Hate never made people happy. War is not just words on the pages, not just beautiful slogans. War is pain, hunger, soul-rending fear and… death. Books about war are inoculations against evil, sobering us, keeping us from reckless actions. Let us learn from the mistakes of the past by reading wise and truthful writings to avoid repeating the terrible history so that we and future generations can build a beautiful society. Where there are no enemies and any disputes can be settled by conversation. Where you don’t bury your relatives, howling from anguish. Where all life is priceless...

Not only the present, but also the distant future depends on each of us. You just need to fill your heart with kindness and see in those around you not potential enemies, but people just like us - with families dear to our hearts, with a dream of happiness. Remembering the great sacrifices and deeds of our ancestors, we must carefully preserve their generous gift - life without war. So let the sky above our heads always be peaceful!

Heroes of the Great Patriotic War

Submachine gunner of the 2nd Separate Battalion of the 91st Separate Siberian Volunteer Brigade named after Stalin.

Sasha Matrosov did not know his parents. He was brought up in orphanage and labor colony. When the war began, he was not even 20. Matrosov was drafted into the army in September 1942 and sent to an infantry school, and then to the front.

In February 1943, his battalion attacked the Nazi stronghold, but fell into a trap, falling under heavy fire, cutting off the path to the trenches. They fired from three bunkers. Two soon fell silent, but the third continued to shoot the Red Army soldiers who lay in the snow.

Seeing that the only chance to get out of the fire was to suppress the enemy's fire, Matrosov crawled to the bunker with a fellow soldier and threw two grenades in his direction. The gun was silent. The Red Army went on the attack, but the deadly weapon chirped again. Alexander's partner was killed, and Matrosov was left alone in front of the bunker. Something had to be done.

He didn't even have a few seconds to make a decision. Not wanting to let his comrades down, Alexander closed the embrasure of the bunker with his body. The attack was successful. And Matrosov posthumously received the title of Hero Soviet Union.

Military pilot, commander of the 2nd squadron of the 207th long-range bomber aviation regiment, captain.

He worked as a mechanic, then in 1932 he was called up for service in the Red Army. He got into the air regiment, where he became a pilot. Nicholas Gastello participated in three wars. A year before the Great Patriotic War, he received the rank of captain.

On June 26, 1941, the crew under the command of Captain Gastello took off to attack a German mechanized column. It was on the road between the Belarusian cities of Molodechno and Radoshkovichi. But the column was well guarded by enemy artillery. A fight ensued. Aircraft Gastello was hit by anti-aircraft guns. The shell damaged the fuel tank, the car caught fire. The pilot could eject, but he decided to fulfill his military duty to the end. Nikolai Gastello sent a burning car directly to the enemy column. It was the first fire ram in the Great Patriotic War.

The name of the brave pilot has become a household name. Until the end of the war, all the aces who decided to go for a ram were called Gastellites. According to official statistics, almost six hundred enemy rams were made during the entire war.

Brigadier scout of the 67th detachment of the 4th Leningrad partisan brigade.

Lena was 15 years old when the war began. He already worked at the factory, having finished the seven-year plan. When the Nazis took over his native Novgorod region, Lenya went to the partisans.

He was brave and determined, the command appreciated him. For several years spent in the partisan detachment, he participated in 27 operations. On his account, several destroyed bridges behind enemy lines, 78 destroyed Germans, 10 trains with ammunition.

It was he who, in the summer of 1942, near the village of Varnitsa, blew up a car in which there was a German major general. engineering troops Richard von Wirtz. Golikov managed to obtain important documents about the German offensive. The enemy attack was thwarted, and the young hero for this feat was presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

In the winter of 1943, a significantly superior enemy detachment unexpectedly attacked partisans near the village of Ostraya Luka. Lenya Golikov died as real hero- in battle.

Pioneer. Scout of the partisan detachment named after Voroshilov in the territory occupied by the Nazis.

Zina was born and went to school in Leningrad. However, the war found her on the territory of Belarus, where she came for the holidays.

In 1942, 16-year-old Zina joined the underground organization Young Avengers. It distributed anti-fascist leaflets in the occupied territories. Then, under cover, she got a job working in a canteen for German officers, where she committed several acts of sabotage and only miraculously was not captured by the enemy. Her courage surprised many experienced soldiers.

In 1943, Zina Portnova joined the partisans and continued to engage in sabotage behind enemy lines. Due to the efforts of defectors who surrendered Zina to the Nazis, she was captured. In the dungeons, she was interrogated and tortured. But Zina was silent, not betraying her. At one of these interrogations, she grabbed a pistol from the table and shot three Nazis. After that, she was shot in prison.

Underground anti-fascist organization operating in the area of ​​modern Luhansk region. There were over a hundred people. The youngest participant was 14 years old.

This youth underground organization was formed immediately after the occupation of the Luhansk region. It included both regular military personnel, who were cut off from the main units, and local youth. Among the most famous participants: Oleg Koshevoy, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Vasily Levashov, Sergey Tyulenin and many other young people.

The "Young Guard" issued leaflets and committed sabotage against the Nazis. Once they managed to disable an entire tank repair shop, burn down the stock exchange, from where the Nazis drove people to forced labor in Germany. The members of the organization planned to stage an uprising, but were exposed because of the traitors. The Nazis caught, tortured and shot more than seventy people. Their feat is immortalized in one of the most famous military books by Alexander Fadeev and the film adaptation of the same name.

28 people from the personnel of the 4th company of the 2nd battalion of the 1075th rifle regiment.

In November 1941, a counteroffensive against Moscow began. The enemy did not stop at nothing, making a decisive forced march before the onset of a harsh winter.

At this time, the soldiers under the command of Ivan Panfilov took a position on the highway seven kilometers from Volokolamsk - small town under Moscow. There they gave battle to the advancing tank units. The battle lasted four hours. During this time, they destroyed 18 armored vehicles, delaying the enemy's attack and frustrating his plans. All 28 people (or almost all, here the opinions of historians differ) died.

According to legend, the political instructor of the company, Vasily Klochkov, before the decisive stage of the battle, turned to the fighters with a phrase that became known throughout the country: “Russia is great, but there is nowhere to retreat - Moscow is behind!”

The Nazi counteroffensive ultimately failed. The battle for Moscow, which was taken away essential role during the war, was lost by the invaders.

As a child, the future hero suffered from rheumatism, and the doctors doubted that Maresyev would be able to fly. However, he stubbornly applied to the flight school until he was finally enrolled. Maresyev was drafted into the army in 1937.

He met the Great Patriotic War at the flight school, but soon got to the front. During a sortie, his plane was shot down, and Maresyev himself was able to eject. Eighteen days, seriously wounded in both legs, he got out of the encirclement. However, he still managed to overcome the front line and ended up in the hospital. But gangrene had already begun, and the doctors amputated both of his legs.

For many, this would mean the end of the service, but the pilot did not give up and returned to aviation. Until the end of the war, he flew with prostheses. Over the years, he made 86 sorties and shot down 11 enemy aircraft. And 7 - already after amputation. In 1944, Alexei Maresyev went to work as an inspector and lived to be 84 years old.

His fate inspired the writer Boris Polevoy to write The Tale of a Real Man.

Deputy squadron commander of the 177th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment.

Victor Talalikhin began to fight already in the Soviet-Finnish war. He shot down 4 enemy planes on a biplane. Then he served in the aviation school.

In August 1941, one of the first Soviet pilots made a ram, shooting down a German bomber in a night air battle. Moreover, the wounded pilot was able to get out of the cockpit and descend by parachute to the rear of his own.

Talalikhin then shot down five more German planes. Killed during another air battle near Podolsk in October 1941.

After 73 years, in 2014, the search engines found Talalikhin's plane, which remained in the swamps near Moscow.

Artilleryman of the 3rd counter-battery artillery corps of the Leningrad Front.

Soldier Andrei Korzun was drafted into the army at the very beginning of World War II. He served on the Leningrad front, where there were fierce and bloody battles.

November 5, 1943, during the next battle, his battery came under fierce enemy fire. Korzun was seriously wounded. Despite the terrible pain, he saw that the powder charges were set on fire and the ammunition depot could fly into the air. Gathering the last of his strength, Andrey crawled to the blazing fire. But he could no longer take off his overcoat to cover the fire. Losing consciousness, he made a last effort and covered the fire with his body. The explosion was avoided at the cost of the life of a brave gunner.

Commander of the 3rd Leningrad Partisan Brigade.

A native of Petrograd, Alexander German, according to some sources, was a native of Germany. He served in the army from 1933. When the war began, he became a scout. He worked behind enemy lines, commanded a partisan detachment, which terrified the enemy soldiers. His brigade destroyed several thousand fascist soldiers and officers, derailed hundreds of trains and blew up hundreds of vehicles.

The Nazis staged a real hunt for Herman. In 1943 his partisan detachment was surrounded in the Pskov region. Making his way to his own, the brave commander died from an enemy bullet.

Commander of the 30th Separate Guards Tank Brigade of the Leningrad Front

Vladislav Khrustitsky was drafted into the Red Army back in the 1920s. In the late 30s he graduated from armored courses. Since the autumn of 1942, he commanded the 61st separate light tank brigade.

He distinguished himself during Operation Iskra, which marked the beginning of the defeat of the Germans on the Leningrad front.

He died in the battle near Volosovo. In 1944, the enemy retreated from Leningrad, but from time to time made attempts to counterattack. During one of these counterattacks, Khrustitsky's tank brigade fell into a trap.

Despite heavy fire, the commander ordered to continue the offensive. He turned on the radio to his crews with the words: "Stand to the death!" - and went forward first. Unfortunately, the brave tanker died in this battle. And yet the village of Volosovo was liberated from the enemy.

Commander of a partisan detachment and brigade.

Before the war, he worked on the railroad. In October 1941, when the Germans were already standing near Moscow, he himself volunteered for a difficult operation, in which his railway experience was needed. Was thrown behind enemy lines. There he came up with the so-called "coal mines" (in fact, these are just mines disguised as coal). With the help of this simple but effective weapon, a hundred enemy trains were blown up in three months.

Zaslonov actively agitated the local population to go over to the side of the partisans. The Nazis, having learned this, dressed their soldiers in Soviet uniforms. Zaslonov mistook them for defectors and ordered them to be allowed into the partisan detachment. The path to the insidious enemy was open. A battle ensued, during which Zaslonov died. A reward was announced for living or dead Zaslonov, but the peasants hid his body, and the Germans did not get it.

The commander of a small partisan detachment.

Efim Osipenko fought back in civil war. Therefore, when the enemy seized his land, without thinking twice, he joined the partisans. Together with five other comrades, he organized a small partisan detachment that committed sabotage against the Nazis.

During one of the operations, it was decided to undermine the enemy composition. But there was little ammunition in the detachment. The bomb was made from an ordinary grenade. The explosives were to be installed by Osipenko himself. He crawled to the railway bridge and, seeing the approach of the train, threw it in front of the train. There was no explosion. Then the partisan himself hit the grenade with a pole from the railway sign. It worked! A long train with food and tanks went downhill. The squad leader survived, but lost his sight completely.

For this feat, he was the first in the country to be awarded the medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War."

The peasant Matvey Kuzmin was born three years before the abolition of serfdom. And he died, becoming the oldest holder of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

His story contains many references to the history of another famous peasant - Ivan Susanin. Matvey also had to lead the invaders through the forest and swamps. And like legendary hero decided to stop the enemy at the cost of his life. He sent his grandson ahead to warn a detachment of partisans who had stopped nearby. The Nazis were ambushed. A fight ensued. Matvey Kuzmin died at the hands of a German officer. But he did his job. He was in his 84th year.

A partisan who was part of the sabotage and reconnaissance group of the headquarters of the Western Front.

While studying at school, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya wanted to enter a literary institute. But these plans were not destined to come true - the war prevented. In October 1941, Zoya, as a volunteer, came to the recruiting station and, after a short training at a school for saboteurs, was transferred to Volokolamsk. There, an 18-year-old partisan fighter, along with adult men, performed dangerous tasks: she mined roads and destroyed communication centers.

During one of the sabotage operations, Kosmodemyanskaya was caught by the Germans. She was tortured, forcing her to betray her own. Zoya heroically endured all the trials without saying a word to the enemies. Seeing that it was impossible to get anything from the young partisan, they decided to hang her.

Kosmodemyanskaya steadfastly accepted the test. A moment before her death, she shouted to the assembled local residents: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it's too late, surrender!" The courage of the girl so shocked the peasants that they later retold this story to front-line correspondents. And after the publication in the Pravda newspaper, the whole country learned about the feat of Kosmodemyanskaya. She became the first woman to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War.

In 1943 my grandmother was 12 years old. Since her mother had nothing to feed the children, she took her grandmother, sled and fabric and they went to the neighboring area to sell all this. During the day they sold everything, and since it was winter, it got dark early and they were already walking back in the dark. They go, great-grandmother pulls the sled, and grandmother pushes ... She turns, and behind, in the field, there are many, many lights. The great-grandmother did not say then what it was, but she ordered to go silently and quickly ... When they were already approaching their village, they almost fled, because the hungry lights - wolves, had already begun to surround and howl.

My great-grandfather is Jewish. During the war, his family was taken to be shot. He managed to escape, hid in the wild rose. The Germans did not catch up, they just fired a couple of shots and thought that he was dead. The bullets went past the ear. He was only 15, he infiltrated the regiment by deceit, went through the entire war. He changed his surname, became the first member of the Komsomol, met my great-grandmother, had seven children, took my mother to be raised. But the saddest thing is that in peacetime he went for milk and did not return. Bus hit...

Great-grandmother and great-grandfather met a year before the war. In the summer, having gone to the front, great-grandfather took from her a promise to wait for him. But six months later, the "triangle" came (the news of the death of a great-grandfather). Great-grandmother gathered her courage and also went to the front as a field nurse. And upon returning home, her great-grandfather was waiting for her, safe and sound, who had reached Berlin and was a well-deserved colonel.

My family has a "Red Shirt" history. Grandfather was born in 1927. At the age of 14, he helped his family, worked in the fields and helped dig trenches, was the only son, among 7 children of his mother. And so, as a reward for her work, the mother was given a piece of red calico (fabric). She made a shirt for her son. And on that day, my grandfather was just wearing this shirt when they started bombing the city. Everyone was urgently evacuated, and he ran home to his mother and sisters. Late. Several days have passed. And then one of the soldiers saw a boy in a red shirt. Calling to him, he said that the woman asked everyone who saw the boy in a red shirt to say that they were alive and were waiting for him at the crossing. So, the red shirt helped my grandfather find his family. Still alive. Just losing his mind.

My great-grandmother survived the siege of Leningrad. It so happened that she, as the youngest in the family, got a ticket to travel along the Road of Life. She gave this ticket to her sister, and she herself remained to defend the city. She herself did not fight, but she cut off communication with the Germans, for which she received the order. And it's terrible: to look at photographs of a young woman after the war and see her 20 years older and completely gray-haired. I don't want anyone to see this.

Grandma was 12 when the war started. She lived in a small town in Siberia. There was nothing to eat, nothing to wear. The great-grandmother herself made shoes for them from a piece of canvas and a piece of wood, and in these shoes the grandmother went to work in a 40-degree frost, to a meat processing plant, where on the night shift, children, under the guidance of one disabled person, twisted minced meat, cooked sausage and sent it all to the front. They waited for spring, when quinoa grass appeared and it was possible to collect it and eat it. In autumn, teenagers ran to the collective farm fields to collect the remains of rotten potatoes, but this was very dangerous, since the guards did not spare the children and fired salt at them. But if it was possible to bring a couple of potatoes, then there was a mountain feast - great-grandmother baked cakes from it. When my grandmother fell ill, her older sister brought a piece of bacon from work, at that time a neighbor ran in and informed. My grandmother's sister was imprisoned for 10 years. I don’t know how they survived, but my grandmother lived to be 87 years old and this year she didn’t wait for the victory ...

My great-grandfather saved a 10-year-old German boy in World War I. During World War II, my great-grandfather no longer fought because he was wounded. The Germans drove my great-grandfather's sister to work in Germany. The conditions of detention were terrible. Ate anything, treated like cattle. When the Germans entered the village where my great-grandfather lived, one of them ran up to his grandfather shouting: "Alyosha!" In him, the great-grandfather recognized the very boy he had saved. The great-grandfather told him about his sister. This German wrote to his family in Germany and they found his sister in one of the labor camps. His family took her to their home, where she lived in good conditions until the end of the war.

Great-grandfather reached Berlin ... When he returned home, in Altai region, sat on the porch and smoked, my grandmother ran up to him and asked: “Why did a neighbor from Berlin come, brought fabrics, gifts, but you didn’t bring us any gifts?” And my great-grandfather cried and said to my grandmother: “Daughter, he took these fabrics from people like us, there are also children, there is also a war, only for everyone it is their own, their own war!” As my grandmother said, he often cried when talking about the front. And he always said that whoever really fought, he remained on the battlefields ...

We sat and discussed the topic of war with my grandfather. Further, according to grandfather: "We lived in after war time and my mother told me that a woman lived near our house, in a high-rise building. She salted the children. She did not kill them, but found the dead, salted them and ate them. But at some point, the KGB arrived and took her away. All in all, it was a terrible time."

My great-grandfather died in battles in Latvia in 1944. Our family did not know where he was buried or whether he was buried at all. A few years ago, my family and I traveled by car in those places and drove past a small town where battles were fought during the Second World War. We asked the locals if there was at least some mass grave nearby to somehow commemorate our great-grandfather. We were sent to the local cemetery and MIRACLE! We found HIS grave: first name, last name, patronymic, year of birth - all HIS, after 70 years! Special thanks to the locals, all the graves of Soviet soldiers were well-groomed and cleaned. It was the first and last time when I saw my grandfather and father cry.

My great-grandmother ended up in Auschwitz, but at the same time she did not talk about life there and never mentioned anything. Until one day, when I was 5, I found her in tears. She wept very bitter tears, holding one old photo. I asked why she was crying, did anyone offend her? And she began her story... The story is not about how they were humiliated there, not about terrible hunger and cold, but about the fact that they were deprived of everything. When only she and her daughter arrived at the camp, it was decided to send the great-grandmother to the camp, and immediately send the little daughter to the gas chamber. She prayed for a long time that the fate of her daughter would be changed, that she would be left to live, and then her daughter was shot right in front of her eyes. And the great-grandmother herself was beaten and threatened that one more mistake and she would immediately end up in the oven ... After all this, I myself began to cry, and the great-grandmother finished her story. The photo was of her with her little daughter. We cried together and very bitter tears. I never wish anyone to experience what people experienced at that terrible time ...

My grandmother lived all her life in Leningrad, including the war years. At the beginning of the war, her husband went to the front, leaving his wife with two small children. Soon the funeral came to him. She stayed with her son and daughter in besieged Leningrad. The city was regularly bombed. Grandma worked in the laundry. And now, she is at work, and they say to her: "Go home, it seems like there was a bomb in your wing." She goes home, and sees that in her house in open window a shell flew in, hit the wall and she crumbled, and on the other side her children, 2 and 4 years old, were sleeping in a crib. Both died. In that war, my grandmother also met another man who became her husband - my grandfather. He was 10 years younger, and outwardly they were very similar, like brother and sister, they even had the same middle name. But the funeral also came to him. Grandmother at that moment was already pregnant with my father. Out of grief, she went to have an abortion, but the woman she came to for this fed her pies and dissuaded her. Dad was born 10 days before the victory. And soon grandfather returned from the war - the funeral turned out to be erroneous. So for four years the whole life of one little woman (grandmother was thin and not tall), so much grief on her shoulders. She talked a lot about the blockade. She told how people threw themselves out of the windows, as if they fell, exhausted from hunger, asked for a hand to get up, and she understood that if she helped, she herself would fall next to her and would not get up. Once she came to the neighbors, and there the whole family eats mustard with spoons, they found a whole basin somewhere, and they eat right from it. They offered her, but she refused. And the next morning, all the members of that family died from what they had eaten. She told how her brother was dying of starvation, she came to him, he lies and says: "Bend over, I want to tell you something." She said: "I see that his eyes are crazy and did not bend over, she was afraid." But the brother survived and later confessed that he wanted to bite off her nose from hunger. It was a terrible time. Terrible. I want to say thank you to everyone who lived at that time, not only to the front, but also to the rear and to everyone. Because our Victory lies with scars on the hearts of each of them, on their destinies. It is their pain and suffering that led us to Victory, and we are indebted to each of them.

The grandmother of the 38th year of birth does not tell anything about the war, she only remembers her first New Year. The children were gathered, lined up, and they were given a small yellow piece of sugar, all in the ground. New Year's gift. She ran home with all her might to share with her brothers and sisters. They were older by a couple of years and were considered adults. She says she has never eaten anything better in her life.

My great-grandmother at the ninth month of pregnancy participated in the evacuation of Leningrad orphanages to the Urals. She rode with them on the train, gave away her food, looked after the sick and wounded, although she herself could hardly stand on her feet. I became friends with the director of one of the orphanages, who left her whole life to take care of her pupils. The day before the arrival of the great-grandmother, contractions began. Saved her new girlfriend, persuaded the driver to stop for five minutes in some nearby village, although according to the instructions it was impossible. There, the great-grandmother was loaded into a cart - and to the hospital! Through the snow and bad roads at full speed ... Barely in time. The doctor then said that another 15 minutes and there would be no one to save ... So, on a cold October day of 41, in a small village near the railway, my grandmother was born.

During the war, my great-grandmother worked at a bakery and everyone was checked. Neither bread nor flour could be taken out. The great-grandmother, after the shift, swept the floor with the remnants of flour and took it home. At home, she sifted garbage and baked bread from this flour to feed 5 children.

Cousin grandfather - blockade. He told how they boiled the belts and ate. The Germans also bombed the starch-treacle plant - first people ate molasses from the ground, then the earth soaked in sugar, and then just the earth ...

During the war, my grandfather was a boy. He did not fight, but from the age of 12 he stood up for lathe at the factory. He worked by standing on the box, because he did not reach. The daily ration that was given out at the factory was shared with younger brothers and sisters. They gave fish broth and herring heads. Time was hungry. He said that he stole to feed the younger ones. He stole apples in the gardens of one of the nearby villages of the city, put them in his bosom, and reached the house by swimming, past sentries he swam under water, breathing through a straw. An acquaintance of my great-grandfather, who was at the front, carried bread. Released bread by weight. They weighed an empty cart on the scales, then loaded it with bread, also by weight. All this happened behind a fence. On the towers sentries with weapons. My grandfather's task was to cling to the bottom of the cart, and weigh himself along with it when it was empty ... Then it was necessary to quietly unhook and jump over the fence so that the guards would not see (they could shoot on the spot). Then the bread was shared, and the grandfather could feed the younger ones.

My great-grandmother was a resident of besieged Leningrad. She spent three years of the war there, digging trenches and rescuing the wounded. She told what the famine was and how she and her sister fled from the cannibals. In those years, she promised herself that if she survived and everything went well, then she would always have sweets at home and she kept her promise. I remember how she treated me to sweets and said that the life of a child should be sweet, as this candy called me "Dove". She gave me her jewelry and cross before her death. She said it was a strong cross and it would save me. I keep my great-grandmother's things and sometimes I talk to her. She died in 2005 (89 years old), and her great-grandfather lives, runs several times a week, plants a garden and cooks very tasty. Grandma's things are not removed. As my grandmother arranged everything on a chest of drawers - everything is untouched and stands, already in the dust, but that's nothing)

In 1941, my great-grandfather was drafted into the army. His wife and two-year-old son remained at home. In the very first battles, my great-grandfather was captured. Since he was tall and strong, he, along with other prisoners of war, was herded into wagons and taken to work in Germany. Twice along the way, together with others, he tried to escape. But they were tracked down by sniffer dogs, again put into wagons and taken to Germany. Upon arrival, they were forced to work in the mines. Even from there, he made an attempt to escape. But he was seized and severely beaten. My grandmother, his daughter, said that huge scars from blows remained on his back. To us, little ones, my grandmother retold stories that her father told her: “The mother of one of the German guards in holidays passed a sandwich through her son to a Russian prisoner of war, saying that he was the same person as we are. The woman told her son with the hope that if he were captured, perhaps the mother of a Russian soldier would also feed him. This sandwich was thrown imperceptibly to the ground by the guard or passed, sitting on a log with his back to each other, fearing that he could be sent to the front for helping a prisoner of war. Not all Germans were fascists, many were simply afraid and were forced to obey. They were victims of the circumstances. This is what happens, a double-edged sword. It is important to remain human at all times and under any conditions.” And yes, my family keeps the memory of this kind woman, thanks to whom my great-grandfather did not die of hunger, thanks to whom we live now. Great-grandfather stayed in captivity until the end of the war, and then he was liberated by Soviet troops.

Grandmother told how she was a child during the war. Once she, her mother, cousins ​​and aunt were on the river, there were many other people there. Suddenly, a plane flew over them, from which they began to throw toys into the water. Grandmother was older, so she didn’t rush after them, but her brothers did. In general, in front of her and the mother of these boys, the children were torn apart. The toys were mined. Grandma's aunt turned gray completely in an instant.

After the capture of the city of Pushkin by the Germans, the grandmother's mother and children were arrested on a denunciation as the family of an officer and sent along the stage. In the motley crowd of prisoners, one person stood out in particular. A lightly dressed man, despite the cold, was wrapping something in warm rags. He pressed this bundle to himself and protected it from the rain as best he could. The kid was languishing with curiosity. One night they were brought to spend the night in the city bathhouse. It was not heated, it was cold, everyone lay down to sleep on the floor. The man curled up protecting his burden. So in the morning he remained lying when the others got up. Soldiers came, removed the body, and one of them squeamishly pushed the bundle away with his foot. When the filthy rags were unrolled, they found a violin in them.

My great-grandfather was a doctor in a Soviet concentration camp. Very often prisoners asked to deliver letters to relatives. Great-grandfather passed it on until the same prisoners handed him over. He was sent far to Siberia. At the end of 1942, the prisoners were offered: either sit further, or go to the front, and then pardon. Grandfather went. But everyone who went was not given any clothes or food. And so they went to the front line through the snow, who was in what, it came to cannibalism. Often I had to steal along the way in the nearest villages, sometimes people themselves helped in any way they could. At the front, I met my great-grandmother. She was a sniper in the war. She herself was also sent to fight from a concentration camp, imprisoned for having abortions in wartime. After the war, great-grandfather became the manager of the hospital, protected his wife, did not let her work. Both did not talk about the war for a long time, they took care of their children. Raised 3 sons. My great-grandfather died before I was born, and my great-grandmother lived until my fifth birthday. I still remember her pastry and kind, loving face.

In the 42nd year, when the grandfather (captain of the guard) sent the wounded and killed home, a very young guy with a slight wound approached him and tearfully begged his grandfather to send him home, since there was an old mother and a pregnant wife at home. With his wound, he was supposed to be sent further to the front, but my great-grandfather decided to send him home and this guy returned to his family, and his grandfather had already forgotten about this incident. After the end of the war, my grandfather was returning home by train and got on the platform during a stop at a nondescript station near the village. Then a man comes up to him and, with tears in his eyes, asks if his grandfather recognizes him. During the war, so many faces were seen that the great-grandfather did not recognize the saved guy. He matured and got stronger, said that his son was also growing, and only thanks to my grandfather he was alive and happy that when he returned home and told how he had returned, the whole village prayed for my grandfather so that everything would be fine with him. By the way, my grandfather did not receive a single injury, but earned only stomach problems and loss of sensation in his toes. Such was the fate of meeting this man at the station in the wilderness and learning about the current happy life of the saved guy...

Lived next door to my grandmother Jewish family. There were many children and quite wealthy parents. When the Germans occupied the village, they began to take away food. But in a neighboring family, children always had sweets, which at that time was unheard of in the occupied land. Grandmother, like a little girl, really wanted at least one candy, and the neighbor boy, in turn, saw this and sometimes dragged candy from home for grandmother and other children. Once he did not come: the Nazis shot the whole family. Soon after the liberation of the village, the grandmother and mother were evacuated, like many others. They were sent to Kamchatka, where it seemed to be safer. Grandmother, 70 years later, said that she never forgot the taste of those sweets, which, understandably, appeared in that family, but became the hope for the best, and king crabs, huge for the children's imagination, from which everything was cooked, because there was not enough for all the evacuated food supplies .

My great-grandfather said that the Nazis mocked prisoners of war. They were kept in a small shed, starved to death, and at night they brought sacks of raw potatoes. Whoever went out of the prisoners for potatoes, although he probably even crawled out, was shot ...

My grandmother worked in a mental hospital during the war. She told how violent and quiet were brought from the front. Quiet ones are scarier - they sit quietly, then they kill just as quietly. The violent ones were knitted by healthy Siberian men. How they didn't go crazy is a mystery. lived with it long years. On May 15, the blow was enough. She died quickly. After 60 years. After the war.

I knew many old people. Not only her numerous relatives, she communicated with many in student practice in the remote villages of the Russian north. There was one informant, a grandmother born in 1929. Her family lived in Leningrad. When the war began, the men went to the front, the women remained to work in the rear, and they tried to evacuate the children (as we remember, not all of them managed to do it). That grandmother went to the evacuation. On the way, the train was bombed. Many children died, and those who survived were settled right where it happened, in nearby villages. When the news of the train reached the city, the women abandoned their machines and went to look for their children. Our grandmother was found by her mother. So they lived in the village where, 75 years later, I met her. There was another grandmother-informant, born in 1919. She told fortunes, and some fellow villagers, twenty years younger, did not like her. “Shurka,” they said, “why did she get so busy? [She was 97 that summer] She spent her whole life in the accounting department, she didn’t know a real job!” For some reason, they did not want to take into account that when they were still children, that Shurka was starving and felling the forest. There are a lot of Shurka and Alexandra Grigorievna left on my recorder. She recited many prayers and incantations to us, sang four old songs, and during the breaks, of course, a lot was said "for life." "So you came to me, I live in poverty, and I treat you. You can always find a candy for a guest. You always have to treat. Only, girls, do not give birth prematurely! Do not give birth. then, you. Be kind, be good! To live well for you ... Okay. Remember your grandmother. " In general, if you think about it so retrospectively, it was terribly difficult psychologically in practice. These old women now live on a meager pension, without basic amenities, without a pharmacy or clinic, continuing to physically work around the house, often with their sons, older alcoholics, around their necks. And this - best time in their lives. I really wanted to talk to them not about whether they have anyone in the forest, but how they guessed, and what songs they sang, but simply about life. I really wanted to help, to do something for these people. After all, the war experienced at a young age turned out to be only the beginning of their life's trials.

My family had a woman friend. She went through the whole war. She personally told me: We are sitting in a trench. Me and the boy. Both are 18 years old. He says to her: - Listen, have you ever been with a man? - Not. What are you, a fool?! - Maybe come on? We could still be killed at any moment. - I won't! So she didn't agree. And the next morning he was gone.

Dad's older sister was a nurse in the hospital. In addition to her duties, she also donated blood for the wounded. In the hospital where she served, Vatutin was treated, the girls were afraid to give him injections, the marshal, after all, and the aunt was a resolute woman, she was not afraid of anything, and they sent the marshal to inject her. In general, she was very kind, everyone's favorite, and only Varechka was called her. Came to Berlin. At home, her photo is kept by the Reichstag. I really didn’t like Okudzhava’s song from the film “Belarusian Station”, for the words: “So we need a victory, one for all, we won’t build it at a price” ... That's it for this price, that people were not spared at all .. .

My grandfather worked on the staff of the district committee of the party, he had a reservation. Rejecting the armor, he volunteered for the front. I served in Kalininsky, and my grandmother and five youngsters remained at home, who had nothing to eat, but what to eat - there was nothing to heat the stove with. Somehow they came from the district committee to see how the families of front-line soldiers live, and the hut is full of smoke - they drowned it with wormwood. Of the five children, two survived, the grandfather was commissioned for a wound with a severe shell shock at the end of the war.

My great-great-grandfather was shot by the Germans at the entrance to the village. He then just sat on the bench ...

My great-grandmother was a woman iron character. During the war, they lived in a hospital city, and food, as in the whole country, was scarce. It was dinner time, and my seven-year-old daughter was running around in the yard. Great-grandmother called twice, and then divided her portion between those who were at home. My daughter came home hungry, but there was nothing to eat. It never happened again, the lesson was learned. I don’t know if I could have done this in her place, but I am very proud of my great-grandmother and proudly remember the stories from her life.

My great-grandfather was 48 years old when he received the summons. He had no relatives, the times were difficult, there was a pregnant young wife with two children. He told her that he would not return alive, and that she had an abortion, because she would not bear three children alone. And so it happened - he went to the front in November 1942, and six months later he died near Leningrad. My great-grandmother didn't have an abortion. She did everything to raise her children - she exchanged her entire dowry for a handful of carrot and beet seeds, planted a vegetable garden, guarded it for days, sewed to order, two of the three children survived, my grandmother and her sister. In the archives, I found details of the death of my great-grandfather, and that the cartridge case with his data is now stored in the Museum of Military Glory near St. Petersburg.

When the war started, my great-grandmother was only 18 years old. She worked as a nurse in a hospital. And most of the time she talked about herself. last day wars. When the victory was announced, there was a change. She ran around the wards, shouting: "We won!". Everyone was crying, laughing, dancing. It was a moment of universal rejoicing! All the people ran out into the street, the wounded were helped out. And they danced until the evening! They rejoiced and cried!

My great-grandfather was a full-blooded German, his name was Paul Josef Onkel. Lived in Berlin, worked as a pharmacist. But then, after some time, a crisis began, unemployment, in the end it so happened that he moved to the USSR, and specifically to Russia. I married a Russian woman here, lived in perfect harmony, my grandfather was born to them. And in the end, when the war began, of course, my great-grandfather went to fight. At that time, my grandfather was only seven years old. And here are the words of my grandfather: "The only thing I remember about my dad is how he took me in his arms, looked at me with his big blue eyes and said:" I'm leaving for a long time, but I'll be back, and we will all be together again . I’m leaving to protect our Motherland from the enemy, but you’ll see, we will win, I promise.” Indeed, thank God, we won. But my great-grandfather never returned, he died during the battles for the liberation of Stalingrad.

My great-grandfather was very young when the war started. He was sent to serve at sea, navy in the Sevastopol. Basically, almost always, the task was one: to clear the mines. They coped well, there were no subversive ships. We often stopped at ports. During one of these stops, my great-grandfather met his future wife. In just a few days, they fell in love, exchanged addresses and tried to deliver letters to each other. It was hard, but after the war, my great-grandfather found her anyway. On one of the voyages, they were informed that a passenger ship with food for nearby cities should pass along the way. There were so many mines in the sea that the sailors were afraid that they would not be in time and the ship would be blown up, which could not be allowed. When all the sailors were gathered and two of them were chosen for the boat to test the water, my great-grandfather was called. Before he had time to leave, a volunteer was found in the ranks, who then told him that no one was waiting for him at home, and he had nothing to lose. The boat blew up. The ship passed unharmed, and those sailors perished forever at sea. Great-grandfather had tears in his eyes every time he remembered the guy who volunteered for him.

My great-grandfather's first wife died before the war, leaving six children. The oldest was 10 years old and the youngest was two years old. He married a second time just before the war. The great-grandmother adopted his children as her own. Grandfather went to war. And she waited for him all the war and raised children. Great-grandfather was wounded, was taken prisoner in 1942. They were released in 1945. Then there was a Soviet camp, he returned home in 1947. All children grew up and became worthy people.

My great-grandfather initial period During the war, he worked as a foreman on a collective farm near Novosibirsk. He was a very good specialist, they didn’t send him to the front, because they gave a reservation, they say, you are more needed here. He had four daughters, and my grandmother is the youngest. Once, quilted jackets for milkmaids were brought to the collective farm. And the management of the collective farm, taking advantage of their official position, stole these padded jackets for themselves, their families, relatives, and so on. In general, quilted jackets did not reach milkmaids. When my great-grandfather found out about this, he went and beat the chairman of the collective farm in the face. Whoever is from Siberia will understand: then felt boots were issued one for three. In general, the reservation was removed from the great-grandfather. Sent to the Belarusian front. Commander of an anti-tank gun. reached Western Belarus, two wounded. When he received the second, shrapnel in the stomach, they put him in the hospital. They strictly forbade getting out of bed, but he disobeyed. Got up, got a complication and died. When a funeral with medals came home, in Siberia, the great-grandmother threw the medals into the river in hysterics with the words: "Why do I need these trinkets, I need a husband." Left without a husband, she raised four daughters alone, being illiterate herself, she learned. And she grew up an honored teacher of the USSR, an economist, a librarian and an engineer ventilation systems(my grandmother).

Only from fragments of letters and from the recollections of soldiers can we imagine how the Germans fed Russian children, how they actually treated the Jews, how they were buried alive in the ground and how they were called nothing more than “geeks”. Only by short stories veterans, which, alas, are becoming less and less every year, we can imagine what impression Molotov's speech made on the first day of the war, how our grandfathers and great-grandfathers perceived Stalin's speech. Only from stories (whether they are small or large) can we imagine how Leningraders day and night dreamed of breaking the blockade, Victory and the imminent restoration of the country.

An artistic story about the war can give the modern young man the opportunity, at least in my head, to draw what our people had to endure.

Stories about the heroes of the Great Patriotic War

In war, everyone is a hero. And it's not the number of stars on shoulder straps and not the rank. It's just that every schoolboy who picks up a shovel and goes to dig trenches is a hero. Most of the guys and girls went to the front from graduation. They weren't afraid to wear military uniform and look the enemy in the eye, so they are heroes.

In fact, a big Victory consists of small victories of individuals: a soldier, a partisan, a tanker, a sniper, a nurse, orphans; all participants in the war. Each of them contributed to the common Victory.

Remembering the works about the war, the following works immediately come to mind: “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” by Boris Vasilyev about the girls at the front who did not allow the Kirovskaya to be blown up railway, "Not listed" by the same author about the defender Brest Fortress Nikolai Pluzhnikov, "Survive Until Dawn" by Vasily Bykov about Lieutenant Igor Ivanovsky, who blew himself up with a grenade to save his comrades, "War has no woman's face" by Svetlana Aleksievich about the role of women in war and many other books. These are not stories, but large novels and novellas, so reading them is even more difficult. Everything that is written in them is probably remembered by someone's grandfather, a veteran.

On our website "Literary Salon" there are a lot of works about the war by modern authors. They write emotionally, poignantly, complexly, relying on the same letters and eyewitness accounts, on films, on the legendary Katyusha and Cranes. If you like some verse or story on our portal, you can always comment on it, ask a question about the plot and communicate directly with the author. In addition, we try to keep up with the times, so we have organized several unique sections on our resource. For example, we have a format of literary fights. These are such battles of authors on different topics. Now the topic of the Great Patriotic War is the most relevant. There are "competitions" called "Memory of the Victory" (prose), "What do we know about the war?" (prose), "Song of Victory" (poetry), "Long World War II" (poetry), " short stories about war for children” (prose), etc.

The second interesting format, which is presented on our website, is implemented in the "Places" section. Thanks to this section, the communication of writers can be taken beyond the Internet. The site has a map where you can select your area and see which of the authors is near you. If you are interested in someone's thoughts, you can meet him in a cafe to drink delicious coffee and talk about your literary preferences. You can also subscribe to a newsletter about new authors who appear on the site.

Stories about the Great Patriotic War for children

If we drive the query “stories about the Great Patriotic War for schoolchildren” into the search engine, we will get a lot of different results - texts aimed at different age. It is necessary to talk with schoolchildren about the war as early as possible. Teachers today agreed that it is possible to start introducing stories about the Second World War into the program already in the first grade. Of course, these texts should be written in a simple and understandable language on topics that are understandable to the child. In stories for children, themes of cruelty in concentration camps or so complex psychological aspects like the crippled fates of disabled soldiers and their wives. In fact, there are a lot of so-called taboo topics here, since war is the most cruel thing that mankind has ever seen.

Teenagers in high school can try to show popular Soviet movies about war. For example, “The Dawns Here Are Quiet”, “The Fate of a Man”, etc. But returning to the kids, it is worth noting that the stories about the war for them should be based on an accessible description of the main battles. So, literature in this version will connect with history and short story will give the child a lot of new knowledge.

The site "Literary Salon" has a lot of children's stories about the war from contemporary authors. These texts are very interesting, informative and at the same time adapted for understanding by children. Come into our impromptu literary salon, choose desired topic and judge the quality children's stories about the Great Patriotic War.

War stories

65 years have passed since the victory Soviet troops over Nazi Germany. Modern schoolchildren have an idea about the Great Patriotic War not from the stories of their great-grandfathers

and great-grandmothers, but according to the works they read and the movies they watched: time moves inexorably forward. The pupils of the 4th grade "A" (teacher - T.I. Zubareva) reflected their vision of those terrible events on the pages of their invented stories, very similar to real ones.

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