The most vivid memories of female veterans of the war (34 photos)

June 24, 1945 in Moscow on Red Square was the first and most important victory parade. On this day, we have collected for you the most vivid memories of female veterans from the book by Svetlana Aleksievich "War is not a woman's face».





1. "We drove a lot of the day ... They went out with the girls at a station with a bucket to collect the water. We looked around and gasped: one by one went compositions, and there is one woman. Sing. Waving to us - who kerchiefs who caps. It became clear: men are not enough, they perished in the land. Or in captivity. Now we instead ... Mom wrote me a prayer. I put it in a locket. Maybe it helped - I came home. I kissed the locket before the fight ... »
"Once night reconnaissance in the area of ​​our regiment led an entire company. By dawn she went, and came with a neutral strip groan. I stayed wounded. "Do not go, they will kill - do not let my fighters - you see, it is already getting light." I do not obey, crawled. She found a wounded, dragged him eight hours strapped hand. Dragged alive. The commander learned rashly declared five days of arrest for unauthorized absence. A deputy regiment commander reacted differently, "he deserves a reward." At nineteen, I had a medal "For Courage". At nineteen, he turned gray. At nineteen years in the last battle was shot through both lungs, the second bullet passed between two vertebrae. Paralyzed legs ... And I thought the murder ... In nineteen ... I have a granddaughter now such. I look at it - and I do not believe. Dita! "



2. "I had the night shift ... I went to the House of seriously wounded. Captain lies ... The doctors warned me before duty that night he would die ... I do not make it to the morning ... I asked him, "Well, how? The help you? "I will never forget ... He suddenly smiled, such a bright smile on his face haggard," Unbutton bathrobe ... Show me your chest ... I have not seen my wife ... "I was ashamed, I have something there he replied. She left and came back an hour later. He lay dead. And the smile on his face ... »
"And when he appeared for the third time, it's a moment - it appears, will disappear, - I decided to shoot. I decided, and suddenly a thought flashed: the same man, though he is an enemy, but a man, and I somehow began to shake hands all over my body went shivers, chills. Some fear ... to me sometimes in dreams and now returns to this feeling ... After the plywood targets to shoot at a living person has been difficult. I see it in the optical sight, well I see. As if he's close ... And inside me something resists ... Something does not give, I can not decide. But I pulled myself together, pull the trigger ... Not once we've got. Not a woman thing - to hate and kill. Not ours ... I had to convince myself. Persuade ... "



3. "And the girls rushed to the front voluntarily and a coward he will not go to war. It was a bold, unusual girl. There are statistics: loss among medical front edge is second only to losses in the infantry battalions. In the infantry. What, for example, to pull the wounded from the battlefield? I'll tell you right now ... We went on the attack, and we let the machine gun to mow. And the battalion died. All they lay. They were not all killed, many wounded. The Germans beat, do not stop the fire. Just all of a sudden out of the trench one girl jumps out first, then the second, third ... They began to dress and to drag the wounded, even the Germans for a while numb amazement. By ten o'clock in the evening all the girls were seriously injured, and each saved a maximum of two or three people. Reward them sparingly, in the beginning of the war awards are not scattered. Pull the wounded had to be with his personal weapon. The first question to the field hospital where weapons? At the beginning of the war it was not enough. Rifle, machine gun - it also had to drag. In the forty-first order was issued number two hundred eighty-one the submission for the award for saving the life of a soldier: fifteen seriously injured, made from the battlefield, along with a personal weapon - the medal "For Service in Battle" for the salvation of twenty-five - the Order of the Red Star for Salvation forty - Order of the Red Banner, for the salvation of eighty - the Order of Lenin. I have described what it meant in the battle to save at least one ... From under the bullets ... »
"What is happening in our souls, these people, as we were then, perhaps, will never be. Never! Such naive and such sincere. With such a faith! When the flag was our regimental commander and commanded: "The regiment, under the banner! On your knees! ", We all felt happy. We stand and cry, every tear in his eyes. You are not going to believe, me from the shock my whole body tensed, my illness, and I was ill "night blindness", it at me from malnutrition, from nervous exhaustion happens, so that's my night blindness passed. You see, the other day I was healthy, I was cured, that's such a shock through all my heart ... "
"I hurricane wave threw the brick wall. Lost consciousness ... When I came to, it was already evening. She raised her head, tried to squeeze his fingers - like moving, barely wade left eye and went to the office, covered in blood. In the corridor I meet our elder sister, she did not recognize me and asked: "Who are you? Where? "Came closer, gasped and said," Where you wore for so long, Xenia? Wounded hungry, and you do not. " Quickly bandaged head, his left arm above the elbow, and I went to get dinner. His eyes darkened, sweat pouring hail. It began distributing dinner fell. They brought to consciousness, and only heard: "Hurry! Faster! "And again -" Hurry! Hurry! "A few days later I still have to take seriously injured blood".



4. "We are very young went to the front. Girls. I even grew during the war. Mom has measured the house ... I grew ten centimeters ... »
"Organized nursing courses, and my father took me and my sister there. I - fifteen years, and his sister - fourteen. He said: "This is all that I can give to win. My girls ... "Another thought did not exist. A year later, I got to the front ... "
"Our mother had no sons ... And when Stalingrad was besieged, voluntarily went to the front. together. The entire family: mother and five daughters, and his father had already fought ... "



5. "I was mobilized, I was a doctor. I left with a sense of duty. And my dad was happy that her daughter was on the front. Defend the homeland. Dad went to the recruitment office early in the morning. He went to get my certificate and go early in the morning specifically to everyone in the village saw that her daughter had at the front ... »
"I remember, let me go on leave. Before going to my aunt, I went to the store. Before the war terribly fond of sweets. I say:
 - Give me candy.
The saleswoman looks at me like I was crazy. I do not understand what - card that is - the blockade? All the people in the queue turned to me, and I have a rifle more than I do. When we have given them, I looked up and thought: "When I grow up to this rifle?" And all of a sudden began to ask the whole place:
 - Give her some candy. Cut us coupons.
And they gave me ".



6. "And I happened for the first time in my life ... Our ... Women ... I saw in his blood as ZAOr:
 - I was wounded ...
The exploration with us was a paramedic, an elderly man. It is to me:
 - Where are wounded?
 - I do not know where ... But the blood ...
To me he is the father, all told ... I went to explore after the war for fifteen years. every night. And dreams are as follows: I've got the machine refused, we are surrounded. Wake up - teeth grind. You remember - where are you? There or here? "



7. "I am leaving for the front materialist. Atheist. Good Soviet schoolgirl went that well taught. And there ... There, I began to pray ... I always prayed before a battle, read their prayers. ... My words are just words ... meaning one that I came back to my mom and dad. Real prayer, I did not know and did not read the Bible. No one saw me praying. I - secretly. Stealthily he prayed. Carefully. Because ... We were then the other, then the other people lived. You - you know? »
"Forms of us it was impossible to attack: it is always in the blood. My first wounded - Senior Lieutenant Belov, my last wounded - Sergey Trofimov, a mortar platoon sergeant. In the seventies, he came to visit me, and daughters, I showed his wounded head, upon which today a large scar. Total out of the fire, I made four hundred and eighty one wounded. Some of the journalists counted: a rifle battalion drag on itself ... men are two to three times heavier than us. A wounded them even harder. Dragging him and his weapons, and it has an overcoat, boots. Shoulder the eighty kilograms and dragging. Reset ... You go around the next, and again seventy to eighty kilograms ... And so five or six times in one attack. And you most forty-eight kilograms - the weight of a ballet. Who does not believe ... "



8. "I then became commander of the department. All branches of the young boys. We have a whole day on a boat. The boat is small, there are no latrines. The children of necessity can be across the board, that's all. Well, how do I? A couple of times before I doterpeli that jumped directly overboard and swim. They shout: "Sergeant overboard!" Pull out. That such an elementary detail ... But what is the change? Later I was treated ...
"I came back from the war gray. Twenty-one years, and I'm all fair-haired. I have been badly wounded, concussion, I could not hear in one ear. My mother met me with the words: "I believe that you would come. I'm praying for you day and night. " My brother was killed at the front. She cried: "Equally Now - give birth girls or boys".



9. "And I will say more ... The worst thing for me in the war - wearing underpants. That was scary. And that to me somehow ... I do not ... Well, to put it in the first place, it is very ugly ... You're in a war, going to die for their country, and you men's briefs. In general, you look ridiculous. It is absurd. Men wore long pants then. Wide. Sewn from satin. Ten girls in our dugout, and all of them in men's underwear. Oh my God! In winter and summer. Four years ... We crossed the Soviet border ... to seek, in the words of political studies at our Commissioner, the beast in its own lair. Near the first Polish village we dressed, given new uniforms and ... And! And! And! They brought the first time women's panties and bras. During the war for the first time. Ha-ah ... Well, okay ... We saw the normal lingerie ... Why do not you laugh? Cry ... Well, why? »
"In eighteen years of Kursk I was awarded the medal" For Military Merit "and the Order of the Red Star, nineteen - Order of the Patriotic War of the second degree. When arriving a new addition, the guys were all young, of course, they were astonished. They, too, eighteen or nineteen years old, and they ridicule asked: "And what did you get your medals?" Or "Was there you are in a fight?" The bailiff with jokes: "A bullet pierced the armor of the tank?" One of the, I later bandaging the battlefield under fire, I remember the name of it - Dapper. He had killed off the leg. I told him the bus impose, and he asks me for forgiveness: "Sister, I'm sorry I hurt you then ..."



10.
"Disguise. Sit. We are waiting for the night to still make an attempt to break through. And Lieutenant Michael T. commander was wounded, and he served as battalion commander, he was twenty years old, he recalled how he loved to dance, play the guitar. Then he asks:
 - Have you ever tried?
 - What? What I tried? - Is there like scared.
 - Not what, but someone ... Baba!
Before the war these cakes were. With such a name.
 - No-oo ...
 - I, too, have not tried. That's going to die and did not know what love is ... kill us at night ...
 - Fuck you, you fool! - Before I realized what he was.
We die for life, not knowing what life is. About everything else just read books. I loved the movie about love ... "



11. "It is overshadowed by a fragment mine lover. Shards of flying - it is a fraction of a second ... How she had? She saved Lieutenant Petya Boychevskogo, she loved him. And he stayed. Thirty years later Peter Boychevsky arrived from Krasnodar, and found me on the front of our meeting, and told me all this. We went with him to Borisov and tracked down the clearing where Tonya was killed. He picked up the earth from her grave ... Nes and kissing ... It was us five Konakovsky girls ... And the one I returned to my mother ... »
"It was organized separate detachments dymomaskirovki, commanded by a former battalion commander of torpedo boats Lieutenant Commander Alexander Bogdanov. Girls, mostly with college education or after the first course of the institute. Our task - to save the ship, cover them with smoke. Starts shelling, the sailors are waiting: "Hurry girls smoke hung. With him calmer. " Merge onto machines with a special mixture, and all this time hiding in a bomb shelter. We are, as they say, caused the fire itself. The Germans beat because of this smoke screen ... "



12. "... The fight bandages tanker is crashing. He asks: "Girl, what's your name?" Even some compliment. I was so weird to say this din, the terror his name - Olga ».
"And here I am commander of the gun. And then me - thousand three hundred fifty seven antiaircraft regiment. At first, from the nose and ears was bleeding, indigestion comes complete ... My throat was dry to vomit ... the night is not so terrible, and the afternoon is very scary. It seems that the aircraft is flying straight at you, it is on your instrument. On your rams! It's a moment ... Now it all, all of you will turn into anything. All - the end! "



13. "And while I found I strongly frostbitten feet. I probably threw the snow, but I was breathing, and formed a hole in the snow ... This tube ... Got my dog ​​health. Rupture of snow and my hat with earflaps brought. There I had the passport of death, everyone had such a passport: any family, where to report. I dug up, put on a cape, was a full coat of blood ... But no one paid any attention to my feet ... Six months I was in the hospital. They wanted to amputate the leg amputated above the knee because gangrene. And I've been a little lost heart, did not want to live to be a cripple. Why should I live? Who do I need? Neither father nor mother. A burden in life. Well, who needs me, stump! Strangled ... »
"There's also got a tank. We were both older driver, and the tank should be only one driver. Command decided to appoint me as a tank commander "-122", and her husband - a senior driver. And so we came to Germany. Both were wounded. We have awards. There were many girls tankistok on medium tanks, but at a heavy - I'm alone ".



14. "We were told to put all the military, and I meter fifty. I got into the pants and the girls they tied me to the top ».
"As long as he hears ... Until the last moment to tell him that no, is it possible to die. Kiss him, hug, what are you saying? He's already dead, his eyes to the ceiling, and I told him something else ... a calming whisper ... The names here are erased, gone from memory, and those were ... "
"We were taken prisoner nurse ... One day, when we recaptured the village, everywhere lay dead horses, motorcycles, armored personnel carriers. Found her eyes gouged out, her breasts cut off ... impaled ... Frost, and she is white and white and all gray hair. She was nineteen years old. In her backpack, we found letters from home and rubber green bird. Children's toys ... "



15.
"Under Sevsk Germans attacked us seven or eight times a day. And I still to this day carried the wounded with their weapons. Go to last crawled and his arm completely slaughtered. Hang out on pieces ... on ... in the veins of the whole krovische ... He needs to urgently cut off his hand to tie. no other way. And I do not have a knife or scissors. Bag-telepalas telepalas on his side, and they fell. what to do? And my teeth gnawing the flesh. Gnawed, bandaged ... Bandages and wounded, "Hurry, my sister. I have Povoa. " In the heat ... "
"I was afraid of the war, the legs are not crippled. I have beautiful legs. Men - what? He's not so bad, even if the legs lose. Anyway - the hero. Groom! A cripple a woman, it's her fate will be decided. Women's destiny ... "



16. "Men lay the fire at the bus stop, shake lice dried. And we are where? Run after some shelter there and undress. I had knitted sviterochek because lice were sitting on each millimeter, each eyelet. Look vomit. Lice are headaches, wardrobes, pubic ... I've had them all ... »



17. "Under the Makeyevka, in the Donbass, I was wounded, wounded in the thigh. Got here is a fragment of like stone, sits. Feel - the blood, I folded the individual package and there. And then I run, bandages. I am ashamed to tell anyone, hurt the girl, but where - in the buttock. In the ass ... At sixteen, it's embarrassing to tell someone. Uncomfortable admit. Well, as I was running, I bandaged until fainted from loss of blood. Full natekla boots ... »
"Came to the doctor, did a cardiogram, and people ask me:
 - Have you ever had a heart attack?
 - What is a heart attack?
 - Are you all heart scars.
And those scars can be seen from the war. You go over the target, you all shaking. The entire body is covered with a shudder, because the bottom of the fire: fire fighters, anti-aircraft guns shot down ... We flew mostly at night. For a while, we tried to send on missions during the day, but then abandoned the idea. Our "On 2" shoots a machine gun ... do up to twelve flights per night. I saw the famous pilot ace Pokryshkina when he flew out of the combat mission.













                           











Can you imagine?