😉 Welcome regular and new readers! Thank you for choosing an article on this site! “Escape from Captivity” – a front-line soldier’s memories of how he was captured and miraculously managed to escape …
War story
I was very young when the war began, but I remember a lot: the bombings, fires, the gallows on the square in the regional center. I remember how they drove young people to Germany, and some hid in our attic – for which they were supposed to be shot.
I clearly remember how my father, Vasily Yemelyanovich, returned from the front. The grandmother, who prayed for him throughout the war, did not wait for her son for only a week. My father came very weak and sick, the skin was covered with some kind of scab. The whole family went to collect a line, my mother brewed it in water and bathed my father. It helped.
It seems that life should have improved, but 1946 came – drought, new trouble – famine. Rivers and streams dried up, where you could at least catch a fish. My father fell seriously ill – weak lungs could not stand the war, captivity, hunger and cold. He could not work hard work, he was a watchman in the collective farm gardens.
The peasants continued to live hard. They plowed on bulls and cows – they raised collective farms destroyed by the war. But people helped each other as much as they could. In our house, adults often gathered for gatherings – my father was an avid accordion player and a skillful storyteller. One of his stories, about how he was in captivity, I want to tell the way he did it.
In Belarus, near Molodechno, we were surrounded. We tried to break out of it, went on the attack, ran with rifles and shouts of “Hurray!” But the Germans shot our soldiers from machine guns, they fell like mowed grass. The attack drowned.
Help arrived – and again: “Hurray! Forward!” – and again the attack failed. We were not destined to break out of the encirclement. The survivors sat in the trench and waited for their fate. Heard:
– Rus! Give up!
Resourceful Fedor
Fyodor, a fellow countryman from a neighboring farm, fought with me, a poor, brave and resourceful person. He offered to wait. But the young lieutenant ordered to surrender. We did not have time to fulfill his command – a German soldier rose over the trench. He pointed a machine gun at us, bared his teeth, cackled, showed: get out of the trench.
They gathered all those who survived, and finished off the wounded, this made their hair stand on end. They drove us to the church, there were already many like us. Overgrown, dirty, thin, lice crawl over them.
We were surrounded – let’s have a smoke. I gave the whole pouch. And Fyodor saved his and, as it turned out, did the right thing. We found a corner, settled down, prisoners surrounded us with questions about the situation at the front. And we ourselves do not know – after all, ordinary soldiers.
Fyodor did not sit still, walked around, inquired, reported the news. One day I brought some potatoes. Some we baked and ate. They put the rest under their heads and fell asleep. In the morning the potatoes were gone.
It was possible to go out into the air, walked in turns, they were afraid to lose a comfortable place in the church. We were not allowed to eat or drink, sometimes they threw some kind of waste and cackled when hungry people pounced on them.
I went out into the air and watched the following picture: our very young soldier was walking around the barbed wire, and fresh appetizing green grass grew behind the barbed wire. So he put his hand in to rip it off, and had already ripped it off – but an automatic fire from the tower cut short the boy’s life.
The German son of a bitch felt sorry for the weed. I saw many deaths, but here I could not stand it and sobbed.
Matter of chance
On the third day we were taken to the dining room. We come, there are tables, iron bowls are placed on them, a brew is smoking in the tank. The first quickly sat down at the table, they poured him soup, he wanted to eat while sitting, but the chair was knocked out from under him, he fell, and the contents of the bowl poured onto him.
It turned out that it was necessary to stand up and quickly drink a hot water bottle or pour it into the vessel brought with him and sip on the go. We didn’t have any dishes, we couldn’t drink the hot brew quickly and were left without food.
The next day we got hold of empty cans, and drank a hot drink once a day. Once Fyodor brought some old things and said that, according to his information, they would release the civilians who were also captured. I put on a one-sleeve scroll and linen pants.
In the morning, the command came: come out, build. The camp commandant drove up. He had a huge belly and a fat face with a double chin. He announced that the German command decided to release the civilians who were captured in the area 30 kilometers away.
We ventured out, we were given a loaf of bread for two and ordered not to get confused in other people’s villages, otherwise it would be bad. We left without feeling our feet under us. We reached the first line and hid in it, fearing pursuit. After all, it was an escape from captivity. We walked for three days and three nights through the Belarusian swampy forests.
Kind people
It was impossible to stay in the woods any longer: cold, hunger, insects, wild fatigue. We went to a small village, watched for a long time to make sure that there were no Germans there. They knocked on the last hut. The hostess came out, followed by seven children – small, small, less.
She said she would take one, and pointed at me, and Fyodor was taken by a neighbor. We agreed that we would be considered their employees. I slept in the barn for two days. A little boy brought food – a piece of bread and a mug of sour milk.
On the third day, the hostess came, called to the table, fed me and the children with pancakes, each got a mug of milk. I decided to thank the kind woman. I took boards from the shed and with the help of her elder sons built a corridor that the hut did not have. I also repaired shoes for children.
It was dangerous to stay further, Fedor and I got ready to go. The hostess took something in the chest and went to the headman, who wrote us passes for a bribe.
But we still walked at night, making our way through the forests, afraid to catch the eyes of the Germans. If you heard the noise of the engine, they fell and lay without moving. Finally, we came across a detachment of Red Army men, who fought out of the encirclement. Together with them we made our way to ours.
Then there were special departments, a penal battalion, but everything turned out well, so to speak. My father finished the war in East Prussia, took part in the battles for Konigsberg, and had awards. After the war, Dad was often visited by his friend Fyodor. When he came, our house was filled with noise, as if there were a hundred people there.
Pope often spoke of his friend with respect, noting that if it were not for Fedor, he would not have been able to escape from the hands of the Nazis.
😉 If you liked the story “Escape from Captivity”, share with your friends in social networks. Come in, drop in, run into this site!