War through the eyes of children. Composition
Faculty of Law
ABSTRACT
in the discipline "National History"
theme: "War through the eyes of children"
author: Parkhacheva Irina
study group 2, bachelor's degree in law
head: Snigirev S. F.
St. Petersburg, 2011.
Content:
page 2......................... ...................... ........ Content
page 3......................... ...................... ........Introduction
page 6…………………………………...Children in the rear
p.12-20 ............................... ............... Children in the partisan movement. Biographies.
p.12-Marat Kazei
p.13- Vasya Korobko
p.14- Valya Kotik
p.15- Nadya Bogdanova
page 17- Lenya Golikov
page 18-Zina Portnova
page 19- Arkady Kamanin
page 22......................... ................... .....Children in besieged Leningrad
p.26........................ ...................... ...... Children in concentration camps
page 31......................... ................... .....Letters from children.
p.35........................ ...................... ...... Conclusion
page 38........................ ................... ..... Bibliography
page 40........................ ................... ...... Applications (photos)
Introduction.
"Over the country road
Planes flew by...
The boy lies by the haystack,
Just like a yellow-throated chick.
The baby on the wings didn't have time
See the spider crosses.
They gave a turn and took off
Enemy pilots behind the clouds..."
D. Kedrin.
On that distant summer day, June 22, 1941, people were doing their usual business. Schoolchildren were preparing for their prom. Girls built huts and played “mothers and daughters”, restless boys rode on wooden horses, imagining themselves as Red Army soldiers. And no one suspected that pleasant chores, lively games, and many lives would be destroyed by one terrible word - war. An entire generation born between 1928 and 1945 had their childhood stolen from them. “Children of the Great Patriotic War” is what today’s 65-85 year old people are called. And it's not just about the date of birth. They were raised by war.
Time does not stand still. The events of the Great Patriotic War have gone down in history; modern schoolchildren study it in textbooks. 2012 marks the 67th anniversary of its completion. Over the years, several generations of people have grown up who have not heard the thunder of guns and bomb explosions on the territory of our Motherland. But the war has not been erased from people’s memories and those terrible days cannot be forgotten. Because war is the fate of everyone who endured 4 years of terrible battles, four years of waiting and hope, who showed amazing, unparalleled courage.
Then everyone endured suffering and hardship - both old and young, soldiers and their families. But children suffered especially. They suffered from hunger and cold, from the inability to return to childhood, which was so suddenly interrupted, from the hell of bombing and the terrible silence of orphanhood... It is impossible to calmly watch footage of war chronicles, because the boys and girls bore all the hardships of the war on their fragile shoulders, stood their ground, gave their life for victory.
How did the children of war live then? I wanted to know more and get a complete impression about the children of the war era.
I set myself the task of finding out what the role of children was during the war, what their contribution to the victory was. Also get acquainted with the biographies and stories of individual children of that time who showed special courage, despite their young age. I focused on this topic also because I am studying at a pedagogical university, and I also have to touch on the topic of training during the war.
To do this, I identified ways to achieve this goal:
? working with books on the history of the Great Patriotic War
? working with Internet resources
? working with original books about people of that time
? familiarization with the messages of the Sovinformburo, to restore the situation of those days
? working with documentary sources (photos, records from archives)
This topic seems to me to be very relevant at the present time, since the modern generation should pay more attention to this topic, because these are relatively recent pages of our history and eyewitnesses of that time are still alive, although, unfortunately, we are probably the last generation that saw the veterans. In the future, history can only be studied from books, and not from the stories of people of that time.
Children in the rear.
From a morning message from the Sovinformburo: “The youth of one of the factories pledged to produce vehicles beyond the plan for Red Army Day. Teams of assemblers, led by comrade. Vinokurov and Ninua, worked without regard for time. The youth fulfilled their obligation ahead of schedule. Now the third combat vehicle is being assembled beyond the plan.” February 21, 1942
According to statistics, in 1941-1942 the number of children and teenagers in defense enterprises increased. If in 1940 the share of youth in them was approximately 5%, then in 1942 it was 17%, and in the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry it was 25-48.4%. From the first days of the war, many of them became organizers of the patriotic movement. To work for yourself and for a comrade who went to the front - to fulfill two or even three norms in wartime.
On June 27, 1941, the Pravda newspaper says that about 2 thousand Moscow schoolchildren arrived at enterprises to replace those who had gone to the front. At the beginning of July, more than 1.5 thousand schoolchildren of the city of Tomsk stood at their machines instead of workers who went to the active army. The “Youth to Production!” movement has gained popularity in our country. It was especially popular among high school students. At the end of 1941, the children of Gorky, without leaving school, decided to help light industry enterprises in the fastest possible execution of orders from the front. After classes, they diligently did work in the sewing shops, helped shoe factory workers, took home orders and made cutlery, warm clothes, balaclavas, and participated in sewing military uniforms for soldiers.
One cannot ignore the story of Nurull Bazetov, a steelmaker from a plant in Verkh-Isetsk.
“It was at the end of 1941,” says Nurulla. - The plant received an urgent task. All the masters were involved in its implementation. I received the task too. Having weighed my possibilities, I realized that I could not fulfill it - there were no people. Then I turned to the head of the workshop: “Either give us people, or cancel the task.” The head of the workshop glanced sideways and said: “Here’s a new addition for you, train them and get to work,” and pointed to the group of guys. In front of me stood boys - schoolchildren evacuated from Smolensk and Kursk. I got a chill down my spine: the children and the open-hearth furnace. This have not happened before. But what could be done: three of the best metallurgists went to the front, and there was no one to replace them, so I took 12 boys. I had to teach them, show them everything down to the smallest detail. At first they did all the work they could on a tray, and then gradually they were taught to look into the oven. Many had to substitute
Burettes, boxes so that they can reach the stove damper. The head of the workshop often came to see the replenishment, and one day, looking at how they were reaching for these stools to the dampers, he said: “You, Bazetov, look, you need to cook steel, but you also need to take care of the guys, make sure they don’t burn when the damper opens. ”
In 1942, more than 3 thousand young workers without the slightest work experience joined the Hammer and Sickle plant. About 100 people are from yesterday's schoolchildren. But despite their young age, they easily mastered the work of a steelmaker, exceeded their plans, and very soon the youth workshop became known throughout the country. Over the course of 5 months, the workshop received the Red Banner of the State Defense Committee.
At the initial stage of the war, about three thousand graduates of vocational schools entered the metallurgical plant in Magnitogorsk. The age of the guys was approximately 16-18 years, but from the very first days they began to independently service the units, they carried out work at blast furnaces, they worked on an equal basis with adult workers, participated in competitions according to plans, and showed an example of the heroism of workers. During the three years of the war, they smelted 1 million tons of steel, 580 thousand tons of cast iron, and produced 571 thousand tons of rolled products. Only in the metallurgical plant of Kuznetsk, where the bulk of the workers were children under 18 years old, during the years of this war a huge amount of steel was produced to produce 100 million shells and tank steel for 52 thousand heavy tanks.
According to eyewitnesses, in those harsh days one could see a lot of Moscow schoolchildren in factories. Wearing gray quilted trousers, padded jackets, and large, oversized boots with thick soles, they stood behind the machines, some of them very small on special stands.
More than 150 schoolchildren came to the automobile plant in the city of Gorkov in the first days of the war. V. Savoskin, a schoolboy who had the opportunity to work there, says: “My father was one of the first to go to the front. That same day I went to the HR department and asked to be hired instead of my father. They didn’t refuse me, although I was only 15 years old, and I was sent to a mechanical assembly shop as an apprentice grinder. Soon the workshop became a youth workshop. Former schoolchildren Dusya Meshkova, Nikolai Aleshin, Ivan Ermakov, Alexander Kryukov, Nikolai Aleshin, Ivan Demin worked there. We created our own brigade with them. They made barrels for mortars. The task was important, but we managed to cope with it.”
V. Savoskin's brigade coped with the tasks assigned to them in an exemplary manner and in 1942, for the best implementation of plans, was awarded the challenge Red Banner of the Komsomol Committee, then, in 1943, the banner was left to it forever. It is important to note that the brigade was also given the right to control itself. The quality control department did not check the products of this team - they were always of the highest quality. This and much more emphasizes the heroic spirit of people and the desire to help their Motherland.
On May 29, 1942, the Komsomol Central Committee called on all students of the USSR to work for the good of the front, along with their fathers, mothers, and older brothers and sisters. And the schoolchildren, in response, showed participation and interest in all patriotic movements in which Komsomol members and youth were involved. There are also specific examples: one cannot ignore the feat of Misha Klyuchin, a 15-year-old schoolboy. Instead of school in 1941, he went to the factory and asked to be hired at the machine, although the director of the factory could not believe that the boy could handle it, but he was hired as an ordinary worker. Under the guidance of a master, he quickly mastered the profession no worse than adults. Persistence and perseverance helped Dmitry gradually maintain two, and then three machines, and then he was entrusted with the Komsomol youth brigade. Having become a foreman, he set a goal to improve the organization of work at the plant. And he succeeded in doing this. By streamlining the delivery of tools to the machines, improving the transfer of machines from the working position to idle and back, as a result, the processing time of parts was reduced by 3 times. The work of the brigade was organized completely differently. She began to complete daily tasks at 260-270%.
Production workshops operated in many schools in our large country; they produced various products, which were then supplied to defense enterprises. For example, in the capital of our Motherland, more than 16 thousand schoolchildren worked in 347 such workshops. In less than a year, they independently produced products worth more than forty million rubles. In educational institutions, the repair of greatcoats and jackets was established, small carpenters made stocks, butts for rifles and machine guns, ski poles, mechanics and turners - parts for mines and other things needed by factories.
I would like to say a few words about the Pioneers - Heroes of Socialist Labor: Tursunali Matkazilov’s pioneer squad was given the task of growing the cotton crop. However, frost struck and all the cotton was in danger of dying. Pioneer Matkazilov organized a round-the-clock vigil: he and his comrades made paper caps to cover the cotton bushes and burned fires next to the crops. Thanks to the actions of the pioneers, most of the harvest was saved.
Despite everything during the war, schools continued to operate and educate children. And whatever the conditions, especially in cities close to the front, often in bomb shelters, in basements, in most rooms without heat or electricity, schoolchildren continued to study with kerosene lamps. According to the stories of my great-grandfather, they did not have notebooks and they wrote between the lines in newspapers. When classes were disrupted by bombing, the children continued to prepare on their own at home. Achievement according to the data was high, children were eager to gain knowledge. During the holidays, children participated in the renovation of schools. Work was also carried out in school plots, under the strict guidance of biologist teachers, and potatoes and other crops were grown. In a number of schools around the country, sugar beets were grown, which had never grown there before; In schools in the city of Tula, schoolchildren developed more than 60 new varieties of cherries, apples and pears.
Thanks to the selfless work of children and teenagers, a huge contribution to victory was made. Every child who, due to the hardships of war, did not see childhood is already a hero. Next, I decided to collect some information about the children who were partisans.
Children in the partisan movement. Biographies.
Marat Kazei
War struck the Belarusian land. The Nazis burst into the village where Marat lived with his mother, Anna Alexandrovna Kazeya. In the fall, Marat no longer had to go to school in the fifth grade. The Nazis turned the school building into their barracks. The enemy was fierce.
Anna Aleksandrovna Kazei was captured for her connection with the partisans, and Marat soon learned that his mother had been hanged in Minsk. The boy's heart was filled with anger and hatred for the enemy. Together with his sister, Komsomol member Ada, the pioneer Marat Kazei went to join the partisans in the Stankovsky forest. He became a scout at the headquarters of a partisan brigade. He penetrated enemy garrisons and delivered valuable information to the command. Using this data, the partisans developed a daring operation and defeated the fascist garrison in the city of Dzerzhinsk...
Marat took part in battles and invariably showed courage and fearlessness; together with experienced demolitionists, he mined the railway.
Marat died in battle. He fought to the last bullet, and when he had only one grenade left, he let his enemies get closer and blew them up... and himself.
For his courage and bravery, pioneer Marat Kazei was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A monument to the young hero was erected in the city of Minsk.
Vasya Korobko.
Chernihiv region. The front came close to the village of Pogoreltsy. On the outskirts, covering the withdrawal of our units, a company held the defense. A boy brought cartridges to the soldiers. His name was Vasya Korobko.
The outskirts of the village. Under the bridge - Vasya. He pulls out iron staples, saws down the piles, and at dawn, from a hiding place, watches the bridge collapse under the weight of a fascist armored personnel carrier. The partisans were convinced that Vasya could be trusted, and entrusted him with a serious task: to become a scout in the enemy’s lair. At the fascist headquarters, he lights the stoves, chops wood, and he takes a closer look, remembers, and passes on information to the partisans. The punishers, who planned to exterminate the partisans, forced the boy to lead them into the forest. But Vasya led the Nazis to a police ambush. The Nazis, mistaking them for partisans in the dark, opened furious fire, killed all the policemen and themselves suffered heavy losses. Together with the partisans, Vasya destroyed nine echelons, hundreds of Nazis. In one of the battles he was hit by an enemy bullet. The Motherland awarded its little hero, who lived a short but such a bright life, the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” 1st degree.
Valya Kotik.
He was born on February 11, 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district, Khmelnitsky region. He studied at school No. 4 in the city of Shepetovka, and was a recognized leader of the pioneers, his peers.
When the Nazis burst into Shepetivka, Valya Kotik and his friends decided to fight the enemy. The guys collected weapons at the battle site, which the partisans then transported to the detachment on a cart of hay.
Having taken a closer look at the boy, the communists entrusted Valya with being a liaison and intelligence officer in their underground organization. He learned the location of enemy posts and the order of changing the guard.
The Nazis planned a punitive operation against the partisans, and Valya, having tracked down the Nazi officer who led the punitive forces, killed him...
When arrests began in the city, Valya, along with his mother and brother Victor, went to join the partisans. The pioneer, who had just turned fourteen years old, fought shoulder to shoulder with adults, liberating his native land. He is responsible for six enemy trains blown up on the way to the front. Valya Kotik was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” 2nd degree.
Valya Kotik died as a hero, and the Motherland posthumously awarded him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A monument to him was erected in front of the school where this brave pioneer studied.
Nadya Bogdanova.
She was executed twice by the Nazis, and for many years her military friends considered Nadya dead. They even erected a monument to her.
It’s hard to believe, but when she became a scout in the partisan detachment of “Uncle Vanya” Dyachkov, she was not yet ten years old. Small, thin, she, pretending to be a beggar, wandered among the Nazis, noticing everything, remembering everything, and brought the most valuable information to the detachment. And then, together with partisan fighters, she blew up the fascist headquarters, derailed a train with military equipment, and mined objects.
The first time she was captured was when, together with Vanya Zvontsov, she hung out a red flag in enemy-occupied Vitebsk on November 7, 1941. They beat her with ramrods, tortured her, and when they brought her to the ditch to shoot her, she no longer had any strength left - she fell into the ditch, momentarily outstripping the bullet. Vanya died, and the partisans found Nadya alive in a ditch...
The second time she was captured at the end of 1943. And again torture: they poured ice water on her in the cold, burned a five-pointed star on her back. Considering the scout dead, the Nazis abandoned her when the partisans attacked Karasevo. Local residents came out paralyzed and almost blind. After the war in Odessa, Academician V.P. Filatov restored Nadya’s sight.
15 years later, she heard on the radio how the intelligence chief of the 6th detachment, Slesarenko - her commander - said that the soldiers would never forget their dead comrades, and named among them Nadya Bogdanova, who saved his life, a wounded man...
Only then did she show up, only then did the people who worked with her learn about what an amazing destiny of a person she, Nadya Bogdanova, was awarded with the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and medals.
Lenya Golikov.
Golikov Leonid Aleksandrovich is a young partisan reconnaissance officer of the 67th partisan detachment of the 4th Leningrad Partisan Brigade, operating in the territory of the temporarily occupied Novgorod and Pskov regions.
Born on June 17, 1926 in the village of Lukino, now Parfinsky district, Novgorod region, in a working-class family.
The young partisan repeatedly penetrated fascist garrisons, collecting information about the enemy. With his direct participation, 2 railway and 12 highway bridges were blown up, 2 food and feed warehouses and 10 vehicles with ammunition were burned. He especially distinguished himself during the defeat of enemy garrisons in the villages of Aprosovo, Sosnitsy, and Sever. Accompanied a convoy with food in 250 carts to besieged Leningrad.
On August 13, 1942, a group of intelligence officers, which included Lenya Golikov, in the area of the village of Varnitsa, Strugokrasnensky district, Pskov region, made an attempt on the life of the fascist Major General of the Engineering Troops Richard Wirtz and seized valuable documents, including a description of new types of German mines, inspection reports to higher command and other intelligence data.
On January 24, 1943, a 16-year-old partisan died a heroic death in battle near the village of Ostraya Luka, Dedovichi district, Pskov region. He was buried in his homeland - in Lukino in a village cemetery, where a majestic monument was erected on his grave.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated April 2, 1944, for the exemplary fulfillment of command assignments and the courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders, Leonid Aleksandrovich Golikov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner and the medal "For Courage".
Monuments to the hero were erected in Veliky Novgorod in front of the city administration building and in the park near the Volkhov Hotel, as well as in Moscow on the territory of the All-Russian Exhibition Center (formerly VDNH). Streets in Veliky Novgorod and St. Petersburg are named after Lenya Golikov.
Zina Portnova
The war found the Leningrad pioneer Zina Portnova in the village of Zuya, where she came for vacation, not far from the Obol station in the Vitebsk region. An underground Komsomol-youth organization “Young Avengers” was created in Obol, and Zina was elected a member of its committee. She participated in daring operations against the enemy, in sabotage, distributed leaflets, and conducted reconnaissance on instructions from a partisan detachment. ...It was December 1943. Zina was returning from a mission. In the village of Mostishche she was betrayed by a traitor. The Nazis captured the young partisan and tortured her. The answer to the enemy was Zina’s silence, her contempt and hatred, her determination to fight to the end. During one of the interrogations, choosing the moment, Zina grabbed a pistol from the table and shot point-blank at the Gestapo man.
The officer who ran in to hear the shot was also killed on the spot. Zina tried to escape, but the Nazis overtook her... The brave young pioneer was brutally tortured, but until the last minute she remained persistent, courageous, and unbending. And the Motherland posthumously celebrated her feat with its highest title - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Arkady Kamanin.
Arkady Kamanin became a combat pilot at the age of 14. The surprise of the adults knew no bounds when a boy was sent to their attack aviation corps as a mechanic for special equipment. The picky examiners were convinced of the good training of the mechanic, who had previously worked at the airfield during the summer holidays for two years. Arkady's father was a general, but his son did not give the impression of a "general's son." While servicing airplanes, he learned a lot, but his cherished goal was to fly. He repeatedly flew as a passenger on a mail plane, and then as a flight mechanic and navigator-observer on a PO-2 communications plane, and the pilots trusted him to control the plane as it gained altitude and perform simple maneuvers in horizontal flight.
But one day the unexpected happened. The Junkers, fleeing from our fighters, fired back furiously, and a stray bullet wounded the pilot of the PO-2 aircraft, who accidentally found himself in the battle zone, in the face with fragments of the windshield. Arkady was also on the same plane. It was to him that the pilot handed over control of the plane, managing to switch the radio to him. When approaching the airfield, the squadron commander himself flew out to meet PO-2. He began instructing Arkady in the air. The boy landed the plane successfully. - The road to heaven has opened for him. Two months later, Arkady became a pilot. He began to independently carry out communication tasks. From corps headquarters he flew to division headquarters, to air regiment command posts, and carried out a variety of tasks.
One day, flying along the front line, Arkady saw an Il-2 attack aircraft, which was smoking in no man's land. Seeing that no one was emerging from the plane, Arkady went to land. With difficulty, he pulled out of a burning plane a pilot wounded in the head by shrapnel, who asked him to remove the camera from the plane and inform the unit that the task had been completed (it was a reconnaissance plane that was supposed to deliver the latest information about the enemy’s defense on the eve of our planned major offensive) .
Arkady, under enemy fire, carried a camera into his plane, and then returned for the wounded pilot. Several attempts to get him onto the plane were unsuccessful. When he finally succeeded, he lost consciousness. Valuable intelligence data was delivered to General Baidukov. And there are many such dramatic episodes in Arkady’s combat life. He ended the war at the age of 16 as a holder of three military orders. In 1947, Arkady Kamanin's life suddenly ended. This could be considered an accident if one did not take into account the tragic consequences of the war for its young participants. Combat operations require incredible, extreme efforts from every warrior, which not every adult can withstand. Children "strained" their health during the war. No one has studied this tragic page of the war.
Children in Siege Leningrad.
The siege of Leningrad lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944 (the blockade ring was broken on January 18, 1943) - 872 days. And all these days there were children in the city. They, together with adults, experienced the tragedy of this city. It was undoubtedly more difficult for children than for adults; they did not fully understand the essence of what was happening. Why was it necessary to run to a bomb shelter at the sound of a siren? Why does mom cry all the time? And why is there almost no food? But the children understood that great trouble had come to their country, to their city and to their home. But the City lived, fought against the invaders with all its might, and children and teenagers took part in this to the best of their ability. They came to military factories to work on machines, grew various crops in the fields of state farms, and helped care for the wounded in partisan detachments. More than five thousand Leningrad teenagers were awarded medals for the defense of Leningrad for their courage and heroism during the days of the siege.
On November 21, the “Road of Life” began to operate - at first it was a horse-drawn train, but soon cars also began to travel. Finally, Leningrad began to receive bread and minor food supplies. But we had to wait a lot of time until the portions of bread became larger, not 125 grams, but at least 300. Naturally, the food trains could not replenish all the supplies of food and other things necessary for life in the city. Leningrad took care of the children who were at that time inside the ring. There were about four hundred thousand of them. The trains brought some modest gifts and sometimes sweets for the children. Caring for children became a characteristic feature of people of that time.
For the older generation, this was a strong motivation. They understood that if they could not defend the city, they would not be able to save the children. At the same time, they tried to get children and mothers out of the city, but alas, it would not have been possible to get everyone out, so only those who were in the most difficult situation were taken onto the trains. Approximately twenty thousand soldiers served the Road of Life. The heroism of these people is one of the beautiful pages in our history. Without these people the city would hardly have survived. Each of these people was a hero.
Spring 1942. Hundreds and thousands of children and teenagers come to the workshops of enterprises that had closed down by that time to provide all possible assistance to the city. At the age of 13-16, they, without fear of difficulties, boldly stood at the machines and fired shells and other weapons so necessary for the front. As I said earlier, special stands were made for their convenience, since the height of children is not comparable to the growth of adult workers. Eyewitnesses of that time recall that there were signs above the children’s workplaces, handwritten by them: “I won’t leave until I fulfill the quota.”
Everyone knows the life story of Tanya Savicheva, and I would not want to bypass this page in the history of besieged Leningrad. This notebook consists of nine pages. Each of them shows the death of loved ones. “On December 28, 1941, Zhenya died. Grandmother died on January 25, 1942, Uncle Vasya died on April 13, mother on May 15.” And then it goes: “The Savichevs are dead. Everyone died. Tanya is the only one left." So much pain and suffering of this little girl is put into these lines. People of different ages and nationalities cannot hold back their tears when they see these lines written by a weak child's hand. Alas, Tanya’s fate was also very sad. She was taken out of the city, but the child’s immunity was so weak that she soon died from exhaustion and the suffering that befell her. The myth turned out to be unusually tenacious, which since the late 50s - early 60s has been repeated on the pages of various publications from year to year. It is a myth that Tanya Savicheva's diary was presented at the Nuremberg trials as an indictment document. A profound misconception, the basis of which is elementary ignorance of the fact that the materials of the Nuremberg trials contain a detailed list of documents presented to the court. The International Military Tribunal was held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. Having carefully looked through the collections of materials from the multi-volume publications "The Nuremberg Trials" - huge volumes of the publishing house "Legal Literature", you can get acquainted with all the documents proving the crimes of the Nazis, with the interrogations of witnesses and their testimony, with the materials of the prosecution and make sure that Tanya Savicheva's diary was not present at the trial .
No matter how much we would like it, it is so. Otherwise, this notebook would have remained in the city of Nuremberg, in the documents of the tribunal, and not been exhibited at the Museum of the Defense of Leningrad from 1944 until its transfer to the Museum of the History of the City in 1953. Although this does not at all detract from its significance. The lines written by the exhausted hand of a child during the painful days of the siege truly became a document of tremendous power, each page of which is an accusation of fascism for inhumane crimes.
And the story of the Savichev family is typical of the blockade. Every Leningrad family was affected by this; the war spared no one.
One of the main achievements was that schools did not stop operating. Thirty-nine schools remained open even on the coldest days of winter. School canteens tried to provide children with food. From the report of school 251, Oktyabrsky district: “55 out of 220 students continue classes because insufficient nutrition is taking its toll. The death rate for December was 11 boys, the rest are in bed and cannot attend school. Only girls study at school, but their health is deteriorating significantly.” But the educational process went on despite the difficulties. This and much more is the enormous feat of the residents of Leningrad during the days of the siege.
Children in concentration camps.
Eyewitnesses recall...
During its aggressive campaigns, the Nazi Wehrmacht did not even spare children. And the number of children exterminated or died in concentration camps will never be established. All that was left of them were mountains of small shoes and toys.
The first children entered the camp in 1939. These were Roma children who, together with their mothers, arrived by transport from the Austrian state of Burgenland, among them two- and three-year-olds. Jewish mothers were also thrown into the camp with their children. After the outbreak of the Second World War, mothers and children arrived from countries subject to fascist occupation - first from Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia, then from Holland, Belgium, France and Yugoslavia. Often the mother died and the child was left alone. To get rid of children deprived of their mothers, they were sent by transport to Bernburg or Auschwitz. There they were destroyed in gas chambers...
On June 10, 1942, SS gangs razed the village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia. The men were shot, most of the children were sent to “orphanages”, where they were exterminated. About two hundred women, girls and small children - four generations - arrived in Ravensbrück at the beginning of July. The oldest woman, the great-grandmother, was ninety-two years old.
For the camp authorities, children were unnecessary ballast. There were special instructions about them. None of them dared to leave the block; they could only appear on Lagerstraße accompanied by block or shtubov soldiers. The camp authorities believed that the children had enough fresh air while they stood at the morning and evening appels. They were not allowed to have toys and had to sit quietly in a corner in the day room. It was forbidden to teach children anything. If the matron saw a crying child, she would beat him and lock him in a dark closet for several hours. If the mother was present, the matron would beat her too, shouting rudely: “Better watch your bastard!”
Children were forbidden to cry, and they forgot how to laugh. There were no clothes or shoes for the children. The prisoners' clothes were too big for them, but they were not allowed to alter them. The children looked especially pitiful in these clothes. They constantly lost huge wooden shoes that were too large for their size, which also resulted in punishment.
If orphaned
etc.................
Composition
War is a terrible and frightening word. This is the most difficult test for the entire people. Children are the most defenseless and vulnerable at this time. Their childhood is irretrievably gone, replaced by pain, suffering, loss of family and friends, and deprivation. The war squeezes fragile children's souls with a steel vice, wounding and crippling them.
The past wars erased many children's destinies from their lives. But these children could grow into brave, noble people, so necessary for their homeland.
“We come from war,” say those whose childhood was during the difficult war years, when it was easier to die than to survive.
The civil war that began in our country after the October Revolution gave rise to such severe phenomena as child homelessness, poverty and hunger. The men went to the front, devastation and disorder reigned in the country, enterprises and schools did not work. Most of the children turned into hungry, left to their own devices, ragamuffins. And many of them became orphans, whose fate no one was interested in. They saw the stern face of war, looked into its cold, merciless eyes.
A. Pristavkin’s book “The Golden Cloud Spent the Night” tells truthfully and reliably about the lives of children during the Great Patriotic War. Reading this story is very difficult, tears well up in my eyes. She introduces us to many children's destinies, twisted by war, orphanhood, poverty and need.
An orphanage from the Moscow region is being evacuated to the Caucasus, away from war and famine. Little orphans will face trials that even an adult probably wouldn’t be able to endure.
All children live with one most cherished dream: to eat. “A small ration of bread, even with an addition pinned to it with a sliver, did not relieve hunger. He was getting stronger." “Oh, how I want to eat... You can even gnaw on the door! At least eat the frozen ground under the threshold!” - this is what the main character of the story, Sashka Kuzmenysh, one of the twin brothers, says out loud. Eleven-year-old twins, in order to survive and not die of hunger, learned to be cunning, deceive, and steal.
There is nothing joyful in the life of the orphanage residents; unhappy and hungry, they wander around the outskirts of Gudermes, where they were brought in search of a well-fed life.
In the end, the Chechens who took refuge in the mountains attack the orphanage. One of the twin brothers, Sashka, dies, brutally killed by the Chechens. Kolka sees with his own eyes how his brother died. This almost made him lose his mind. When Kolka carries his dead brother on a cart, and then takes him away from “this damned Caucasus” in an iron box under the carriage, then Sashka is still alive for him, his childish mind cannot come to terms with such a monstrous loss. I want to shout: “Why and for what reason has the war prepared such inhumane trials for these innocent children?”
There are many more sad examples of the plight of children in wartime. One cannot help but recall the children's concentration camps set up by the Nazis. In them, little captives were subjected to inhuman torture, “Nazi doctors” performed monstrous experiments on them, and children died a painful death. It is difficult to calculate how many unfortunate little prisoners were tortured in such concentration camps throughout Europe.
Children who survived the war will never forget it. At night they still hear thunderous bomb explosions, frightened screams, and machine-gun fire.
Now some terrorist organizations are trying to start a religious war, carrying out armed actions against civilians. Often the most defenseless - children - die in them. Such an example was the seizure of a secondary school in Beslan, when more than three hundred people died. It was impossible to watch or listen to reports from a school seized by bandits without compassion; children were literally bullied. I would like to ask these terrorists: “Why did you condemn so many children to suffer, why did you shoot and kill them?” So we and our entire generation looked into the monstrous eyes of war.
Wars have taken many children’s lives, but in our memory these little people will forever remain young, cheerful and perky. Their romantic dreams of travel, flight, and discovery did not come true because their lives were cut short too early. Everything that they strived for, that they dreamed of in happy dreams, they left to us... We also dream of a good future, of big and small victories, but we firmly believe that these victories should only be peaceful. Let there never be wars on Earth again.
War is a brutal struggle between states, due to which millions of innocent lives are lost. More than seventy years have passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War. This war became the bloodiest in world history. It affected all segments of the population from poor to rich, from men to women and children. War is the most terrible thing that can happen to a country and people; it is truly scary and frightening. At this time, children are the most defenseless. Their psyche is being destroyed before our eyes.
An elderly woman lives next door to us; when the Great Patriotic War began, she was only nine years old. She told many stories about this war and absolutely every story touches the soul. Tears well up when she talks about the severe famine from which thousands of people died and about the shooting of people in the street.
This topic is also raised in the story “The Fate of a Man” by Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov.
We are told about the difficult fate of Andrei Sokolov - a driver who went to war, and upon returning learned that his entire family had died in a bombing and about a little boy who lost his parents. Having found the boy, Andrei takes him in and replaces him with his father. This story is based on real events. While walking in the park, Sholokhov met an elderly man who told him his story.
Many childhood dreams did not come true due to lives cut short. Thousands of children's lives were lost during this terrible war. I believe that it is important for us to remember those who died in the war and prevent the outbreak of a new war.
Updated: 2018-09-03
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State budgetary educational institution of the Samara region, basic secondary school No. 28
city of Syzran, urban district of Syzran, Samara region
(GBOU secondary school No. 28, Syzran)
Composition
"War through the eyes of children"
Completed by: Savin Kirill,
4th grade student
GBOU secondary school No. 28 in Syzran
Age - 10 years
Contact Information:
Syzran,
Kommunisticheskaya st., 18, apt. 9.
Tel. teacher 89277917282
Head of work:
Stavropoltseva Antonina Vladimirovna
Primary school teacher
Syzran, 2015
The generation of children of war are our grandparents, and for some even great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers. Although children of war did not have to fight themselves, they had a hard time during the Great Patriotic War. Their best childhood years occurred during times of grief and hardship. Modern children cannot even imagine what it was like to grow up during war. Destroyed houses and the sounds of gunfire - this is how those who grew up in Nazi-occupied territory remember their childhood. And those who lived in the rear remembered the air raid warning, letters and “funerals” from the front. Many children then lost their dads, and sometimes even their mothers and other loved ones in the war.
There are fewer and fewer veterans of that war every day and there is a threat of losing the historical memory of the most important and tragic event of our Motherland and the whole world in the 20th century - the Great Patriotic War. Not only veterans, but also those people who were children and teenagers at that time can preserve the historical memory of the feat of the Soviet people. The children of war have already become elderly.
The war will become a part of history only when the children of war, those whose age today is over 70 years old, pass away.
There are people in our school whose memories of those terrible days are still vivid. What helped them survive against all odds, not break, not become bitter, and become worthy people?
We met some in person, and some of their memories were recorded from the words of their relatives. We called these meetings “Barefoot Battalion"
Vakarchuk Mikhail Fedorovich “When the war started, I was 6 years old. My father was taken to the front and I was the only man left in the family. All the care for the younger ones and the household fell on me. There was a catastrophic shortage of food. Behind our village there was a cornfield. One day, my friends and I went to buy corn to get some food for our families. At that moment a policeman caught us to punish us. He took out a whip and started beating us. The policeman hoped that this would scare us away, and we would never appear on this field again. But we really wanted to eat and so we appeared there again and again.”
Mizonova Galina Borisovna
“When the war started, I was 3 years old. My father died in the first years of the war. Mom died of grief. I was sent to an orphanage. That's where I was brought up. We were fed well by those standards. Local residents supplied food from their gardens. We, kids, listened to the radio every day. The teachers took pity on us and gave us all their warmth and love. I remember the Victory Day holiday. Everyone shouted, rejoiced, sang songs. And I cried - because I knew that I was an orphan.”
Popkova Olga Sergeevna “When the war began, my family and I lived in Kuibyshev. Kuibyshev at that time was a reserve capital. My father was taken to the front. Mom worked as a doctor. To feed us, she exchanged alcohol for bread. The fear of hunger forced me to hide pieces of bread under my pillow so that I would have something to eat the next day. This bread, for us children, seemed sweeter than any sweets. In kindergarten, as adults, we learned the song “Get up, great country,” and not a day went by that we didn’t sing this song.”
Ivanov Gennady Antonovich : “I don’t have any impressions about the day itself, June 22, 1941. In a small village without radio or television, even very important information arrives late. In my memory, the first impressions of the war were the demands of the older guys to hide under the trees at the sound of an airplane engine. Our house, like most of the courtyards in the village, burned down in 1941, during the retreat of our troops. Before the fall of 1943, our children's amusements were not much different from those before the war, except that the toys were more often cartridges and shell casings. There were no special problems with food in the village, they weren’t luxurious, but they weren’t hungry either. In the fall of 1943, the Germans enumerated the entire population of the village according to separate lists: families with young children and old people and without them. That’s how I ended up in Latvia, in the city of Dobele, where our family began to work for the owner of a rich farm. At the age of 8 I became a shepherd: 13 cows and about 40 sheep.”
Tsytsareva Alexandra Mironovna “When the war started, I was 13 years old. The family was large. My father was taken to the front. I had no time to study at school. They put me on a tractor and began to train me, but only women and children remained in the village. Everything that was grown was sent to the front. We had to eat cabbage soup made from nettles, and even ate acorns. They ate potatoes with their skins on. I had to sleep little, sometimes I fell asleep right behind the wheel. There were cattle on the collective farm. So my friends and I went at night and cut down young bushes. This was fed to cows and calves. I grew up during the war, but I never had to study. My father came back from the war, all wounded and sick. I couldn't work. I had to go work in a mine as a motor operator. I had a difficult fate"
Let's be honest, today we know very little about the history of our country, and yet there are fewer and fewer witnesses to the events of the Great Patriotic War every year. The media systematically destroy our ability to think and empathize, loading our brains with unnecessary and empty information. We have forgotten how to feel and live from level to level in a new computer game. The virtual has obscured the real world, so it is necessary and important to preserve the memory of the Great Victory and treat those who know and remember these events first-hand with respect and care. Using the example of older generations, and respect for the past of our loved ones and our people, we can cultivate in ourselves the value of life, family, and respect for our neighbors. Every time has its own difficulties, its own troubles. Justifying today's immorality and immoral behavior of the younger generation, many say: “This is the time!” Communication with people of that time gave me the opportunity to understand and realize that it is not time that creates a person, but that he himself is the creator of his era
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