The feat accomplished by Soviet soldiers in the early days of the Great Patriotic War was first known only in 1942 from captured German documents. However, this information was fragmentary and incomplete. Even after the liberation of Brest by Soviet troops in 1944, the defense of the fortress in June 1941 remained a blank spot in the history of the war. Only years later, during the analysis of the rubble, they began to find documentary evidence of the heroism of the defenders of the fortress.

The names of the heroes became known largely thanks to the writer and historian Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov, the author of the book "Brest Fortress", who found many of the surviving participants in the defense and, based on their testimonies, restored the tragic events of June 1941.

Among those whom Sergey Smirnov found and wrote about was Petya Klypa, one of the first young heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

Pupil of the music platoon

Petya Klypa was born on September 23, 1926 in Bryansk in the family of a railway worker. He lost his father early, and the elder brother Nikolai Klypa, an officer of the Red Army, took the boy to raise him.

At the age of 11, Petya Klypa became a pupil of the musician platoon of the 333rd Infantry Regiment. The platoon was commanded by his brother, Lieutenant Nikolai Klypa.

In 1939, the 333rd Rifle Regiment participated in the liberation campaign of the Red Army in Western Belarus, after which the Brest Fortress became its place of deployment.

Petya dreamed of a military career and preferred drill training and rehearsals in a musician platoon to school. However, both the brother and the command made sure that the boy did not shirk his studies.

On June 21, 1941, a pupil of the music platoon Klyp was guilty. A familiar musician from Brest persuaded Petya that day to play in the orchestra at the stadium during sports competitions. Petya hoped to return to the unit before they noticed his absence, but it did not work out. By the time he returned, Lieutenant Klypa had already been informed of his subordinate's "AWOL", and instead of the evening film show, Peter was sent to learn the trumpet part from the overture to the opera Carmen, which was just being rehearsed by the regimental orchestra.

Having finished the lesson, Petya met with another pupil of the music platoon, Kolya Novikov, who was a year older than him. The boys agreed to go fishing the next morning.

little soldier

However, these plans were not destined to come true. Peter was awakened by the sound of explosions. The barracks collapsed under enemy fire, wounded and dead soldiers lay around. Despite the shell shock, the teenager grabbed a rifle and, together with other fighters, was preparing to meet the enemy.

In other circumstances, Petya, like other pupils of the units that were in the fortress, would have been evacuated to the rear. But the fortress entered the battle, and Peter Klypa became a full participant in its defense.

He was entrusted with what only he could handle - small, nimble, nimble, less noticeable to enemies. He went to reconnaissance, was a liaison between the scattered units of the defenders of the fortress.

On the second day of the defense, Petya, together with his bosom friend Kolya Novikov, discovered a miraculously surviving ammunition depot and reported it to the commander. This was a truly precious find - the soldiers were running out of ammunition, and the discovered warehouse allowed them to continue resistance.

The fighters tried to take care of the brave boy, but he rushed into the thick of it, participated in bayonet attacks, fired at the Nazis with a pistol that Petya took from the very warehouse he discovered.

Sometimes Peter Klypa did the impossible. When the bandages for the wounded ran out, he found a broken warehouse of the medical unit in the ruins and managed to pull out the dressings and deliver them to the doctors.

The defenders of the fortress were thirsty, and the adults could not get to the Bug because of the crossfire of the enemy. Desperate Petka repeatedly broke through to the water and brought life-giving moisture in a flask. In the ruins, he found food for refugees hiding in the cellars of the fortress. Peter even managed to get to the broken warehouse of the Voentorg and brought a roll of cloth for scantily clad women and children who were taken by surprise by the Nazi attack.

When the position of the 333rd Rifle Regiment became hopeless, the commander, saving the lives of women and children, ordered them to surrender. The same was suggested to Pete. But the boy was indignant - he is a pupil of a musician platoon, a soldier of the Red Army, he will not go anywhere and will fight to the end.

Odyssey of Brest Gavrosh

In the first days of July, the defenders of the fortress were running out of ammunition, and the command decided to make a desperate attempt to break through towards the Western Island in order to then turn east, cross the Bug branch and get past the hospital on the South Island in the vicinity of Brest.

The breakthrough ended in failure, most of its participants died, but Petya was among the few who managed to get to the outskirts of Brest. But here, in the forest, he and several comrades were taken prisoner.

He was herded into a column of prisoners of war, which was taken away beyond the Bug. After some time, a car with German newsreel operators appeared next to the column. They were filming downcast, wounded captured soldiers, and suddenly a boy walking in a column shook his fist right at the camera lens.

This infuriated the Chroniclers - still, the little villain spoils a great plot. Petya Klypa (namely, he was this daredevil) was beaten to a pulp by the guards. The captives carried the unconscious boy in their arms.

So Petya Klypa ended up in a prisoner of war camp in the Polish town of Byala Podlaska. Having come to his senses, he found there his bosom friend Kolya Novikov and other boys from the Brest Fortress. Some time later, they fled the camp.

Tell friends:

Our correspondence with Peter Klypa continued for many months. Almost every week I received letters from the Magadan region with his memoirs, which he wrote in the evenings, during his free hours after work. In response, I sent him new questions, asking him to clarify the details of certain episodes of the defense.

I noticed that in his memoirs Klypa is very modest about himself. He wrote almost nothing about himself, but spoke mainly about his comrades-in-arms. And in general, as our correspondence unfolded, the image of his letters rose before me by no means of a criminal, but of an uncorrupted, honest man, with a kind heart, with a good soul.

At this time, I got to know his family better: with his sister, a translator at one of the research institutes, with her husband, a petroleum engineer, with Peter's mother, who then lived here in Moscow with her daughter. Then, somehow, his brother, Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Klypa, came to visit the capital.

They told me a lot about Peter, introduced me to his biography, peculiar and difficult, but in which there were no grounds for him to become a criminal.

Pyotr Klypa was the son of an old Bolshevik, a railroad worker from Bryansk. In early childhood, he lost his father and as a twelve-year-old boy went as a pupil into the ranks of the Red Army, dreaming of becoming a military man. Two of his brothers were officers of the Red Army. One of them died while on duty in the Far East, and the other, Nikolai, as I said, was now a lieutenant colonel.

The Red Army became a second mother and home for the boy. He fell in love with the strict clarity, measured organization of army life, and the requirements of military discipline never burdened him, despite all the liveliness of his character. In his boyish dreams, he already saw himself as a commander, and his favorite hero was the brave border guard Karatsupa, who was much written about in newspapers and magazines in those years.

And how much he saw during these two years of his army service! In the autumn of 1939, he and his troops took part in the liberation campaign in Western Belarus. And a year later, when the Red Army entered Latvia, he walked with a drum in front of his regiment, near the banner, a neat, smart, proud soldier.

Wherever the regiment was located, the command and brother Nikolai carefully monitored so that Petya did not stop studying at school. And although the boy at heart preferred drill or music lessons to some boring lessons, he tried to keep up with others in the class, fearing to earn a remark from the commander. He was both a regimental musician and a schoolboy, a fighter and a childishly lively little boy. And somehow it turned out that everyone loved him - both relatives, and commanders, and teachers, and fellow soldiers, and peers at school.

Everything that his acquaintances, friends and relatives told me about Petya Klyp spoke only positively about him. Everyone described him as a real Soviet person, as a guy with good inclinations, with a good soul, disinterested, sincere and honest, a wonderful comrade, always ready to help others.

It was simply incomprehensible how this man could become a criminal. I decided in the end to find out what Peter Klypa's fault was. In one of the letters I asked him to tell me without concealment about his crime, and in response he described in detail the nature of the case. It turned out that he himself did not commit any crime. This crime, no small and grave, was committed in his presence by his former school friend, and Pyotr Klypa, succumbing to a false sense of friendship, did not report the incident in time, allowing the criminal to continue his dangerous activities, and thus, by law, turned out to be an accomplice to the crime.

Apparently, the investigator was unfair and even biased towards his case. Pyotr Klypa was declared a direct accomplice of the criminal and therefore received an extremely severe punishment - 25 years in prison - and was sent to the north of the country.

No matter how hardened he was throughout his difficult previous life, this blow almost killed him. He saw death and blood, he risked his life hourly in the terrible days of the defense of the Brest Fortress. But that was a war, and he, like a warrior, fought against the enemies of the Motherland, against the enemies of his people. Later he experienced all the torments of captivity, all the humiliations of slave labor in German penal servitude. But he knew what a hated enemy was doing to him.

Now everything was different. Now he has received punishment from his Motherland, dearly beloved and infinitely dear to him. And this punishment was morally the most terrible thing that he had already experienced.

He understood that he was guilty, and was ready to suffer a well-deserved punishment. But the punishment was too heavy for him. Yes, and it was not the case. The main thing was that he, as it were, discredited his loved ones, as if cast a shadow on his relatives - his mother, brothers, sister - honest Soviet people who hoped for him, believed him. Just the thought of it made him hate and curse himself. And Pyotr Klypa, invariably cheerful, cheerful, never discouraged under any circumstances, suddenly felt for the first time that he did not want to live anymore. The verdict of his own conscience turned out to be stricter than the overly strict decision of the court - he himself sentenced himself to death.

He is used to making his decisions. There, in the north, where the prisoners worked on the construction of the railway, one snowy and frosty day he did not leave after work with the others, but, quietly stepping aside, lay down in the snow. He lay motionless, and soon the cold chill was replaced by a pleasant, lulling warmth, and Pyotr Klypa fell into a light deathly sleep of a freezing person.

They found him already half-covered by a blizzard, but still alive. He spent three months in the infirmary. Several frostbitten and amputated toes and frequent aching pain in the side remained forever a reminder of this failed death. But he no longer tried to commit suicide. Life again won in him.

He decided to work honestly, diligently and earn the forgiveness of the Motherland as soon as possible. After the construction of the road, he was sent to the Magadan region, where he became a car mechanic in a garage, and then was sent to work in the mines. Everywhere in his personal file encouragement was noted, and never a single penalty was recorded there. So he served six years of his sentence.

I began by writing to Sergeant Major Ignatyuk in Brest and Valentina Sachkovskaya in Pinsk. I asked both of them to set out in writing everything that they once told me about the heroic deeds of Petya Klypa during the battles in the Brest Fortress, and then to certify their signatures with a seal and send these certificates to me. I myself wrote a detailed statement addressed to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Voroshilov. Having attached the testimonies of Ignatyuk and Sachkovskaya to my application, I sent all these documents to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

There, in the Presidium, they were attentively working on this matter for several months. All the circumstances were checked, references were requested for Petr Klypa from the place of his previous work and from the conclusion. All of these features are the best. And the essence of the case was such that it gave full opportunity to raise the question of pardon.

In short, at the beginning of January 1956, I received a letter from Petya Klypa, which was dated New Year's Eve - December 31, 1955.

“Hello, Sergey Sergeevich!” Petya Klypa wrote to me. “I can’t describe my joy to you! Such happiness happens only once in my life! On December 26, I left the house in which I had stayed for almost seven years.

In the village, they announced to me that all the passes, up to Magadan, were closed, cars did not go, I would have to wait for the opening of the passes to Yagodnoye, where I should receive documents.

I did not wait for cars and the opening of the passes - I went on foot. Passed safely pass and came to the village. They told me that I couldn't go any further. Yagodinsky pass is closed, there are victims of snowstorm and frost. But I went. Already on the Yagodinsky Pass itself, his face got a little frostbite and became like a burning tanker. But it won't be noticeable in two weeks. And so I walked for about 80 kilometers, believing in my fate. Rather, he walked and crawled.

Arriving at Yagodnoye, I found out that there was no communication with Magadan for the second week. For the time being, they gave me a temporary certificate until I receive the corresponding written document from Moscow, which should arrive soon, and then I will receive a passport and be able to move on. Prior to obtaining a passport, I got a job at a car depot as a mechanic of the 6th category. I will work until I get a passport, and then I will rush to meet you and my family, with my mother, who lost all her health because of me."

Thus began a new, third life of Peter Klypa. The first was his childhood, abruptly cut short in 1941 by war and captivity. Then there was a short, four-year period of post-war life in Bryansk, which ended so tragically in the prison car that took him north. And now, as an adult, almost thirty years old, he, forgiven by the Motherland, again entered into a free working life. And he himself, and all of us who knew him, really wanted this third life of Peter Klypa to be happy and fruitful.

A month and a half later, Petya Klypa arrived in Moscow. In a shabby soldier's overcoat, in large boots, he came to me for the first time. We hugged tightly, and for a long time he could not utter a word from excitement. And then we talked for several hours with him. I was glad to see that everything he experienced did not leave any heavy imprint on him: in front of me was a young, cheerful person, full of energy and vigor.

And when we got to know him better, I realized that I was not mistaken in believing in Peter: he really felt like a man of a good soul, a good heart, and what happened to him, undoubtedly, was some kind of absurd accident in him before that. impeccable, heroic biography.

Petya Klypa stayed in Moscow for some time, and then went to live in his homeland - in the city of Bryansk. I wrote a letter to the first secretary of the Bryansk City Party Committee with a request to help Petya Klypa. I wanted him, starting a new life, to be able to get a job in a good factory team, so that he would have the opportunity to work and study at the same time.

Soon I received a reply from the secretary of the Bryansk City Party Committee, Nikolai Vasilievich Golubev. He told me that the city committee had already helped Klypa: he was hired to work at a new advanced plant in Bryansk - the Stroymashina plant - for the time being as an apprentice turner, and that he would be given the opportunity to start classes at a school for working youth in the fall.

Several years have passed since then. Pyotr Klypa works at the same road machinery plant. Now he is a turner of the sixth category, one of the best workers, an excellent worker in production, and his photograph does not leave the factory Hall of Honor. He had already completed seven classes of an evening school for adults, but did not continue his education further. There, at the plant, a very important event took place in his life - the advanced turner of his workshop, Pyotr Klypa, was unanimously accepted into the ranks of the CPSU. As befits a communist, he is now doing a great deal of public work: on the instructions of the city committee of the party and the city committee of the Komsomol, he speaks at the enterprises of the city, in the collective farms of the region, in military units with his memoirs.

But especially often pioneers and schoolchildren invite him to their place. And for them, this adult working man, Pyotr Sergeevich Klypa, remains and, probably, will remain until the end of his days a small brave soldier, Gavrosh of the Brest Fortress - Petya Klypa.

In a modest cozy house, which Petya built with his own hands after the war in the village of Volodarsky on the outskirts of Bryansk, the large Klypa family lives again. Petya got married, and his wife and mother, and now two children - son Seryozha and daughter Natasha - make up his large and friendly family. Here, in Bryansk, his brother, Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Klypa, moved from Siberia with his wife and children. A cheerful circle of relatives and friends often gathers in Peter's house. And a daily visitor to this house is a local postman, who brings bundles of letters to Petr Klype addressed to him. They are written by old fellow soldiers who fought with him in the fortress, written by his young pioneer friends, written by complete strangers from different parts of the Soviet Union and even from abroad. They send greetings and gratitude to the hero of the Brest Fortress, wish him happiness and good luck in life.

I often receive letters from Petya Klypa, and sometimes, on holidays, he visits me in Moscow and tells me about all his affairs. I see that a bright, broad future has opened up before him, and he is trying in every possible way to justify the great trust placed in him by the Motherland. There is no doubt that he will be able to supplement his heroic military biography with glorious and equally heroic deeds on the front of peaceful labor.

And I dream someday to write for children and youth a large and truthful book about the life of Peter Klypa, fascinating and difficult, full of real heroism and hard trials, in which there were both glorious victories and considerable mistakes - a difficult life, like any human life .

Fourteen-year-old teenager Pyotr Klypa was one of the few surviving defenders of the Brest Fortress. After the war, the young hero of the Great Patriotic War got in touch with criminals and was sentenced to 25 years in camps for banditry. Only the petitions of the writer Sergei Smirnov, the author of the book "The Brest Fortress" (1954), which describes in detail the biography of Pyotr Sergeevich Klypa, helped him to be released after 5 years in prison.

Young assistant of the Brest defenders

Petr Klypa, from the age of 11, after the death of his father, was brought up by his brother Nikolai, who served in the 333rd Infantry Regiment as a platoon commander. Petya was a trumpeter in the music platoon of the regiment, which was stationed in the Brest Fortress. On the first morning of the Great Patriotic War, the fortress was subjected to a massive attack by the Nazis. Petya Klypa was shell-shocked, but the boy, along with the rest of the surviving soldiers, defended the citadel. Klypa and other teenagers reconnoitered enemy firing points, performed the duties of messengers, searched for destroyed warehouses of ammunition, weapons and medicines, and obtained food. Peter made his way to the Bug River more than once for water. In early July, the surviving defenders of the Brest Fortress tried to break out of the encirclement, but luck smiled on a few, among them was Pyotr Klypa. However, the teenager and several others were soon captured by the Germans.

Laborer of the Germans

Peter and his comrades managed to escape from the camp of one of the Polish cities. They reached Brest and stayed there until the autumn of 1941. Then they decided to go to their combat units. However, during a many-kilometer march through the territory occupied by the Nazis, Klypa and his comrade Volodya Kazmin were again captured, this time by the police. They were sent with a party of Soviet youth for forced labor in Germany.

Until the victorious 1945, Klypa worked as a laborer for the Alsatian wealthy peasant Friedrich Kozel. When the village of Hohenbach, where Peter worked, was liberated by American troops, the allies, according to him, offered him to move to America. The 18-year-old boy did not agree to this.

Post-war life and crime

In the summer of 1945, Pyotr Klypa was drafted into the army after a check, and in the autumn of that year he was already demobilized. He came to Bryansk, where he was from. He got along with an old pre-war acquaintance, Lev Stotik, and he involved him in criminal activities: speculation and armed robberies. One of these attacks ended in murder - Stotic beat a former MIA worker to death. Judging by the published materials of the investigation, Klypa himself, being in a gang, did not cut or shoot. But part of the loot in the course of bandit raids willingly appropriated.

In 1949, the criminals Stotik and Klypa were neutralized, and both were sentenced to the same term - 25 years in the camps. At that time, the writer Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov, who was collecting materials for his book about the defenders of the Brest Fortress, already knew about the young defender of the citadel and was actively looking for him. By the way, brother Nikolai, who raised Peter, went through the whole war with battles and after the Victory in the rank of major he headed one of the military commissariats in Siberia. He helped Smirnov find Peter. [S-BLOCK]

The search was successful, but it turned out that Petr Klypa was serving time in one of the Magadan labor camps. Smirnov contacted the convict, and the latter began to send his memoirs to the publicist. Many episodes in these written stories coincided with stories that other defenders of the Brest Fortress had previously shared with Smirnov.

Writer Sergei Smirnov, himself a former participant in the Great Patriotic War, a reserve colonel, decided to achieve a commutation of the sentence of the hero of his book. At the end of 1955, Pyotr Klypa was released by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, his criminal record was removed. [S-BLOCK]

However, there was no talk of rehabilitation. In response to the petition of the widow of S. S. Smirnov, written by her two years after the death of Pyotr Sergeevich, the prosecutor's office of the Bryansk region reported that Klypa had been convicted in due time for the case, and arbitrariness was not allowed.

PS Klypa lived in freedom for 28 years, worked at the Bryansk plant as a turner, started a family, he had a daughter and a son. Largely thanks to Smirnov's book "The Brest Fortress", pioneer squads were named after the young defender of the citadel in the USSR. The veteran was also given other honors - Pyotr Sergeevich, who was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, was known as a hero. P.S. Klypa died in 1983 from cancer.

On the second day, the soldiers of the 333rd regiment ran out of ammunition. It seemed that resistance in this area would inevitably be broken. At this very time, Petya Klypa and Kolya Novikov, having gone on another reconnaissance mission, found in one of the premises of the barracks a small ammunition depot not yet damaged by enemy bombs and shells. The boys reported this to the commanders and, together with other fighters, immediately, under enemy fire, began to carry cartridges and grenades to the building where their comrades were defending. Thanks to them, the defenders of the fortress, who fought in this area, were able to continue resistance for many more days, causing great damage to the enemy.
Petya Klypa showed himself to be such a brave, intelligent and resourceful fighter that the senior lieutenant, who took command of the soldiers of the 333rd regiment in the first hours of the war, soon made him his contact, and Petya rushed like a bullet through the basements and dilapidated stairs of the building, fulfilling his instructions. However, this appointment had another meaning, unknown to him. The commander, having made the boy a liaison officer at the headquarters, hoped to distract him from direct participation in the battles and save his life. But Petya managed to carry out the instructions of the commanders and fight along with the fighters. He shot accurately, and not one Nazi found his end there, in the fortress, from his bullets. He even went to bayonet charges with a rifle that was larger than him, or with a small pistol obtained in
warehouse he discovered. The soldiers also took care of their young comrade and, noticing that he was going on the attack with them, drove him back to the barracks, but Petya, a little behind, immediately joined another group of attackers. And when he was reproached for being too bold, he said that he must avenge his brother: someone mistakenly told him that the Nazis had killed Lieutenant Nikolai Klypa at the entrance gate of the fortress. And the boy fought side by side with adults, not inferior to them either in courage, or in perseverance, or in hatred of the enemy.

There were no medicines, bandages, and there was nothing to bandage and treat the wounded. People began to die from their wounds. They were rescued by the same Petya Klypa. He went in search, found in one place a dilapidated warehouse of some kind of sanitary unit, and under enemy fire began to dig into these ruins. Having found bandages and some medicines under the stones, he brought them all to the cellars of the barracks. Thus, many of the wounded were saved from death.
There was no water. Thirst tormented the wounded, children cried, asked to drink. Not many brave men dared to crawl under the crossfire of German machine guns with a bowler hat or a flask to the banks of the Bug. From there it was rarely possible to return. But they say that as soon as the wounded man groaned and asked for water, Petya turned to the commander: “May I go to the Bug?” Many times he went on these sorties for water. He knew how to find the least risky path to the shore, crawl like a snake between the stones to the river, and always returned safely - with a full flask.
He took special care of the children. It happened that the last piece of cracker, the last sip of water left for himself, Petya gave to the exhausted kids. Once, when the children had absolutely nothing to eat, he found all kinds of food in the ruins of the food warehouse and dressed the hungry children with pieces of chocolate obtained there, until he distributed everything to the crumbs.
Many women, caught in bed by the war, ran into the basement half-naked, without having time to get dressed. They had nothing to wear, nothing to cover the nakedness of children. And again Petya Klypa came to their aid. He remembered where the Voentorg stall was located, already destroyed by bombs and shells of the enemy, and although this area was under very heavy fire, the boy made his way there. An hour later he returned to the cellars, dragging a whole piece of cloth behind him, and immediately divided it among the naked women and children.
Risking his life every hour, Petya performed difficult and dangerous tasks, participated in battles and at the same time was always cheerful, cheerful, constantly sang some song, and the mere sight of this daring, resilient boy raised the spirit of the fighters, added strength to them.
Then the situation in the sector of the 333rd regiment became hopeless, and the defenders of the barracks realized that they could only die or fall into the hands of the enemy. And then the command decided to send the women and children who were in the cellars into captivity. Petya, as a teenager, was also offered to go into captivity with them. But the boy was deeply offended by this proposal.
"Am I not a Red Army soldier?" he asked the commander indignantly. He declared that he must stay and fight to the end together with his comrades, whatever that end might be. And the senior lieutenant, touched and admired by the boy's courage, allowed him to stay. Petya took part in all further battles. Ignatyuk said that after that they had to fight for a long time. In the first days of July, the ammunition was almost used up. Then the commanders decided to make a last desperate attempt to break through. We decided to break through not to the north, where the enemy was expecting attacks and kept large forces at the ready, but to the south, towards the Western Island, in order to then turn to the east, cross the Bug branch and get past the hospital on the South Island in the vicinity of Brest. This breakthrough ended in failure - most of its participants died or were captured. Mikhail Ignatyuk was among the prisoners. He was driven to the Byala Podlyaska camp, and there he met again two days later with Petya Klypa, who walked all beaten up and bruised, but was still cheerful and indefatigable.
The boy told the foreman that he swam across the arm of the Bug and, with several comrades, managed to break through the ring of Germans. All day and all night they wandered through the forest, making their way to the southern military town of Brest, and in the morning they were surrounded and taken prisoner by the Nazis. On the way towards the convoy came across a car in which German cameramen were driving with equipment. Apparently, they were shooting front-line newsreels and, seeing our prisoners, they began to turn their apparatus. The car slowly approached closer and closer. And suddenly, all black from dust and powder soot, a half-dressed and bloody boy, walking in the front row of the column, raised his fist and threatened directly into the lens of the movie camera. This boy was Petya Klypa. Operators shouted indignantly. The fascist guards unanimously attacked the boy, showering him with blows. He fell on the road and lost consciousness. He, of course, would have been shot if not for some doctor - the captain of the medical service, who was walking in the next line of prisoners. Exhausted himself to the limit, he picked up the insensible boy and carried him to the camp. The very next day, Petya again busily snooped among the captured fighters, looking for his comrades in the fortress.
With tears in his eyes, Ignatyuk told me how there, in the camp, Petya saved him from starvation. In Biala Podlaska, prisoners were fed once a day with some kind of dirty gruel, to which a small portion of ersatz bread was supposed to be served. But even this gruel was not easy to get - the camp guards arranged crowds and riots near the kitchen, in order to later disperse the hungry prisoners with shots. People were losing their last strength, and many were dying. Ignatyuk, a heavyset, corpulent man, found it especially difficult to get by with the miserable portion of food he was supposed to have. In addition, he rarely managed to get to the kitchen - the Nazis guarding it could not believe that this full bald man was just a foreman, and considered him a commissar in disguise. If not for Petya, Ignatyuk would hardly have survived. Every day the boy tried to get him something to eat, and although he himself was starving, he steadily brought everything he got to the foreman.
- Uncle Misha, here I brought you! .. - he joyfully reported, running with a bowler hat, where a portion of gruel was splashing, or taking out a piece of hard bread with sawdust from his bosom. "Eat, I've already had dinner."
“I know that he sometimes didn’t eat his own, but brought it to me,” Ignatyuk said. This guy had a golden soul.
There, in the camp, Petya met his friend Kolya Novikov and three more boys like him - pupils from other regiments. Almost all of these guys were older than him, but Petya showed himself to be the most courageous, dexterous and resolute. The boys began to prepare an escape and soon disappeared from the camp. Since then, Ignatyuk knew nothing about Petya Klyp.
But on the other hand, Valentina Sachkovskaya could supplement his story. After the fall of the fortress, she lived in Brest with her mother and other wives and children of the commanders and remembered well how one late summer a familiar small and fast figure appeared in their yard. Petya Klypa with his four friends, having successfully escaped from Biala Podlaski, came back to Brest. The boys lived in the city for more than a month, and Petya, just as active and energetic, constantly went out to scout for something and look out for the Germans. Somehow he could not stand it and secretly told Valya that they were preparing to blow up the German ammunition depot. But these days, the Brest Gestapo began a raid, looking for former Soviet soldiers, and Petya had to leave the city, where many knew him well. He left with the same boys, and Valya remembered that later someone told her that these guys were seen in the village of Saki near the town of Zhabinki, where they lived and worked for the peasants. She never heard from Pete again.
I went to the village of Saki, located 30 kilometers from Brest, and there I found the collective farmer Matryona Zagulichnaya, with whom Petya Klypa lived and worked in 1941. Zagulichnaya remembered the boy and his friends well. She said that Petya all the time persuaded his comrades to go east, to the front line. He dreamed of crossing the front and joining the Red Army again. Finally one of the boys, Volodya Kazmin, agreed to go along with Petya. They left already in the autumn on a long journey, stretching for hundreds of kilometers through the forests and swamps of Belarus. In parting, thanking Matryona Zagulichnaya, Petya left her a whole pack, God knows how
photographs that he still had, promising to return for them after the war. Unfortunately, these photos did not survive. Zagulnaya, without waiting for the boy's return, destroyed the photographs two or three years before my arrival.
The traces of Petya Klypa on this still broke off. It was not known whether this Gavroche of the Brest Fortress managed to reach the front or whether he died during his difficult journey.

From the letters of Pyotr Klypa, I learned many new details of those events that I had already heard about from Ignatyuk and Sachkovskaya. For example, he described to me in detail how a warehouse with ammunition and weapons was discovered. This happened, as I said, on the second day of the defense, when Potapov's fighters already felt a lack of ammunition. Specifying where the enemy was, the senior lieutenant instructed Petya and Kolya Novikov to get to the Terespol gates of the citadel and find out if the dilapidated tower above the gate was occupied by the Germans. At first glance, the task seemed very simple: the Terespol Gate was not far from the premises of the 333rd regiment. The boys went through the cellars along the entire building and stopped at a small window in the southern end wall of the house. Ahead, just a few tens of meters away, one could see the red walls of the ring barracks, and a little to the left, the tunnel of the Terespol Gates darkened. The space between this basement window and the ring barracks was dotted with blocks of uprooted earth, stones, punched, mangled sheets of iron torn from the roofs. Here and there there were wide craters.
Before going out into the yard, Petya and Kolya looked around and listened. To the left, in the eastern part of the citadel, shots crackled and shouts of "Hurrah!" - it can be seen that another German attack was repulsed there because of Mukhavets. But there was a calm here, and everything seemed calm. Petya carefully climbed out of the window, lay down on the ground for a minute, looking around, and, rising to his feet, quickly went to the Terespol gates. Next, after a pause, Kolya came out.
And suddenly a short, sharp machine-gun burst crackled from the window of the Terespol tower. Bullets clicked on the rocks around the boys. Kolya rolled head over heels through the window back into the basement, and Petya, who had already gone half way, rushed headlong forward and ran through the open door of the stable, a little to the right of the Terespol Gate.
Recovering his breath, he looked out the door. The German fired no more. In any case, now Petya could confidently report to the senior lieutenant that an enemy machine gunner was in the Terespol tower. It was impossible to get back now: the German, of course, was alert and lay in wait for the boys. Petya decided to wait a bit and for the time being began to inspect the stable. It turned out to be empty. To the right under the ceiling gaped a large hole pierced by a heavy projectile. And not far from her, the boy noticed a window through which it was possible to crawl into an adjacent room. Once there, he saw that it was the same empty stable. But even there, in the right wall, there was a window leading further. So, climbing from one stable to another, Petya got to the turn of the building. It was the extreme southwestern corner of the ring barracks, towering directly above the Bug. The last room also had a window, but of a smaller size. Petya somehow crawled into it and suddenly found himself in a completely untouched ammunition depot. Thickly oiled rifles, brand new machine guns, revolvers and TT pistols were neatly stacked on planed plank racks. There were stacks of wooden boxes with cartridges, grenades, mines. Immediately he saw several mortars. At the sight of all this wealth, so needed now by his comrades who fought in the barracks of the 333rd regiment, the boy took his breath away. His eyes widened, and he greedily touched first one weapon, then another. Finally, noticing on the shelf a shiny little pistol of some foreign make and a box of cartridges beside it, he decided that this weapon suits him best and slipped it into his pocket. Then he armed himself with a machine gun. It was not clear how miraculously this warehouse, located in the part of the citadel closest to the enemy, had survived. Even in its walls there was not a single hole, and only pieces of plaster from the ceiling lay here and there on the floor and on the shelves. The boy happily thought about how enthusiastically the commanders and fighters would receive the news of this warehouse.
But before going back, he decided to see what was being done in the enemy's disposition. Under the ceiling of the warehouse there was a small window looking out towards the Bug. Having climbed up, Petya looked out from there. Below, the Bug shone brightly under the sun. Directly opposite the window, on the other side, the dense bushes of West Island rose like a green wall. Nothing could be seen in this thicket of bushes. But on the other hand, downstream of the river, Petya saw quite close the pontoon bridge built by the Germans right behind the fortress. On the bridge at regular intervals, cars with soldiers walked one after another, and on the sandy shore, waiting for their turn, horse teams with guns stood and ranks of lined up infantry moved.
Jumping down, Petya climbed the same way, climbing from stable to stable, and reached the Terespol Gate. He managed to run unnoticed to the basement window, where Kolya Novikov was waiting for him, and only when he jumped down from the window sill did he hear the line crackling in the yard. The German machine gunner was late. Worried, Petya reported everything to Potapov. The news of the warehouse discovered by the boy immediately spread through the cellars. Our machine guns immediately took under fire the windows of the Terespol tower, from where the Nazis fired, and forced him to shut up. And then, together with Petya, the soldiers hurried to the warehouse. Weapons and ammunition were dragged into the cellars of the regimental barracks.

In one of his letters, Klypa told me that he saw and experienced the moment of the last attempt to break through, when Potapov's surviving soldiers tried to break out of the enemy ring through the Western Island. Together with everyone, the boy with a pistol in his hand, at a signal from the senior lieutenant, rushed to run over the crest of the stone dam that blocked the Bug near the bridge. Rapidly fast, he, deftly jumping from stone to stone, pulled ahead, overtaking his comrades. And suddenly, in the middle of the road, he stopped. Leaning against a large stone and dangling his legs down, on the edge of the dam sat the commander with two "sleepers" in his buttonholes. Petya decided that he was wounded.
“Comrade major, come with us,” he called, leaning over the commander.
He did not answer, and Petya shook him by the shoulder. And then, from a slight push of the boy's hand, the major fell on his side in the same bent position. He was long dead. And the fighters were already running up behind, and someone, pulling the hand of the boy, petrified from surprise, dragged him along. It was impossible to hesitate - the enemy was about to discover the fugitives. And indeed, as soon as the first groups of fighters, among whom was Petya, jumped onto the shore of the Western Island and ran into the saving bushes, German machine guns hit the dam and the bushes. Bullets whistled over their heads, showering people with plucked leaves, branches whipped in the face, but Petya and his comrades furiously forced their way through the thicket of bushes. A few minutes later they came to the bank of the canal that separates the South and West islands of the fortress. This branch of the Bug was almost as wide as the main channel. But the thick bushes of the opposite bank hanging over the water seemed so safe, so beckoned to them that no one stopped for a moment.
Petya threw himself into the water as he was - in boots, trousers and a T-shirt, clutching his pistol in his teeth. He swam well, and the wide river did not frighten him. Nearby, breathing heavily and snorting, comrades were swimming, and loud splashes were heard behind them every now and then - other fighters, having reached the river, rushed to swim. machine guns crackled at once. The water of the Bug seemed to boil. And then the wounded, drowning people screamed terribly, groaned. It was so unexpected that everything somehow immediately mixed up in the boy's thoughts. Now he acted more on the instinct of self-preservation, not having time to think about anything. He dived deep and felt that his wet clothes and boots were in his way. Swimming upstairs, he quickly kicked off his boots and, floundering, managed to free himself from his trousers. Now, when he was left only in shorts and a T-shirt, it became easier to swim.
Petya dived, clenching his pistol in his teeth, and each time he surfaced again, looking back, he saw that there were fewer and fewer heads left on the surface, boiling with bullets. Grass floating down the river kept stuffing into his mouth, and the boy, having snatched a pistol from his teeth for a moment, spat out this grass and again went under the water, moving closer and closer to the coast of the South Island. Finally he reached the bushes and, grabbing hold of the hanging branches, caught his breath and looked around. He was swept away by the current, and he could not see from behind the bushes what was happening at the place of their crossing. But, apparently, most of his comrades died - the machine guns choked for the last time with an angry chirp and fell silent. There were no more splashes on the river. But somewhere further along the shore, in the bushes, the cries of the Germans and the sonorous barking of the shepherd dogs were heard.
Petya hurriedly got ashore and rushed through the bushes into the depths of the island. To the right there was a clatter of feet, a crackling of branches - and he saw five more running wet fighters. He ran along with them, and from behind came the barking of dogs and the exclamations of the Germans. They rushed through the bushes, climbed over some ditches with muddy water, crawled under the barbed wire. Somehow they managed to get away from the persecution, and two hours later they sat down to rest in a small forest clearing. Here, in this dense forest, a few kilometers from the fortress, they wandered day and part of the night, and before dawn fell into a deep sleep of deadly tired people and, waking up, saw the Nazi machine guns aimed at them. I have already heard something about further events from Ignatyuk and Sachkovskaya.
But I was interested in whether Petya managed to get to the front line after he left the village of Saki together with Volodya Kazmin in the autumn of 1941. I asked this question to Peter in one of my letters. It turned out that the guys failed. They had already gone east for several hundred kilometers, but in one of the villages where they stopped for the night, they were seized by policemen. A few days later, both boys were sent separately to work in Germany, along with parties of youth from neighboring villages. Petya lost sight of his comrade and soon found himself far from his homeland - in Alsace, where he had to work as a laborer for one of the peasants.
Released in 1945, he returned to his homeland in Bryansk and worked and lived there with his mother until he was convicted in 1949. So, having started a war in 1941 on the western edge of our country, in Brest, and then having reluctantly traveled half of Europe, eight years later he reluctantly found himself on the other, eastern edge of the Soviet Union - not far from Magadan.

THE THIRD LIFE OF Pyotr Klypy

Our correspondence with Peter Klypa continued for many months. Almost every week I received letters from the Magadan region with his memoirs, which he wrote in the evenings, during his free hours after work. In response, I sent him new questions, asking him to clarify the details of certain episodes of the defense. I noticed that in his memoirs Klypa is very modest about himself. He wrote almost nothing about himself, but spoke mainly about his comrades-in-arms. And in general, as our correspondence unfolded, the image of his letters rose before me by no means of a criminal, but of an uncorrupted, honest man, with a kind heart, with a good soul.
At this time, I got to know his family better: with his sister, a translator of one of the research institutes, with her husband, a petroleum engineer, with Peter's mother, who then lived here in Moscow with her daughter. Then, somehow, his brother, Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Klypa, came to visit the capital. They told me a lot about Peter, introduced me to his biography, peculiar and difficult, but in which there were no grounds for him to become a criminal. Peter Klypa was the son of an old Bolshevik, a railway worker from Bryansk. In early childhood, he lost his father and as a twelve-year-old boy went as a pupil into the ranks of the Red Army, dreaming of becoming a military man. Two of his brothers were officers of the Red Army. One of them died while on duty in the Far East, and the other, Nikolai, as I said, was now a lieutenant colonel. The Red Army became a second mother and home for the boy. He fell in love with the strict clarity, measured organization of army life, and the requirements of military discipline never burdened him, despite all the liveliness of his character. In boyish dreams he already saw
himself as a commander, and his favorite hero was the brave border guard Karatsupa, who was widely written about in newspapers and magazines in those years.
And how much he saw during these two years of his army service! In the autumn of 1939, he and his troops took part in the liberation campaign in Western Belarus. And a year later, when the Red Army entered Latvia, he walked with a drum in front of his regiment, near the banner, a neat, smart, proud soldier. Wherever the regiment was located, the command and brother Nikolai carefully monitored so that Petya did not stop studying at school. And although the boy at heart preferred drill or music lessons to some boring lessons, he tried to keep up with others in the class, fearing to earn a remark from the commander. He was both a regimental musician and a schoolboy, a fighter and a childishly lively little boy. And somehow it turned out that everyone loved him - both relatives, and commanders, and teachers, and fellow soldiers, and school peers. Everything that his acquaintances, friends and relatives told me about Petya Klyp spoke only positively about him. Everyone described him as a real Soviet person, as a guy with good inclinations, with a good soul, disinterested, sincere and honest, a wonderful comrade, always ready to help others.
It was simply incomprehensible how this man could become a criminal. I decided, in the end, to find out what Peter Klypa's fault is. In one of the letters I asked him to tell me openly about his crime, and in response he described in detail the nature of the case. It turned out that he himself did not commit any crime. This crime, no small and grave, was committed in his presence by his former school friend, and Pyotr Klypa, succumbing to a false sense of friendship, did not report the incident in time, allowing the criminal to continue his dangerous activities, and thus, according to the law, turned out to be an accomplice to the crime. Apparently, the investigator was unfair and even biased towards his case. Petr Klypa was declared a direct accomplice of the criminal and therefore received an extremely severe punishment - 25 years in prison - and was sent to the north of the country.
No matter how hardened he was throughout his difficult previous life, this blow almost killed him. He saw death and blood, he risked his life hourly in the terrible days of the defense of the Brest Fortress. But that was a war, and he, like a warrior, fought against the enemies of the Motherland, against the enemies of his people. Later he experienced all the torments of captivity, all the humiliations of slave labor in German penal servitude. But he knew what a hated enemy was doing to him. Now everything was different. Now he has received punishment from his Motherland, dearly beloved and infinitely dear to him. And this punishment was morally worse than anything that he had already experienced. He understood that he was to blame, and was ready to bear the well-deserved punishment. But the punishment was too heavy for him. Yes, and it was not the case. The main thing was that he, as it were, discredited his loved ones, as if he cast a shadow on his relatives - his mother, brothers, sister - honest Soviet people who hoped for him, believed him. Just the thought of it made him hate and curse himself. And Pyotr Klypa, invariably cheerful, cheerful, never discouraged under any circumstances, suddenly felt for the first time that he did not want to live anymore. The verdict of his own conscience turned out to be stricter than the too strict decision of the court - he himself sentenced himself to death.
He is used to making his decisions. There, in the north, where the prisoners worked on the construction of the railway, one snowy and frosty day he did not leave after work with the others, but, quietly stepping aside, lay down in the snow. He lay motionless, and soon the cold chill was replaced by a pleasant, soporific warmth, and Pyotr Klypa fell into a light deathly sleep of a freezing person. They found him already half-covered by a blizzard, but still alive. He spent three months in the infirmary. Several frostbitten and amputated toes and frequent aching pain in the side remained forever a reminder of this failed death. But he no longer tried to commit suicide. Life again won in him.
He decided to work honestly, diligently and earn the forgiveness of the Motherland as soon as possible. After the construction of the road, he was sent to the Magadan region, where he became a car mechanic in a garage, and then was sent to work in the mines. Everywhere in his personal file encouragement was noted, and never a single penalty was recorded there. So he served six years of his term. Having collected all the information that I could get about the case of Peter Klypa, I came to the firm conviction that his guilt was greatly exaggerated and the punishment that befell him was clearly unnecessarily cruel. I asked the comrades from the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, who helped me to rehabilitate A. M. Fil, now to get acquainted with the case of Pyotr Klypa and express their opinion. The case was requested to Moscow, it was checked, and my assumptions were confirmed. The guilt of Peter Klypa was not so great, and, given his heroic behavior in the Brest Fortress, one could safely petition for the abolition or mitigation of the punishment.
I began by writing to Sergeant Major Ignatyuk in Brest and Valentina Sachkovskaya in Pinsk. I asked both of them to set out in writing everything that they once told me about the heroic deeds of Petya Klypa during the battles in the Brest Fortress, and then to certify their signatures with a seal and send these certificates to me. I myself wrote a detailed statement addressed to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Voroshilov. Having attached the testimonies of Ignatyuk and Sachkovskaya to my application, I sent all these documents to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
There, in the Presidium, they were attentively working on this matter for several months. All the circumstances were checked, references were requested for Petr Klypa from the place of his previous work and from the conclusion. All of these features are the best. And the essence of the case was such that it gave full opportunity to raise the question of pardon. In short, at the beginning of January 1956, I received a letter from Petya Klypa, which was dated New Year's Eve - December 31, 1955.
“Hello, Sergey Sergeevich!” Petya Klypa wrote to me. “I can’t describe my joy to you! Such happiness happens only once in a lifetime! On December 26, I left the housing in which I had stayed for almost seven years.
In the village, they told me that all the passes, up to Magadan, were closed, cars did not go, I would have to wait for the opening of the passes to Yagodnoye, where I should receive documents. I did not wait for cars and the opening of the passes - I went on foot. Passed safely pass and came to the village. They told me that I couldn't go any further. Yagodinsky pass is closed, there are victims of snowstorm and frost. But I went. Already on the Yagodinsky Pass itself, his face got a little frostbite and became like a burning tanker. But it won't be noticeable in two weeks. And so I walked for about 80 kilometers, believing in my fate. Rather, he walked and crawled. Arriving at Yagodnoye, I found out that there was no communication with Magadan for the second week. For the time being, they gave me a temporary certificate until I receive the corresponding written document from Moscow, which should arrive soon, and then I will receive a passport and be able to move on. Prior to obtaining a passport, I got a job at a car depot as a mechanic of the 6th category. I will work until I get a passport, and then I will rush to meet you and my family, with my mother, who lost all her health because of me."
Thus began a new, third life of Peter Klypa. The first was his childhood, abruptly cut short in 1941 by war and captivity. Then there was a short, four-year period of post-war life in Bryansk, which ended so tragically in the prison car that took him north. And now, as an adult, almost thirty years old, he, forgiven by the Motherland, again entered into a free working life. And he himself, and all of us who knew him, really wanted this third life of Peter Klypa to be happy and fruitful.
A month and a half later, Petya Klypa arrived in Moscow. In a shabby soldier's overcoat, in large boots, he came to me for the first time. We hugged tightly, and for a long time he could not utter a word from excitement. And then we talked for several hours with him. I was glad to see that everything he experienced did not leave any heavy imprint on him: in front of me was a young, cheerful, full of energy and vivacity man.
And when we got to know him better, I realized that I was not mistaken in believing in Peter: he really felt like a man of a good soul, a good heart, and what happened to him, undoubtedly, was some kind of absurd accident in him before that. impeccable, heroic biography.
Petya Klypa stayed in Moscow for some time, and then went to live in his homeland - in the city of Bryansk. I wrote a letter to the first secretary of the Bryansk City Party Committee with a request to help Petya Klypa. I wanted him, starting a new life, to be able to get a job in a good factory team, so that he would have the opportunity to work and study at the same time. Soon I received a response from the secretary of the Bryansk city party committee, Nikolai Vasilyevich Golubev. He told me that the city committee had already helped Klypa: he was given a job at a new advanced plant in Bryansk - the Stroymashina plant - for the time being as an apprentice turner, and that he would be given the opportunity to start classes in the school of working youth in the fall. Several years have passed since then. Petr Klypa works at the same road machinery plant. Now he is a turner of the sixth category, one of the best workers, an excellent worker in production, and his photograph does not leave the factory Honor Board. He had already completed seven classes of an evening school for adults, but did not continue his education further. There, at the plant, a very important event took place in his life - the advanced turner of his workshop, Pyotr Klypa, was unanimously accepted into the ranks
CPSU. As befits a communist, he is now doing a great deal of public work: on the instructions of the city party committee and the city committee of the Komsomol, he speaks at the enterprises of the city, in the collective farms of the region, in military units with his memories. But pioneers and schoolchildren especially often invite him to their place. And for them, this adult working man, Pyotr Sergeevich Klypa, remains and, probably, will remain until the end of his days a small brave soldier, Gavrosh of the Brest Fortress - Petya Klypa.

In a modest cozy house, which Petya built with his own hands after the war in the village of Volodarsky on the outskirts of Bryansk, the large Klypa family lives again. Petya got married, and his wife and mother, and now two children - son Seryozha and daughter Natasha - make up his large and friendly family (photo 1963). Here, in Bryansk, his brother, Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Klypa, moved from Siberia with his wife and children. A cheerful circle of relatives and friends often gathers in Peter's house. And a daily visitor to this house is a local postman, who brings bundles of letters to Petr Klype addressed to him. They are written by old fellow soldiers who fought with him in the fortress, written by his young pioneer friends, written by complete strangers from different parts of the Soviet Union and even from abroad. They send greetings and gratitude to the hero of the Brest Fortress, wish him happiness and good luck in life. I often receive letters from Petya Klypa, and sometimes, on holidays, he visits me in Moscow and tells me about all his affairs. I see that a bright, broad future has opened up before him, and he is trying in every possible way to justify the great trust placed in him by the Motherland. There is no doubt that he will be able to supplement his heroic military biography with glorious and equally heroic deeds on the front of peaceful labor.

After the war, A. S. Sanin taught drawing and drawing in one of the schools in the city of Omsk. Here is what he writes:
"From the entire composition of the defenders in the first days, I especially single out two junior artillery commanders and two small (12-13 years old) - boys - Petya, a pupil of the 333rd regiment, and the second, whose name I don’t remember. But they were real heroes - brave men. It was they who, in the first days of the defense, found an ammunition depot. Under a hail of bullets and continuous bombardment, they carried cartridges, machine-gun belts and shells. Petya Klypa! Only now I learned his name. He was a truly fearless boy. He ran into the basement and, addressing to me, in a military way, he reported: "Comrade commander, I was on the second floor of the building, everything is clearly visible from there!" With this he reminded me of the need to organize observation. My first order was given to this boy - to observe and immediately report the appearance of the enemy Wherever this lively, agile, quick-witted boy was not: in reconnaissance, on a tray of ammunition - literally everywhere. I was very afraid and worried about him. But he, being appointed by me as a liaison officer, often disappeared traveled for an hour, and sometimes more, but never came without news or without weapons, ammunition."
Another commander who fought in this sector, now a pensioner living in Vyazma, Vasily Sokolov, also recalls the hero boy. during this time he provided us with cartridges, passed orders from the headquarters.Everywhere you could only hear: "Klypa, Klypa ..." The lively and resourceful boy behaved like a real adult, experienced fighter.
As you remember, in early July 1941, when the 333rd regiment ran out of ammunition, the surviving soldiers made an attempt to break through the enemy's ring. After this attempt, only a few of them survived, whom the Nazis took prisoner. Among these surviving soldiers was the shell-shocked Petya Klypa. The Nazis sent him to the Biala Podlyaska camp, and there Petya met five pupils like him, boys aged 14-16. Tireless and energetic, he immediately began to prepare their escape, and soon these five boys fled to Brest, led by Petya Klypa. In 1957 I received a letter from one of these former pupils, Pyotr Kotelnikov. He was a senior lieutenant and served in one of the military units. Kotelnikov recalls with delight about his fighting friend Petya Klyp. He's writing:
“I met him in the first days of the war in the basement of the 333rd regiment. The first thing he asked me was if I was afraid of these Germans and if I knew how to shoot a rifle. We spent several days together in the same basement, and who was there was, knew his name. He was a nimble and courageous boy, often left the basement and brought valuable information, reporting to the command with a report. He discovered an ammunition depot, and under his command we delivered cartridges and grenades to the embrasures, from where they fired on fascist soldiers our fighters. Enterprising and courageous, Petya Klypa organized the escape from the Nazi camp of five former pupils, among whom were Volodya Kazmin, Volodya Izmailov, Kolya Novikov and I. Having escaped from the camp, we ended up in a Brest prison, where the Nazis starved the prisoners, trying to finally to break the Soviet people and impose his will on them. Here, too, Petya showed initiative and resourcefulness. Even then he could speak German and spoke with the Germans. After that, on the fourth day released from this terrible prison. After leaving prison, Petya reconnoitred an ammunition depot on the southern outskirts of Brest and immediately suggested that it be blown up immediately. But it was not possible to blow it up, as cases of raids became more frequent, and we were forced to leave the city - to go and make our way to our own. As a fourteen-year-old teenager, Petya had good organizational skills. With his courage and fearlessness, he won trust among our five, and so, without an official appointment, he became our real leader and best friend and close comrade. Being in the rear of the Nazis, in difficult times he never lost heart and did not let others lose heart. Often he sang his favorite song, the words of which I first heard from him:
Over the seas, over the oceans
Red pennant over the wave.
Do not go to uninvited enemies
On the shores of the native land.
He believed in the future victory and did not doubt it. He boldly told the local population that the Soviet Army would return again, and the Soviet government would also return here.

Biography

He lost his father early, and the older brother Nikolai Klypa, an officer in the Red Army, took the boy to raise. Lieutenant Nikolai Klypa commanded a musical platoon of the 333rd Infantry Regiment, of which Klypa became a pupil. In 1939, this regiment participated in the partition of Poland, after which the Brest Fortress became its place of deployment.

With the outbreak of the war, Petya, like other pupils of the units that were in the fortress, would have been evacuated to the rear, but he remained and became a full participant in its defense. When the position of the 333rd Rifle Regiment became hopeless, the commander, saving the lives of women and children, ordered them to surrender. The boy was indignant and did not agree, preferring to fight to the end. When in early July the defenders of the fortress were running out of ammunition, the command decided to make an attempt to break through and cross the tributary of the Bug, thereby making their way to the vicinity of Brest. The breakthrough ended in failure, most of its participants died, but Petya was among those who managed to get to the outskirts of Brest. However, in the forest with several comrades, he was taken prisoner. Klypa got into a column of prisoners of war, which was taken away beyond the Bug.

So Peter ended up in a prisoner of war camp in the Polish city of Byala Podlaska, from which he escaped after a short time with Volodya Kazmin. The guys entered Brest, where they lived for about a month. Then, when leaving the encirclement, they were seized by the policemen. A few days later, the boys were loaded into wagons and sent to forced labor in Germany. So Klypa became a farmhand for a German peasant in the village of Hohenbach in Alsace. He was released from captivity by American troops in 1945.

In the summer of 1945, Peter was transferred to the side of the Soviet troops, after which he was taken to the city of Dessau. Then to the city of Lukenwald, where he passed the filtration and was mobilized into the Red Army. In November 1945 he was transferred to the reserve.

In the same year, he returned to his native Bryansk, where he met with his pre-war friend Lyova Stotik, who traded in speculation and robbery, having managed to draw Klypa into this business. In the spring of 1949, Klypa and Stotik were arrested. On May 11, 1949, the military tribunal of the Bryansk garrison, having considered in a closed court session the case on charges of Stotik and Klypa, sentenced: Klypa Pyotr Sergeevich should be imprisoned in labor camp under Art. 107 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (speculation) for a period of 10 years and under Art. 50-3 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (banditry) for a period of 25 years, without loss of rights, with confiscation of all property.

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An excerpt characterizing Klyp, Pyotr Sergeevich

Despite Balashev's habit of court solemnity, the luxury and splendor of the court of Emperor Napoleon struck him.
Count Turen led him into a large waiting room, where many generals, chamberlains and Polish magnates were waiting, many of whom Balashev had seen at the court of the Russian emperor. Duroc said that Emperor Napoleon would receive the Russian general before his walk.
After a few minutes of waiting, the chamberlain on duty went out into the large reception room and, bowing politely to Balashev, invited him to follow him.
Balashev entered a small reception room, from which there was one door leading to an office, the same office from which the Russian emperor sent him. Balashev stood for one minute or two, waiting. Hasty footsteps sounded outside the door. Both halves of the door quickly opened, the chamberlain who had opened it respectfully stopped, waiting, everything was quiet, and other, firm, resolute steps sounded from the office: it was Napoleon. He has just finished his riding toilet. He was in a blue uniform, open over a white waistcoat, descending on a round stomach, in white leggings, tight-fitting fat thighs of short legs, and in over the knee boots. His short hair, obviously, had just been combed, but one strand of hair went down over the middle of his wide forehead. His plump white neck protruded sharply from behind the black collar of his uniform; he smelled of cologne. On his youthful full face with a protruding chin was an expression of gracious and majestic imperial greeting.
He went out, trembling rapidly at every step, and throwing back his head a little. His whole stout, short figure, with broad, thick shoulders and an involuntarily protruding belly and chest, had that representative, portly appearance that people of forty years of age who live in the hall have. In addition, it was evident that he was in the best mood that day.
He nodded his head in response to Balashev's low and respectful bow, and, going up to him, immediately began to speak like a man who values ​​every minute of his time and does not condescend to prepare his speeches, but is confident that he will always say well and what to say.
Hello, general! - he said. - I received the letter from Emperor Alexander, which you delivered, and I am very glad to see you. He looked into Balashev's face with his large eyes and immediately began to look ahead past him.
It was obvious that he was not at all interested in the personality of Balashev. It was evident that only what was going on in his soul was of interest to him. Everything that was outside of him did not matter to him, because everything in the world, as it seemed to him, depended only on his will.
“I don’t want and didn’t want war,” he said, “but I was forced into it. Even now (he said this word with emphasis) I am ready to accept all the explanations that you can give me. - And he clearly and briefly began to state the reasons for his displeasure against the Russian government.
Judging by the moderately calm and friendly tone with which the French emperor spoke, Balashev was firmly convinced that he wanted peace and intended to enter into negotiations.
– Sir! L "Empereur, mon maitre, [Your Majesty! The Emperor, my lord,] - Balashev began a long-prepared speech, when Napoleon, having finished his speech, looked inquiringly at the Russian ambassador; but the look of the emperor's eyes fixed on him confused him. "You are embarrassed "Recover," Napoleon seemed to say, glancing at Balashev's uniform and sword with a barely perceptible smile. Balashev recovered and began to speak. He said that Emperor Alexander did not consider Kurakin's demand for passports to be a sufficient reason for the war, that Kurakin acted like that of his own arbitrariness and without the consent of the sovereign, that the emperor Alexander does not want war and that there are no relations with England.
“Not yet,” Napoleon put in, and, as if afraid to give in to his feelings, he frowned and slightly nodded his head, thus letting Balashev feel that he could continue.
Having said everything that he was ordered, Balashev said that Emperor Alexander wanted peace, but would not start negotiations except on the condition that ... Here Balashev hesitated: he remembered those words that Emperor Alexander did not write in a letter, but which he certainly ordered Saltykov to insert them into the rescript and which he ordered Balashev to hand over to Napoleon. Balashev remembered these words: “until not a single armed enemy remains on Russian soil,” but some kind of complex feeling held him back. He couldn't say those words even though he wanted to. He hesitated and said: on the condition that the French troops retreat beyond the Neman.
Napoleon noticed Balashev's embarrassment when uttering his last words; his face trembled, the left calf of his leg began to tremble measuredly. Without moving from his seat, he began to speak in a voice higher and more hasty than before. During the subsequent speech, Balashev, more than once lowering his eyes, involuntarily observed the trembling of the calf in Napoleon's left leg, which intensified the more he raised his voice.