about
Here it is, female happiness ...
Registration number 0089599 issued for the work:
A young, beautiful, young wife of an officer, just graduated from the pedagogical institute, I barely turned twenty-two. We arrived at the border, to the part of my husband. All around there are forests, nature is generous and beautiful, "the air is clean and fresh, like a kiss of a child", but the wilderness is terrible! I will go to teach at the garrison school, I will definitely try to find a place for myself, or I will die of melancholy! My husband is a rather nice, kind and reliable person. Somewhat soft, my friends called him "mattress", but I wanted to spit on their characteristics - I will live my life behind him, like behind a stone wall. You look, he will also become a general!
The first day in the garrison started off stormy and well. We were received warmly and cordially. As I remember now: preparations are underway for the holiday, and we, having thrown our things into the room assigned to us in the officers' house, are happy to join the merry mess. Among the new comrades there is one young officer, he immediately catches the eye: young, but already burdened life experience, a tall, handsome brunette with gorgeous blue eyes. A rare combination! He also glances at me furtively, but very often, I keep bumping into his eyes. In huge aquamarine eyes - admiration and poorly hidden passion. We don't say a word to each other, he laughs a lot, pours out jokes and seems to be agitated for no reason.
An incomprehensible excitement suddenly seizes me. Finally, everyone sits down at the table, a lot of people, fun. A strange married couple is present at the holiday: an experienced general and his flirtatious young wife, frivolously shooting her eyes, as in a shooting range, at the entire abundance of local young officers. Looks like the gray-haired husband is tired! They are guests of honor. Zd aboutrovo! Music, youth! Maybe it's not as boring here as I thought? "Anyway, I'll try to find a teacher's place!" - vouched to herself.
Dancing begins, and my husband is suddenly invited by a young general's wife. Why from all the variety of young interesting men she chose him is still a mystery. The dark-haired officer immediately comes up to me and silently drops his head on his chest. Modestly lowering my eyes, I go with him, and the heart begins to dance the Charleston. We have such a conversation.
HE: "Maybe let's just call you"? "
Me (coquettishly): "Yes, we didn't seem to be drinking a brotherhood ..."
HE (smiling): "The hint is clear."
We are very close, his hot hand trembling slightly at my waist.
HE: "Let's meet! Can you come when your husband falls asleep? I will wait until morning at the very place where the two rivers merge."
I know a place with that name. It was shown to my husband and me as the only garrison attraction.
I: "Good! - I catch myself. - However, no! Why do I have to run at your first call?"
HE: "You see, life is fleeting. You cannot waste time on all sorts of nonsense if you are convinced of the correct decision, as I am now!"
In his words there is a hint of a dangerous service, and I feel that he is not at all pretending, he simply explains the reason for his intemperance.
Me: "For such frivolity, very good reasons are needed, agree!"
HE: "Yes, of course! I really liked you, moreover, I am in love with you, in love with the devil ... Immediately I understood, I barely saw you! Do you think that love at first sight is a good enough reason?"
Me: "I don't know ... For such an experienced heartthrob like you, the new officer's wife is a tidbit ... for one night. I don't want that!"
HE: "A very bad hint, Katyusha, but, perhaps, fair. Still, believe me, believe at your own peril and risk, I have something to compare with! Your face, and smile, and light tenderness of words ... Everything is in you - life, it's hard for me to explain ... "Tidbit" is not said about you, rather, about the general. And you are the only woman I need, behind your eyelashes is a secret! But so far I can only offer a date against the background of a raging water, while only night under the stars. The day will come, and I will conquer you, turn my head, take you away from my husband! You are mine and nobody else's, and you will not stay with this good guy, so know! "
Me (trembling): "You are romantic ..."
HE: "In relation to you - yes ... So you will come?"
His whisper is trembling, his breath is hot. The officer's lips almost touch my ear, causing it to ignite and turn purple and hot. I can hardly restrain myself so as not to wrap my neck around his neck and not to press against the harsh hard line of the handsome lips with my plump lips painted ala Marilyn Monroe.
All evening the officer does not take his eyes off me, does not dance with anyone else, watching me clumsily waltz with my drunken husband. Before leaving, he quietly whispers: "I'm waiting for you, Katyusha!" I know his name - Petrov Yuri, and he is single. However, I do not care, even if it is one night, but mine, but there at least twenty years of melancholy - everything is one! A tickling excitement takes possession of my being, shaking me as in a fever. There is no doubt - in love! I thought I would never lose my head! That's hot!
My husband and I come home and he begins to harass me awkwardly. The husband is pretty drunk, breathing live vodka in his face. I respond weakly to his caresses, trying not to arouse suspicion, but he falls asleep right on top of me, without doing anything. Gently roll the softened guy onto his back, wait another ten minutes. I leave the house, I am wearing a summer dress, a blouse on top, my hair is loose and disheveled from a light breeze, wet grass whips on my legs. I run quickly across the field to the river. Here it is, the very place where two streams meet, flowing in different directions, but towards each other. The shocked water here forms a stormy funnel, right above which a bridge is built. Looking from above at the whirlpool is both tempting and creepy.
The officer is waiting on the bridge, in his hands is a bottle of champagne (we didn’t drink at a brotherhood) and a bouquet of wild flowers. I approach slowly, we look into each other's eyes, converge, and he hugs me. His strong beautiful hands are busy, but his whole body strives to meet me ... No one has ever so silently and eloquently let me know about his thirst, no one has ever seduced me so fiercely and frankly! I melt, I lose control over myself, and flowers and champagne fly into the abyss of waters; a man picks me up in his arms and carries me to the other side. There, in a shock of hay, under a starry sky, we spend the first night of love. Go to hell! His kisses are crazy, his dives are amazing, his hot confessions are mesmerizing! I rush about, as in agony, whisper crazy words, laugh and cry at the same time ... May the morning never come !!!
I come home at dawn, shocked, tired, exhausted and under the drunken snoring of my husband I cry bitterly to complete dumbness. I can’t believe: HE loved me, possessed me, I don’t want to believe: this will not happen again in my life !!! I fall asleep, sobbing ... Morning wakes up with sunlight and a knock on the door. The spouse, grunting from drinking, goes to unlock, but I don't want to open my eyes, I don't want to lose last leftovers happiness.
"Katyusha, pack your things, I'm after you!" - suddenly I hear a painfully native voice. He, Petrov Yuri! Not remembering myself, I jump up, muttering: "Yes, yes, yes!" With a groan, I throw myself on his neck.
“I decided not to wait for an opportunity, not to look for sensible decisions, not to lie! I don’t want you to live a day not with me!” - exclaims my beloved and anxiously interrupts himself: “My girl, will you marry me?”
" Yes Yes Yes!" - as I keep repeating. I collect things under the bewildered gaze of someone who was considered my husband yesterday. But I know who my real betrothed is!
Censure, condemnation, accusations of immorality, human gossip, Yuri and I endured and survived without staggering. The ex-husband started drinking out of grief. Under New Yearwhen my beloved returned from a business trip, he again took me to our place. We threw a bottle of champagne into the whirlpool, taking a sip. Having carefully wrapped my hips with a sheepskin coat, Yuri took possession of me right on the bridge, and we conceived our boys, Volodya and Yaroslav. He said then: "How not to freeze these seething waters, so our love with you never runs out, my Katyusha!" Yuri was again expelled from the unit to a closed garrison, lost in a remote taiga. By sending him, the regimental authorities hoped to reconcile me with my husband. But I knew who my real and only husband was!
She continued to live in officer Petrov's room, teach at a local school (she did it) and burned out with love. It's time to go on maternity leave, and we finally got a marriage license. The attempt to separate us, to prevent "immorality" and "to preserve the cell of society" failed miserably. Only when my navel reached up to my nose did the commanders realize: everything is serious with us! Yura was hastily returned from a distant business trip, fearing that I might give birth to a straw widow. They say that the decisive word in our defense was said by the aforementioned general, probably, too, he snapped, risking marrying his young bird.
I did not see Petrov for five months, and when he returned, I hardly recognized him. A thick scar cut across my own face, and my hair was completely gray! But his hardened appearance did not become less beautiful. How I loved him then! Yuri said that he turned gray from longing for me and our child, but I did not believe him. Snow in my hair - it didn't go anywhere, but the scar ... Cried all night.
Soon we had twins, Vovka and Slavik. The whole part solemnly celebrated the event. Even my ex-husband forgave me and brought gifts for the boys.
Garrisons, far and near. Borders, north and south. Service and teaching. Children and fellow workers. This is our life in a few words. Sometimes it was hard, but I don't regret not a minute, not a second! Yuri and I still yearn for that beautiful place, the confluence of two rivers, it leads us through life ... A whirlpool where water boils and foams, a bridge and a haystack on the opposite bank ... A dream come true, a fairy tale in reality!
Our boys are completely different, like the two streams over which we conceived them. And yet, Vladimir and Yaroslav, although they are sailing in opposite directions, but towards each other. I believe someday life will reconcile them. They have a difficult relationship, different personalities and preferences, but the beginning is the same - a bridge over stormy waters! "
A few years later, a new entry appears in the diary: "We have not wandered around the garrisons for a long time, settled inN , in her husband's homeland. The boys have become quite adults, they are looking for their own ways in life! And Yuri and I still love each other, we also dream of getting out there, to our place. Look at the whirlpool, remember yourself young and in love. Maybe then our youthful happiness will return again ... "
The ellipsis, a charming undershoot, an illogical hope ... There is not a word more in the diary. Apparently, since then she had nothing to write. Everyone is here, love and life.
Here it is, female happiness ...
For fifteen years now, journalist and writer Vasily Sarychev has been recording the memories of old residents, recording the history of the western edge of Belarus through their fates. His new story, written specifically for TUT.BY, is dedicated to soviet women, which in 1941 the Soviet government left to fend for themselves. During the occupation, they were forced to survive, including with the help of the Germans.
Vasily Sarychev is working on a cycle of books "In Search of Lost Time". As the author notes, this is “the history of Europe in the mirror of a Western Belarusian city, which was told by old people who survived the six powers” \u200b\u200b( the Russian Empire, German occupation during the First World War, the period when Western Belarus was part of Poland, Soviet power, German occupation during World War II and Soviet power again).
Fundraising for the publication of a new book by Sarychev from the series "In Search of Lost Time" ends on the crowdfunding platform "Uley". On the page of this project, you can familiarize yourself with the content, study the list of gifts and participate in the publication of the book. Participants will receive a book as a gift for the New Year holidays.
TUT.BY has already published Vasily about an incredible fate common man, caught in the millstones of big politics, "polite people" from 1939 and about escaping naked from prison. New story dedicated to the wives of Soviet commanders.
When Western Belarus was annexed to the USSR, they came to our country as winners. But then, when their husbands retreated to the east with an active army, they were of no use to anyone. How did they survive under the new government?
I'm on you like in a war. Abandoned
"Let your Stalin feed you!"
Many years ago, in the sixties, there was a case at the entrance of the Brest factory. The enterprise is more for women, after the change of workers the women hurried home with an avalanche, and conflicts arose in the crush. They did not look at their faces: whether it was an editorial or a deputy, they applied it with proletarian directness.
On the turnstile, like in a bathhouse, everyone is equal, and the wife of the commander from Brest Fortress, the head of the factory trade union - not yet old, twenty years have not passed since the war, surviving the occupation - was pushing on a common basis. Maybe she hit someone - with her elbow or during the distribution - and the young weaver, who had heard from her friends such things that were not written about in the newspapers, slapped backhand: "German prostitute!" - and she grabbed the breasts and croaked: "If you have small children ..."
So in one phrase - the whole truth about the war, with many shades, from which we were carefully led away.
In conversations with people who survived the occupation, at first I could not understand when they made the remark "this is after the war" - and began to talk about the Germans. For the Brest man in the street, hostilities flashed one morning, and then another power, three and a half years of deep German rear. Different categories of citizens - locals, Easterners, Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, party workers, prisoners who got out from behind the wire, commander's wives, soltys, policemen - each had their own war. Some survived the trouble at home, where neighbors, relatives, where the walls help. It was very bad for those who were caught in hard times in a foreign land.
Before the war, they arrived in the "liberated" western land as mistresses - yesterday's girls from the Russian hinterland, who pulled out a lucky ticket (we are talking about the events of 1939, when Western Belarus was annexed to the USSR - TUT.BY). To marry a lieutenant from a stationed regiment meant to jump in status. And here - the "liberation campaign" and in general a different world, where people, when they meet, raise the hem of their hats and turn to "pan", where there are bicycles with wonderfully curved handlebars in the store without a record, and private traders smoke a dozen varieties of sausages, and for a penny you can take at least five cuts on the dress ... And all these people look at them with their husband with apprehension - they look right ...
Nina Vasilievna Petruchik - by the way, the cousin of Fyodor Maslievich, whose fate is already in the chapter "Polite People of 1939", recalled that autumn in the town of Volchin: white scarves. At the bazaar, they began to buy embroidered nightgowns and, out of ignorance, wore them instead of dresses ... "
Maybe the weather was like this - I'm talking about boots, but they meet by clothes. This is how an eleven-year-old girl saw them: a very poor people had arrived. People, laughing, sold nighties, but laughter was laughter, and those who arrived became the masters of life in the year and a half before the war.
But life calculates for random happiness. It was these women, perceived with hostility, with children in their arms, with the beginning of the war, were left alone in an alien world. From a privileged caste they suddenly turned into pariahs thrown out of the queues with the words: "Let your Stalin feed you!"
It was not so with everyone, but it was, and now it is not for us to judge the methods of survival that young women chose. The easiest thing was to find a guardian who would warm and feed the children and protect them somewhere.
"Limousines with German officers drove up to the building and took away the young women, the inhabitants of this house."
The photo is illustrative. A boy during the occupation, Vasily Prokopuk, who was sneaking around the city with his friends, recalled that on the former Moscow street (talking about one of the Brest streets - TUT.BY) you could see young women with soldiers walking in the direction of the fortress. The narrator is convinced that it was not local girls who were "spated" under the arm, for whom it is more difficult to accept such courtship: there were parents, neighbors, in whose eyes she grew up, the church, finally. Maybe polkas are more relaxed? - “What are you, the Poles have arrogance! - answered my respondents. “There was a case when the lady was seen flirting with the occupier - the priest put such a thing into a sermon…”
"The war is raging in Russia, and we are so young ..." - three and a half years is a long time in the short Indian age. But this was not the main motive - children, their always hungry eyes. The poor boys did not delve into the intricacies, they talked contemptuously about the women from the former officers' houses: "Found yourself ..."
“In the center of the courtyard,” the author writes, “there was a rather exotic outbuilding in which a German major, our current boss, lived, together with a beautiful young woman and her little child. Soon we learned that this was the ex-wife of a Soviet officer, left to fend for themselves during the tragic days for the Red Army in June 1941. In the corner of the barracks yard was a three-story brick building inhabited by abandoned families soviet officers... In the evenings, limousines with German officers drove up to the building and took away the young women, the inhabitants of this house.
The situation allowed options. For example, weren't the commander's wives taken away by force? According to Ivan Petrovich, “it was a small barracks, converted into a residential building, with several apartments per floor. Young women lived here, mostly with small children. It is possible that even before the war it was the house of the command staff, where the families were caught by the war: I did not see the guards or any signs of forced detention.
More than once or twice I have witnessed how the Germans drove up here in the evening: our camp was across the parade ground from this house. Sometimes they dropped in to see the commandant, other times they went straight. It was not a trip to a brothel - they were going to the ladies. Those knew about the visit, smiled as if they were good acquaintances. Usually the Germans came in the evening, went upstairs, or the women themselves went out dressed, and the gentlemen took them, one might assume, to a theater or restaurant. I didn’t have to come back, I don’t know who the children were with. But everyone in the camp knew that they were the wives of the commanders. They understood that for women it was a means of survival. "
That's how it happened. IN last days before the war, commanders and party workers who wanted to take their families out of the city were accused of alarmism and expelled from the party - and now they left women for the use of the Wehrmacht officers.
The son's name was Albert, the Germans came - he became Adolf
The photo is illustrative. It would be wrong to say that the women who were left without exception were looking for such support, it was just one of the methods of survival. Unpopular, overstepping the line, behind which - gossip and stinging glances.
Women who came to Western Belarus from the east more often lived in two, three, it’s easier to survive. We went to distant (they were no longer given) villages, but you can't live by charity alone, we got a job washing cars, barracks, soldiers' hostels. The German once presented the wife of a political worker from the artillery regiment with a large postcard, and she hung it on the wall to decorate the room. Many years have passed after the war, and the old ladies remembered the picture - they kept a sharp eye on each other during the war.
The battalion commander's wife infantry regiment, who stood in the fortress before the war, at the beginning of the occupation rewrote her little son from Albert to Adolf, she came up with such a move, and after liberation she again made Albert. Other widows moved away from her, turned away, but this was not the main thing for the mother.
Someone will be closer to her truth, someone - the heroic Vera Khoruzhei, who insisted on going to occupied Vitebsk at the head of an underground group, leaving a baby and a little daughter in Moscow.
Life is multifaceted, and those who survived the occupation recalled different things. And the romantically inclined person who came out of the terrible SD building clearly not after torture, and the German's love for the Jewish girl, whom he hid until the last moment and followed her into the penal company, and the worker of city plantations, hastily appeasing the Wehrmacht soldiers nearby in the park until her shot by a client who contracted a bad disease. In each case, it was different: where is the food, where is the physiology, and somewhere - the feeling, love.
Outside of the service, the Germans became gallant wealthy males. The beauty N., who was bright in her youth, said: even if you don’t go beyond the threshold, they were glued like ticks.
Statistics will not answer how many red-haired babies were born during the war and after the expulsion of the Germans from the temporarily occupied territory, as, indeed, with the Slavic appearance in Germany at the beginning of the 46th ... This is a delicate topic to take deeply, and we went where- then aside ...
Maybe it's in vain about the commander's wives - there were enough restless women of all statuses and categories, and everyone behaved differently. Someone tried to hide their beauty, while someone, on the contrary, turned to benefit. The wife of the commander of the reconnaissance battalion, Anastasia Kudinova, who was older, shared shelter with young partners who had also lost their husbands in the fortress. All three with children are such a nursery garden. As soon as the Germans appeared, she smeared her friends with soot and kept them away from the window. She was not afraid for herself, her friends were joking, our old maid ... They pulled their mother's strap and survived without the enemy's shoulder, then joined the struggle.
They were not alone, many remained faithful, waiting for their husbands throughout the war and later. However, the oppositions - those who have arrived, local ones - are not entirely correct. Everywhere there are people cultured and not very, with principles and creeping, pure and vicious. And there is depth in any person, where it is better not to look, nature has mixed in all sorts of different things, and what will manifest itself with greater force largely depends on the circumstances. It so happened that from June 22, 1941, the most disadvantaged, stunned by these circumstances, were the "easterners".
The other would not be missed - the reason. How did it happen that they had to run to Smolensk and further, leaving weapons, warehouses, the entire cadre army, and in the border areas - also wives to the delight of the Wehrmacht officers?
Then there was noble rage, the science of hatred in publicistic performance and real, which increased tenfold in battle. This hatred helped to fulfill combat missions, but surprisingly did not shift to the direct perpetrators of many sufferings.
AB-SA-RA-KA
bloody land:
Officer's Wife
Colonel Henry Carrington
DEDICATION
This story is dedicated to Lieutenant General Sherman, whose proposal was accepted in the spring of 1866 at Fort Kearney, and whose energetic policy of solving Indian problems and the swift completion of the Union Pacific to the Sea, crushed last hope to an armed uprising.
Margaret Irwin Carrington.
FOREWORD TO THE THIRD EDITION
Absaraka has indeed become a bloody land. The tragedy in which the army lost twelve officers and two hundred and forty-seven brave soldiers in 1876 was just the continuation of a series of clashes that led to peace after the catastrophe of 1866. Now you can learn more about a country that was so dependent on the military to expand settlements and solve Indian problems.
In January 1876, General Custer told the author, "It will take another Phil Kearney massacre for Congress to give generous support to the army." Six months later, his story, like Fetterman's, became monumental thanks to a similar disaster. With a lot of experience on the border - Fetterman was a novice - and with faith in the ability of white soldiers to overcome superior forces Indians, fearless, brave, and incomparable horsemen, Caster believed that the army should fight hostile savages under all circumstances and at every opportunity.
Short story events in this country is of great value to anyone interested in our relationship with the Indians of the Northwest.
The map attached here was considered quite detailed by Generals Custer and Brisbin. General Humphreys, the chief engineer of the United States, indicated additional forts and agencies on it.
The first appearance of the military in this country is accurately represented in the text. There has never been a crazier American impulse than the one that forced the army into the Powder and Bighorn Rivers in 1866, fulfilling the will of irresponsible immigrants, regardless of the legitimate rights of local tribes. There has never been a wilder seizure for gold than the appropriation of the Black Hills in the face of solemn treaties.
Time brings to the surface the fruits of an unreasonable policy - the agreement of 1866 in Laramie - a simple deception, as far as it concerned all the tribes. These fruits are ripe. The fallen can attest to this. I am prepared to declare that during the massacre, if this line were severed, it would take four times more strength in the future to reopen it; since then, more than a thousand soldiers have faced a problem that fewer than a hundred then solved. The battle for Bighorn country was presented in one statement: “With partial success, the Indian, now desperate and bitter, looked at the reckless white man as a victim, and the United States was to send an army to deal with the Indians of the Northwest. It is better to incur the costs right away than to delay and provoke a war for many years. This must be understood here and now. ”
There is no glory in the Indian War. If too little has been done, the West complains; if too much is done, the East condemns the beating of the Redskins. The lies of justice are between the extremes, and here is the quality of the Native American policy that was revealed during the official term of President Grant. There is so little truth, mixed facts, and such a strong desire to be popular, pointing to the scapegoat, at the first public condemnation of the war, which lasted for six months, that, even now, public opinion learned only a few vague lessons from that massacre. Indeed, it took another tragedy to try to sort out American relations with Indian tribes and solve this problem.
Henry Carrington
From this pre-war photograph, the deputy commander of the 84th Infantry Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Yakovlevich Gribakin (born 1895), his wife Nadezhda Matveevna (born 1898) and their daughters Natalya and Irina are looking at you and me.
They met the war in Brest. Here is the story of Nadezhda Gribakina about the beginning of the war.
When I read it for the first time, I could not help crying.
And even now, rereading, I cannot.
At the oyna began, we slept. The husband got up very quickly and began to dress. He only said:
- Well, the war has come.
Artillery shelling and bombing began. We lived in the fortress itself. The husband got dressed and left, went to his unit. Then he could not get through. He returned to us and told us to go to the city now.
After 10-12 minutes, a shrapnel hit the house. My mother and I were wounded. They ran out into the street wearing only their underwear. Shrapnel and bullets flew everywhere. We met some commander who ordered us to hide in the house. We hid in some ruins, a small house. We were there for three hours. The bombardment continued and artillery shells flew. When we were running, a wounded man was crawling into this house. We ran past him. When they stayed in this house, the eldest daughter says:
- Mom, I'll go and bandage him.
I didn’t let her in, but they both broke and ran. He had a broken leg. There was nothing to bandage. The daughter says:
- Gain strength and crawl to the medical unit.
- Comrades, help, there is a wounded man here.
Rifles were immediately pointed at us. They were already Germans. We were so scared, because we gave ourselves away and did not expect that in two or three hours the Germans would be here.
After a while, a rifle appears in the window, and a German looks out cautiously. When he saw that there were women, children, one old man, he did not pay attention to us. One of the women addressed him in German to let him go home to get dressed. He says:
- Sit here. Soon everything will be quiet, then you will go home. He asked us where the road was on the highway. We showed him.
After a while we hear Russian voices. The commander enters and asks if the Germans were here. We say we were. He does not believe, asks which direction they went. We said. There were four of them, one of them was wounded. Natasha, the eldest daughter, bandaged him up. He is asking:
- What do you think we should do? Protect?
I say:
- What will 30 people do, you need to get through where ours are.
Another says:
- And we will destroy them. We will start shooting, the Germans will hit us.
One of them sits down in a corner. I will remember this picture for a long time. Sits, thought, tears in his eyes and looks, looks. I thought he had a letter. I looked - a party card in my hands. His comrade says:
- It must be destroyed.
They pulled the sink away from the washstand and stuck their party membership card deep in it. The second tore up the ticket and shoved it down the sink as well. The third, apparently, was non-partisan. The fourth one looked at the ticket for a very long time, turned away, smiled and even kissed this ticket and also tore it.
Then the commander shouted to leave, lay around in the bushes.
The Germans appeared again. I tell them:
- You hide.
They ask fearfully:
- Where? - very confused.
I say:
- Let's open the doors, and you stand between them.
The Germans entered. They took out their rifles, stuck them out the windows, then they themselves came in and told us:
- Come out.
We went out, carried out the wounded. They ask:
- Who else is there?
We say that there is no one. And those in the corner. I don't know what happened to these four people. Fragments and bullets are flying. We were confused. They shout at us. They led me across the road. Forced to carry the wounded officer. The rest of the women were placed in single file to cover them. The woman who spoke German says:
- We are afraid, they shoot there.
They answer:
- Yours won't shoot at you.
They carried this officer. They carried this officer. Then we were led past our house. This woman asks me to let go to get dressed, opens my coat and shows that I am naked. He shakes his head, says no. Brought to our house from the opposite side, set it. I ran out in my shirt. Natasha grabbed my coat and carried it after me. I wrapped myself in a blanket. When they put us against the wall, I can feel how this blanket pulls me down. I can't stand. I go down on my knees. I look ahead, and the rifles have already been pointed at us, a platoon of soldiers is running. Then I realized that they had ordered us to shoot. I quickly got up, I think that they will not kill me, and I will see how my girls are shot. There was no fear. Suddenly an officer runs down the mountain, says something to the soldiers, and they lower their rifles. Later I found out that they had been shot until 12 o'clock, and then there was an order not to shoot. They took us away without any three minutes 12.
They took us somewhere again. There were 600 women. They brought them to a large house, laid them on the ground, and ordered them to lie down. The firing is incredible, everything flies into the air. The house opposite us is on fire.
We lay like that until the evening. There were many wounded among us. Natasha worked like a real doctor, she did dressings. On one of them she performed an operation with her sister with a simple knife, took out a bullet.
By evening, the shooting had quieted down a bit. I say:
- Let's go into the house.
By evening, our guards took the men who could walk, forced them to carry guns and took them somewhere. Only seriously wounded men remained with us. In the evening I say:
- Let's go into the house, there we will be calm at least [at least] from the fragments that fly and hurt people in front of our eyes.
Some say the house might collapse. I say:
- As you wish, and I'll go.
I was with another woman with a baby and a Polish woman who spoke German. Her husband served as a janitor in the fortress.
It gradually calmed down. They began to run from house to house, looking for who to dress, who to eat. I say:
- Take whatever is white for bandaging.
They brought in towels and a sheet. They immediately began to make bandages.
Everyone is afraid to go to the second floor. Everyone is thirsty. They got out the water, gave only a sip to the wounded and children. At night, the bombing began again. I stood leaning against the wall of a huge three-story building and felt the walls literally shake.
We spent three days in this house. The children are hungry, crying, screaming. On the fourth day it became quieter, but we hear voices all the time. Women scream, start to argue, quarrel over places: I sat here, you sat here. I had to talk to them a lot, even hoarse. I say:
- Hush, hush, death is above us, and you are arguing over some place.
Then the women grew bolder, saw a well across the road, started running there, carrying water, giving to the wounded, children and a small sip to others. On the fourth day, a German appears and says in Russian:
- Come out.
We leave. They are leading. We passed the fortress. They took us somewhere very far away. They brought us to a huge ditch and told us to hide there. My mother is old, they dragged her in my arms. We could hardly walk ourselves. It began to calm down a bit in general, and there was no such bombardment. They raised their heads up, there the machine gun was trained. Some were with things, things were thrown. We have already completely said goodbye to life. Then some officer and two soldiers descend, lead the men separately, us separately. There were a lot of men, military men. They were already taken somewhere far away. We don't hear them. Then they order us to go upstairs. We had a sister with us who had been wounded in the stomach. At first it was attached. She had a suitcase. She ran out with him, couldn't find her part and stayed with us. We never knew her. She says to Natasha:
- I beg you. Take my suitcase. Maybe they'll take me to the infirmary, I'll find you. You are naked, take what is there, leave me a couple of underwear.
I say:
- Natasha, don't take it, it is not known where they are taking us.
She says:
- I'll take.
They took this wounded sister out, a German officer is standing, speaking Russian. This sister turns to him, asks:
- Mister officer, what will become of me? I am badly injured. Will they put me in the hospital or will they throw me here?
He doesn't say anything. She turns a second time and cries. He speaks:
- Throw me.
But Ira and I took her by the arms.
Until the night we were led. They brought me to the barn. They stuffed him to the core. The wounded were with us. One tanker was wounded. Burnt face, terrible burns. He moaned so much. It was so creepy that I couldn't look at him. Natasha patiently approached him, listened to him. He says nothing can be understood. Finally, she realized that he was thirsty. We had a kettle. We got some water. She rolled a pipe out of paper and gives him a drink. He strokes her gratefully. He died at night.
The next morning they took us out, they say:
- Wives of the officers, come out.
Everyone is silent, afraid. Then he comes out with a list and reads. I read 20 surnames, says:
- Go to this barn, there are your husbands.
He did not read my name, but I followed him. There are tears. It turns out that they have already been taken prisoner. One says:
- Are we going to live, we will probably be killed, you take care of the children. There was no way to escape from the fortress.
I saw one sitting on the straw. I go up to him and ask:
- Do you know Captain Gribakin? He says:
- I do not know. Everyone is saying goodbye to their wives, but my wife is not here. Allow me, I will say goodbye to you.
We kissed with him. He warns:
- Tell all women not to say that their husbands are political instructors. Then they will perish themselves and we will be betrayed.
I cried with them, went out and quietly told the women about it.
Then they took us away again. The next night we again spent the night in a barn somewhere. Then they took us across the Bug. The bridge there was not yet completed. When they left us to settle in the evening, they said:
- Go get dinner.
Those who have children immediately ran.
- What then? - they ask.
- Go, they will give you dishes there.
For some reason we did not go, as if I felt it. Women come running there, there is such laughter, there is such laughter. First they gave everyone mugs. Some took even more than necessary. And then they begin to laugh and say:
- Go to Stalin, he will feed you.
The women come back with tears, but they didn’t give up the mugs, and one of them grabbed 4 mugs and gave us.
We were taken to the bridge. The wounded sister is coming with us. Suddenly a cart drives up and picks up the wounded. This sister said goodbye to us. Natasha is dragging a suitcase, Ira is taking her grandmother, but I can't go. We walk along the sides, and men walked in the middle of the bridge. Suddenly I see someone picks me up to the men. It turns out that one soldier saw that I could not walk, says:
- Come with us, or you will fall.
We went under escort, however, a little. We passed the bridge. A command is issued. The women stopped and the men were led on. Here the women have abandoned everything. Natasha threw our suitcase. We somehow got over this bridge. Again such a situation. There were no wounded with us. There were lightly wounded people who were silent that they were wounded. It was already the eighth day.
When we were led past our house, after they wanted to shoot, the polka, the janitor's wife, picked up a bag of sugar near my apartment. In the morning, at noon and in the evening, she bit off half a piece with her teeth and gave it to us. We had nothing else.
The next morning, the command is heard to go out. We get up. Natasha doesn't get up. I thought she was fast asleep. I touch her, her head falls, she is unconscious. I was scared. I think: they will not wait for us. I gathered my last strength, I say to Ira:
- Let's carry her in our arms.
A German comes up and says:
- What, kaput?
I say the flu. Asks:
- The uterus?
- Yes talking.
He singles out two Poles, says:
- Carry it.
I didn't let them carry. I gave them the suitcase.
Again we were led to Brest through the fortress. There is a terrible picture. A lot of our killed were huddled up. I saw one tanker. He sits huddled up, his face completely burnt. A terrible picture. Horses and people are lying around. I almost had to walk along them, because they were being driven in formation.
Then we go further, two in our uniform are sitting opposite each other and looking at each other. It turns out they are already dead.
They took us to the fortress. The smell is terrible, everything is decomposing. It was the eighth day, the heat. Feet with calluses, almost all barefoot.We passed the fortress, the bridge. There were corpses in the city. When we were led along 17 September Avenue, they photographed endlessly. I turned away all the time. So they laughed at us. Oh, how they laughed. Shouting:
- Officers' wives! Officers' wives.
Can you imagine how we looked. Natasha put on a nice silk dress, but what did it become? Of course, we looked awful, funny and pathetic, and they laughed a lot.
Leading us, we don't even know where. Quiet, and there is no one but the Germans. I put my mother in a steam room. They held her under the arms. But here we were carrying Natasha, and my mother was left alone to fend for herself. I will ask my acquaintances:
- Look where my mother is.
She already lags behind, goes last, and then a soldier pushes her with a bayonet. One very good woman Anoshkina saved my mother.
Then we were taken to the Brest prison. They let us out into the yard - and whoever wants where. Then we were lined up in a semicircle. 12 Germans came. One, apparently a senior officer, also appeared with an interpreter, then a doctor. Now they said: the Jews should go out separately. Many Jews hid, did not come out, but then they were betrayed. Then the Poles and Russians were ordered to leave. They went out. Then we, the Easterners, were ordered to stand separately. So we were placed in groups. The Jews were immediately taken out of prison. The locals were told: "Go to your homes."
We were left in prison, and the interpreter began to go to one, to another:
- Tell me who is the communist, the Komsomol member.
Nobody said, of course. Then one of ours stands out. I don’t know her last name, I never did. There were a lot of Easterners. She whispered something to him. He walks up to one. She is a Komsomol member with a child. Asks:
- Where is your party card?
When we slept, she tore it up and threw it away. This woman saw, ours, an oriental woman, and she probably told him. She says:
“I don’t have a ticket,” she turned terribly pale. He, however, did not really pester her.
- And where is the Komsomol ticket? " She says:
- I'm not a member of the Komsomol.
- And what ticket did you break? She quickly found, says:
- Trade union.
- Is the trade union card also red?
- Yes, red.
He turns to me, asks:
- Do you have a red union card too?
I say:
- It depends on what kind, they were blue and red.
This woman got lost between us, but then we found her.
We were left in prison. Take whichever room you want. Our group occupied a small room. The floor in the room was made of wood, and everyone was coming towards us. There were about 50 of us. When we went to bed, everyone fought for a place.
Natasha and I are messing around, we don't know what's wrong with her. We make compresses for her. There was no medicine. Anoshkina, another fighting woman began to climb all over the prison. There were no Germans, only one sentry remained at the gate. They find a pharmacy with a lot of drugs. They took it all, found a streptocide, gave Natasha. Then she had a sore throat. Why sore throat, I can not understand. This streptocide, then Anoshkina took out the chocolate, and with this they saved Natasha. She began to recover.On the fifth day, a commission comes to us, they line us up in the yard, everyone is given rations in their hands. One speaks good Russian, one is a doctor. I say that my daughter is sick, I don't know what kind of illness, maybe she can be taken to the hospital. The doctor says:
- Hardly.
He spoke Russian well. He speaks:
“I’ll give you a note and ask to be admitted to the hospital tomorrow morning. They gave us our biscuits, breadcrumbs each, some cereal and some tea. Immediately they laugh again and say:
- You will receive it daily. Stalin sent this to you. It turned out that these supplies remained in the prison.
I went to the sentry with this note. The sentry misses. I'm going to the hospital. Silence in the city. I go to the hospital. I hear a stomp. The Germans are coming, everyone is in cars, on motorcycles, on bicycles, everyone is beautifully dressed, and there were so many of them that [the avenue] on September 17 was filled with troops. I think: where will ours win now? There were a lot of them, and, most importantly, everything was mechanized.
I go to the hospital. Not a soul there. I go through one room, the second, the third, no one is there. The bunks are standing, no one is there. We were given rations later, and then we ate nothing. I saw a piece of bread on the table. Apparently someone bit him. I look at this bread, so I want to grab it. I think, "This is theft." I try not to look at him. I cough, knock, nobody gets out. I can smell this bread already. I think, "Well, I'm stealing it." She grabbed this bread and did not have time to swallow it, my sister comes out. I think, "She saw how I took him." She asks:
- What do you want?
I have tears in my eyes. I show her a note. She says:
- In no case will you be released. I’ll give you some medicine, but no one will put you in the hospital. Try to take her to the city hospital.
I go back, thinking: why did I eat the bread, I could give everyone a piece. I come, pick up Natasha and drag her on my back. I come to the city hospital. There she was not accepted either. I drag her back. At this time, a Polish woman is walking, the janitor's wife, she saw us, was delighted, says that she came several times, brought bread, but the sentry did not let us through. Natasha helped me to carry, gave us bread, sugar, a piece of butter, a scallop. We all have lice in a week.
Again she brought Natasha, but she felt better. After her mother fell ill, she has dysentery. We dragged her to the restroom every minute. Washed cold waterhave a cold. Then she got a little better.3 weeks have passed. We were told that one of the family could walk and ask for bread and clothes. I went to the wives of one Captain Shenvadze and Commissar Kryuchkov. They received me very badly, asked to leave, because they had Germans. I came to the wife of a lieutenant. She helped us a lot, gave us linen, gave us food, gave us some pillowcases, towels. We left her with a big knot. She says:
- If you are released, come to live with me.
Then we were told: whoever has apartments can leave. We came to this Nevzorova. Then the room was vacated. The owner of this house, a Polish woman, allowed us to live, and then our independent life began. When we got out of prison, everyone was interested in us. Most of the locals lived there. Everyone ran to look at us like wild animals. Some were dragging soap, some to eat, some with a towel, some with a blanket, some with a pillow. They brought us the beds. There was a woman there, a doctor Geishter, who terribly hated the Soviet regime, but she helped us. There was a Jewess there, the head of the pharmacy, Ruzya, who also helped us.
So we started living there. Every day they will not carry us food. Our women went to the villages to beg. Most of our women went to the villages. Those who lived in the city went to the villages to ask. They helped a lot in the villages, I couldn't even believe it. During the first days the girls were afraid to walk, it was scary. I couldn't walk either. I cried for the first days. My mother will put on a gas mask bag and go to the village, and the girls then go to meet her. Bread was given, cucumbers, and when they began to walk far away, there was bacon, white flour, eggs. They fed us, literally, until 1943. There were those who would both scold and send to Stalin, but most helped, especially near Kobrin, 50 km. My girls went there. There is nothing on our feet in winter, and we sewed from rags, we will screw something up. Mom used to bring this purse. I am sitting at home. Let's split these pieces of bread. You don’t look anymore if they’re dirty or not. We had no shame. There were these two circles that were given to us.
The girls began to go far to the villages, to gather with one woman, but they never asked. This woman is holding a child in her arms, she asks, the girls are silent, but give them too. We went once every two weeks. They brought it so that they came literally bent over with this burden. For 30 km potatoes were no longer carried, but bread, beans, onions. Milk was given as much as you wanted, but how to carry it.
Then I see that I can't live like that. Just a friend comes in with a robe, how to sew it. We removed the pattern from this robe and began to sew. There was no car, they were sewing on our hands. Then the relatives of Irina's friend said: “Come to us to sew,” and we went to the 4th Brest - this is far away. They lived like this until 1942. In 1941, women went to work. Those who did not work were taken to Germany. True, Ira got a job as a laborer at a factory, and Natasha worked in the fortress, peeling potatoes.
The Poles insisted that we be singled out in the same way as the Jews in the ghetto. There was one lawyer Kshenitsky here. He especially insisted on this. He was a big boss. For some reason the Germans did not agree to this. If someone came and reported that this was the wife of a colonel, this one was a commissar, then she was taken to prison, and then shot. Those who managed to escape, the Germans did not apply anything to them. I was not called. Only when we had a search [on] the first day, they asked me who my husband was. I was saved by the fact that until 1939 my husband was in reserve, worked for railroad... For some reason, his passport was in my bag, and Natasha grabbed this bag. It was clear that he was a railroad worker. I told everyone: I came here to visit relatives, and Natasha came to practice. Her husband was not here, and as proof she showed her passport.
Archive of the IRI RAS. Fund 2. Section VI. Op. 16.D. 9.L. 1-5 (typewritten text, copy).
* * *
And you know what?
They all survived.
Lieutenant Colonel Aleksey Yakovlevich Gribakin, together with his unit, retreated to Kobrin, served in the field administration of the 13th Army, and reached Berlin. Awarded with the order Patriotic War I and II degrees and the Order of the Red Star.
Nadezhda Matveevna and her daughters lived to see liberation. On December 21, 1944 in Brest she was interviewed by the staff of the Commission on the History of the Great Patriotic War F.L. Elovtsan and A.I. Shamshin.
On Defender of the Fatherland Day, it is customary to congratulate all men without exception and age discounts. Man? Congratulations! So he deserved it. But only a few of them know what service is. An experienced wife of an officer tells about how the military lives and serves.
To become the wife of a general, you need to marry a lieutenant and march with him through the garrisons. But a rare bird will fly to the middle of the Dnieper, which means that, with a successful coincidence of circumstances, you will meet old age with your colonel husband. Or you won't, if you run away earlier, unable to withstand all the hardships and hardships of military life.
C - Stability
It simply does not exist. You will never know how long you will live in one place and where you will then be sent. Most likely, further away. The wilder its location, the higher the chance that you will go there.
Each time you need to start all over again and be prepared for the fact that the water is in the column, and the amenities are on the street.
T - Patience
It is necessary to find its inexhaustible source. And scoop liters from there - one glass on an empty stomach for prevention, and in advanced cases, increase the dosage until the symptoms disappear.
О - Communication
With anyone, just not with her husband. Sometimes he leaves in the morning, as usual, for the service and returns not even at night (by the way, this is excellent and consider it lucky!), But two weeks later, simply because the Motherland said: “We must!”. His wife's voice is deliberative, but by no means decisive.
D - children
At first it's hard with them, grandparents are far away, there is often no one to help, you can only rely on yourself. But children grow and become like cats! That is, they walk by themselves. In a closed area where everyone knows each other, nothing bad will ever happen.
F - pity
Forget it! First, you will learn not to spare yourself, otherwise you will not survive, because all life is on you, and your husband has no time - he has a job. Then you will stop feeling sorry for others. And if you see that someone is not conscientiously fulfilling their duties, do not just keep silent. And it is right!