing point. He was accompanied by several soldiers. The commander began to go down to the water and suddenly tripped over something iron and heavy. He bent down and felt the wet rifle.

Take the weapon,” Alexey Andreevich whispered.

Eighty German rifles were handed over to the Red Army pioneers that night. Alexey Andreevich carefully counted them, noted each one in his notebook and ordered his “accountant” to get a receipt from the commander.

“This was given to the head of the crossing, Alexei Andreevich, that I received eighty German rifles captured by the pioneers from the enemy. I express my gratitude to the entire crew of the “Coffin to the Fascists” raft.” And the commander signed.

How did you manage it anyway? - he asked the guys.

And they are drunk there. So we crawled up and pulled him away. Very simple. We swam there three times. Once we were lost in the water. I had to dive.

“And there were no more adventures,” Valek suddenly spoke up. And everyone thought that he had already fallen asleep, dozing on a stump.

Shut up: adventures!.. It’s been said a hundred times: adventures.

Well, you guys are just great,” the commander said with sincere admiration, “you’re doing a great job.” That way, you can probably bring a cannon.

And we can have a cannon,” Alexey Andreevich calmly agreed.

It turned out that on the other side a German cannon had gotten stuck in the swamp mud the day before. The guys spotted this place. During the day, the Germans tried to pull the gun onto the shore, to a dry place, but they failed.

The commander sent seven soldiers to help the guys. Alexey Andreevich's team took their places on the log raft. The guys and fighters began to row with their hands, boards and shovels. And the raft “Coffin for the Nazis” floated quietly along the night river.

The commander had to return to his unit, but he could not sleep. Several times he went ashore, peered into the darkness and listened. But nothing was heard.

It was already beginning to get light when suddenly random shots were heard from the other bank. The Germans noticed the raft and opened fire on it. But it was already too late. The commander saw that the raft had turned around the bend of the shore. The commander rushed there.

By morning, a cannon and a mortar, pulled out of the mud and left there by the Nazis, were delivered to the unit's location.

An eighty-two-millimeter cannon and a forty-five-millimeter mortar,” said Alexey Andreevich, reporting to the commander.

And quite the opposite,” corrected Kolya the accountant, very pleased with his manager’s mistake, “quite the opposite: the cannon is forty-five millimeters, and the mortar is eighty-two.

And he triumphantly showed his recording.

But poor Alexey Andreevich was already yawning so much that he couldn’t argue.

The commander put the guys in his tent. Alexey Andreevich wanted to leave the guards on duty at the raft, but the commander posted his own sentry there. A real sentry guarded the glorious pioneer raft “Coffin for the Nazis” that night, and the head of the crossing and his seven assistants, covered with greatcoats, snored sweetly in the commander’s tent.

In the morning, some left for new positions. The guys were woken up and fed a delicious breakfast. The commander approached Alexei Andreevich and put his hand on his shoulder.

Well, Alexey Andreevich,” he said, “thank you for your service.” Your crossing was useful to us. What should I give you as a souvenir?

Yes you! I need nothing.

Wait,” the commander stopped him. - Here, Alexey Andreevich, friend, get it from me. Wear it with honor. Don't worry in vain, don't threaten in vain. Combat weapons. - And, unfastening his revolver, he handed it to the head of the crossing. The guys' eyes lit up with enthusiastic envy. Alexey Andreevich took the revolver with both hands. He turned it slowly and carefully aimed at the tree.

The commander, taking his hand, leaned over, adjusted the sight. Everyone was silent. Alexey Andreevich wanted to say something, opened his mouth, but seemed to suffocate for a minute, coughed and remained silent. Here it is, his dream has come true!.. A real revolver, a military weapon, heavy, steel, seven-shot, lay in his hand, belonged to him.

But suddenly he sighed and handed the revolver back to the commander.

“I can’t,” he said quietly, “I can’t have it with me, you’ll get caught by the Germans, they’ll search you, and then they’ll find out that we’re scouts.”

What are you saying, Leshka! - Valek the guarantor could not stand it. - Take it!

I’m not Leshka... it’s been said a hundred times. I'm not afraid for myself. And through this they can shoot all of us. We must act secretly. They seem to be very simple, free-spirited guys. And then they will immediately understand that we are scouts. No, take it, comrade commander.

And, without looking at the commander, he thrust a revolver at him.

The commander remembered more than once that day the little manager of the crossing. The guys gave the commander very important information. The fascist battalion with tanks and two platoons of motorcyclists was defeated that day. In the evening, the commander compiled a list of soldiers nominated for the award, and first he put the name of the pioneer Alexei, the head of the crossing of the N. River, the glorious commander of the raft “Coffin for the Nazis.”

The commander wrote the full name of Alexei Andreevich. But I can’t tell you it yet, because everything that is told here is the true truth. And the name of the pioneer crossing manager Alexei cannot be given out. In the rear of the Nazis, on the western front, on the N. River, the glorious raft “Coffin for the Nazis” operated until the frosts.

HOLD ON, CAPTAIN!

In Moscow, in the Rusakovskaya hospital, where children mutilated by the Nazis are located, Grisha Filatov lies. He is fourteen years old. His mother is a collective farmer, his father is at the front.

When the Germans broke into the village of Lutokhino, the guys hid. Many disappeared with their elders into the forest. But they soon realized that Grisha Filatov was nowhere to be found. He was later found by Red Army soldiers in someone else's hut, not far from the house where the chairman of the village council Sukhanov lived. Grisha was unconscious. Blood was gushing from a deep wound on his leg.

No one understood how he got to the Germans. After all, first he and everyone went into the woods behind the pond. What made him come back? This remains unclear.

One Sunday the Lutokha boys came to Moscow to visit Grisha.

Four forwards from the school team “Voskhod” went to visit their captain, with whom Grisha formed the famous attacking five just this summer. The captain himself played in the center. To his left was the nimble Kolya Shvyrev, who loved to play the ball for a long time with his tenacious legs, for which he was called “Hookmaker.” On the right hand of the captain played the stooped and wobbling Eremka Pasekin, who was teased “Eremka-snow drift, blow low across the field” because he ran, bent low and dragging his feet. On the left edge was the fast, accurate, quick-witted Kostya Belsky, who earned the nickname “The Hawk”. On the other side of the attack was the lanky and foolish Savka Golopyatov, nicknamed “Balalaika”. He always found himself in an offside position - “outside the game”, and the team, by his grace, received penalty kicks from the referee.

Varya Sukhanova also got involved with the boys, an overly curious girl who dragged herself to all the matches and clapped the loudest when Voskhod won. Last spring, with her own hands, she embroidered the “Voskhod” team sign on the captain’s blue T-shirt - a yellow semicircle above the line and pink rays spread out in all directions.

The guys contacted the chief doctor in advance, secured a special pass, and were allowed to visit the wounded captain.

The hospital smelled like all hospitals smell - something acrid, alarming, specifically doctor's. And I immediately wanted to speak in a whisper... The cleanliness was such that the guys, crowded together, scraped their soles on the rubber mat for a long time and could not decide to step from it onto the sparkling linoleum of the corridor. Then they were put on white robes with ribbons. Everyone became similar to each other, and for some reason it was awkward to look at each other. “They’re either bakers or pharmacists,” Savka couldn’t help but joke.

“Well, don’t jangle here in vain,” Kostya Yastrebok stopped him in a stern whisper. - Found the same place, Balalaika!..

They were led into a bright room. There were flowers on the windows and cabinets. But it seemed that the flowers also smelled like a pharmacy. The guys carefully sat down on benches painted with white enamel paint. Only Kolya remained to read the “Rules for Visitors” pasted on the wall.

Soon the doctor, or maybe a sister, also all in white, brought Grisha in. The captain was wearing a long hospital gown. And, clattering with his crutches, Grisha still clumsily hopped on one leg, tucking, as it seemed to the boys, the other under his robe. Seeing his friends, he did not smile, he only blushed and nodded to them somehow very tiredly with his short-cropped head. The guys stood up at once and, walking behind each other, bumping shoulders, began to stretch out their hands to him.

“Hello, Grisha,” said Kostya, “we’ve come to see you.”

The captain suppressed a sigh and cleared his throat, looking at the floor. They had never greeted him like that before. It used to be: “Good O wow, Grishka!” And now they have become very polite, like strangers. And some quiet people put on their dressing gowns... visitors...

The doctor asked not to tire Grisha, not to make too much noise, and left herself. The guys watched her with helpless glances, then sat down. Nobody knew what to say first.

So how? - asked Kostya.

“Nothing,” answered the captain.

Here we come to you...

And I’m with them,” Varya said guiltily.

It clung on like a thorn, but it doesn’t lag behind,” Eremka explained.

How? Hurts? - Kolya Kryuchkotvor asked sternly, nodding at Grisha’s robe.

There’s nothing to be sick about,” the captain answered gloomily and threw back the hem of his robe. Varya gasped quietly.

Eh, absolutely completely! - Eremka couldn’t stand it.

What did you think, they’ll sew it back? - said the captain, wrapping his robe. - The infection is gone. I had to undergo surgery.

How are they doing this to you? - Kostya asked carefully.

How... Very simple. Caught. They told us to say who joined the partisans. And I say: “I don’t know.” Well, they then took me into the hut where the Chuvalovs had lived before... And they tied me to the table with twine. And then one took a hacksaw and started to cut my leg... After that I was no longer conscious...

Even above the knee,” Kostya said sadly.

But it doesn’t matter - higher, lower... One thing...

Well, still...

Did you hear when they were cutting? - asked the curious Kolya.

Is this for surgery? No. I smelled it, I heard it, it was just itching. I put my hand there, but there’s nothing there.

Oh, the Germans are infectious! - Savka said, furiously hitting himself on the knee with his fist. - You know, Grishka, how you were without complete memory then, what they did to us...

Kostya Yastrebok imperceptibly poked his fist into Savka’s back.

Savka...forgot what they told you? This is actually Balalaika!

And I don't say anything like that.

Well, shut up.

Is the other enta walking? - Kolya inquired busily, pointing to the captain’s healthy leg.

Everyone was silent. The sun came out on the street, hesitantly set behind the cloud, again it seemed as if it was stronger, and Varya felt its gentle spring warmth on her cheek. The crows screamed in the hospital park, falling from the bare branches. And the room became so bright, as if all the shadows had been swept away by the wings of a flock flying outside the window.

It’s beautiful here,” Eremka said, looking around the room. - The situation.

There was a little silence again. You could hear the rare March drops beating the iron window sill behind the glass.

Are classes starting again? - asked the captain.

Everything is going fine for us now.

What have we come to in algebra?

We solve examples using an equation with two unknowns.

Eh,” the captain sighed, “I have to catch up on how much...

Just don’t lag behind us in the second year,” said Yastrebok.

We’ll explain everything to you, you know,” Varya picked up, “it’s not difficult, really, a real jug!” Only at first it seems. There you just need to substitute the values ​​for the concepts and that’s it.

And now, like the Germans burned down the school, we are studying in the bathhouse,” Eremka said. - Recently, during recess, a white-headed duck jumped into a tub of water! And he was just called to the board. The mathematician gave him such heat that he even dried out all at once!

Everyone laughed. The captain smiled too. And it became easier. But this time Eremka ruined the whole thing.

“And here,” he said, “in the vacant lot, where there is a slope, it is also almost dry. The snow has melted. We have already started training.

The captain frowned painfully. Kostya pinched Eremka’s elbow. Everyone looked angrily at the one who had let it slip.

Who will you put in the center now? - asked the captain.

Yes, that's right, Petka Zhuravleva.

Of course, he won’t ever have a blow like yours,” Eremka hastened to add.

There is nothing. He can. You just keep an eye on him so that he doesn’t start... Why didn’t he come himself?

“Yes, he’s busy today,” Kostya quickly answered, and lied: the guys just didn’t take Petka Zhuravlev with them, so that the captain wouldn’t be upset, seeing that he had already been replaced.

What did I bring you? - Kolya suddenly remembered, looked slyly at everyone and pulled out something on a red ribbon from his pocket. - N A . I give it to you completely. This is an iron cross, real, German.

And I brought the same one for you,” Eremka said.

Oh you! “I thought I was the only one,” Kostya said sadly, also taking a German order from his pocket.

Savka also reached into his pocket, but thought about it, pulled his empty hand out of his pocket and waved it off: “The Germans abandoned so many of them! As our people pushed them, they abandoned everything.”

And I’ll give you a book! - And Varya shyly handed her gift to the captain. - “From the lives of wonderful people.” Interesting, you won’t be able to put it down, a true jug!

Wow, I almost forgot! - Savka exclaimed. - Vaska the Lame bowed to you.

S-a-a-a-awk!.. - Kostya could only moan.

Well, bow to Vaska too,” the captain responded gloomily, “say: Grishka the lame sends his bow back, understand?”

Well, it’s time for us to go,” Kostya hurried, “otherwise we won’t be in time for the train.” There are a lot of people.

They crowded around the captain, silently thrusting their hands at him. And it seemed to everyone that the most important thing, for which they came, was never told. Kolya Kryuchkotvor suddenly asked:

How did you end up on the street then? After all, you were sitting with us in the forest. Where did you go?

So, it was necessary,” the captain answered curtly.

Well, good luck to you!.. Get started here quickly and come back.

And they left, awkwardly crowding in the doorway and looking back at Grisha. So many people were going to the captain, they needed to see each other, say something important, but they didn’t really talk... They left. He was left alone. It became quiet and empty around. A large icicle hit the window sill from the outside and, breaking, thundered down, leaving a wet mark on the iron. A minute passed, then another. Varya unexpectedly returned.

Hello again. Did I forget my scarf?

The captain stood with his back turned to the wall. His thin shoulders, supported by crutches, trembled.

Grinya, what are you doing?.. It hurts, right?

He managed and shook his head without turning around.

She approached him.

Grinya, you think I don’t know why you came back from the forest then?

Well, okay, know for your health! What do you know?

I know, I know everything, Grinka. You thought then that my mother and I stayed in the village council, we didn’t have time... It’s you because of me, Grinka.

His ears began to burn.

What else can you say?

And I will say!..

You know, just keep quiet into your handkerchief,” he muttered into the wall.

But I won’t keep quiet! Do you think the most important thing to me is how many legs you have? Our heifer over there has four of them, and what a joy! And it’s better not to argue. I will never leave you alone in the world, Grinya. And we’ll catch up with classes, just come quickly and get better. And let's go to the pond, where the music is.

Walking with a limp is not a very interesting picture...

You are bad... And you and I will go on a boat, in a boat and it will be unnoticeable. I’ll break the branches, decorate you all around, and we’ll go right over the shore, past all the people, I’ll row...

Why does it have to be you? - He even turned to her at once.

You're wounded.

It seems that I can row better than you.

And they argued for a long time about who could row better, who could sit on the steering wheel, and how to steer better - with the stern or the oars. Finally Varya remembered that they were waiting for her. She stood up, straightened up, and suddenly grabbed the captain’s hand with both hands and, closing her eyes tightly, squeezed it with all her might in her palms.

Goodbye, Grinya!.. Come soon... - she whispered, without opening her eyes, and she pushed his hand away.

Four people were waiting for her on the street.

Well, did you find the handkerchief?.. - Savka began mockingly, but Kostya Yastrebok took a menacing step towards him: “Just blurt out something...”

And the captain returned to his room, put his crutches by the bed, lay down and opened the book that Varya had given him. The place outlined in blue pencil caught my eye.

“Lord Byron,” the captain read, “who remained lame from childhood throughout his life, nevertheless enjoyed enormous success and fame in society. He was a tireless traveler, a fearless rider, a skilled boxer and an outstanding swimmer...”

The captain re-read this passage three times in a row, then put the book on the nightstand, turned his face to the wall and began to dream.

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School in the partisan region.

T. Cat. ,From the book “Children-Heroes”,
Getting stuck in a marshy swamp, falling and getting up again, we went to our own - to the partisans. The Germans were fierce in their native village.
And for a whole month the Germans bombed our camp. “The partisans have been destroyed,” they finally sent a report to their high command. But invisible hands again derailed trains, blew up weapons warehouses, and destroyed German garrisons.
Summer is over, autumn is already trying on its colorful, crimson outfit. It was difficult for us to imagine September without school.
- These are the letters I know! - eight-year-old Natasha Drozd once said and drew a round “O” in the sand with a stick and next to it - an uneven gate “P”. Her friend drew some numbers. The girls were playing school, and neither one nor the other noticed with what sadness and warmth the commander of the partisan detachment Kovalevsky was watching them. In the evening at the council of commanders he said:
“The kids need school...” and added quietly: “We can’t deprive them of their childhood.”
That same night, Komsomol members Fedya Trutko and Sasha Vasilevsky went out on a combat mission, with Pyotr Ilyich Ivanovsky with them. They returned a few days later. Pencils, pens, primers, and problem books were taken out of their pockets and bosoms. There was a sense of peace and home, of great human care, from these books here, among the swamps, where a mortal battle for life was taking place.
“It’s easier to blow up a bridge than to get your books,” Pyotr Ilyich flashed his teeth cheerfully and took out... a pioneer horn.
None of the partisans said a word about the risk they were exposed to. There could have been an ambush in every house, but it never occurred to any of them to abandon the task or return empty-handed. ,
Three classes were organized: first, second and third. School... Pegs driven into the ground, intertwined with wicker, a cleared area, instead of a board and chalk - sand and a stick, instead of desks - stumps, instead of a roof over your head - camouflage from German planes. In cloudy weather we were plagued by mosquitoes, sometimes snakes crawled in, but we didn’t pay attention to anything.
How the children valued their clearing school, how they hung on every word of the teacher! There were one textbook, two per class. There were no books at all on some subjects. We remembered a lot from the words of the teacher, who sometimes came to class straight from a combat mission, with a rifle in his hands, belted with ammunition.
The soldiers brought everything they could get for us from the enemy, but there was not enough paper. We carefully removed birch bark from fallen trees and wrote on it with coals. There was no case of anyone not doing their homework. Only those guys who were urgently sent to reconnaissance skipped classes.
It turned out that we only had nine pioneers; the remaining twenty-eight guys had to be accepted as pioneers. We sewed a banner from a parachute donated to the partisans and made a pioneer uniform. Partisans were accepted into pioneers, and the detachment commander himself tied ties for new arrivals. The headquarters of the pioneer squad was immediately elected.
Without stopping our studies, we built a new dugout school for the winter. To insulate it, a lot of moss was needed. They pulled it out so hard that their fingers hurt, sometimes they tore off their nails, they cut their hands painfully with grass, but no one complained. No one demanded excellent academic performance from us, but each of us made this demand on ourselves. And when the hard news came that our beloved comrade Sasha Vasilevsky had been killed, all the pioneers of the squad took a solemn oath: to study even better.
At our request, the squad was given the name of a deceased friend. That same night, avenging Sasha, the partisans blew up 14 German vehicles and derailed the train. The Germans sent 75 thousand punitive forces against the partisans. The blockade began again. Everyone who knew how to handle weapons went into battle. Families retreated into the depths of the swamps, and our pioneer squad also retreated. Our clothes were frozen, we ate flour boiled in hot water once a day. But, retreating, we grabbed all our textbooks. Classes continued at the new location. And we kept the oath given to Sasha Vasilevsky. In the spring exams, all the pioneers answered without hesitation. The strict examiners - the detachment commander, the commissar, the teachers - were pleased with us.
As a reward, the best students received the right to participate in shooting competitions. They fired from the detachment commander's pistol. This was the highest honor for the guys.

We have collected for you the best stories about the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. First-person stories, not made up, living memories of front-line soldiers and witnesses of the war.

A story about the war from the book of priest Alexander Dyachenko “Overcoming”

I was not always old and frail, I lived in a Belarusian village, I had a family, a very good husband. But the Germans came, my husband, like other men, joined the partisans, he was their commander. We women supported our men in any way we could. The Germans became aware of this. They arrived in the village early in the morning. They kicked everyone out of their houses and drove them like cattle to the station in a neighboring town. The carriages were already waiting for us there. People were packed into the heated vehicles so that we could only stand. We drove with stops for two days, they gave us no water or food. When we were finally unloaded from the carriages, some were no longer able to move. Then the guards began throwing them to the ground and finishing them off with the butts of their carbines. And then they showed us the direction to the gate and said: “Run.” As soon as we had run half the distance, the dogs were released. The strongest reached the gate. Then the dogs were driven away, everyone who remained was lined up in a column and led through the gate, on which it was written in German: “To each his own.” Since then, boy, I can't look at tall chimneys.

She exposed her arm and showed me a tattoo of a row of numbers on the inside of her arm, closer to the elbow. I knew it was a tattoo, my dad had a tank tattooed on his chest because he is a tanker, but why put numbers on it?

I remember that she also talked about how our tankers liberated them and how lucky she was to live to see this day. She didn’t tell me anything about the camp itself and what was happening in it; she probably pitied my childish head.

I learned about Auschwitz only later. I found out and understood why my neighbor couldn’t look at the pipes of our boiler room.

During the war, my father also ended up in occupied territory. They got it from the Germans, oh, how they got it. And when ours drove a little, they, realizing that the grown-up boys were tomorrow’s soldiers, decided to shoot them. They gathered everyone and took them to the log, and then our airplane saw a crowd of people and started a line nearby. The Germans are on the ground, and the boys are scattered. My dad was lucky, he escaped with a shot in his hand, but he escaped. Not everyone was lucky then.

My father was a tank driver in Germany. Their tank brigade distinguished itself near Berlin on the Seelow Heights. I've seen photos of these guys. Young people, and all their chests are in orders, several people - . Many, like my dad, were drafted into the active army from occupied lands, and many had something to take revenge on the Germans for. That may be why they fought so desperately and bravely.

They walked across Europe, liberated concentration camp prisoners and beat the enemy, finishing them off mercilessly. “We were eager to go to Germany itself, we dreamed of how we would smear it with the caterpillar tracks of our tanks. We had a special unit, even the uniform was black. We still laughed, as if they wouldn’t confuse us with the SS men.”

Immediately after the end of the war, my father’s brigade was stationed in one of the small German towns. Or rather, in the ruins that remained of it. They somehow settled down in the basements of the buildings, but there was no room for a dining room. And the brigade commander, a young colonel, ordered the tables to be knocked down from shields and a temporary canteen to be set up right in the town square.

“And here is our first peaceful dinner. Field kitchens, cooks, everything is as usual, but the soldiers do not sit on the ground or on a tank, but, as expected, at tables. We had just started having lunch, and suddenly German children began crawling out of all these ruins, basements, and crevices like cockroaches. Some are standing, but others can no longer stand from hunger. They stand and look at us like dogs. And I don’t know how it happened, but I took the bread with my shot hand and put it in my pocket, I looked quietly, and all our guys, without raising their eyes to each other, did the same.”

And then they fed the German children, gave away everything that could somehow be hidden from dinner, just yesterday’s children themselves, who very recently, without flinching, were raped, burned, shot by the fathers of these German children on our land they had captured.

The brigade commander, Hero of the Soviet Union, a Jew by nationality, whose parents, like all other Jews of a small Belarusian town, were buried alive by punitive forces, had every right, both moral and military, to drive away the German “geeks” from his tank crews with volleys. They ate his soldiers, reduced their combat effectiveness, many of these children were also sick and could spread the infection among the personnel.

But the colonel, instead of shooting, ordered an increase in the food consumption rate. And German children, on the orders of the Jew, were fed along with his soldiers.

What kind of phenomenon do you think this is - the Russian Soldier? Where does this mercy come from? Why didn't they take revenge? It seems beyond anyone’s strength to find out that all your relatives were buried alive, perhaps by the fathers of these same children, to see concentration camps with many bodies of tortured people. And instead of “taking it easy” on the children and wives of the enemy, they, on the contrary, saved them, fed them, and treated them.

Several years have passed since the events described, and my dad, having graduated from military school in the fifties, again served in Germany, but as an officer. Once on the street of one city a young German called out to him. He ran up to my father, grabbed his hand and asked:

Don't you recognize me? Yes, of course, now it’s hard to recognize that hungry, ragged boy in me. But I remember you, how you fed us then among the ruins. Believe me, we will never forget this.

This is how we made friends in the West, by force of arms and the all-conquering power of Christian love.

Alive. We'll endure it. We will win.

THE TRUTH ABOUT WAR

It should be noted that not everyone was convincingly impressed by V. M. Molotov’s speech on the first day of the war, and the final phrase caused irony among some soldiers. When we, doctors, asked them how things were at the front, and we lived only for this, we often heard the answer: “We are scuttling. Victory is ours... that is, the Germans!”

I can’t say that J.V. Stalin’s speech had a positive effect on everyone, although most of them felt warm from it. But in the darkness of a long line for water in the basement of the house where the Yakovlevs lived, I once heard: “Here! They became brothers and sisters! I forgot how I went to jail for being late. The rat squeaked when the tail was pressed!” The people were silent at the same time. I have heard similar statements more than once.

Two other factors contributed to the rise of patriotism. Firstly, these are the atrocities of the fascists on our territory. Newspaper reports that in Katyn near Smolensk the Germans shot tens of thousands of Poles we captured, and that it was not us during the retreat, as the Germans assured, that were perceived without malice. Anything could have happened. “We couldn’t leave them to the Germans,” some reasoned. But the population could not forgive the murder of our people.

In February 1942, my senior operating nurse A.P. Pavlova received a letter from the liberated banks of the Seliger River, which told how, after the explosion of a hand fan in the German headquarters hut, they hanged almost all the men, including Pavlova’s brother. They hung him on a birch tree near his native hut, and he hung for almost two months in front of his wife and three children. The mood of the entire hospital from this news became menacing for the Germans: both the staff and the wounded soldiers loved Pavlova... I ensured that the original letter was read in all the wards, and Pavlova’s face, yellowed from tears, was in the dressing room before everyone’s eyes...

The second thing that made everyone happy was the reconciliation with the church. The Orthodox Church showed true patriotism in its preparations for the war, and it was appreciated. Government awards showered on the patriarch and clergy. These funds were used to create air squadrons and tank divisions with the names “Alexander Nevsky” and “Dmitry Donskoy”. They showed a film where a priest with the chairman of the district executive committee, a partisan, destroys atrocious fascists. The film ended with the old bell ringer climbing the bell tower and ringing the alarm, crossing himself widely before doing so. It sounded directly: “Fall yourself with the sign of the cross, Russian people!” The wounded spectators and the staff had tears in their eyes when the lights came on.

On the contrary, the huge money contributed by the chairman of the collective farm, it seems, Ferapont Golovaty, caused evil smiles. “Look how I stole from the hungry collective farmers,” said the wounded peasants.

The activities of the fifth column, that is, internal enemies, also caused enormous indignation among the population. I myself saw how many of them there were: German planes were even signaled from the windows with multi-colored flares. In November 1941, at the Neurosurgical Institute hospital, they signaled from the window in Morse code. The doctor on duty, Malm, a completely drunken and declassed man, said that the alarm was coming from the window of the operating room where my wife was on duty. The head of the hospital, Bondarchuk, said at the morning five-minute meeting that he vouched for Kudrina, and two days later the signalmen were taken, and Malm himself disappeared forever.

My violin teacher Yu. A. Aleksandrov, a communist, although a secretly religious, consumptive man, worked as the fire chief of the House of the Red Army on the corner of Liteiny and Kirovskaya. He was chasing the rocket launcher, obviously an employee of the House of the Red Army, but could not see him in the darkness and did not catch up, but he threw the rocket launcher at Alexandrov’s feet.

Life at the institute gradually improved. The central heating began to work better, the electric light became almost constant, and water appeared in the water supply. We went to the movies. Films such as “Two Fighters”, “Once Upon a Time There Was a Girl” and others were watched with undisguised feeling.

For “Two Fighters,” the nurse was able to get tickets to the “October” cinema for a show later than we expected. Arriving at the next show, we learned that a shell hit the courtyard of this cinema, where visitors to the previous show were being released, and many were killed and wounded.

The summer of 1942 passed through the hearts of ordinary people very sadly. The encirclement and defeat of our troops near Kharkov, which greatly increased the number of our prisoners in Germany, brought great despondency to everyone. The new German offensive to the Volga, to Stalingrad, was very difficult for everyone. The mortality rate of the population, especially increased in the spring months, despite some improvement in nutrition, as a result of dystrophy, as well as the death of people from air bombs and artillery shelling, was felt by everyone.

My wife’s food cards and hers were stolen in mid-May, which made us very hungry again. And we had to prepare for winter.

We not only cultivated and planted vegetable gardens in Rybatskoe and Murzinka, but received a fair strip of land in the garden near the Winter Palace, which was given to our hospital. It was excellent land. Other Leningraders cultivated other gardens, squares, and the Field of Mars. We even planted about two dozen potato eyes with an adjacent piece of husk, as well as cabbage, rutabaga, carrots, onion seedlings, and especially a lot of turnips. They planted them wherever there was a piece of land.

The wife, fearing a lack of protein food, collected slugs from vegetables and pickled them in two large jars. However, they were not useful, and in the spring of 1943 they were thrown away.

The ensuing winter of 1942/43 was mild. Transport no longer stopped; all wooden houses on the outskirts of Leningrad, including houses in Murzinka, were demolished for fuel and stocked up for the winter. There was electric light in the rooms. Soon the scientists were given special letter rations. As a candidate of science, I was given a group B ration. It included monthly 2 kg of sugar, 2 kg of cereal, 2 kg of meat, 2 kg of flour, 0.5 kg of butter and 10 packs of Belomorkanal cigarettes. It was luxurious and it saved us.

My fainting stopped. I even easily stayed on duty all night with my wife, guarding the vegetable garden near the Winter Palace in turns, three times during the summer. However, despite the security, every single head of cabbage was stolen.

Art was of great importance. We began to read more, go to the cinema more often, watch film programs in the hospital, go to amateur concerts and artists who came to us. Once my wife and I were at a concert of D. Oistrakh and L. Oborin who came to Leningrad. When D. Oistrakh played and L. Oborin accompanied, it was a little cold in the hall. Suddenly a voice said quietly: “Air raid, air alert! Those who wish can go down to the bomb shelter!” In the crowded hall, no one moved, Oistrakh smiled gratefully and understandingly at us all with one eye and continued to play, without stumbling for a moment. Although the explosions shook my legs and I could hear their sounds and the barking of anti-aircraft guns, the music absorbed everything. Since then, these two musicians have become my biggest favorites and fighting friends without knowing each other.

By the autumn of 1942, Leningrad was greatly deserted, which also facilitated its supply. By the time the blockade began, up to 7 million cards were issued in a city overcrowded with refugees. In the spring of 1942, only 900 thousand were issued.

Many were evacuated, including part of the 2nd Medical Institute. The rest of the universities have all left. But they still believe that about two million were able to leave Leningrad along the Road of Life. So about four million died (According to official data, about 600 thousand people died in besieged Leningrad, according to others - about 1 million. - ed.) a figure significantly higher than the official one. Not all the dead ended up in the cemetery. The huge ditch between the Saratov colony and the forest leading to Koltushi and Vsevolozhskaya took in hundreds of thousands of dead people and was razed to the ground. Now there is a suburban vegetable garden there, and there are no traces left. But the rustling tops and cheerful voices of those harvesting the harvest are no less happiness for the dead than the mournful music of the Piskarevsky cemetery.

A little about children. Their fate was terrible. They gave almost nothing on children's cards. I remember two cases especially vividly.

During the harshest part of the winter of 1941/42, I walked from Bekhterevka to Pestel Street to my hospital. My swollen legs almost couldn’t walk, my head was spinning, each careful step pursued one goal: to move forward without falling. On Staronevsky I wanted to go to a bakery to buy two of our cards and warm up at least a little. The frost penetrated to the bones. I stood in line and noticed that a boy of seven or eight years old was standing near the counter. He bent down and seemed to shrink all over. Suddenly he snatched a piece of bread from the woman who had just received it, fell, huddled in a ball with his back up, like a hedgehog, and began greedily tearing the bread with his teeth. The woman who had lost her bread screamed wildly: probably a hungry family was impatiently waiting for her at home. The queue got mixed up. Many rushed to beat and trample the boy, who continued to eat, his quilted jacket and hat protecting him. "Man! If only you could help,” someone shouted to me, obviously because I was the only man in the bakery. I started shaking and felt very dizzy. “You are beasts, beasts,” I wheezed and, staggering, went out into the cold. I couldn't save the child. A slight push would have been enough, and the angry people would certainly have mistaken me for an accomplice, and I would have fallen.

Yes, I'm a layman. I didn't rush to save this boy. “Don’t turn into a werewolf, a beast,” our beloved Olga Berggolts wrote these days. Wonderful woman! She helped many to endure the blockade and preserved the necessary humanity in us.

On their behalf I will send a telegram abroad:

“Alive. We'll endure it. We will win."

But my unwillingness to share the fate of a beaten child forever remained a notch on my conscience...

The second incident happened later. We had just received, but for the second time, a standard ration and my wife and I carried it along Liteiny, heading home. The snowdrifts were quite high in the second winter of the blockade. Almost opposite the house of N.A. Nekrasov, from where he admired the front entrance, clinging to the lattice immersed in the snow, a child of four or five years old was walking. He could hardly move his legs, his huge eyes on his withered old face peered with horror at the world around him. His legs were tangled. Tamara pulled out a large, double piece of sugar and handed it to him. At first he didn’t understand and shrank all over, and then suddenly grabbed this sugar with a jerk, pressed it to his chest and froze with fear that everything that had happened was either a dream or not true... We moved on. Well, what more could the barely wandering ordinary people do?

BREAKING THE BLOCKADE

All Leningraders talked every day about breaking the blockade, about the upcoming victory, peaceful life and restoration of the country, the second front, that is, about the active inclusion of the allies in the war. However, there was little hope for allies. “The plan has already been drawn up, but there are no Roosevelts,” the Leningraders joked. They also remembered the Indian wisdom: “I have three friends: the first is my friend, the second is the friend of my friend and the third is the enemy of my enemy.” Everyone believed that the third degree of friendship was the only thing that united us with our allies. (This is how it turned out, by the way: the second front appeared only when it became clear that we could liberate all of Europe alone.)

Rarely did anyone talk about other outcomes. There were people who believed that Leningrad should become a free city after the war. But everyone immediately cut them off, remembering “Window to Europe”, and “The Bronze Horseman”, and the historical significance for Russia of access to the Baltic Sea. But they talked about breaking the blockade every day and everywhere: at work, on duty on the roofs, when they were “fighting off airplanes with shovels,” extinguishing lighters, while eating meager food, going to bed in a cold bed, and during unwise self-care in those days. We waited and hoped. Long and hard. They talked about Fedyuninsky and his mustache, then about Kulik, then about Meretskov.

The draft commissions took almost everyone to the front. I was sent there from the hospital. I remember that I gave liberation to only the two-armed man, being surprised at the wonderful prosthetics that hid his handicap. “Don’t be afraid, take those with stomach ulcers or tuberculosis. After all, they will all have to be at the front for no more than a week. If they don’t kill them, they will wound them, and they will end up in the hospital,” the military commissar of the Dzerzhinsky district told us.

And indeed, the war involved a lot of blood. When trying to get in touch with the mainland, piles of bodies were left under Krasny Bor, especially along the embankments. “Nevsky Piglet” and Sinyavinsky swamps never left the lips. Leningraders fought furiously. Everyone knew that behind his back his own family was dying of hunger. But all attempts to break the blockade did not lead to success; only our hospitals were filled with the crippled and dying.

With horror we learned about the death of an entire army and Vlasov’s betrayal. I had to believe this. After all, when they read to us about Pavlov and other executed generals of the Western Front, no one believed that they were traitors and “enemies of the people,” as we were convinced of this. They remembered that the same was said about Yakir, Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, even about Blucher.

The summer campaign of 1942 began, as I wrote, extremely unsuccessfully and depressingly, but already in the fall they began to talk a lot about our tenacity at Stalingrad. The fighting dragged on, winter was approaching, and in it we relied on our Russian strength and Russian endurance. The good news about the counteroffensive at Stalingrad, the encirclement of Paulus with his 6th Army, and Manstein’s failures in trying to break through this encirclement gave the Leningraders new hope on New Year’s Eve 1943.

I celebrated the New Year with my wife alone, having returned around 11 o’clock to the closet where we lived at the hospital, from a tour of evacuation hospitals. There was a glass of diluted alcohol, two slices of lard, a 200 gram piece of bread and hot tea with a lump of sugar! A whole feast!

Events were not long in coming. Almost all of the wounded were discharged: some were commissioned, some were sent to convalescent battalions, some were taken to the mainland. But we didn’t wander around the empty hospital for long after the bustle of unloading it. Fresh wounded came in a stream straight from the positions, dirty, often bandaged in individual bags over their overcoats, and bleeding. We were a medical battalion, a field hospital, and a front-line hospital. Some went to the triage, others went to the operating tables for continuous operation. There was no time to eat, and there was no time to eat.

This was not the first time such streams came to us, but this one was too painful and tiring. All the time, a difficult combination of physical work with mental, moral human experiences with the precision of the dry work of a surgeon was required.

On the third day, the men could no longer stand it. They were given 100 grams of diluted alcohol and sent to sleep for three hours, although the emergency room was filled with wounded people in need of urgent operations. Otherwise, they began to operate poorly, half asleep. Well done women! Not only did they endure the hardships of the siege many times better than men, they died much less often from dystrophy, but they also worked without complaining of fatigue and accurately fulfilled their duties.

In our operating room, operations were performed on three tables: at each table there was a doctor and a nurse, and on all three tables there was another nurse, replacing the operating room. Staff operating room and dressing nurses, every one of them, assisted in the operations. The habit of working many nights in a row in Bekhterevka, the hospital named after. On October 25, she helped me out in the ambulance. I passed this test, I can proudly say, as a woman.

On the night of January 18, they brought us a wounded woman. On this day, her husband was killed, and she was seriously wounded in the brain, in the left temporal lobe. A fragment with fragments of bones penetrated into the depths, completely paralyzing both of her right limbs and depriving her of the ability to speak, but while maintaining the understanding of someone else's speech. Women fighters came to us, but not often. I took her to my table, laid her on her right, paralyzed side, numbed her skin and very successfully removed the metal fragment and bone fragments embedded in the brain. “My dear,” I said, finishing the operation and preparing for the next one, “everything will be fine. I took out the fragment, and your speech will return, and the paralysis will completely disappear. You will make a full recovery!”

Suddenly my wounded one with her free hand lying on top began to beckon me to her. I knew that she would not start talking any time soon, and I thought that she would whisper something to me, although it seemed incredible. And suddenly the wounded woman, with her healthy naked but strong hand of a fighter, grabbed my neck, pressed my face to her lips and kissed me deeply. I couldn't stand it. I didn’t sleep for four days, barely ate, and only occasionally, holding a cigarette with a forceps, smoked. Everything went hazy in my head, and, like a man possessed, I ran out into the corridor to come to my senses at least for one minute. After all, there is a terrible injustice in the fact that women, who continue the family line and soften the morals of humanity, are also killed. And at that moment our loudspeaker spoke, announcing the breaking of the blockade and the connection of the Leningrad Front with the Volkhov Front.

It was deep night, but what started here! I stood bleeding after the operation, completely stunned by what I had experienced and heard, and nurses, nurses, soldiers were running towards me... Some with their arm on an “airplane”, that is, on a splint that abducts the bent arm, some on crutches, some still bleeding through a recently applied bandage . And then the endless kisses began. Everyone kissed me, despite my frightening appearance from the spilled blood. And I stood there, missing 15 minutes of precious time for operating on other wounded in need, enduring these countless hugs and kisses.

A story about the Great Patriotic War by a front-line soldier

1 year ago on this day, a war began that divided the history of not only our country, but the whole world into before And after. The story is told by Mark Pavlovich Ivanikhin, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, Chairman of the Council of War Veterans, Labor Veterans, Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies of the Eastern Administrative District.

– – this is the day when our lives were broken in half. It was a nice, bright Sunday, and suddenly they announced war, the first bombings. Everyone understood that they would have to endure a lot, 280 divisions went to our country. I have a military family, my father was a lieutenant colonel. A car immediately came for him, he took his “alarm” suitcase (this is a suitcase in which the most necessary things were always ready), and we went to the school together, me as a cadet, and my father as a teacher.

Immediately everything changed, it became clear to everyone that this war would last for a long time. Alarming news plunged us into another life; they said that the Germans were constantly moving forward. This day was clear and sunny, and in the evening mobilization had already begun.

These are my memories as an 18-year-old boy. My father was 43 years old, he worked as a senior teacher at the first Moscow Artillery School named after Krasin, where I also studied. This was the first school that graduated officers who fought on Katyushas into the war. I fought on Katyushas throughout the war.

“Young, inexperienced guys walked under bullets. Was it certain death?

– We still knew how to do a lot. Back in school, we all had to pass the standard for the GTO badge (ready for work and defense). They trained almost like in the army: they had to run, crawl, swim, and also learned how to bandage wounds, apply splints for fractures, and so on. At least we were a little ready to defend our Motherland.

I fought at the front from October 6, 1941 to April 1945. I took part in the battles for Stalingrad, and from the Kursk Bulge through Ukraine and Poland I reached Berlin.

War is a terrible experience. It is a constant death that is near you and threatens you. Shells are exploding at your feet, enemy tanks are coming at you, flocks of German planes are aiming at you from above, artillery is firing. It seems like the earth turns into a small place where you have nowhere to go.

I was a commander, I had 60 people subordinate to me. We must answer for all these people. And, despite the planes and tanks that are looking for your death, you need to control yourself and the soldiers, sergeants and officers. This is difficult to accomplish.

I can’t forget the Majdanek concentration camp. We liberated this death camp and saw emaciated people: skin and bones. And I especially remember the children with their hands cut open; their blood was taken all the time. We saw bags of human scalps. We saw torture and experiment chambers. To be honest, this caused hatred towards the enemy.

I also remember that we entered a recaptured village, saw a church, and the Germans had set up a stable in it. I had soldiers from all the cities of the Soviet Union, even from Siberia; many had fathers who died in the war. And these guys said: “We’ll get to Germany, we’ll kill the Kraut families, and we’ll burn their houses.” And so we entered the first German city, the soldiers burst into the house of a German pilot, saw Frau and four small children. Do you think someone touched them? None of the soldiers did anything bad to them. Russian people are quick-witted.

All the German cities we passed through remained intact, with the exception of Berlin, where there was strong resistance.

I have four orders. Order of Alexander Nevsky, which he received for Berlin; Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, two Orders of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree. Also a medal for military merit, a medal for the victory over Germany, for the defense of Moscow, for the defense of Stalingrad, for the liberation of Warsaw and for the capture of Berlin. These are the main medals, and there are about fifty of them in total. All of us who survived the war years want one thing - peace. And so that the people who won are valuable.

Photo by Yulia Makoveychuk