Presidential Library presents childhood memories of the siege

Lyudmila Zemskova, the resident of St. Petersburg, was among hundreds of people, who responded to the call of the Presidential Library to share documents about the siege. Her grandmother's sister, Valentina Lyubova, who was a head teacher at school No. 105 in Leningrad all through the war, wrote a memoir of heroism of teachers and kept safe the essays that schoolchildren wrote in the besieged city.

Inspired by a school reunion, which took place many years after the described events, she made up her mind to write her own memoir: “I remember perfectly well the very first day of the war and other days of the siege, which followed, when bombs and shells exploded outside the school, and we studied with children, struggled for life, helped the Fatherland and the front and dreamed of better days ... "

Pupils, who did not give up classes during the first 1941/42 winter of the war, were called ‘winterers’. Valentina Lyubova remembered that one of them, Zoya Prusakova, was seriously wounded on New Year's Eve. And when the girl came back from the hospital, children called on her and "held consultations on the curriculum so that she did not fall behind."

Valentina Lyubova also recalls a spring morning of 1942, when she went out into a school yard and gasped. The pipes burst at night, water that flooded the whole yard froze. It would have been a real disaster, if ice melted and water flowed into the bomb shelter. I could hardly find two seniors who had the strength to use the crowbar.

The excerpts from essays that schoolchildren of Vyborgsky District, Leningrad, wrote during the first winter of the siege, later collected by Valentina Lyubova, are touching. Titles speak for themselves: “Autumn in Leningrad in 1941”, “Winter in 1941–1942 in Leningrad”, “Why I hate the Nazis”, “My life”. They reveal the feelings and dreams of young participants of the defence of Leningrad, love for their native city and deep hatred of fascism.

The essay of Lilya Zhimalenkova, a sixth-grader, reads in part: “The city is gloomy, stern, silent, ice-covered. The tram traffic is stopped. Radio is silent. There is no water supply or sewerage system. The city seems to be sleeping covered with a fluffy sheet. Weak residents, like shadows, are plodding along the sidewalk. At shops they are standing in queues all day long waiting for food and when evening comes, having nothing to eat, they are heading for their gloomy flats. They are not discouraged, though. And hatred of the enemy grows in their hearts.”

The essay by D. Nakhabin, a sixth-grader, reads: “Most of all, I remember January 29th. My grandma died on that day. I will never forget this day, and I will curse Hitler forever ... ”

Memories of Anna Varentsova’s younger brother, who remembers his sister, a tenth-grader, a joyful girl who got seriously ill, are deeply moving.

An extract from “My Life” essay by pupil Tamara Solovyova reads in part: “Dad got sick suffering from malnutrition and died on the night of December 20-21. Our brother is missing. He probably fell on a road, for he was very exhausted. My mother fell ill on February 10. She died on March 2. No dad, no mum, no brother - I'm alone. On March 28, my aunt came and said that she was going to become my guardian. But she disappeared as soon as she took my belongings. She even took my ration cards. A woman, activist Liza Ryabova, let me stay at her place. On April 8, I went to a shop to buy bread and got run over by a car. I had a broken leg. And this might have saved me, for there was enough food in hospital ... ”

The Presidential Library will also digitize an article from "Leningradsky Rabochy" newspaper dated March 1, 1985. The article entitled “I will tell you about a nurse” highlights the feat of women - school teachers, kindergarten teachers, nurses - who took care of children in besieged Leningrad.

The sketches by G. A. Zavinskaya are about a kindergarten she went to, where her mother worked as well, during the siege.

As part of a campaign launched in an effort to preserve the memory of the Siege of Leningrad, Ivan Ilyin shared his memories with specialists of the Presidential Library. He was 10 years old in 1941, but he was eager to fight against the Nazis. He ran away to the front and had a series of adventures during the evacuation. Alisa Bolshakova’s book, which tells a story of a girl in the besieged city, entered the Presidential Library’s collections. In total, about 200 people have responded to the call to share first-hand accounts of that time. Roughly 2,000 documents have been digitized.