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We didn't know what we were going to die from - the bombings or the famine Israel today

2020-01-25T14:16:03.538Z


Israel This Week - Political Supplement


The siege of Leningrad was the deadliest in modern history • 76 years after, three of the survivors - Elizabeth Eber, Tamara Pasenko and Calabia Margolis - returned to the atrocities

  • Everyday survival war. The siege of Leningrad

872 days. 76 years later, that number still chills the St. Petersburg veterans (Leningrad to 1991). It was the number of days when the northern capital of Russia was under siege by the Nazi German armies and its ally Finland during the "Great Homeland War". This tragic event lasted from September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944, a year before the liberation of Auschwitz.

This is the deadliest siege during modern history. The exact number of victims is unknown to date. Out of some 2.5 million people, about 650,000 have lost their lives, and some claim that twofold. The great majority of them died of heavy famine, along with aerial bombardment and artillery shelling. In their memory, a memorial monument in Jerusalem is inaugurated at a ceremony attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Anna Reed wrote in her book "Leningrad" that famine was actually a deliberate and cruel policy of Hitler and his army commanders, passed as an order to the Wehrmacht in late September 1941: "The Fuhrer is determined to wipe the city of Petersburg off the ground ... With shells of every possible caliber, and continuous bombing of the air ... we cannot or should not find a solution to the problem of moving and feeding the population. "

At the same time, in the early days of the occupation of Leningrad, the Nazis killed about 3,600 Jews. However, thousands of Jews took up arms and fought with their members in the Popular Recruiting and Red Army units on the Northwest Front.

Life in besieged Leningrad was a daily war of survival. Not only a fight for a few dozen ounces of bread, but also for a human photographer and the lives of each and every member of the family that is fading. The tribulations did not end even with the evacuation of the famous "way of life", which passed on the ice and water of Yacht for fishing: in Israel, there are now about 1,300 survivors of the blockade. Three of them, natives of Leningrad, Elizabeth Abre (96), Tamara Pasenko (89) and Calabedia Margulis (88), did not forget the events of that period today.

How did you start the war and the siege?
Elizabeth: "I graduated from school in June 1941. Less than a week before the outbreak of the war, we had graduation. I was then 17. Suddenly, on Sunday, June 22, he appeared on Radio Molotov (US Secretary of State; DBS) and announced It was a scary blow that we did not expect.

"At the same time, my mom went out of town to rent a kit house for family members: me, my brother and sister; but with the hard news, planning fell through and a difficult period began. My 44-year-old father was recruited. Initially, bombs were fired and artillery fired on the city. The alarms sounded, we didn't even have a shelter to evacuate, no one was ready for the emergency, so the occupants evacuated to the stairwell as it was the safest place. For those who had a home like bread they took it with them, along with identifying documents.
"On an average night we had to go out a few times when the alarm sounded. Some people left the house during the shelling because they were afraid the building would collapse. This was how we lived for a long time. In those days, guys recruited from 20 to 18 years old. From my class, all the boys were recruited, many did not return home. ".

"Dad dies of hunger"
Elizabeth says the food shortage started as early as the first few weeks of the blockade: "I don't remember exactly what month, probably in August or September, when the Germans blew up the city's Badyev food stores. They were actually Leningrad's supply base. So, there were no products left. Many workers, including my mother, went to evacuate these warehouses, all the products that remained there were crushed and mixed with the soil, yet they collected and tried to find everything edible.

"What was found was very symbolic, and that led to the distribution of bread sparingly. The workers received between 250 and 400 grams, the children - 125. The distribution was made only according to worker's cards. By six o'clock, many queues were waiting in the bakeries to have these pieces of bread open, Eat them and wait for the next morning. We risked our lives daily. We didn't know what we would die from: the bombings or the famine. Even a simple thing like bringing water was a huge risk. "

"Use sledges to transport bodies." Elizabeth Eber // Photo: Miriam Tzahi

By the time the regular products were over, Elizabeth's mother had to make food out of everything at hand: "She worked in a store selling cattle food. It was a food mix for the US." Farm and house animals also disappeared over time, so people ate this mixture. We, the three children, survived thanks to this food mix.

"At night, we would fill this food with water to make it softer. We had a fireplace in the room where we put this mixture in for heating, after giving it a flat bun. We did not treat this mixture as food but rather as a basic consumer product which we did not starve to. This food tasted good, but we were happy it was with us. "

Tamara: "I was 10. At the time we were a mother, father and sister who was five years older than me. Mother worked as a dentist, and Dad was a CPA at a military equipment factory. He was 40, so he was not drafted, and the factory was also in a state of war and he was there most of the day.

"My mother escorted wagons with equipment shipments toward the front and then back home. I remember well, September 7, 1941. It was the day the 'ring' closed on Leningrad. I was in the courtyard and called to return home. My mother told me that over the train she was on A series of German planes flew in. People jumped from the carts in fear that bombs would be dropped soon, and it did, and most of them died in the bombing, it was the last trailer for medical personnel, which was unlucky, and from that moment on I began to feel the war.

"On November 1, 1941, there was already hunger, and the children were still invited to a fir tree for refreshment," recalls Tamara at the beginning of the severe shortage. "We went there on the street which was threatened by shelling. We were allowed to eat bone broth, and a small packet of 100 grams, two tangerines, some chocolate candies and some ice cream. Most of the things I brought home. Despite the hunger, I didn't eat it on the way."

Hunger also hit her family and led her to deal with the harsh reality: "We burned everything we could to keep warm: chairs, books and everything lit. Dad died of hunger in May 1942. His coping was tormented because his digestive system stopped functioning. It was clear to me that Dad should get food and not us.
"When Mom distributed bread, she would cut it into small pieces in the morning. She made separate stacks for each of us. I always got the least of them. I wasn't angry about it, I realized that was what it needed."

Tamara also encountered shocking phenomena that in today's Russia are uncomfortable to mention: "During the winter there was no water in the pipes. We had to bring water from a well via sleds. On the way there we saw bodies, some cut. People came to a desperate state where human parts were also eaten.

"When the water ran out in the well, my sister and I went to the Niva River. I remember very well that my sister kept me on my feet, I would lie on my stomach on the ice, and with a bucket I would fill the water with pots. Every exit out was particularly difficult because we didn't have woolen clothes, which I greatly cherish since".

Elizabeth also noted that "in the winter we used a sled for transport. Unfortunately, other people, who themselves were barely alive, used sleds to transport the bodies of their relatives for burial."

"On September 5, 1941, three days before the siege began, I celebrated a birthday and my father went to the front," recalls Calabedia. "The blockade began by the distribution of food coupons. For example, bread was distributed - 125 grams each day. The mother had a work certificate and she got more. The rest of the family were children, we were four sisters. My older sister was a student. The whole extended family lived in a building on Avenue. Nevsky, on one floor.

"In the early days of the blockade, I went to the girls' school, but my school was canceled and sent home because of the shelling. The parents had friends who were from Poland and turned out to be anti-Semitic. Their daughter once said to me: I am Polish and Jewish. After that we severed the connection with them. That my friends and sisters would also be Jewish. "

"Boiling water instead of tea"
In contrast to Elizabeth and Tamara, in the area where Calabedia lived, there was a reasonable distribution of products: "The coupons allowed good quality beef, fish, white and black bread, plain and vegetable oil, and a glass of grain. Even if there was no meat, there was always fish - In the early spring, there were medium-sized fish that were common in the Baltic Sea and we would fry them.

"As Jews, of course, we did not eat pork. I was responsible for bringing the supplies, and the family's slips were concentrated with me. The children sometimes received sugar-filled jams instead of a sugar packet. My mother did not give us more than two candies for each of the nurses at a time. She always said there wasn't enough. We didn't have tea either, and we drank boiling water instead. "

What else was the war in those days?
Elizabeth: "At the time of the bombings, we had a group of people on the roof throwing incendiary bombs from planes. They were small but deadly because fire started almost immediately. The job of these people was to extinguish the bombs. If we saw such bombs, we would drop them To the ground, where there were barrels with water and sand. Fortunately, there were not many such cases. "

Tamara: "Two types of bombs were dropped on us: explosive and incendiary. In the area where we were living we fired many incendiary bombs. We would go out to see how it all went up in flames. And the other 10-year-olds would wait down and cover those bombs in the sand, we were more afraid of the bombs and less of the incendiary.

"Whenever there was an 'ordinary' bomb we would go out into the yard and try not to stand near a building or stone gate. In one case, a bomb fell on a neighboring six-story building, completely demolished it and created a huge pit in the ground. Above the abyss were doors, mirrors and leftover rooms. The shelter remains relatively intact, but I do not remember how the people were rescued from it. Later I realized that there were many people who were not able to evacuate the shelter.

Survival on the train
Calabedia: "The houses that stood in the couple's numbers on Nevsky Avenue absorbed the shelling, and those beyond, no. We already knew at the beginning that for our safety it was worthwhile to walk the street with the odd numbers. Otherwise, people had to 'dance' on the street. Luckily, we lived in the old part of the avenue We were going to play in a certain courtyard in the building with the odd number because there it was safer and my mother could see us. "

How long have you lived under siege like this and when did you evacuate from the city?
Elizabeth: "We were evacuated in the second half of 1942 when we passed the ledge. Before that, we sat on the lake bank all night under torrential rain and masses of mosquitoes. We waited for heating to arrive. I will not forget that night until the day I die.

"In the morning, a small ship arrived and we were taken to the first stop where a freight train stood, where we traveled to a town called Patukhovo in Chalabinsk County, where my mother's sister also lived. The trip took a whole month. It was hard for me to describe how we traveled and survived this train. , Some of which could not bear the hardships of the trip and dropped at the first opportunity. "

"People jumped in fear of the cars." Tamara Pasenko // Photo: Dudu Greenshpan

Tamara: "In the last months of the spring of 1942, we had almost nothing and we didn't know if we would survive another winter. Mother worked on her job to redirect us. An opportunity was created when the blockade was broken and we were evacuated through the ledge. During the cruise there were air bombs on the refugee ships. "Fortunately, our ship was not damaged. We arrived at the end of August in the Altai region of southern Siberia."
Calabedia: "I remained in Leningrad during the entire siege period, until its first burglary on January 26 or 27, 1943. We were first transported by freight cars to the city of Yaroslavl, but the destination changed and we reached far beyond the Orel Mountains, to a settlement called Sarbakol."

"We sleep on the floor"
At the end of the siege and fighting, the three women said that they did not wait for them after returning to the city. "We only returned to Leningrad in 1947," Tamara says. "The apartment was occupied by a secret police officer. He helped us find a room in a cooperative apartment and helped Mom find work, in exchange for not claiming it. We lived densely with another 18 people in five rooms."

Calabedia: "In 1944, we returned to Leningrad. We found that our apartment was occupied by some family who requested that we arrange alternative housing. While there were many empty apartments in the building, my mother insisted on ours originally. Some people had to sleep on the floor."
Elizabeth: "We didn't believe we would come back. We had a small two-room apartment and we left it to some woman. It was very difficult to buy any apartment. After all, Leningrad will always remain a special city for me. It is everything to me: the richest and most beautiful."

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2020-01-25

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