Speech at the Bundestag by Daniel. Daniel Granin's speech in the Bundestag

Daniel Granin's speech in the Bundestag (full version)

Daniel Granin's speech in the Bundestag

The Hour of Remembrance of the Victims of Nazism in the FRG Parliament this year was marked by the 70th anniversary of the lifting of the blockade of Leningrad. Well-known Russian writer Daniil Granin addressed the deputies.

Also read on the DW website:
"Daniil Granin in the Bundestag: the merciless truth about the blockade of Leningrad" - http://dw.de/p/1Ay3u

More DW videos on www.dw.de/russian or on the DW channel (in Russian) on YouTube.

And after 70 years we are not told the full truth. We do not see repentance and awareness of the obvious -
Hitler's rise to power and his rapid growth were a false and deceitful pan-European project for the sake of a direct military clash between Hitler and Stalin and Bolshevism. And this involved huge forces in most of Europe. There is still no repentance of the now United Europe for the fact that it raised and nurtured Hitler, Franco, Mussolini on our head. Everyone says beautiful and convenient politically correct things, without touching the foundations of the biggest historical mistake in Europe, the price for which everyone paid with tens of millions of lives, the destruction of ancient architectural Europe and the loss of millions of works of art. And Stalin, on the contrary, won, strengthened and moved on to the next cycle of the destruction of the Russian and Soviet people and the oppression of the peoples of the countries of Eastern Europe, Asia, China, etc.

The vile role of Finland and the Finnish army in 1941-1944 is hushed up - their participation in the war against Russia on the side of Nazi Germany, the large role of the Finnish army in the blockade of Leningrad, in organizing the occupation and plunder of the Leningrad region and Karelia, Finland's participation in the formation of the fascist regime in Estonia 1941-1944. They do not like to recall the role of the Finnish "volunteers", the Finnish army and police, and the SS troops in creating inhuman concentration camps in Estonia and in the Leningrad region, and in Karelia, starving and cruel conditions there and the death of people there. Nothing is said about the most energetic participation of Finland in the exsanguination of the Red Army, in the daily battles of the Finno-Finns against Russia during the Great Patriotic War in 1941-1944 during the blockade of Leningrad-St. Petersburg - all this is hushed up now even more than at the end Soviet power in the 1980s, and all this, as it were, for the sake of friendship with Finland. As a result, there, in Finland, the Finnish fascists allegedly have nothing to repent of, and the personal friend and ally of Hitler, the military leader of Finland, Marshal Karl Mannerheim, a war criminal of the Second World War, is no longer a war criminal.

And for 70 years since the day of the complete lifting of the Leningrad blockade, there was no repentance for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in besieged Leningrad due to the system of unfair, far from equal distribution of food aid received to Leningrad and arbitrariness in the besieged city by people for whom greed was the engine work during the blockade.

Stalin sent large food supplies to Leningrad, including British and American aid. How was it distributed during the war so that it did not reach everyone? Some had an excess, some had a deficiency. There was no repentance for this and no. This problem is hushed up and from this a false impression is created that the system of allocating resources for survival under communism was flawless and correct, which is a great historical lie. And for 70 years after the blockade we have not heard or learned the truth.

Leningrad - St. Petersburg is a city standing on the huge Neva River and the huge Ladoga Lake and the Gulf of Finland, and it was not cut off from them during the blockade. At least in the river, in the bay and on the lakes, all the time of the war, people were fishing, pike perch, smelt, roach, bream, smelt, capelin ... And someone got this high-quality protein food on the table, but not on the cards, for example. Even 70 years after the blockade, we are not told who had the opportunity to eat hearty fish soup from local fish during the blockade, and why most were fed black bread in half with bran, for example.

Nothing is said about the fact that hundreds of thousands of Leningraders who were evacuated to the mainland or who fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War were plundered and taken away from the rooms and apartments that they left and in which they were registered. Was gutted systematically, according to the list of collectors' addresses, for example, antiques in the houses of the former capital of the Russian Empire, and everything was confiscated and after the war, these values \u200b\u200bwere not returned to most people, but redistributed anew among themselves in order to better provide museums and personal enrichment of the party and executive committee elite, in including the top of the MGB and the NKVD in Leningrad and Moscow. About raids according to the list on the apartments of collectors together with representatives of the police and the authorities in order to take their collections during the blockade for the so-called "state storage" was written in plain text, for example, the legendary ascetic of the salvation of cultural monuments Anna Ivanovna Zelenova, director of the Pavlovsk Palace-Museum, in her foreword to a guide to the museum, published as a booklet even during the Soviet era.

People who tried to protest against the seizure of their property and rooms and apartments were driven to the authorities useless for the protesters; at best, they were systematically deceived, intimidated and often then arrested on far-fetched pretexts and sent to camps. Already from the camps, such Petersburgers and Leningraders wrote letters of complaint to Stalin, Beria - to Moscow about the lawlessness of the local party and economic power in Leningrad in relation to these very blockade and front-line soldiers.

For example, the police, the NKVD in besieged Leningrad arrested tens of thousands of people for incorrect conversations, on suspicion that they were spreading capitulation sentiments, panic, etc. They could immediately be arrested for a telephone in an apartment, for a camera, for a radio receiver - everything was forbidden to have, and when you found prohibited items with you, you were immediately arrested and you lost everything, and things, and a room or an apartment and freedom, and many - life.

They still do not talk about this, although such facts are known and they appear from the texts of archival reports and through exhibits at new exhibitions.

Therefore, Daniil Alexandrovich Granin - on the anniversary of the blockade - is still a simplified reality, sleek, sweetened in the interests of power, convenient for Putin and Merkel, and the Kremlin, and official Germany, and the European Union. Granin's speech in the Bundestag is a politically correct toast to the anniversary.

And true history, literature and journalism are not a toastmaster or a convenient figure, or a figure of speech. Convenient, as the former secretary of the Leningrad branch of the Writers 'Union Daniil Alexandrovich Granin is convenient for Putin - and was he not a secretary of the party organization of the Leningrad branch of the Writers' Union at that time, in the 1960s, is this not so carefully hidden today ?, Daniil Granin was a member of the CPSU (b) - the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1942 - through Granin then the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU and carried out its decisions, directives and directives in literature, for example, during the persecution and trial of the poet Joseph Brodsky.

The truth is still buried. And we are offered for the sake of reassurance and silence only Daniil Alexandrovich Granin, a stage-wisely built kind person, comfortable for any government in any government in all respects.

Alexander Bogdanov,
St. Petersburg.

Read, for example, an article by Mikhail Zolotonosov "ANOTHER GRANIN, OR A CASE WITH A LIBERAL".

Mikhail Zolotonosov "ANOTHER GRANIN, OR A CASE WITH A LIBERAL".

here is an excerpt from this article

Archive: # 22. May 28, 2010

ANOTHER GRANIN OR LIBERAL CASE

Two volumes of the memoir prose of Daniil Alexandrovich Granin were published one after the other in 2010 - first, "The Fads of My Memory: A Reflection Book" (M .; SPb .: Tsentrpoligraf, 2010), then “Everything was not quite like that” (M .: OLMA Media Group, 2010). In total, this is more than 1000 pages of printed text.

MEDIUM CO-VETIAN

One hundred and this 1000 pages of pro-ana-li-zi-ro-vat, taking into account, first of all, the fact that after death D.S. Li-ha-wah in 1999 Gra-ning I tried to get over it me-with something "mu-d-ro-go old-tsa" (right-yes, I got into such a close co-work-no-che-st -with vl-s-ty-mi, especially-ben-but after-pri-ho-da to vl-s-ti V.V. Way-ti-nathat it turned out that it’s okay-ha-ha-no-che-s-ki is not able to pre-do-do-s-mo-t-ren-si with this role si-s-te-ma- ti-th-c-c-kie pro-te-s-you - for example, in connection with the destruction of the pa-myat-nikov is-to-rii, ar- hi-tech-tu-ry and culture-tu-ry), secondly, in view of the fact that Gra-nin actively participates in literary cess-se since the end of the 1940s, in part-st-no-s-t, in stormy events in Leningrad pi-sa-tel or-ha-ni-za-tion in the first to-lo-vi-not of the 1960s. (in the wake of the de-la Brod-sko-go), and went the way, which in the Soviet period was pu-dark con-for- mi-s-ta, ma-s-ki-ro-vav-she-go-Xia under the av-to-ra of the problem-noy pro-zy, ha-rak-ter-ny-mi example-ra -mi co-that-swarm yav-la-et-sy sche-ma-tich-ny and deep-bo-co-vet-ro-man "I'm going to the thunder" (1962), and later - "Kar-ti-na" (1980). Not by chance B.I. Bur-sov He called Gra-ni-na "worse-shen-ny va-ri-an-tom Yuri Tri-fo-no-va."

For isku-th-no-i-n-th "from-te-pel-no-go" rass-ska-for "Ow-st-ven-noe opinion" (1956), you-yes -yu-shu-go-Xia for per-o-da sots-re-a-liz-ma, which-ry under-verg-Xia sharp criticism, Gra-nin you- looks very average so-vet-skim (what is deep-boo-and-even-in so-vet-skim) pi-sa-te-lem, reach-stig-shim honeycomb in the main according to ad-mi-ni-s-t-ra-tiv-no-ofi-tsi-oz-noy line. With-but-s-tel-ny-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-n-t-n-t-n-t-s-n-t N.V. Ti-mo-fe-e-wa-Re-sov-sko-go in the news "Zubr" (1987), under-nyav-shuyu not-about-bull-ny and problematic ma-te-ri-al, and beyond the early-no-rass-ska-za and this in-ve-s-ti - no-thing, poo-s-t.

For some reason, at the end of the Soviet-vet-sko per-ri-o-da Gra-nin - the native de-pu-tat of the USSR, a member of the bureau of Le-ning-grad-sko about-ko-ma of the CPSU and Geroy So-qi-a-li-s-ti-th-s-th work (decree of March 1, 1989). And words-but in the na-ka-za-nie of the 1990s from-me-che-ny two-mi-te-ra-round-ny-mi pro-va-la-mi: ro-ma -nom "Run-in to Russia" (1994) and "Ve-che-ra-mi with Peter Ve-li-kim" (2000), who had been used -kus-st-ven-ny success of the blah-go-da-rya Go-su-dar-st-ven-noy award in 2002 and the 300th anniversary of Pe-ter-bur-ga. At this time, the power-s-ti are already out-d-ry-yut Gra-ni-na, like a car-to-fel with Eka-ter-ri-not.

Not-see-t-rya for everything Granin in the Soviet period had a mustache-chi-chi-vy rep-po-ta-ti-li-be-ra-la, to-that- I start to work in the "out-of-the-box" time, and then I support it in the main not-teaching-with-t-it. Didn't come to the gathering, on which-rum was-key-cha-whether Efi-ma Et-kin-da, whoa-huh-oh, when-yes-key-cha-whether Alec-san-ra So-fake-ni-tsy-na... Don't-look-t-rya on "min-nus-pri-oom", these were-were-met-stup-ki (in the context of the general slave kor-no-s-ti), demanding dare-s-ti, and they could-but-lo inter-pre-ti-ro-vat like lism. So in-te-res-it is to read in detail "from the first person" about this whole unequal game with the Soviet Le-vi-a-fan-nom, tre-bo-vav-shim from pi-sa-te-lei, full-of-no-mindedness.

Me-mu-ar-naya pro-for Gra-ni-na so-one hundred-it from specific vos-in-mi-na-ny, but there are also just some separate capes , phrases. “It’s harder to stay with a man…” (Everything was. P. 259). Dey-st-vi-tel-but, to be ofi-tsi-al-but-recognized soviet pi-sa-te-lem and was-ta-vat-cha-lo-ve-com - almost not-possible, and Gran-nin is very aware of this, but in his ma-ne-re he does not write directly about herself, but only na-me-ka-et. Raz-we-w-le-nia on this topic - can-but-we-stay-with-lo-ve-in-t-ri so-vet-si-s-te-us, pass through the red thread through both books. For-ko-no-measure-but-ni-ka-yut and judgments about me-mu-ar-noy pro-ze, about her us-pe-he: “Everything is in ste-pe-no from-to-ve-no-s-t. Ras-smelt doo-shu, so much so that not to exaggerate, not to keep silent, to re-give your horror, your stupidity, your shame, nothing is lost ... ”(Everything was. p. 261).

NOT-WHO-CAN-BE RIGHT-DUE

For-running ahead, I will tell you what to write about yourself, "no-thing-not-uta-and-vaya", Gra-no-well did not succeed ... Yes, he didn’t put such a za-da-chu in front of himself - for some it’s a fan-ta-zia, but to others. He himself is-b-ra-zha-e his life entirely frag-men-tar-no and do-zi-ro-van-no. ...

Lyu-bo-trying-but-in-mi-na-nie about Kon-stan-ti-not Si-mo-no-ve: he came to Le-ning-grad for pre-me-ru pie- sy "Fourth" in the BDT. The year is 1961. With-gla-forces Gra-ni-na at the meeting-chu in re-s-to-ra-not Do-ma pi-sa-te-lei, was still Yuri Ger-man, some kind of family Si-mo-no-va ... Si-dyat, you-pi-va-yut. Suddenly, director Doma enters and says that a de-le-ha-tion has come from Leningrad State University and asks for him to speak with them. “There were three students-ki, tre-p-sh-cha-s-s-si-mo-no-va you-go-drink from them. Si-mon-nov for-mo-tal head-howl - for nothing. They almost cry, cry, cry<…> Tog-da Si-mon-nov in-se-r-ez-nel, shriveled-up and say-zal buk-val-but next-do-yu-shi - I don’t go out anymore , I don’t want any meetings, I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to tell the truth, I don’t want to. And so-and-so-speech, so-so-s-ka sound-cha-la in his go-lo-se<…>"(Everything was-lo. S. 415).

The same theme - “I don’t want to lie, but it’s not possible to tell the truth,” - is the main thing in rass-ska-ze about a meeting with Ko-si-gi-ny (Pr-chud-dy. S. 404-428). This is a very interesting and very interesting de-ta-la-mi text under the name "For-pret-naya head-va" (Gra-nin so-bi -ral ma-te-ri-a-ly for "Blo-cad-noy kni-gi" and up-beat-ay-di-en-tions), he pub-li-ko-val-sya and ra- her, and now for-ko-no-mer-but included in the book "When-chu-dy my pa-my-ti." For something-mu that-ma not-possible-but-right-dy - one of the most important in both books. And not just important, but also sick. And ka-sa-et-sya not only Ko-sy-gin and Si-mo-no-va, but also the very Gra-no-na.

SPI-SOK TA-BU

To understand the self-e-form of these me-mo-a-ditch, and through them, and the personality of me-mo-a-ri-s-ta, na-to pro ana-li-zi-ro-vat not only what is in the books, but also what is not in them, which the author kept silent about. Here I am following myself to Gra-ni-well, who writes: “The most important information will be given to us from that that we don’t have time for it ”(Everything was, p. 254).

For example, in both of their books, not once did not mention me-well Ve-ra Ka-zi-mi-ditch-na Ket-ling-skaya, sy-g-rav-shaya a special role when gra-ni-na is taken to So-yuz pi-sa-te-lei, do not mention-me-chickpee Joseph Brodsky, although on this topic, Gran-nin could co-communicate with me in-te-res-no. At least about how in 1960, after that, as Brodsky on "tour-no-re-po-etov" (House of Culture im. Gorko-go, 14 fe-v- ra-la 1960) read-tal sti-ho-tv-re-nie "Ev-rei treasure-bi-shche about-lo Le-ning-gra-da" (1958), arose scandal, Brod-skiy was discovered in na-tsi-o-na-liz-me (and for two years, he would have published public appearances -niya), and Granin (a member of the CPSU since 1942) as a pre-sessor of the commission for work with young people av-to-ra-mi on-get-chill party-tii-ny you-thief. I think that it was after this that Brodsky already called out Gra-no-for a persistent non-aversion, which is what happened in 1964 g.

Not ra-zu do not mention-me-well-then, for-example, is-that-ri-che-with-something pi-sa-tel-gathering 14-15 Jan-varya 1965, after ko-to-ro-go Gra-nin, one of the se-to-re-ta-rei rights-le-niya, became the second, and Doo-din - first. Nowhere is it said that since the 15th de-ka-b-rya 1967, Granin is already the first se-to-re-tar, ru-ko-vo-di-tel Le-nin -grad-sko-th department of the RSFSR joint venture (in 1971, under G.Ro-ma-no-ve, he was replaced O.She-s-tinskiy).

Own-st-ven-but-th-th-th-rya, the name of the second book-gi - "Everything was not so-so-so" - on-me-ka-et on this not-half- but-tu, na-my-ki on hidden from chi-ta-te-la ras-sy-pa-nas in two books,

I would like to thank the President, the chairman and all the leadership of the Bundestag, the deputies for the kind invitation to speak here today, on such a momentous day, at least for me. Today in St. Petersburg people go to the Piskarevskoye cemetery, this is one of such symbolic cemeteries of the city. They go in order to remember and pay tribute to all those who died during the years of the blockade. They put rusks, sweets, cookies on the grave hills to express love and memory for those people for whom it was a tragic and cruel story.

All communications of the city, a huge metropolis, were cut off from the mainland, and the blockade began, which lasted 900 days. The blockade was so sudden and unexpected, as, incidentally, this whole war was unexpected for the country. There were no supplies of either fuel or food, and soon, in October, the rationing system began. The bread was given out on ration cards. And then, one after another, catastrophic phenomena for the city began - the electricity supply stopped, the water supply and sewerage stopped working, there was no heating. And the calamities of the blockade began.

What is a card system? It looked like this: from October 1, they already gave 400 grams of bread to workers, 200 grams to employees, and already in November they began to catastrophically reduce the delivery rate. Workers were given 250 grams, while employees and children were given 125 grams. This is a slice of low-quality bread, half-and-half with cellulose, duranda (cake, the remains of oil seeds after squeezing out the oil) and other impurities.

There was no supply of food. Winter was approaching, and as luck would have it: thirty - thirty-five degrees. The huge city lost all life support. Every day he was mercilessly bombed and fired upon from the air. Our unit was located not far from the city, it was possible to walk on foot, and we, sitting in the trenches, heard the explosions of aerial bombs and even felt the earth shaking. They bombed every day. Fires started, houses were burning. Since there was nothing to fill in - there was no water, the water supply did not work - they burned for days. And we from the front, turning back, saw these columns of black smoke and wondered where what was burning.

By December, the streets and squares of the city were covered with snow, only in some places there were passages for military vehicles, monuments were laid with sandbags, shop windows were boarded up - the city was transformed. There was no lighting at night. Patrols and rare passers-by walked with "fireflies" (glowing icons. - Ed.). People began to lose strength from hunger. But they continued to work, go to factories where tanks were repaired, shells and mines were made. And then the following began to happen, something about which I learned in detail only after the war.

Hitler ordered not to enter the city in order to avoid losses in street battles where tanks could not participate. Von Leeb's Eighteenth Army fought off all our attempts to break through the blockade ring. The German troops, in fact, quite comfortably, without much difficulty, waited for the coming famine and frost to force the city to capitulate. In fact, the war did not become a war, the war on the part of the enemy became an expectation, a rather comfortable expectation, of surrender.

I am now talking about these details, which are related to my personal experience as a soldier. In general, I am not acting as a writer, not as a witness, I am acting rather as a soldier, a participant in those events about which they know little. I have a purely trench experience as a junior officer, but an experience that has its own details, its impressions, are quite important, because they constituted that life, that flesh of events for every citizen of the city, and for a soldier of the Leningrad Front.

Already in October, mortality began to grow. Because with this catastrophically low food rate, people quickly became dystrophic and died. In twenty-five days in December, 40 thousand people died. In February, three and a half thousand people died of hunger every day. In the diaries of that time, people wrote: "Lord, I should live to see the grass" - when the green grass appears. More than one million people died of hunger. Marshal Zhukov writes in his memoirs that 1 million 200 thousand people died. Death began to participate silently and quietly in the war, forcing this city to surrender.

And it is believed that hunger was of the greatest importance. This is not entirely true. Frost affected the state of people, their psyche, their health, well-being - there was no heating, there was no water ... And I want to tell you some details that are almost absent in books and in descriptions of what happened during the blockade in apartments, how people lived. The devil of the blockade is in many ways precisely in such details. Where to get water? People, those who lived near the canals, from the Neva, from the embankments, made ice holes and from there they took out water and carried these buckets home. We went up to the fourth, fifth, sixth floor, carried these buckets, can you imagine? Those who lived further from the water had to collect snow and drown it. They drowned in "stoves" - these are small iron stoves. And what to heat with? Where to get firewood? They broke furniture, cracked parquet floors, dismantled wooden buildings ...

Already 35 years after the war, the Belarusian writer Adamovich and I began to interview the survivors of the blockade. They asked how they survived, what happened to them during the blockade. There were startling, ruthless revelations. The mother's child dies. He was three years old. The mother puts the corpse between the windows, it's winter ... And every day she cuts off a piece to feed her daughter. Save at least the daughter. The daughter did not know the details, she was twelve years old. And the mother knew everything, did not allow herself to die and did not allow herself to go crazy. This daughter grew up, and I talked to her. Then she did not know what she was fed. And years later I found out. Can you imagine? There are many such examples - what the life of the siege has become.

They lived in the apartments in the dark. They hung the windows with anything they could to keep warm, and lit the rooms with smokehouses - this is a jar where transformer or machine oil was poured. And this tiny tongue of flame burned day after day, for weeks, months. This was the only lighting in the houses. The so-called black markets appeared. There one could buy a piece of bread, a bag of cereals, some kind of fish, a can of canned food. All this was exchanged for things - for a fur coat, for felt boots, paintings, silver spoons ... And on the streets and in the entrances there were corpses, wrapped in sheets.

When the ice began to grow stronger, they laid the Road of Life - along Lake Ladoga. Cars moved along it, firstly, to take out children, women, wounded and to bring food into the city. The road was mercilessly fired upon. The shells broke the ice, the cars went under the water, but there was no other way out.

Several times I was sent from the front to the headquarters, and I visited the city. Then I saw how the human nature of the siege had changed. The main character in the city turned out to be “someone”, an “nameless passer-by” who tried to lift the weakened dystrophics who fell to the ground, take him away - there were such points, they gave him boiling water, there was nothing else - they gave him a mug of boiling water. And this often saved people. It was compassion awakened in people. This "someone" is one of the most important, and perhaps the most important hero of the blockade life.

Once, in May 1942, when it was already warmer, everything melted and there was a danger of infections from a large number of corpses, we, a group of soldiers and officers, were sent to the city to help take the corpses to the cemetery. The corpses lay in heaps near the cemeteries - relatives and friends tried to take them, but, of course, there was not enough strength to dig a grave in the frozen ground. And we loaded these corpses into cars. We threw them like sticks - they were so dry and light. I have never in my life experienced this terrible feeling again.

There were special problems in the evacuation. One woman told how she went with the children to Finland Station. A son was walking behind him, he was fourteen years old, and she was carrying her little daughter on a sled. She drove her to the station, and her son fell behind on the way, he was very emaciated. What became of him, she did not know. But I remembered this, you know, merciless loss. And then, when she told us about it, she remembered as her guilt.

Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union Alexei Kosygin was authorized by the State Defense Committee and was sent to Leningrad. He told me what problem he faced every day. Send along the Road of Life to the mainland children, women, the wounded, or materials, machine tools, non-ferrous metals, some devices - for military factories in the Urals. This problem of choosing between people and devices necessary for the military industry, he told how it was a painful and hopeless problem.

In the city there were characteristic announcements, everywhere there were sheets of paper glued: "I am making a funeral", "To swarm graves", "I am taking the dead to the cemetery." All this for a piece of bread, for a can of canned food ...

In the spring, rows of corpses of Red Army soldiers floated down the Neva. But they continued to take water from the Neva, pushing these corpses away - but what to do? I also had to drink such water.

Since July 1942, at the front, we have tried to break through the blockade ring. But unsuccessfully, attack after attack fought back. The army lost 130 thousand people, for several months trying to break through the fortifications on the other side of the Neva.

Once they brought me a diary of a blockade, a boy. The blockade diaries were the most reliable material about that time, especially together with the memories of people who survived the blockade. In general, I was amazed how many people kept diaries, recording what happened in the city, everything they saw, what they read in the newspapers, what was important to them ... Yura was 14 years old, he lived with his mother and sister. It was the story of a boy's conscience that shocked me. In bakeries, exactly, to the gram, a portion of the put bread was weighed. To do this, we had to cut off more additional weights so that exactly 250-300 grams came out. Yura's duty in the family was to wait in line for bread and bring it home. He was tormented by hunger so much that he had to work hard to refrain from pinching off a piece of bread on the way, especially tormented his appendage, irresistibly wanted to eat this little piece, neither mother nor sister, it would seem, knew about it.

Sometimes he broke down and ate, he wrote about this in his secret diary. He describes how ashamed it was, confesses to his greed, and then to shamelessness - a thief, stole from his own, from his mother, from his sister. Nobody knew about it, but he was tormented. In the apartment, the neighbors were a husband and a wife, the husband was some kind of major chief for the construction of defense structures, he was entitled to an additional ration. In the common kitchen, his wife cooked dinner, cooked porridge, how many times Yura was drawn, when she left, to grab something, scoop up some hot porridge with her hand. He punishes himself for his shameful weakness. In his diary, the constant battle of hunger and conscience, the struggle between them, fierce fights, and daily, attempts to preserve their decency are striking. We do not know whether he managed to survive, the diary shows how his strength was diminishing, but, even already complete dystrophic, he did not allow himself to beg for food from his neighbors.

35 years after the war, we interviewed 200 people of the blockade for the book. Each time I tried to find out: "Why did you stay alive if you spent the whole blockade here?" It often turned out that those who were saving others were saving - they stood in lines, got firewood, looked after, donated a crust of bread, a piece of sugar ... Not always, but often. Compassion and mercy are typical feelings of a blockaded life. Of course, the rescuers also died, but I was amazed how the soul helped them not to dehumanize. How people who stayed in the city and did not take part in hostilities were able to remain people.

When we wrote the "Book of Blockade", we wondered - how could it be, because the Germans knew about what was happening in the city, from defectors, from intelligence. They knew about this nightmare, about the horrors of not only hunger, but from everything that happened. But they kept on waiting. We waited 900 days. After all, to fight with soldiers is yes, war is a soldier's business. But here famine fought instead of soldiers.

I, being at the forefront, could not forgive the Germans for this for a long time. I hated the Germans not only as opponents, soldiers of the Wehrmacht, but also as those who, contrary to all the laws of military honor, soldier's dignity, and officer traditions, destroyed people. I understood that war is always dirt, blood, - any war ... Our army suffered huge losses - up to a third of its personnel. For a long time I did not dare to write about my war. But I wrote a book about it not so long ago. He told about how I fought. Why did I do this? Probably, it was a latent desire to tell all my dead brother-soldiers who died, not knowing how this war would end, not knowing whether Leningrad would be liberated. I wanted to inform them that we won. That they did not die in vain.

You know, there is such a sacred space. When a person returns to compassion and spirituality. Ultimately, it is not power that prevails, but justice and truth. And this is a miracle of victory, love for life, for a person ...

Thanks for attention.

I would like to thank the President, the Chairman and the entire leadership of the Bundestag, the deputies for the kind invitation to speak here today, on such a significant day, at least for me. Today in St. Petersburg people go to the Piskarevskoye cemetery, this is one of such symbolic cemeteries of the city. They go in order to remember and pay tribute to all those who died during the years of the blockade. Crackers, sweets, biscuits are placed on the grave hills to express love and memory to those people for whom it was a tragic and cruel story.

All communications of the city, a huge metropolis, were cut off from the mainland, and a blockade began, which lasted 900 days. The blockade was so sudden and unexpected, as, incidentally, the whole war was unexpected for the country. There were no supplies of either fuel or food, and soon, in October, the rationing system began. The bread was given out on ration cards. And then, one after another, catastrophic phenomena for the city began - the electricity supply stopped, the water supply and sewerage stopped working, there was no heating. And the calamities of the blockade began.

By December, the streets and squares of the city were covered with snow, only in some places there were passages for military vehicles, monuments were laid with sandbags, shop windows were boarded up - the city was transformed. There was no lighting at night. Patrols and rare passers-by walked with "fireflies" (luminous icons. - Ed.). People began to lose strength from hunger. But they continued to work, go to factories where tanks were repaired, shells and mines were made. And then the following began to happen, something about which I learned in detail only after the war.

Already in October, mortality began to grow. Because with this catastrophically low food rate, people quickly became dystrophic and died. In twenty-five days in December, 40 thousand people died. In February, three and a half thousand people died of hunger every day. In the diaries of that time, people wrote: "Lord, I would live to see the grass" - when the green grass appears. More than one million people died of hunger. Marshal Zhukov writes in his memoirs that 1 million 200 thousand people died. Death began to participate silently and quietly in the war, forcing this city to surrender.

And it is believed that hunger was of the greatest importance. This is not entirely true. Frost affected the state of people, their psyche, their health, well-being - there was no heating, there was no water ... And I want to tell you some details that are almost absent in books and in descriptions of what happened during the blockade in apartments, how people lived. The devil of the blockade is in many ways precisely in such details. Where to get water? People, those who lived near the canals, from the Neva, from the embankments, made ice holes and from there they took out water and carried these buckets home. We went up to the fourth, fifth, sixth floor, carried these buckets, can you imagine? Those who lived further from the water had to collect snow and drown it. They drowned on "stoves" - these are small iron stoves. And what to heat with? Where to get firewood? They broke furniture, cracked parquet floors, dismantled wooden buildings ...

Several times I was sent from the front to the headquarters, and I visited the city. Then I saw how the human nature of the siege had changed. The main character in the city turned out to be "someone", "an unnamed passer-by" who tried to lift the weakened dystrophics who fell to the ground, take him away - there were such points, they gave him boiling water, there was nothing else - they gave him a mug of boiling water. And this often saved people. It was compassion awakened in people. This "someone" is one of the most important, and perhaps the most important hero of the blockade life.

There were characteristic announcements in the city, and there were sheets of paper everywhere: "I perform a funeral", "Roy graves", "I take the dead to the cemetery" ... All this for a piece of bread, for a can of canned food ...

In the spring, rows of corpses of Red Army soldiers floated down the Neva. But they continued to take water from the Neva, pushing these corpses away - but what to do? I also had to drink such water.

35 years after the war, we interviewed 200 people of the blockade for the book. Each time I asked: "Why did you survive if you carried out the whole blockade here?" It often turned out that those who were saving others were saving - they stood in lines, got firewood, looked after, donated a crust of bread, a piece of sugar ... Not always, but often. Compassion and mercy are typical feelings of a blockaded life. Of course, the rescuers were dying too, but I was amazed how the soul helped them not to dehumanize. How people who stayed in the city and did not take part in hostilities were able to remain people.

I, being at the forefront, could not forgive the Germans for this for a long time. I hated the Germans not only as opponents, soldiers of the Wehrmacht, but also as those who, contrary to all the laws of military honor, soldier's dignity, and officer traditions, destroyed people. I understood that war is always dirt, blood, - any war ... Our army suffered huge losses - up to a third of its personnel. For a long time I did not dare to write about my war. But I wrote a book about it not so long ago. He told me about how I fought. Why did I do this? Probably, it was a latent desire to tell all my dead brother-soldiers who died, not knowing how this war would end, not knowing whether Leningrad would be liberated. I wanted to inform them that we won. That they did not die in vain.

Thanks for attention.

Daniil Granin

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My five cents.

It's clear to me, as a teacher:
urengoi careerists from education not only set up Russia and the generation of veterans, but simply disgraced them.
For German money, no ?! However, as it turned out, according to the boy, the organizers themselves edited his speech. (I added 11/22/17)
Having taught the student to talk about what this fool has no idea about, the guy turned out to be pathetic and false " with a show-off under an umbrella, and himself in the rain"

We did a joint exploratory study about the fate of a captured German soldier, ridiculously and illiterately shortened his text on the go and ... got the opposite effect

All that mother and teachers later told were pitiful and shameless excuses for their international shame.
For many years Germany paid huge amounts of money to the Baltic countries for the reburial of German soldiers. For years they have been looking for their bones in swamps and forests. And almost all of them were found thanks to the medallions.
Their names are carved on dozens of granite pillars. And burial is mute. almost all soldiers are within the city or the forested part of the suburbs. There are pictures in my photo archive.

And I recalled the speech of Daniil Granin in the Bundestag about the monstrous cruelty of the Siege of Leningrad.
(fragment for 5 minutes)

Quote from YouTube Vera Vilyunova
Published: 1 Feb. 2014
Hour of Granin:
The famous blockade writer spoke at a commemorative event in the Bundestag. Daniil Granin, who told the German parliamentarians about how the besieged Leningrad lived and died, was given a standing ovation. Writer Daniil Granin, one of the most famous both at home and abroad, of the blockade, made a speech in Berlin today. The co-author of the famous "Blockade Book" was invited to the "Hour of Remembrance". It takes place in the Bundestag every year and is usually timed to coincide with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which is also celebrated on January 27. The current meeting was held in memory of the victims of the blockade of Leningrad. The 95-year-old Granin was organized a meeting with all the political leadership of the Federal Republic of Germany, and then the writer was asked to tell about his experiences in Leningrad from the parliamentary tribune. According to NTV correspondent Konstantin Goldenzweig, Granin's speech in the Bundestag turned out to be extremely emotional, while it was devoid of official patriotism and pathos. Unique, stunning memories. According to Granin's observation, the most amazing thing about the blockade was that it was primarily those who were able - oddly enough - to show compassion despite exhaustion and hunger, to try to help others.
UPD - 1
As our schoolboy, he repented that his grandfathers offended a good German soldier.
UPD - 2

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UPD - 4
Oh, you young bitches ...
UPD - 5
Sergei Mikheev about the victims of grant-eaters
Maybe the boy, in general, neither sleep nor spirit, but in itself the language of the report quite clearly says that this is working off grant money /
But in fact, almost all humanitarian grant programs - European or American - always have a political subtext, sometimes it is more direct, sometimes it is less, in this case it is quite obvious that we are talking about, you know, an attempt at soft correspondence of history.
And those who received these grants, after all, someone received them, this money?
Either it was a gymnasium, or someone else, they understood that in order to continue receiving this money, they had to meet the requirements of the grant, including the tacit requirements of the grant, this hidden, indirect political background.
And they apparently persuaded this boy, pushed him to write this report and, most likely, correct the text of the report.
I doubt very much that the boy himself wrote all these things in such terms. Most likely, they corrected the text of the report in a way that would be convenient for the German donor M. This is the first. As for the work of this organization, in this sense the boy is a victim. Second, why he is also a victim: well, here he is a victim of that historical matrix, which through similar organizations, such grant programs, as well as their carriers in the Russian Federation, is being introduced into the minds of the younger generation. That is, to understand the subject of lack of time, I repeat once again, the main thing is to try to form a different, alternative concept of history.
UPD - 6

The text of the speech of the writer Daniil Granin before the deputies of the Bundestag on January 27, 2014.

She was tragic and cruel for me too. I started the war from the first days. Enrolled in the people's militia as a volunteer. What for? Today I don't even know why, but it was probably a purely boyish thirst for romance: how can there be a war without me, you must definitely participate. But the coming days of the war sobered me. Like many of my comrades, they were cruelly sobered. We were bombed when our echelon had just arrived at the front line. And since then we have experienced one defeat after another. They ran, retreated, ran again. And finally, somewhere in the middle of September, my regiment surrendered the city of Pushkin and we retreated outside the city limits. The front collapsed. And the blockade began.

By December, the streets and squares of the city were covered with snow, only in some places there were driveways for military vehicles, monuments were laid with sandbags, shop windows were boarded up - the city was transformed. There was no lighting at night. Patrols and rare passers-by walked with "fireflies" (glowing badges. - Approx. ed.). People began to lose strength from hunger. But they continued to work, go to factories where tanks were repaired, shells and mines were made. And then the following began to happen, something about which I learned in detail only after the war.

And it is believed that hunger was of the greatest importance. This is not entirely true. Frost affected the state of people, their psyche, their health, well-being - there was no heating, there was no water ... And I want to tell you some details that are almost absent in books and in descriptions of what happened during the blockade in apartments, how people lived. The devil of the blockade is in many ways precisely in such details. Where to get water? People, those who lived near the canals, from the Neva, from the embankments, made ice holes and from there they took out water and carried these buckets home. We went up to the fourth, fifth, sixth floor, carried these buckets, can you imagine? Those who lived away from water had to collect snow and drown it. They drowned in "stoves" - these are small iron stoves. And what to heat with? Where to get firewood? They broke furniture, cracked parquet floors, dismantled wooden buildings ...

In the spring, rows of corpses of Red Army soldiers floated down the Neva. But they continued to take water from the Neva, pushing these corpses away - but what to do? I also had to drink such water.

I, being at the forefront, could not forgive the Germans for this for a long time. I hated the Germans not only as opponents, soldiers of the Wehrmacht, but also as those who, contrary to all the laws of military honor, soldier's dignity, and officer traditions, destroyed people. I understood that war is always dirt, blood, - any war ... Our army suffered huge losses - up to a third of its personnel. For a long time I did not dare to write about my war. But I wrote a book about it not so long ago. He told me about how I fought. Why did I do this? Probably, it was a latent desire to tell all my dead brother-soldiers who died, not knowing how this war would end, not knowing whether Leningrad would be liberated. I wanted to inform them that we won. That they did not die in vain.

Thanks for attention.

Bundestag deputies gave a standing ovation