The Unwomanly Face of War Page 7

  Mashenka Sungurova was the first to give in.

  “Comrade General! Private Sungurova is ready surefire to perform any task you give her!”

  Afterward we called her “Surefire” till the end of the war.

  …In June 1943 at the Kursk Bulge*9 we were handed the regimental banner, and our regiment, Detached Communications Regiment 129 of the 65th Army, consisted then of 80 percent women. And I want to tell you something, so that you get an idea…So that you understand…What was going on in our souls then. Because there probably will never again be such people as we were then. Never! So naïve and so sincere. With such faith! When the commander of the regiment received the banner and gave the command: “Regiment, before the banner! On your knees!”—we all felt so happy. We were trusted, we were now a regiment like all others, tank regiments, infantry regiments…We stood there and wept; we all had tears in our eyes. You won’t believe me now, but my whole body had been so tense from the turmoil that I got sick, I came down with “night blindness.” It was from lack of food, from nervous strain. But now my night blindness went away. You understand, the next day I was healthy, I got well, and it was because my whole soul was so shaken…

  Xenia Sergeevna Osadcheva

  PRIVATE, HOSPITAL MATRON

  I just became an adult…On June 9, 1941, I turned eighteen, I became an adult. And two weeks later this cursed war began, even twelve days later. We were sent to build the Gagra-Sukhumi railroad. There were only young people. I remember the bread we ate. There was almost no flour in it, but all sorts of other things, mostly water. This bread lay on the table and left a little puddle of water. We used to lick it up.

  In 1942…I voluntarily applied to serve in Evacuation-Clearance Hospital No. 3201. It was a very big frontline hospital that belonged to the Trans- and North-Caucasian fronts and the separate Coastal Army. There were fierce battles, with a lot of wounded. I was assigned to distribute food—this was a round-the-clock duty; it would already be morning and time to serve breakfast, but we would still be handing out supper. Several months later I was wounded in the left leg—I hopped on the right one, but went on working. Then I was appointed to the post of matron, and also had to be there round the clock. I lived at work.

  May 30, 1943…At exactly one o’clock in the afternoon there was a massive airstrike in Krasnodar. I ran out of the building to see if the wounded had been sent off from the train station. Two bombs hit a shed where ammunition was stored. Before my eyes boxes flew up higher than a six-story building and exploded. I was thrown against a brick wall by the blast. I lost consciousness…When I came to it was already evening. I raised my head, tried to bend my fingers—they seemed to move. I cautiously unglued my left eye and went to my section, all covered with blood. In the corridor I met our head nurse, who did not recognize me at first and asked: “Who are you? Where from?” She came closer, gasped, and said: “Where have you been so long, Xenia? The wounded are hungry and you’re not there.” They quickly bandaged my head and my left arm above the elbow, and I went to fetch the supper. It was dark before my eyes; I was dripping sweat. I started serving supper and fell down. They brought me back to consciousness and all I heard was: “Quick! Hurry!” And again—“Quick! Hurry!”

  A few days later they were still taking blood from me for the badly wounded. People were dying…

  …I changed so much during the war that when I came home, mama didn’t recognize me. People showed me where she lived, I went to the door and knocked.

  There came an answer: “Yes, come in…”

  I go in, greet her, and say: “Let me stay the night.”

  Mama was lighting the stove, and my two little brothers were sitting on the floor on a pile of straw, naked, they had no clothes. Mama didn’t recognize me and said: “Do you see how we live, citizen? Go somewhere else before it gets dark.”

  I go up closer, and she again says: “Go somewhere else, citizen, before it gets dark.”

  I bend over her, embrace her, and murmur: “Mama, dear mama!”

  Then they all just fell on me and burst out crying…

  Now I live in Crimea…Here everything drowns in flowers, and every day I look out the window at the sea, but I’m worn out with pain, I still don’t have a woman’s face. I cry often, I moan all day. It’s my memories…

  * * *

  OF THE SMELL OF FEAR AND A SUITCASE OF CANDY

  * * *

  Olga Mitrofanovna Ruzhnitskaya

  NURSE

  I was leaving for the front…It was a magnificent day. Clear air and a sprinkle of rain. So beautiful! I stepped out in the morning and stood there: can it be I won’t come back here again? Won’t see our garden…Our street…Mama wept, clutched me, and wouldn’t let go. I had already left, she caught up with me, embraced me, and wouldn’t let go…

  Nadezhda Vasilyevna Anisimova

  MEDICAL ASSISTANT IN A MACHINE-GUN COMPANY

  To die…I wasn’t afraid to die. Youth, probably, or whatever…There was death around, death was always close, but I didn’t think about it. We didn’t talk about it. It was circling somewhere nearby, but kept missing. Once during the night a whole company conducted a reconnaissance mission in our regiment’s sector. Toward morning it pulled back, and we heard moaning in no-man’s-land. A wounded man had been left behind. “Don’t go there, you’ll be killed,” the soldiers held me back. “Look, it’s already dawn.”

  I didn’t listen to them and crawled there. I found the wounded man. It took me eight hours to drag him back, tied with a belt by the hand. He was alive when we finally made it. The commander of the regiment learned about it, had a fit, and was going to arrest me for five days for being absent without permission. The deputy commander’s reaction was different: “She deserves to be decorated.”

  At nineteen I had a medal “For Courage.” At nineteen my hair was gray. At nineteen in my last battle I was shot through both lungs, the second bullet went between two vertebrae. My legs were paralyzed…And they thought I was dead…

  At nineteen…My granddaughter’s age now. I look at her—and don’t believe it. A child!

  When I came home from the front, my sister showed me my death notice…They had already buried me…

  Albina Alexandrovna Gantimurova

  SERGEANT MAJOR, SCOUT

  I don’t remember my mama…Only vague shadows remain in my memory…Outlines…Her face or her body when she bent over me. Close to me. So it seemed afterward. I was three years old when she died. My father served in the Far East, a career officer. He taught me to ride a horse. That was the strongest impression of my childhood. My father didn’t want me to grow up a sissy. I remember myself from the age of five living in Leningrad with my aunt. During the Russo-Japanese War*10 my aunt was a nurse. I loved her like my mama…

  What kind of girl was I? I’d jump from the second floor of our school on a bet. I loved soccer; I was always goalkeeper for the boys. When the Finnish War began, I kept running away to the Finnish War.*11 In 1941 I had just finished seventh grade and had time to apply to a technical school. My aunt wept: “It’s war!” But I was glad I would go to the front and fight. How could I know what blood is?

  The 1st Guards Division of the people’s militia was being formed, and several of us girls were accepted in a medical battalion.

  I phoned my aunt: “I’m going to the front.”

  From the other end came the reply: “Come home at once! Dinner’s already cold.”

  I hung up. Later I felt sorry for her, terribly sorry. The siege began, the dreadful siege of Leningrad,*12 when half the city died, and she was there alone. A little old woman.

  I remember I got leave to go home. Before going to my aunt I stopped at the grocery store. Before the war I was awfully fond of candy.

  I said: “Give me some candy.”

  The salesgirl looked at me as if I was crazy. I didn’t understand: what are food coupons, what is a siege? Everybody in the line turned to me, and my rifle was bigger than I was. When they gave t
hem out to us, I looked at it and thought: “When will I grow big enough for this rifle?”

  And suddenly everybody, the whole line, begged: “Give her candy. Take our coupons.”

  And they gave me candy.

  They were collecting aid for the front in the streets. Big trays lay on tables right in the square; people came and took off, one a golden ring, another earrings…They brought watches, money…Nobody noted anything down, nobody signed anything…Women took off their wedding rings…

  These are pictures in my memory…

  And there was Stalin’s famous Order No. 227: “Not a step back!” If you turn back, you’re shot! Shot right there. Or else court-martialed and sent to the specially created penal battalions. Those who wound up there were as good as dead. Those who escaped from encirclement or captivity were sent to the filtration camps. Behind us moved the retreat-blocking detachments…Our own shot at our own…

  These are pictures in my memory…

  An ordinary clearing…It’s wet, muddy after rain. A young soldier is on his knees. In glasses. For some reason they keep falling off; he picks them up. After rain. A cultivated boy from Leningrad. They had already taken away his rifle. We are all lined up. There are puddles everywhere…We…hear him beg…He swears…He begs not to be shot; his mother is alone at home. He begins to cry. And they shoot him on the spot—right in the forehead. With a pistol. A show execution: this is what will happen to people who waver. Even for a single moment! A single moment…

  This order turned me into an adult at once. This you couldn’t…For a long time we didn’t remember…Yes, we won the war, but at what cost! At what terrible cost!

  We stayed awake round the clock, there were so many wounded. Once none of us slept for three days and three nights. I was sent to the hospital with a truckload of wounded. I handed over the wounded, and the truck went back empty, so I could sleep. I returned fresh as a daisy, and everybody was falling off their feet.

  I ran into the commissar.

  “Comrade Commissar, I’m ashamed.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I slept.”

  “Where?”

  I told him how I took the wounded in a truck, came back empty, and had a nice sleep.

  “So what? Good for you! At least one of us can be normal; the rest of them are falling off their feet.”

  But I was ashamed. And with that kind of conscience we lived through the whole war.

  They treated me well in the medical battalion, but I wanted to be a scout. I said I’d run away to the front line if they didn’t let me go. They wanted to expel me from Komsomol for that, for not obeying military regulations. But I ran away even so…

  My first decoration was the medal “For Courage”…

  A battle began. A barrage of gunfire. The soldiers lay cowering. The order came: “Forward! For the Motherland!” They just lay there. Again the order, again they just lay there. I took off my cap so they could see: a girl’s standing up…And they all stood up and we went into battle…

  They gave me the medal, and that same day we went on a mission. For the first time in my life I had…our…women’s thing…I saw blood and howled: “I’m wounded…”

  There was a paramedic in the scouts with us, an older man. He came to me.

  “Where are you wounded?”

  “I don’t know where…But there’s blood…”

  He told me all about it, like a father…

  After the war I went scouting for some fifteen years. Every night. And dreamed things like that my submachine gun refused to shoot, or we were surrounded…I’d wake up grinding my teeth. Trying to remember—where are you? There or here?

  When the war ended I had three wishes: first—to ride on a bus, instead of crawling on my stomach; second—to buy and eat a whole loaf of white bread; and third—to sleep in white sheets and have them make crinkly noises. White sheets…

  Liubov Arkadyevna Charnaya

  SECOND LIEUTENANT, CRYPTOGRAPHER

  I was expecting a second child…I had a two-year-old son, and I was pregnant. Then—the war…And my husband was at the front…I went to my parents and had…Well, you understand? An abortion…Though it was forbidden then…How could I give birth? Tears all around…War! How could I give birth in the midst of death?

  I finished the course in cryptography. They sent me to the front. I wanted to take revenge for this child I couldn’t give birth to. My girl…I had expected a girl…

  I requested the front line. They kept me at headquarters…

  Valentina Pavlovna Maximchuk

  ANTIAIRCRAFT GUNNER

  They were leaving town…Everybody was leaving…At noon on June 28, 1941, we, the students of Smolensk Pedagogical Institute, also assembled in the courtyard of the printing house. It was not a long assembly. We left the city by the old Smolensk road in the direction of the town of Krasnoe. Observing caution, we walked in separate groups. Toward the end of the day the heat subsided, walking became easier, we went more quickly, not looking back. We were afraid to look back…We reached a stopping place and only then looked to the east. The whole horizon was enveloped in a crimson glow. From a distance of thirty miles it seemed to fill the whole sky. It was clear that it was not ten or a hundred houses burning. The whole of Smolensk was burning…

  I had a new chiffon dress with ruffles. My girlfriend Vera liked it. She tried it on several times. I promised to give it to her as a wedding present. She was going to get married. There was a nice guy.

  And here suddenly was this war. We were leaving for the trenches. Our possessions were all given to the superintendent of the dormitory. What about the dress? “Take it, Vera,” I said when we were leaving the city.

  She didn’t take it. Why, you promised it to me as a wedding present. It got burned up in that fire.

  Now we walked and kept looking back. It felt as if our backs were being roasted. We walked all night without stopping and at dawn came to our work. Digging antitank ditches. A sheer wall seven yards long and three and a half yards deep. I was digging and my shovel burned like fire, the sand looked red. Before my eyes stands our house with flowers and lilac bushes…White lilacs…

  We lived in hovels on a flood meadow between two rivers. Hot and humid. Myriads of mosquitoes. We used to smoke them out before going to bed, but at dawn they would get in anyway; it was impossible to sleep peacefully.

  I was taken to the field hospital from there. We lay on the floor next to each other. Many of us got sick then. I had a high fever. Chills. I lay there—I cried. The door to the ward opened, the doctor says from the threshold (he couldn’t get any further, the mattresses were lying so close to each other): “Ivanova has plasmodium in her blood.” Me, that is. She didn’t know that for me nothing could have been scarier than this plasmodium, ever since I read about it in a textbook back in the sixth grade. And at that moment the radio played: “Arise, vast country…” I heard this song for the first time then. “I’ll recover,” I thought, “and go to the front at once.”

  They brought me to Kozlovka, not far from Roslavl, unloaded me on a bench. I sat there, holding on with all my might so as not to fall over, and heard as if through sleep: “This one?”

  “Yes,” the paramedic says.

  “Take her to the dining room. Give her something to eat first.”

  And then I was in a bed. You should understand what it was to sleep not on the ground by a fire, not on a tarpaulin under a tree, but in a hospital, in the warmth. With a sheet. I didn’t wake up for seven days. They said the nurses roused me and fed me, but I don’t remember it.

  When I woke up by myself after seven days, a doctor came, examined me, and said: “Sturdy organism; you’ll pull through.”

  And I plunged into sleep again.

  …At the front my unit, for its part, immediately got encircled. The food norm was two dry crusts a day. There was no time to bury the dead; we simply scattered sand over them. The faces we covered with forage caps…“If we survive,” the com
mander said, “I’ll send you to the rear. I used to think that a woman couldn’t live like this even for two days. I imagine my wife…” I was so hurt I burst into tears. For me to sit in the rear at such a time was worse than death. I could stand it all with my mind and my heart, but physically it was more than I could take. The physical load…I remember how we carried the shells, carried the guns through the mud, especially in Ukraine, where the ground after rain or in spring was so heavy, like dough. To dig a common grave and bury our comrades after we hadn’t slept for three days…even that was hard. We no longer wept, because in order to weep you also need strength, but we wanted to sleep. To sleep and sleep.

  On watch I used to walk back and forth without stopping and recite poetry out loud. Other girls sang songs, so as not to collapse and fall asleep…

  Maria Vasilyevna Zhloba

  UNDERGROUND FIGHTER

  We were transporting the wounded out of Minsk…I wore high-heel shoes, because I was short and embarrassed by it. One heel broke just as they shouted: “Assault!” And I ran barefoot, the shoes in my hand; a pity, they were beautiful shoes.

  When we were encircled and saw that we couldn’t break through, the nurse-aide Dasha and I climbed out of the ditch, no longer hiding, and stood up tall: better to have your head torn off by a shell than to be captured and brutalized. The wounded, those who were able, also stood up…

  When I saw my first fascist soldier, I couldn’t say a word, I lost speech. And they walked along young, cheerful, smiling. And wherever they stopped, wherever they saw a water pump or a well, they washed themselves. They always had their sleeves rolled up. They wash and wash…Blood all around, screaming, and they wash and wash…Such hatred of them rose up in me…When I came back home, I changed blouses twice. Everything in me protested against them being here. I couldn’t sleep nights. Wha-a-t?! Our neighbor, Aunt Klava, got paralyzed when she saw them walking on our land. In her house…She died soon, because she couldn’t bear it…