“After the war, women had another war”

“The men talked about exploits, about the movement of the fronts and military leaders, and the women talked about something else – how scary it is to kill for the first time … or to go after the battle across the field where the dead lie. They lie scattered like potatoes. All are young, and I feel sorry for everyone – both the Germans and our Russian soldiers. They hid their military books, their certificates of injuries – because they had to learn to smile again, walk in high heels and get married.

“The worst thing, of course, is the first fight. The sky is buzzing, the earth is buzzing, it seems that the heart will burst, the skin on you is about to burst. I didn’t think the earth could crack. Everything crackled, everything rumbled. I felt like the whole earth was shaking like that. I just couldn’t… How can I survive all this… I thought I couldn’t stand it. I became so scared, and so I decided: in order not to be afraid, I took a Komsomol ticket, dipped the wounded man in the blood, put it in my pocket and fastened it. And with this, I swore to myself that I must endure, the most important thing is not to get scared, because if I get scared in the first fight, then I won’t take a step further. They will pick me up from the front line, send me to the medical battalion. And I only wanted to be at the forefront, to avenge my blood personally … “

“Fights are tough. In hand-to-hand combat was … This is horror. A person becomes like this … This is not for a person … They beat, stab with a bayonet in the stomach, in the eye, strangle each other by the throat. There is a howl, a scream, a groan … I won’t believe anyone if they say that it wasn’t scary. Here the Germans got up and go, another five to ten minutes and the attack. You start to shake… But this is before the first shot. And when you hear the command, you don’t remember anything, you get up together with everyone and run. And you’re not afraid. But on the second day you no longer sleep, you are already scared. You remember everything, all the details, and it dawns on your mind that you could have been killed, and it becomes insanely scary. Immediately after the attack, it is better not to look at the faces, these are some completely different faces, not the same as those of people. I can’t express what it is. Everyone seems to be a little crazy. They are scary to look at…

“We went on the offensive, we advanced very quickly. And they ran out of steam, the supply lagged behind us: the ammunition ran out, food came out, the kitchen was smashed by a shell. For the third day they sat on breadcrumbs, the tongues were all peeled off so that they could not turn them over. My partner was killed, I went to the front line with a new one. And suddenly we see a foal in neutral. So beautiful, his tail is fluffy … He walks calmly, as if there is nothing, no war. And the Germans, we hear, made a noise, they saw him. Our soldiers are also talking: “He will leave. And the soup would be…” “You can’t take it from a machine gun at such a distance…” “Snipers are coming. They have him now … Come on, girls! .. “

What to do? I didn’t even have time to think. Aimed and fired. The foal’s legs buckled and fell on its side. And thinly, thinly, the wind brought, whinnied. It then dawned on me: why did I do this? So beautiful, but I killed him, I put him in the soup! Behind me I hear someone sobbing. Looked it up and it’s brand new. “What are you?” “It’s a pity for the foal …” And her eyes were full of tears. “Ah-ah-ah, subtle nature! And we are hungry for three days. It’s a pity because I haven’t buried anyone yet, you don’t know what it’s like to walk thirty kilometers in a day with full equipment, and even hungry. First, the Fritz must be driven out, and then we will worry … “

I look at the soldiers, they just egged me on, shouted, asked. No one looks at me, as if they don’t notice, everyone buries themselves and goes about their business. And do what you want me to do. Just sit down and cry. As if I were some kind of flayer, as if it costs me nothing to kill anyone. And since childhood, I loved all living things. With us, I already went to school, the cow fell ill, and she was slaughtered. I cried for two days. Mom was afraid that something would happen to me, she cried so much. And here – bam! and fired at the defenseless colt. In the evening they bring us dinner. Cooks: “Well, well done sniper… Today there is meat in the cauldron…” They put pots on us and went. And my girls are sitting, they don’t touch dinner. I realized what was the matter, in tears and from the dugout … The girls behind me began to console me with one voice. We quickly snatched up our bowlers and let’s eat … That’s how it was … “

“A woman at war… This is something that there are no human words about yet. If men saw a woman on the front line, their faces became different, even the sound of a woman’s voice transformed them. One night I sat down near the dugout and sang softly. I thought that everyone was sleeping, no one could hear me, and in the morning the commander told me: “We did not sleep. Such a longing for a female voice … “

And I bandaged one tanker … The battle is on, the roar. He asks: “Girl, what is your name?” It was so strange for me to pronounce my name in this roar, in this horror: “Olya …” I always tried to be smart, not to forget that I am a woman. And they often told me: “Lord, was she in battle, so clean.” I remember that I was very afraid that if they killed me, I would look ugly. I saw a lot of dead girls… I didn’t want to die like that. Another time you hide from the shelling and not so much think that you will not be killed, as you hide your face so that you will not be disfigured. I think all our girls thought so. And the men laughed at us, it seemed funny to them. Like, they don’t think about death, but the devil about what … “

“Everything has now been restored, everything is buried in flowers, and I am languishing from pain, even now I don’t have a woman’s face. I can’t smile, I moan every day. During the war, I changed so much that when I came home, my mother did not recognize me. They showed me where she lived, I went to the door and knocked. They answered: “Yes, yes …” I entered, said hello and said: “Let me spend the night.”

Mom was lighting the stove, and my two younger brothers were sitting on the floor on a pile of straw, naked, there was nothing to wear. Mom did not recognize me and answers: “Go ahead.” I still ask: yes somehow. Mom says: “You see, citizen, how we live? We have and so how many soldiers slept. Before it gets dark, move on.” I come closer to my mother, she again: “Citizen, go further before it gets dark.”

I lean over, hug her and say: “Mom-Mom!” Then they all pounce on me, how they roar … I went through a very difficult path. To date, there are no books or films to compare to what I have experienced.”

“Husband arrived:“ What, Marusya, will you sit in the rear? “No,” I say, “let’s go.” At this time, a special reserve column was organized to serve the front. My husband and I asked to go there. My husband was the chief machinist, and I was the machinist. We traveled in a wagon for four years, and our son was with us. He never even saw a cat in my entire war. When I caught a cat near Kiev, our train was terribly bombed, five planes flew in, and he hugged her: “Kisanka, dear, how glad I am that I saw you. I don’t see anyone, well, sit with me. Let me kiss you.” Child. A child should have everything for a child…

How many trains did I bring to the front? Just consider: one composition per day, on average, three hundred and sixty-five compositions a year. And in four years? Multiply – one and a half thousand compositions will turn out. My husband and I were taking Colonel Svoboda’s Czechoslovak corps to the front. We were always bombed, machine-gunned. And they shoot at the locomotive, the main thing for them is to kill the driver, to destroy the locomotive. The planes descended low and hit the wagon and the locomotive, and my son is sitting in the wagon. I was most afraid for my son when they bombed, I took him from the heating truck with me to the locomotive. I’ll grab him, press him to my heart: “Let them kill him with one piece.” Will it kill like that? Therefore, it is clear that she remained alive. ”

“On the seventh of June I had happiness, my wedding was. Some gave us a big party. I knew my husband for a long time: he was a captain, he commanded a company. We swore with him that if we stay alive, we will get married after the war. They gave us a month of vacation … We went to Kineshma, this is the Ivanovo region, to his parents. I rode a heroine, I never thought that you could meet a front-line girl like that. We have gone through so much, saved so many children for mothers, husbands’ wives. And suddenly … I recognized the insult, I heard offensive words.

Prior to this, except for: “dear sister”, “dear sister” did not hear anything else. And I was not some kind, I was pretty, clean. They sat down to drink tea in the evening, the mother took her son to the kitchen and cries: “Who did you marry? At the front… You have two younger sisters. Who will marry them now? And now, when I think about it, I want to cry. Imagine: I brought a record, I loved it very much. There were such words: you are rightfully supposed to walk in the most fashionable shoes … This is about a front-line girl. I put it on, the older sister came up and smashed it in front of my eyes, saying that you have no rights. They destroyed all my front-line photographs…”

“And from the last days in the war, this is what I remember. We were driving, and suddenly music came from somewhere. The violin… That was the day the war ended for me, not on Victory Day, when everyone was shooting at the sky, hugging, kissing, but when I heard the violin. Already two weeks have passed since they said that Germany capitulated, that victory. It was such a miracle: suddenly music. How I woke up…

It seemed to us all that after the war, after such human suffering, after a sea of ​​tears, there would be a wonderful life. It seemed to us that all people would be very kind, would love each other … After all, everyone had such a great grief. It made us brothers and sisters! How we waited for this day… Victory Day. And he really was wonderful. Even nature felt what was going on in human souls.

But people? When I now see evil people, I see egoists who live only for themselves, I cannot understand: how did this happen, how did this happen? I remember that violin, its thin, its weak sound, like the sound of a child’s voice, and my state then – as if I had recovered from a heavy sleep. What a beautiful world! What a wonderful person! That’s when I first thought about the future. We all suddenly started talking about the future! They talked about love. I wanted to love. And although we went through a severe war, we still managed to give birth to beautiful children … That’s the most important thing.

Source: excerpts from the book by Svetlana Aleksievich “War has no female face” (Vremya, 2008).