“It was getting harder every day”: a resident of the besieged Leningrad - about war, hunger and patriotism

- Zoya Pavlovna, please tell us how the war began for you? Where were you on June 22, 1941?

- I was in the city of Lomonosov, in Oranienbaum. We lived there. Were at home. And suddenly Levitan’s voice is heard on the radio. I still remember, his voice I hear how he declared war. My mother, Natalya Ivanovna, cried and told dad: “Pavlushenka, just the Finnish war, two men died in our house” ... Dad told her: “Natasha, everything will be fine, everything is fine.”

- What happened next, in the first months of the war?

- Every day it was getting worse and worse, getting harder. On January 23rd, at six o’clock in the evening, I fed my dad a stew. He ate two or three spoons and said: "Zoya, I can’t take it anymore, I don’t want to, I’ve been full for life." He barely reached the bed. And I sat around him all night, and at six in the morning he died of hunger.

• Leningraders listen to a message about the German attack on the Soviet Union, June 22, 1941
• © Boris Losin / RIA News

We went to the store for bread - 125 grams of it were. And I had to watch him, hold hands, so that someone from the side would not grab the bread. Once I went with my girlfriend on the cards to the store. Also in Lomonosov. We walked with her across the field, the parade ground was large. And suddenly the plane flies, and we see: the bomb falls. And we were taught like this: if a bomb flies, then do not run away, but run forward to meet it, because it carries away. And we ran, passed, ran again. And we go along with my girlfriend, and suddenly I go, but she is not. She went to the fence, I go up, and she hangs on it dead. Some people helped take her home ...

We were digging trenches. They lived in them, hid at night, because there the Germans scouts walked. Before the war, they planted a garden in Iliki, a place near Lomonosov. Harvested, cabbage ... But from the beginning of the war they cut all this, but the stumps remained. And we went to collect them, we cut them, and suddenly the plane flies low-low. The pilot looks, put a machine gun. We see that he laughs cheerfully, holds a machine gun, but does not shoot. And here is a ditch. And we jumped into this ditch and came home all wet. But they brought the stumps home.

- Parents gave food, bread to children?

- Of course. Dad and mom, they shared everything ... I don’t remember that they ever ate at all. Here, some of the flour stew was made thin. They fed us all.

- What was the situation at the beginning of the blockade? How did it all go?

- I remember that horses were brought to the wounded at the beginning of the war, which barely walked. Offered, take away, but everyone somehow laughed. They were buried in the upper park, and when it all started, they began to dig them out. And it was the turn to take a piece of meat from these already dug horses that had lain in the pit for some time. I remember that my dad also dug them up.

When I buried dad, there was a very severe frost - 36 or 38 degrees. Thanks to the neighbor - he made a coffin, put on a wheelbarrow, and we drove him to the cemetery - this is in Lomonosov, where the Katalnaya Hill ... There was a chapel. The dead bodies were above her roof. Until now, when I arrive there, I see these people. I see dead bodies. There, it turns out, everyone was brought in, who did not have time to bury. Then I wondered how dad was still buried. Uncle Fedya said that for this he blew up the grave.

• Residents of besieged Leningrad pick up water that appeared after shelling in holes in the asphalt, December 1941
• © Boris Kudoyarov / RIA News

- How did you yourself begin to take part in the war?

- As my father buried, I went as a volunteer. There were five of us in total. And before that, we completed the courses of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. A military field hospital was formed in Lebyazhye, and we were sent there. There was Dr. Senkevich, a leading surgeon, father of Jura Senkevich. We were all lined up. Since we were all very exhausted, we accepted three, but two did not, including me. They said: we will take her, and she will die. And they went to the meeting, and when they returned, Senkevich said: Let’s leave this girl in a green dress. If we send her, she will die immediately. And the second doctor, the surgeon, also says: then let's leave the second. And we were all left in this hospital.

So my service began. They just said: put these two in the ward, and feed them a little bit after two hours. Otherwise, they will not survive. And we were fed. Two months later they come to the ward: “Somewhere we have dystrophics lying here”? And Senkevich says: “No, there are nobody besides rich buns.” And then I was appointed a ward sister. At first I worked as a nurse. Then they organized nursing courses, which I began to attend. Then I was in the rank of soldier.

Then they took me to the operating room. The senior operating sister Busya Telina was. She says: I want to teach you. And then I worked the whole war later as an operating sister in this hospital. This is how my military service began.

- What was the fate of your family?

- I asked to visit my mother from the hospital. And from there the trains ran once a day. I came from there to Lomonosov. Mom lies - she was already no. And my three sisters, Klava, Shura, Irina. Mom told me: “Don't leave the girls. Do not get married early and do not cut the braids. " And at eight o'clock I had to go back to the hospital in Lebyazhye. Trains did not go. And I went on foot. But mom stayed.

I left, and an hour later she died. I come to the outpost in front of Lebyazhy, my brother served there, and I say: “Call me Nikolay Vodovozov ...” My name then was not Romanenko, Vodovozova. There is the chief of the outpost - he knew us, came when mom and dad were alive. He says: “Zoya, they were supposed to return from intelligence three days ago, but they are not there. We don’t know where they are. ” And then he drove me to the hospital in a car. There were four kilometers left. And I walked 22 kilometers. It turned out that an hour later a brother returned with a captive general. They hid in dugouts so that the Germans would not find them there. And then they were awarded all. And I have a doctor, Tatyana Mikhailovna, a surgeon, asking: "Zoya, how is it?" I told her. She says: "Tomorrow I’ll talk with the head of the hospital, maybe we will collect some food and send it to mom." And my mother has already died ...

- And what happened with the brother, with the sisters?

“My brother has already served.” In the border troops. I went to reconnaissance. The prisoners were brought. That's how the general then. He then served with Khrushchev, the whole war. After the war he was in Kiev, and after Kiev - in Moscow.

• Siege bread and breadcards from World War II
• RIA News

- And how are the sisters?

- At first I was at home, looked after them. And then I gave them to the orphanage. From there they were sent on boats ... to Semenovo, Gorky region. And between Peterhof and Martyshkin their boats were bombed. And the children began to sink. The sailors somehow saved them. Then they wrote to me that the youngest of my sisters allegedly drowned. But it turned out that she was caught and put on another boat. They were then brought to the Gorky region. And my doctors somehow collected rations and sent them to an orphanage. I did not know that. Then they wrote to me from there: "Thank you, Zoya, like that." The doctors who worked at the hospital even sent rations to the orphanage during the war.

- Is it for all the children in the orphanage?

- Yes. To all children, not just mine. They just sent rations there.

- Why do you think people behaved like this, did not surrender Leningrad?

- Because it is our homeland. How could people pass Leningrad? There were so many patriots. The wounded man is lying in the hospital, and they treated him a little, and he already says: write me down, my friends are fighting there, they are dying, and I'm lying here. I want to fight for the Motherland, for Stalin, for Russia, for the Soviet Union. These were.