The blockade of Leningrad, the children of the blockade ... Everyone heard these words. One of the most magnificent and at the same time tragic pages in the archives of the Great Patriotic War. These events entered the history of the world as the longest and worst in its consequences siege of the city. The events that took place in this city from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944, showed the whole world the great spirit of a people capable of achievement in the conditions of hunger, disease, cold and devastation. The city survived, but the price paid for this victory was very high.
Blockade. Start
Plan “Barbarossa” - this is what the enemy strategy was called, according to which the capture of the Soviet Union was carried out. One of the points of the plan was the rout and complete capture of Leningrad in a short time. Hitler wanted to get the city no later than the fall of 1941. The aggressor's plans were not destined to materialize. The city was captured, cut off from the world, but not taken!
The blockade officially began on September 8, 1941. It was on this fall day that German troops captured Shlisselburg and finally blocked the land connection of Leningrad with the entire territory of the country.
In fact, everything happened a little earlier. The Germans systematically isolated the city. So, from July 2, German planes regularly bombed the railways, hindering the supply of products in this way. On August 27, communication with the city through the railways was already completely interrupted. After 3 days, there was a break in the city’s connection with hydroelectric power stations. And from September 1, all commercial stores stopped working.
At first, practically no one believed that the situation was serious. Nevertheless, people who felt that something was amiss began to prepare for the worst. Shops very quickly empty. Right from the first days, cards for food were introduced in the city, schools and kindergartens were closed.
Children of the besieged city
Sorrow and horror on the fate of many people imprinted the siege of Leningrad. Children of the siege are a special category of residents of this city, whom circumstances deprived of their childhood, forced to grow up much earlier and fight for survival at the level of adults and wise people.
At the time of the closure of the siege ring, in addition to adults, there were 400 thousand children of different ages in the city. It was caring for children that gave Leningraders strength: they were taken care of, cared for, tried to hide from bombing, and comprehensively cared for. Everyone understood that saving children is possible only if the city is preserved.
Adults could not protect children from hunger, cold, illness and exhaustion, but everything possible was done for them.
Cold
Life in besieged Leningrad was difficult, unbearable. The shelling was not the worst thing the hostages of the city experienced. When all power plants were turned off and the city was shrouded in darkness, the most difficult period began. A snowy, frosty winter came.
The city skidded with snow, frosts of 40 degrees led to the fact that the walls of unheated apartments began to become covered with frost. Leningraders were forced to install stoves in their apartments, which gradually, for warmth, burned everything: furniture, books, household items.
A new disaster came when the sewer froze. Now water could be taken only in 2 places: from Fontanka and Neva.
Hunger
Sad statistics say that the biggest enemy of the city was precisely hunger.
The winter of 1941 was a test of survival. In order to regulate the provision of people with bread, grocery cards were introduced. The size of the ration was constantly decreasing, in November it reached its minimum.
The norms in the besieged Leningrad were as follows: those who worked were supposed to have 250 grams. bread, the military, firefighters and members of the fighter squads received 300 grams each, and children and those who were on someone else's welfare received 125 grams each.
There were no other products in the city. 125 grams of siege bread reminded little of our ordinary, well-known flour product. This piece, which could only be obtained after standing in line for many hours in the cold, consisted of cellulose, oilcake, wallpaper glue mixed with flour.
There were days when people could not even get this longed-for piece. The factories did not work during the bombing.
People tried to survive as they could. They tried to fill empty stomachs with what could be swallowed. Everything was used: first-aid kits were empty (they drank castor oil, ate petroleum jelly), they tear off the wallpaper to get the rest of the paste and cook at least some soup, cut it into pieces and cooked leather shoes, made jelly from wood glue.
Naturally, for the children of that time, the best gift was food. They constantly thought about delicious. That food, which at the usual time was disgusting, was now the ultimate dream.
Holiday for children
Despite the terrible, mortally dangerous living conditions, Leningraders with great zeal and zeal tried to ensure that the children who were held hostage in a cold and hungry city lived a full life. And if there was no food and heat where to get, then it was possible to make a holiday.
So, during a terrible winter, when there was a blockade of Leningrad, the children of the blockade celebrated the New Year. By the decision of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council, New Year's holidays were organized and held for small residents of the city.
All theaters of the city took an active part in this. Holiday programs were drawn up, which included meetings with commanders and soldiers, an artistic greeting, a game program and dancing at the Christmas tree, and most importantly, lunch.
At these holidays there was everything except games and dancing. All due to the fact that the weakened children simply did not have the strength for such entertainment. Children did not have fun at all - they were waiting for food.
The gala dinner consisted of a small slice of bread for a yeast soup, jelly and a cutlet made from cereals. Children who knew the hunger ate slowly, carefully collecting each crumb, because they knew the value of siege bread.
Hard times
Children in this period were much harder than adults, a fully conscious population. How to explain why during the bombing you need to sit in a dark basement and why there is no food anywhere, to children? A lot of scary stories about abandoned babies, lonely children who tried to survive remained about the blockade of Leningrad. After all, it often happened that, leaving for the treasured rations, the relatives of the child simply died on the way, did not return home.
The number of orphanages in the city grew inexorably. In one year, their number grew to the number 98, but at the end of 1941 it was only 17. About 40 thousand orphans were tried to keep and keep in these shelters.
Each small resident of the besieged city has its own terrible truth. The diaries of the Leningrad schoolgirl Tanya Savicheva became famous throughout the world.
Symbol of the suffering of Leningraders
Tanya Savicheva - now this name symbolizes the horror and hopelessness with which the inhabitants of the city were forced to fight. What then survived Leningrad! Tanya Savicheva told the world this tragic story through her diary entries.
This girl was the youngest child in the family of Maria and Nikolai Savichev. At the time of the blockade, which began in September, she was to become a 4th grade student. When the family found out about the beginning of the war, it was decided not to leave the city, but to stay in order to provide all possible assistance to the army.
The girl’s mother sewed clothes for the fighters. Brother Lek, who had poor eyesight, was not taken into the army, he worked at the Admiralty Plant. The sisters Tanya, Zhenya and Nina, were active participants in the fight against the enemy. So, Nina, while she had the strength, went to work, where, along with other volunteers, they dug trenches to strengthen the defense of the city. Eugene, hiding from her mother and grandmother, secretly donated blood for wounded soldiers.
Tanya, when schools started working in the occupied city at the beginning of November, she went to study. At that time, only 103 schools were opened, but they also stopped working with the onset of severe frosts.
Tanya, being a little girl, also did not sit idle. Together with other children she helped to dig trenches, extinguished “lighters”.
Soon grief knocked on the doors of this family. The first did not return home Nina. The girl did not come after the most severe shelling. When it became clear that they would never see Nina again, mother gave Tanya her sister's notebook. It is in her that the girl will subsequently make her notes.
War. Blockade. Leningrad is a besieged city in which entire families died out. So it was with the Savichev family.
The next died Zhenya, right at the factory. The girl worked, working on 2 shifts in a row. She also donated blood. So the forces are over.
Grandmother could not stand such grief, the woman was buried at Piskarevsky cemetery.
And each time, when grief knocked on the door of the Savichevs' house, Tanya opened her notebook to mark the next death of relatives and friends. Soon Leka died, after him there were no two uncles of the girl, then mother died.
“The Savichevs all died. Only Tanya remained ”- these terrible lines of Tanya’s diary convey all the horror that the inhabitants of the besieged city had to endure. Tanya is dead. But the girl was mistaken, she did not know that a living person remained among the Savichevs. It was her sister Nina, who was rescued during the shelling and taken to the rear.
It was Nina who, returning to her native walls in 1945, would find her sister's diary and tell the world this terrible story. The history of an entire people who steadfastly fought for their hometown.
Children - heroes of the besieged Leningrad
All residents of the city who survived and defeated death must rightfully be called heroes.
Most of the children were especially heroic. Little citizens of a large country did not sit and did not wait for the release to come; they fought for their native Leningrad.
Almost no event in the city took place without the participation of children. Children, along with adults, took part in the destruction of incendiary bombs, extinguished fires, cleaned tram tracks and roads, dismantled rubble after the bombing.
The blockade of Leningrad lasted. The children of the blockade were forced to replace near the factory machines adults who died, died or went to the front. Especially for children who worked in factories, special stands for wood were invented and made so that they, as adults, could work on the manufacture of parts for machine guns, artillery shells and machine guns.
In spring and autumn, children actively worked in vegetable gardens and state farms. During the raids, the teacher’s signal was that the children, taking off their hats, fell face down into the ground. Overcoming the heat, mud, rain and the first frosts, the young heroes of the besieged Leningrad gathered a record harvest.
Children often visited hospitals: they cleaned there, entertained the wounded, and helped feed the seriously ill.
Despite the fact that the Germans did their utmost to destroy Leningrad, the city lived. He lived and survived. After lifting the blockade, 15 thousand children received the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad."
The road to life
Lake Ladoga is the only way that gave at least some opportunity to maintain contact with the country. In summer they were barges, in winter - cars moving on ice. Before the winter of 1941, tugboats with barges reached the city, but the Military Council of the Front understood that Ladoga would freeze and then all roads would be blocked. A new search and intensive preparation of other means of communication began.
So the way was prepared on the ice of Lake Ladoga, which over time began to be called the "Road of Life." In the history of the blockade, the date is preserved when the first horse-drawn cart led the way on the ice, it was November 21, 1941.
After that 60 cars went, the purpose of which was to deliver flour to the city. The city began to receive bread, the price of which was human life, because moving along this path was associated with great risk. Often cars fell through the ice, drowned, taking people and food to the bottom of the lake. Driving such a car was deadly. In some places the ice was so fragile that even a machine loaded with a pair of bags of cereal or flour could easily find itself under the ice. Each flight traveled this way was heroic. The Germans really wanted to block it, the bombing of Ladoga was constant, but the courage and heroism of the inhabitants of the city did not allow this to happen.
The "road of life" really fulfilled its function. In Leningrad, food supplies began to replenish, and children and their mothers were taken out of the city cars. This path was not always safe. After the war, when examining the bottom of Lake Ladoga, toys of Leningrad children were found that drowned during such transportation. In addition to dangerous thawed spots on an icy road, evacuation vehicles were often subjected to enemy shelling and flooding.
About 20 thousand people worked on this road. And only thanks to their courage, fortitude and desire to survive, the city received what it most needed - a chance to survive.
Hero Hero
The summer of 1942 was very stressful. The Nazis stepped up hostilities on the fronts of Leningrad. The bombing and shelling of the city has noticeably intensified.
Around the city there were new artillery batteries. Enemies had schemes of the city, and important sections were bombarded daily.
The blockade of Leningrad lasted. People turned their city into a fortress. So, on the territory of the city due to 110 large defense nodes, trenches and various moves, it became possible to carry out a hidden military regrouping. Such actions served to significantly reduce the number of wounded and killed.
On January 12, the armies of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts launched an offensive. After 2 days, the distance between the two armies was less than 2 kilometers. The Germans stubbornly resisted, but on January 18 the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts united.
This day was marked by another important event: the lifting of the blockade was due to the liberation of Shlisselburg, as well as the complete removal of the enemy from the southern coast of Lake Ladoga.
A corridor of about 10 kilometers turned out along the coast, it was he who restored land communications with the country.
When the blockade was lifted, there were about 800 thousand people in the city.
The significant date of January 27, 1944 went down in history as the day when the blockade of the city was completely lifted.
On this happy day, Moscow ceded to Leningrad the right, in honor of lifting the blockade, to make a salute in commemoration of the city's standing. The order for the troops that won was not signed by Stalin, but by Govorov. Such an honor was not awarded to any commander-in-chief of the fronts for the entire time of the Great Patriotic War.
The blockade lasted 900 days. This is the most bloody, cruel and inhuman blockade in the history of mankind. Its historical significance is enormous. Holding back the enormous forces of German troops throughout this time, the inhabitants of Leningrad rendered invaluable assistance in conducting military operations in other sectors of the front.
More than 350 thousand soldiers participating in the defense of Leningrad received their orders and medals. 226 people were awarded the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 1.5 million people were awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad."
The city itself for the heroism and stamina received the honorary title of Hero City.