Articles about women in war. The role of women in the Great Patriotic War: numbers and facts

Nadezhda Andreevna Kippe has a light character, a kind heart and a special gift for communicating with people. Meeting me, a stranger, she set the table and for several hours talked about her youth at the front and post-war life. But this “easy” woman’s life was not easy: she drank plenty of bitter food. And now, many years later, remembering her experience brings tears to her eyes. Nadezhda Kippe (nee Borodina) comes from the remote village of Lipa, which was on the border of the Gorky and Kostroma regions. Now this village no longer exists: the old people have died, the young people have moved away, and the houses and land are overgrown with forest. After finishing her seven-year school, Nadezhda came to Gorky and entered the medical school to become a paramedic. And in 1941, when young doctors were taking the exam, war was declared. Fellow male students were taken to the front, and she, a certified paramedic, was sent to one of the remote areas of the Gorky region. The wilderness was still the same: 45 kilometers to the railway, no market, no bazaar, and like in the whole country - a card system.

War does not have a woman's face

After working for two months, I learned that the district military registration and enlistment office had received a request for four doctors, and Nadezhda Borodina volunteered for the front. The division in which she fought was formed in Fili near Moscow.

When one of the political workers saw her, an 18-year-old thin girl of small stature with two pigtails, getting ready to go to the front, he immediately remarked:

- Comrade military paramedic, while we are standing near Moscow, and there is time, go to the hairdresser, cut your pigtails and get a perm. Nadya complied with this request, and then, at the front, she scolded this political worker to herself: she couldn’t comb her hair, and there was nowhere to wash it. You splash some cold water and that’s it.

Data

About half of all medical personnel of the Armed Forces during the Great Patriotic War were women

Woman of Five Fronts

The unit in which Nadezhda Borodina ended up was divided into several detachments. Soldiers and officers scouted the enemy's front line, found out where the Germans had concentrations of mortars, machine guns and other equipment. This data was transmitted to our artillery, which, in turn, to the enemy.

And the scouts observed and reported: “undershoot” or “overshoot,” adjusting the artillery fire. This division was constantly transferred to the hottest areas, to where an offensive was being prepared, a breakthrough of the front.

Therefore, with her detachment, Nadezhda Borodina went through five fronts: she started on the Volkhov and Leningrad, then the Karelo-Finnish, Belarusian and Ukrainian.

Data

116 thousand doctors were awarded orders and medals. 47 of them became Heroes of the Soviet Union, 17 of whom were women

“We were at the forefront all the time,” recalls Nadezhda Andreevna. – After the German shelling there were especially many wounded. I ran and crawled across the field with a gray canvas bag with a red cross. The wounded are moaning and calling from all sides - you don’t know who to help first. And they all asked for life, saying: “Sister, help, have pity, I want to live!”

But how can you help here when your whole stomach is ripped open? You bandage some of them, you look, and he’s already dead. You just cover his eyes so that he doesn’t lie with them open, and you crawl on. And there’s blood, so much blood! When the blood is hot, it flows like a fountain. Is it possible to get used to all this? My hands were bleeding all the time. And after the war, the warmth haunted me for several more years.

For the courage shown on the battlefields, Lieutenant Nadezhda Borodina was awarded the medal "For Courage".

War legacy of nurse Nadezhda

Now Nadezhda Andreevna’s legs hurt. She believes that it is the front-line roads that are “reacting.”

And this happened in 1943 near Pskov. It was early spring, all the small rivers overflowed, there was mud and slush all around, even tanks could not get through, they were drowning, and our troops were ordered by the command to go on the offensive.

Data

In 1941–1945, doctors, paramedics, nurses and orderlies put about 17 million soldiers and officers of the Red Army on their feet - 72.3 percent of the wounded and 90.6 percent of the sick returned to duty

On the path of the detachment where Nadya fought, a small river flowed through which it was necessary to ford. The men from the detachment crossed, and Nadya’s turn came. She put the bag with dressings on her head, and, as she was, in boots and clothes, moved across the river.

I was terribly scared - I didn’t know how to swim! But she crossed safely. Standing in the cold, everything is leaking from my clothes. The guys gave her spare trousers and a tunic, and stood and waited for her ammunition to dry. My legs got cold then, but now they are making themselves felt.

The winning nurse was carried in her arms

After the war, she was quickly demobilized: medical workers were no longer needed. When she arrived in her native village, all the women came out to the outskirts to meet her, took her in their arms and carried her home. They carry it and cry: they complain that all their sons were killed.

“All the barefoot boys with whom we ran around the village laid down their heads at the front, so my village suitors all died,” Nadezhda Andreevna sighs. - And I remained alive. Mom told me: “Daughter, I prayed for you on my knees day and night.”

Maybe thanks to my mother’s prayers I survived. Fate protected me at the front. It happened that shells and shrapnel were flying, you covered your head with your hands, you looked, and the comrade who was standing next to you was already wounded or killed. I didn’t have a single wound during the entire war. Only my skirt was torn by a shrapnel, and once my overcoat.

Married to a co-worker

At the front, military paramedic Nadezhda Borodina did not think about any novels. Once one of her colleagues took her hand, so she pulled it away so as not to give a reason for courtship.

The men from the detachment protected her. Those who were older called me “daughter”, those of the same age called me “sister”. In front of their “sister” they didn’t even use foul language and protected her from male advances.

Data

Brave nurses were given awards: “for carrying out 15 wounded - a medal, for 25 - an order, for 80 - the highest award - the Order of Lenin”

And she also found her destiny at the front. Two Muscovite officers, Lesha and Arthur, served in her unit. After the war, Arthur proposed marriage to her, they got married, and from Nadezhda Borodina she turned into Nadezhda Kippe.

The peaceful life of a war heroine

In 1946, a son was born into the Kippe family. Nadya named him after her husband - Arthur. And her husband died soon after the war, and she and her little son went to her mother in the village. But there was no work in the village, and all three of them (she, mother and son) decided to move to Gorky to live with their older sister.

Nadezhda Andreevna got a job as a head nurse at a district clinic, and everyone lived with her sister in shields along with her family.

Then she was offered a “six-meter apartment” in a communal apartment with neighbors, and the three of them happily moved there. There wasn't even room to turn around in this closet.

And mother and son slept on the bed, and she under the bed. We lived here for 8 years. Then there was the 12-meter race in the Northern village, the death of my mother, raising my son and work, work, work.

All in the past

And in the 80s she was overtaken by another terrible blow - the death of her son. He served as an emergency senior mechanic for ballistic missiles, worked below, inside the missile itself, and was exposed to radiation. After the army, it worsened, and for three years before his death, the son lay sick, and his mother looked after him.

Now Nadezhda Andreevna is left alone: her closest relatives have died, and her nephews have left for Ulyanovsk. Neighbor Svetlana takes care of the former military paramedic. “My dear neighbor,” Nadezhda Andreevna says about her. “I’m afraid to go outside in winter, so Svetlana will bring me bread from the store, milk, and everything I need.”

“Daughter, I put together a bundle for you. Go away... Go away... You still have two younger sisters growing up. Who will marry them? Everyone knows that you were at the front for four years, with men...”

The truth about women in the war, which was not written about in the newspapers...

Memoirs of female veterans from Svetlana Alexievich’s book “War Has Not a Woman’s Face” - one of the most famous books about the Great Patriotic War, where the war was first shown through the eyes of a woman. The book has been translated into 20 languages and included in the school and university curriculum:

“Once at night a whole company conducted reconnaissance in force in our regiment’s sector. By dawn she had moved away, and a groan was heard from the no-man's land. Left wounded. “Don’t go, they’ll kill you,” the soldiers wouldn’t let me in, “you see, it’s already dawn.” She didn’t listen and crawled. She found a wounded man and dragged him for eight hours, tying his arm with a belt. She dragged a living one. The commander found out and rashly announced five days of arrest for unauthorized absence. But the deputy regiment commander reacted differently: “Deserves a reward.” At the age of nineteen I had a medal “For Courage”. At nineteen she turned gray. At the age of nineteen, in the last battle, both lungs were shot, the second bullet passed between two vertebrae. My legs were paralyzed... And they considered me dead... At nineteen... My granddaughter is like this now. I look at her and don’t believe it. Child!
“And when he appeared the third time, in one moment - he would appear and then disappear - I decided to shoot. I made up my mind, and suddenly such a thought flashed: this is a man, even though he is an enemy, but a man, and my hands somehow began to tremble, trembling and chills began to spread throughout my body. Some kind of fear... Sometimes in my dreams this feeling comes back to me... After the plywood targets, it was difficult to shoot at a living person. I see him through the optical sight, I see him well. It’s as if he’s close... And something inside me resists... Something won’t let me, I can’t make up my mind. But I pulled myself together, pulled the trigger... We didn’t succeed right away. It's not a woman's business to hate and kill. Not ours... We had to convince ourselves. Persuade…"

“And the girls were eager to go to the front voluntarily, but a coward himself would not go to war. These were brave, extraordinary girls. There are statistics: losses among frontline medics ranked second after losses in rifle battalions. In the infantry. What does it mean, for example, to pull a wounded man out of the battlefield? We went on the attack, and let us be mowed down with a machine gun. And the battalion was gone. Everyone was lying down. They were not all killed, many were wounded. The Germans are hitting and they don’t stop firing. Quite unexpectedly for everyone, first one girl jumps out of the trench, then a second, a third... They began to bandage and drag away the wounded, even the Germans were speechless with amazement for a while. By ten o'clock in the evening, all the girls were seriously wounded, and each saved a maximum of two or three people. They were awarded sparingly; at the beginning of the war, awards were not scattered. The wounded man had to be pulled out along with his personal weapon. The first question in the medical battalion: where are the weapons? At the beginning of the war there was not enough of him. A rifle, a machine gun, a machine gun - these also had to be carried. In forty-one, order number two hundred and eighty-one was issued on the presentation of awards for saving the lives of soldiers: for fifteen seriously wounded people carried out from the battlefield along with personal weapons - the medal “For Military Merit”, for saving twenty-five people - the Order of the Red Star, for saving forty - the Order of the Red Banner, for saving eighty - the Order of Lenin. And I described to you what it meant to save at least one person in battle... From under bullets..."
“What was going on in our souls, the kind of people we were then will probably never exist again. Never! So naive and so sincere. With such faith! When our regiment commander received the banner and gave the command: “Regiment, under the banner! On your knees!”, we all felt happy. We stand and cry, everyone has tears in their eyes. You won’t believe it now, because of this shock my whole body tensed up, my illness, and I got “night blindness”, it happened from malnutrition, from nervous fatigue, and so, my night blindness went away. You see, the next day I was healthy, I recovered, through such a shock to my whole soul...”
“I was thrown against a brick wall by a hurricane wave. I lost consciousness... When I came to my senses, it was already evening. She raised her head, tried to squeeze her fingers - they seemed to be moving, barely opened her left eye and went to the department, covered in blood. In the corridor I meet our older sister, she didn’t recognize me and asked: “Who are you? Where?" She came closer, gasped and said: “Where have you been for so long, Ksenya? The wounded are hungry, but you are not there.” They quickly bandaged my head and my left arm above the elbow, and I went to get dinner. It was getting dark before my eyes and sweat was pouring out. I started handing out dinner and fell. They brought me back to consciousness, and all I could hear was: “Hurry! Hurry up!” And again - “Hurry! Hurry up!” A few days later they took more blood from me for the seriously wounded.”

“We were young and went to the front. Girls. I even grew up during the war. Mom tried it on at home... I have grown ten centimeters..."
“Our mother had no sons... And when Stalingrad was besieged, we voluntarily went to the front. Together. The whole family: mother and five daughters, and by this time the father had already fought..."
“I was mobilized, I was a doctor. I left with a sense of duty. And my dad was happy that his daughter was at the front. Defends the Motherland. Dad went to the military registration and enlistment office early in the morning. He went to receive my certificate and went early in the morning specifically so that everyone in the village would see that his daughter was at the front...”
“I remember they let me go. Before going to my aunt, I went to the store. Before the war, I loved candy terribly. I say:
- Give me some sweets.
The saleswoman looks at me like I'm crazy. I didn’t understand: what are cards, what is a blockade? All the people in line turned to me, and I had a rifle bigger than me. When they were given to us, I looked and thought: “When will I grow up to this rifle?” And everyone suddenly began to ask, the whole line:
- Give her some sweets. Cut out the coupons from us.
And they gave it to me."

“And for the first time in my life, it happened... Ours... Feminine... I saw blood on myself, and I screamed:
- I was hurt...
During reconnaissance, we had a paramedic with us, an elderly man. He comes to me:
- Where did it hurt?
- I don’t know where... But blood...
He, like a father, told me everything... I went to reconnaissance after the war for about fifteen years. Every night. And the dreams are like this: either my machine gun failed, or we were surrounded. You wake up and your teeth are grinding. Do you remember where you are? There or here?”
“I went to the front as a materialist. An atheist. She left as a good Soviet schoolgirl, who was taught well. And there... There I began to pray... I always prayed before the battle, I read my prayers. The words are simple... My words... The meaning is one, that I return to mom and dad. I didn’t know real prayers, and I didn’t read the Bible. No one saw me pray. I am secretly. She secretly prayed. Carefully. Because... We were different then, different people lived then. You understand?"
“It was impossible to attack us with uniforms: they were always in the blood. My first wounded was Senior Lieutenant Belov, my last wounded was Sergei Petrovich Trofimov, sergeant of the mortar platoon. In 1970, he came to visit me, and I showed my daughters his wounded head, which still has a large scar on it. In total, I carried out four hundred and eighty-one wounded from under fire. One of the journalists calculated: a whole rifle battalion... They were carrying men two to three times heavier than us. And they are even more seriously wounded. You are dragging him and his weapon, and he is also wearing an overcoat and boots. You put eighty kilograms on yourself and drag it. You lose... You go after the next one, and again seventy-eighty kilograms... And so five or six times in one attack. And you yourself have forty-eight kilograms - ballet weight. Now I can’t believe it anymore..."

“I later became a squad commander. The entire squad is made up of young boys. We're on the boat all day. The boat is small, there are no latrines. The guys can go overboard if necessary, and that’s it. Well, what about me? A couple of times I got so bad that I jumped straight overboard and started swimming. They shout: “The foreman is overboard!” They'll pull you out. This is such an elementary little thing... But what kind of little thing is this? I then received treatment...
“I returned from the war gray-haired. Twenty-one years old, and I’m all white. I was seriously wounded, concussed, and I couldn’t hear well in one ear. My mother greeted me with the words: “I believed that you would come. I prayed for you day and night.” My brother died at the front. She cried: “It’s the same now - give birth to girls or boys.”
“But I’ll say something else... The worst thing for me in war is wearing men’s underpants. That was scary. And this somehow... I can’t express myself... Well, first of all, it’s very ugly... You’re at war, you’re going to die for your Motherland, and you’re wearing men’s underpants. Overall, you look funny. Ridiculous. Men's underpants were long then. Wide. Sewed from satin. Ten girls in our dugout, and all of them are wearing men's underpants. Oh my God! In winter and summer. Four years... We crossed the Soviet border... We finished off, as our commissar said during political classes, the beast in its own den. Near the first Polish village they changed our clothes, gave us new uniforms and... And! AND! AND! They brought women's panties and bras for the first time. For the first time throughout the war. Haaaa... Well, I see... We saw normal women's underwear... Why aren't you laughing? Are you crying... Well, why?

“At the age of eighteen, on the Kursk Bulge, I was awarded the medal “For Military Merit” and the Order of the Red Star, at the age of nineteen - the Order of the Patriotic War, second degree. When new additions arrived, the guys were all young, of course, they were surprised. They were also eighteen to nineteen years old, and they asked mockingly: “What did you get your medals for?” or “Have you been in battle?” They pester you with jokes: “Do bullets penetrate the armor of a tank?” I later bandaged one of these on the battlefield, under fire, and I remembered his last name - Shchegolevatykh. His leg was broken. I splint him, and he asks me for forgiveness: “Sister, I’m sorry that I offended you then...”
“We drove for many days... We left with the girls at some station with a bucket to get water. They looked around and gasped: one train after another was coming, and there were only girls there. They sing. They wave at us, some with headscarves, some with caps. It became clear: there weren’t enough men, they were dead in the ground. Or in captivity. Now we, instead of them... Mom wrote me a prayer. I put it in the locket. Maybe it helped - I returned home. Before the fight I kissed the medallion..."
“She shielded her loved one from the mine fragment. The fragments fly - it's just a fraction of a second... How did she make it? She saved Lieutenant Petya Boychevsky, she loved him. And he stayed to live. Thirty years later, Petya Boychevsky came from Krasnodar and found me at our front-line meeting, and told me all this. We went with him to Borisov and found the clearing where Tonya died. He took the earth from her grave... He carried it and kissed it... There were five of us, Konakovo girls... And I alone returned to my mother..."

“And here I am the gun commander. And that means I am in the one thousand three hundred and fifty-seventh anti-aircraft regiment. At first, there was bleeding from the nose and ears, complete indigestion set in... My throat was dry to the point of vomiting... At night it was not so scary, but during the day it was very scary. It seems that the plane is flying straight at you, specifically at your gun. It's ramming at you! This is one moment... Now it will turn all, all of you into nothing. It’s all over!”
“As long as he hears... Until the last moment you tell him that no, no, is it really possible to die. You kiss him, hug him: what are you, what are you? He’s already dead, his eyes are on the ceiling, and I’m still whispering something to him... I’m calming him down... The names have been erased, gone from memory, but the faces remain..."
“We captured a nurse... A day later, when we recaptured that village, there were dead horses, motorcycles, and armored personnel carriers lying everywhere. They found her: her eyes were gouged out, her breasts were cut off... She was impaled... It was frosty, and she was white and white, and her hair was all gray. She was nineteen years old. In her backpack we found letters from home and a green rubber bird. A children's toy..."
“Near Sevsk, the Germans attacked us seven to eight times a day. And even that day I carried out the wounded with their weapons. I crawled up to the last one, and his arm was completely broken. Dangling in pieces... On the veins... Covered in blood... He urgently needs to cut off his hand to bandage it. No other way. And I have neither a knife nor scissors. The bag shifted and shifted on its side, and they fell out. What to do? And I chewed this pulp with my teeth. I gnawed it, bandaged it... I bandaged it, and the wounded man: “Hurry, sister. I’ll fight again.” In a fever..."

“The whole war I was afraid that my legs would be crippled. I had beautiful legs. What to a man? He’s not so scared if he even loses his legs. Still a hero. Groom! If a woman gets hurt, then her fate will be decided. Women's fate..."
“The men will build a fire at the bus stop, shake out the lice, and dry themselves. Where are we? Let's run for some shelter and undress there. I had a knitted sweater, so lice sat on every millimeter, in every loop. Look, you'll feel nauseous. There are head lice, body lice, pubic lice... I had them all..."
“We strived... We didn’t want people to say about us: “Oh, those women!” And we tried harder than men, we still had to prove that we were no worse than men. And for a long time there was an arrogant, condescending attitude towards us: “These women will fight…”
“Wounded three times and shell-shocked three times. During the war, everyone dreamed of what: some to return home, some to reach Berlin, but I only dreamed of one thing - to live to see my birthday, so that I would turn eighteen. For some reason, I was afraid to die earlier, not even live to see eighteen. I walked around in trousers and a cap, always in tatters, because you are always crawling on your knees, and even under the weight of a wounded person. I couldn’t believe that one day it would be possible to stand up and walk on the ground instead of crawling. It was a dream!”

“Let’s go... There are about two hundred girls, and behind us there are about two hundred men. It's hot. Hot Summer. March throw - thirty kilometers. The heat is wild... And after us there are red spots on the sand... Red footprints... Well, these things... Ours... How can you hide anything here? The soldiers follow behind and pretend that they don’t notice anything... They don’t look at their feet... Our trousers dried up, as if they were made of glass. They cut it. There were wounds there, and the smell of blood could be heard all the time. They didn’t give us anything... We kept watch: when the soldiers hung their shirts on the bushes. We’ll steal a couple of pieces... Later they guessed and laughed: “Master, give us some other underwear. The girls took ours.” There was not enough cotton wool and bandages for the wounded... Not that... Women's underwear, perhaps, appeared only two years later. We wore men's shorts and T-shirts... Well, let's go... Wearing boots! My legs were also fried. Let's go... To the crossing, ferries are waiting there. We got to the crossing, and then they started bombing us. The bombing is terrible, men - who knows where to hide. Our name is... But we don’t hear the bombing, we have no time for bombing, we’d rather go to the river. To the water... Water! Water! And they sat there until they got wet... Under the fragments... Here it is... The shame was worse than death. And several girls died in the water..."
“We were happy when we took out a pot of water to wash our hair. If you walked for a long time, you looked for soft grass. They also tore her legs... Well, you know, they washed them off with grass... We had our own characteristics, girls... The army didn’t think about it... Our legs were green... It’s good if the foreman was an elderly man and understood everything, didn’t take excess underwear from his duffel bag, and if he’s young, he’ll definitely throw away the excess. And what a waste it is for girls who need to change clothes twice a day. We tore the sleeves off our undershirts, and there were only two of them. These are only four sleeves..."

“How did the Motherland greet us? I can’t do without sobbing... Forty years have passed, and my cheeks are still burning. The men were silent, and the women... They shouted to us: “We know what you were doing there!” They lured young p... our men. Front-line b... Military bitches..." They insulted me in every way... The Russian dictionary is rich... A guy is seeing me off from the dance, I suddenly feel bad, my heart is pounding. I'll go and sit in a snowdrift. "What happened to you?" - "Never mind. I danced." And these are my two wounds... This is war... And we must learn to be gentle. To be weak and fragile, and your feet in boots were worn out - size forty. It's unusual for someone to hug me. I'm used to being responsible for myself. I was waiting for kind words, but I didn’t understand them. They are like children's to me. At the front among the men there is a strong Russian mate. I'm used to it. A friend taught me, she worked in the library: “Read poetry. Read Yesenin.”
“My legs were gone... My legs were cut off... They saved me there, in the forest... The operation took place in the most primitive conditions. They put me on the table to operate, and there wasn’t even iodine; they sawed my legs, both legs, with a simple saw... They put me on the table, and there was no iodine. Six kilometers away, we went to another partisan detachment to get iodine, and I was lying on the table. Without anesthesia. Without... Instead of anesthesia - a bottle of moonshine. There was nothing but an ordinary saw... A carpenter's saw... We had a surgeon, he himself also had no legs, he spoke about me, other doctors said this: “I bow to her. I have operated on so many men, but I have never seen such men. He won’t scream.” I held on... I'm used to being strong in public..."
“My husband was a senior driver, and I was a driver. For four years we traveled in a heated vehicle, and our son came with us. During the entire war he didn’t even see a cat. When he caught a cat near Kiev, our train was terribly bombed, five planes flew in, and he hugged her: “Dear kitty, how glad I am that I saw you. I don't see anyone, well, sit with me. Let me kiss you.” A child... Everything about a child should be childish... He fell asleep with the words: “Mommy, we have a cat. We now have a real home."

“Anya Kaburova is lying on the grass... Our signalman. She dies - a bullet hit her heart. At this time, a wedge of cranes flies over us. Everyone raised their heads to the sky, and she opened her eyes. She looked: “What a pity, girls.” Then she paused and smiled at us: “Girls, am I really going to die?” At this time, our postman, our Klava, is running, she shouts: “Don’t die! Do not die! You have a letter from home...” Anya does not close her eyes, she is waiting... Our Klava sat down next to her and opened the envelope. A letter from my mother: “My dear, beloved daughter...” A doctor is standing next to me, he says: “This is a miracle. Miracle!! She lives contrary to all the laws of medicine...” They finished reading the letter... And only then Anya closed her eyes...”
“I stayed with him one day, then the second, and I decided: “Go to headquarters and report. I’ll stay here with you.” He went to the authorities, but I couldn’t breathe: well, how can they say that she wouldn’t be able to walk for twenty-four hours? This is the front, that’s clear. And suddenly I see the authorities coming into the dugout: major, colonel. Everyone shakes hands. Then, of course, we sat down in the dugout, drank, and everyone said their word that the wife found her husband in the trench, this is a real wife, there are documents. This is such a woman! Let me look at such a woman! They said such words, they all cried. I remember that evening all my life..."
“Near Stalingrad... I’m dragging two wounded. If I drag one through, I leave it, then the other. And so I pull them one by one, because the wounded are very serious, they cannot be left, both, as it is easier to explain, have their legs cut off high, they are bleeding. Minutes are precious here, every minute. And suddenly, when I crawled away from the battle, there was less smoke, suddenly I discovered that I was dragging one of our tankers and one German... I was horrified: our people were dying there, and I was saving a German. I was in a panic... There, in the smoke, I couldn’t figure it out... I see: a man is dying, a man is screaming... Ah-ah... They are both burnt, black. The same. And then I saw: someone else’s medallion, someone else’s watch, everything was someone else’s. This form is cursed. So what now? I pull our wounded man and think: “Should I go back for the German or not?” I understood that if I left him, he would soon die. From loss of blood... And I crawled after him. I continued to drag them both... This is Stalingrad... The most terrible battles. The very best... There cannot be one heart for hatred and another for love. A person has only one.”

“My friend... I won’t give her last name, in case she gets offended... Military paramedic... Wounded three times. The war ended, I entered medical school. She didn’t find any of her relatives; they all died. She was terribly poor, washing the entrances at night to feed herself. But she didn’t admit to anyone that she was a disabled war veteran and had benefits; she tore up all the documents. I ask: “Why did you break it?” She cries: “Who would marry me?” “Well,” I say, “I did the right thing.” She cries even louder: “I could use these pieces of paper now. I’m seriously ill.” Can you imagine? Crying."
“It was then that they began to honor us, thirty years later... They invited us to meetings... But at first we hid, we didn’t even wear awards. Men wore them, but women did not. Men are winners, heroes, suitors, they had a war, but they looked at us with completely different eyes. Completely different... Let me tell you, they took away our victory... They did not share the victory with us. And it was a shame... It’s unclear..."
“The first medal “For Courage”... The battle began. The fire is heavy. The soldiers lay down. Command: “Forward! For the Motherland!”, and they lie there. Again the command, again they lie down. I took off my hat so they could see: the girl stood up... And they all stood up, and we went into battle..."

The most important thing we need to know about women in the Red Army is that there were quite a lot of them, and they played a very important role in the defeat of fascism. Let us note that not only in the USSR women were drafted into the army, in other countries too, but only in our country did representatives of the fair sex participate in hostilities and serve in combat units.

Researchers note that at different periods, from 500 thousand to 1 million women served in the ranks of the Red Army. That's quite a lot. Why did women begin to be drafted into the army? Firstly, among the representatives of the fair sex there were initially women liable for military service: doctors, first of all, civil aviation pilots (not so many, but still). And so, when the war began, thousands of women began to voluntarily join the people's militia. True, they were sent back quite quickly, since there was no directive to conscript women into the army. That is, let us clarify once again, in the 1920s and 1930s women did not serve in units of the Red Army.

Only in the USSR during the war did women take part in hostilities

Actually, the conscription of women into the army began in the spring of 1942. Why at this time? There weren't enough people. In 1941 - early 1942, the Soviet army suffered colossal losses. In addition, there were tens of millions of people in German-occupied territory, including men of military age. And when at the beginning of 1942 they drew up a plan for the formation of new military formations, it turned out that there were not enough people.

Women from a militia unit during military training, 1943

What was the idea behind recruiting women? The idea is for women to replace men in those positions where they could actually replace them, and for men to go to combat units. In Soviet times it was called very simply - voluntary mobilization of women. That is, theoretically, women joined the army voluntarily, in practice it was, of course, different.

The parameters were described for which women should be drafted: age - 18-25 years, education of at least seven classes, preferably to be Komsomol members, healthy, and so on.

To be honest, the statistics on women who were drafted into the army are very scarce. Moreover, for a long time it was classified as secret. Only in 1993 did something become clearer. Here are some data: about 177 thousand women served in the air defense forces; in the local air defense forces (NKVD department) - 70 thousand; there were almost 42 thousand signalmen (this, by the way, is 12% of all signal troops in the Red Army); doctors - over 41 thousand; women who served in the Air Force (mostly as support personnel) - over 40 thousand; 28.5 thousand women are cooks; almost 19 thousand are drivers; Almost 21 thousand served in the Navy; in the Railways - 7.5 thousand and about 30 thousand women served in a variety of guises: say, from librarians, for example, to snipers, tank commanders, intelligence officers, pilots, military pilots and so on (by the way, about them, most of all both written and known).

Age and education were the main selection criteria

It must be said that the mobilization of women took place through the Komsomol (unlike male conscripts, who were registered with the military registration and enlistment offices). But, of course, it wasn’t just Komsomol members who were called up: there simply wouldn’t be enough of them.

As for organizing the life of women in the army, no new decisions were made. Gradually (not immediately) they were provided with uniforms, shoes, and some items of women's clothing. Everyone lived together: simple peasant girls, “many of whom sought to get pregnant as soon as possible and go home alive,” and intellectuals who read Chateaubriand before bed and regretted that there was no way to get the original books of the French writer.

Soviet female pilots discussing a past combat mission, 1942

It is impossible not to say about the motives that guided women when they went to serve. We have already mentioned that mobilization was considered voluntary. Indeed, many women themselves were eager to join the army; they were annoyed that they did not end up in combat units. For example, Elena Rzhevskaya, a famous writer, wife of the poet Pavel Kogan, even before conscription, in 1941, leaving her daughter to her husband’s parents, she achieved that she was taken to the front as a translator. And Elena went through the entire war, right up to the storming of Berlin, where she participated in the search for Hitler, in conducting identification and investigating the circumstances of his suicide.

Another example is squadron navigator Galina Dzhunkovskaya, later Hero of the Soviet Union. As a child, Galina managed to stick a cherry pit into her ear, so she could not hear in one ear. For medical reasons, she should not have been taken into the army, but she insisted. She served valiantly throughout the war and was wounded.

However, the other half of the women found themselves in the service, as they say, under pressure. There are a lot of complaints about violations of the principle of voluntariness in the documents of political bodies.

Even some representatives of the high command had camp wives

Let's touch on a rather sensitive issue - the issue of intimate relationships. It is known that during the war the Germans created a whole network of military brothels, most of which were located on the Eastern Front. For ideological reasons, nothing like this could happen in the Red Army. However, Soviet officers and soldiers, separated from their families, still took so-called field wives from among the female military personnel. Even some representatives of the high command had such concubines. For example, Marshals Zhukov, Eremenko, Konev. The last two, by the way, married their fighting friends during the war. That is, it happened in different ways: romantic relationships, love, and forced cohabitation.

Soviet women partisans

In this context, it is best to quote the letter of Elena Deichman, a nurse, a student at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History, who volunteered for the army even before being drafted. Here is what she writes to her father in the camp at the beginning of 1944: “Most of the girls - and among them there are good people and workers - here in the unit married officers who live with them and take care of them, and yet, these are temporary , unstable and fragile marriages, because each of them has a family and children at home and is not going to leave them; It’s just difficult for a person to live at the front without affection and alone. I am an exception in this regard, and for this I feel I am especially respected and distinguished.” And he continues: “Many men here say that after the war they will not come up and talk to a military girl. If she has medals, then they supposedly know for what “combat merits” the medal was received. It is very difficult to realize that many girls deserve such an attitude through their behavior. In units, in war, we need to be especially strict with ourselves. I have nothing to reproach myself with, but sometimes I think with a heavy heart that maybe someone who didn’t know me here, seeing me in a tunic with a medal, will also talk about me with an ambiguous laugh.”

About a hundred women were awarded the highest awards for their exploits

As for pregnancy, this topic was perceived in the army as a completely normal phenomenon. Already in September 1942, a special resolution was adopted to supply pregnant female military personnel with everything (if possible, of course) necessary. That is, everyone understood perfectly well that the country needs people, it is necessary to somehow replace all these gigantic losses. By the way, during the first post-war decade, 8 million children were born out of wedlock. And it was the choice of women.

There is one very curious, but at the same time tragic story related to this topic. Vera Belik, a navigator, served in the famous Taman Guards Aviation Regiment. She married a pilot from a neighboring regiment and became pregnant. And now she was faced with a choice: either finish fighting, or move on with her fighting friends. And she had an abortion (abortion, of course, was prohibited in the USSR, but, in general, during the war they turned a blind eye to it) secretly from her husband. There was a terrible quarrel. And in one of the subsequent combat missions, Vera Belik died along with Tatyana Makarova. The pilots burned alive.

“Lady Death”, sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, 1942

Speaking about the mobilization of women into the Red Army, the question involuntarily arises: did the country’s leadership manage to achieve the assigned tasks? Yes, sure. Just think: for their exploits during the Great Patriotic War, about a hundred women were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (mostly they were pilots and snipers). Unfortunately, most of them are posthumous... At the same time, we must not forget about women partisans, underground fighters, doctors, intelligence officers, those who did not receive a great award, but accomplished a real feat - they went through the war and contributed to the victory.

In war, two main aspects of reality exist and are closely intertwined: the danger of battle and the everyday life. As Konstantin Simonov noted: “War is not continuous danger, the expectation of death and thoughts about it. If this were so, then not a single person would withstand its weight... even for a month. War is a combination of mortal danger, the constant possibility of being killed, chance and all the features and details of everyday life that are always present in our lives... A man at the front is busy with an endless number of things that he constantly needs to think about and because of which he often He doesn’t have time to think about his safety at all. That is why the feeling of fear is dulled at the front, and not at all because people suddenly become fearless.”

Soldier's service included, first of all, hard, exhausting work at the limit of human strength. Therefore, along with the danger of battle, the most important factor in the war that influenced the consciousness of its participants was the special conditions of front-line life, or the way of everyday life in a combat situation. Everyday life in war has never been a priority topic for historical research; aspects of the life of men and women at the front were not emphasized.

During the Great Patriotic War, the participation of women in combat operations and meeting the needs of the front became widespread and became a social phenomenon that required special study. In the 1950s - 1980s. sought to show the military feats of Soviet women, the scale of mobilization and military training of women, the procedure for serving in all branches of the Armed Forces and branches of the military. In the scientific works of M.P. Chechneva, B.C. Murmantseva, F. Kochieva, A.B. Zhinkin in the 1970s - 1980s, some features of women's military service were considered, primarily in the matter of their everyday life, establishing correct relationships with male colleagues. Recognizing that when women joined the army they were faced with problems of a moral, psychological and everyday nature, the researchers still assessed the situation of the female contingent in it as satisfactory, since, in their opinion, political bodies and party organizations were able to rebuild their educational work.

Among modern historical research, we note the project “Women. Memory. War”, which is implemented by employees of the Center for Gender Studies of the European Humanities University. The idea of the project is to analyze women's individual and collective memories of the war in their relation to official history, ideological restrictions and the politics of constructing memory (of the war) in the USSR and Belarus (during and after the Soviet period). Thus, the study of everyday aspects of everyday life at the front is also relevant for the regions of Russia, including the Bryansk region.

This study is based on interviews with women participants in the Great Patriotic War, as well as memoirs published in regional periodicals, collected from both women and men who mentioned any details of life at the front.

First of all, we remembered the uniform. Many women said that they were given men’s uniforms: “At that time (1942) there were no women’s uniforms in the division and we were given men’s uniforms,” recalls Olga Efimovna Sakharova. - The gymnasts are wide, two people can fit into the trousers... The underwear is also for men. The boots have the smallest size - 40... The girls put them on and gasped: who do they look like?! We started laughing at each other...”

“The soldiers were given overcoats, but I got a simple sweatshirt. It was terribly cold in there, but we had no other options. At night we covered ourselves with it, either over our heads or over our legs. Everyone had tarpaulin boots on their feet, heavy and uncomfortable. In winter, we wore several pairs of socks, our feet sweated a lot and were constantly wet. Clothes were not changed, only washed occasionally.”

Front-line nurse Maria Ionovna Ilyushenkova notes: “Skirts were worn by medical battalions in the emergency room. At the front, skirts get in the way; you can’t do anything with them.” She had been at the front since October 1941. and remembers how the most difficult times were being on the North-Western Front in the winter and spring of 1942. in forests and swamps as part of a cavalry ambulance company: “Nurses barely had time to provide medical care to the wounded, hiding them in the forest, ditches and craters from shells and bombs. If you manage to put the wounded on a raincoat or overcoat and drag him, then good, but if not, then crawl on your bellies under the continuous whistling of bullets and shell explosions and pull them out." He describes his clothes in detail: Budenovka, overcoat that does not fit his size , buttons on the right side. There was no women's room. Everything is men's: shirts, tapered trousers, long johns. Boots were for rank and file; smaller boots were selected for women. In winter there were pea coats, sheepskin coats, a hat with earflaps and a balaclava, felt boots, and wadded trousers.”

Women associated improvements in clothing and some variety with successes in the war: “Then there were stockings. At first we sewed them with men's windings. There was a shoemaker in the cavalry ambulance company who sewed clothes. I sewed beautiful overcoats for eight girls from even the wrong material....” .

Memories vary about how they were fed at the front, but all the women connect this with the situation at the front: “Olga Vasilyevna Belotserkovets recalls the difficult autumn of 1942, the offensive on the Kalinin front: Our rear fell behind. We found ourselves in swamps, surviving on nothing but breadcrumbs. They were dropped on us from airplanes: four crackers of black bread for the wounded, two for the soldiers.”

How they were fed in a field hospital in 1943. Faina Yakovlevna Etina recalls: “We ate mostly porridge. The most common was pearl barley porridge. There were also “field lunches”: plain water with fish. Liver sausage was considered a delicacy. We spread it on bread and ate it with particular greed; it seemed incredibly tasty.”

Maria Ionovna Ilyushenkova considers the front-line ration to be good and explains this by the fact that the North-Western Front was very difficult and they tried to supply the troops better: “The North-Western Front is the heaviest. We were fed well, only everything was dried: compote, carrots, onions, potatoes. Concentrates - buckwheat, millet, pearl barley in square bags. There was meat. China then supplied stewed meat and the Americans sent it too. There was sausage in cans, covered with lard. The officers were given additional rations. We didn't starve. People died, there was no one to eat...”

Let us note that food sometimes plays in people’s memories the role of a small miracle associated with salvation, liberation, a bright page in life. We found a mention of this in a man’s story about the war: “In the hospital I fell ill with malaria. Suddenly I really wanted herring with potatoes! It seemed: eat it and the disease will go away. And what do you think - I ate it and got better. During the rounds, the doctor tells me: well done fighter, you are getting better, which means our treatment is helping. And take the soldier who was lying with us in the ward and say: it wasn’t your quinine that helped him, but herring and potatoes.”

Women veterans remember “front-line hundred grams” with a smile: “Yes, indeed, there were front-line hundred grams for men, but what’s worse for us women? We drank too."

“They gave one hundred grams to everyone. I drank only in severe frosts. More often I gave it away for exchange. I exchanged it for soap and oil.”

Another important recurring everyday memory of the war among men and women was the thirst for restful sleep, fatigue from debilitating insomnia: “We used to doze off while walking. There is a column of four people in a line. You lean on the arm of a friend, and you yourself sleep. As soon as you hear the command “Halt!” all the soldiers are fast asleep." Her daughter Lyudmila tells about nurse Evdokia Pakhotnik: “Mom said that they worked in the hospital around the clock,” writes her daughter. “As soon as you close your eyes, you need to get up - a train with wounded soldiers has arrived. And so every day." It is more common for women to describe war not as a feat, but as hard everyday work. Military doctor Nadezhda Nikiforova recalls her participation in the Battle of Stalingrad: “We were sent on ships that carried the wounded from Stalingrad along the Volga and sent them to hospitals. How many times did steamships fire at fascist planes, but we were lucky... On the ship, there were up to five hundred wounded for every two doctors. They lay everywhere: under the stairs, in the hold, and on decks in the open air. And here’s the round: you start in the morning, and by the evening you only have time to get around everyone. We’ll rest for two or three days and then go down the Volga again to get the wounded.”

Ilyushenkova M.I. speaks about her front-line awards when she recalls how she returned to her native village: “After the war, my father and I returned home together. They approached their native village of Petrishchevo in the Smolensk region early in the morning. At the outskirts, she took off her military uniform and put on a silk dress. His father pinned him with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, the Red Star, and the medals “For Courage,” “For Military Merit,” and “For the Capture of Koenigsberg.”

The most difficult aspect of a woman’s life during war was discussing hygiene, including intimate hygiene. Of course, in the hospital, doctors could get hot water, alcohol, bandages, cotton wool, as military doctor Nikiforova and laboratory assistant Etina recall: “This case was very difficult. I had to get together with the girls and go wash together. Some wash, others stand and watch that men are not around. In the summer we went to the lake when it was warm, but in the winter it was more difficult: we melted the snow and washed ourselves. It happened that they rubbed each other with alcohol to kill bacteria.”

Many women cut their hair at the front, but nurse Ilyushenkova proudly shows a photo with a braid around her head: “I went through the whole war with such a braid. My girlfriend and I washed each other’s hair in the tent. They melted the snow and exchanged “one hundred grams” for soap.” Olga Efimovna Sakharova’s long hair almost killed the young girl: “The platoon came under fire. She lay down on the ground..., pressed into the snow. ...When the shelling ended, I heard the order: “Get to the cars!” I try to get up - it didn’t happen. The braids are long, tight... They are caught in the frost so hard that I can’t turn my head... And I can’t scream... well, I keep thinking that my platoon will leave, and the Germans will find me. Luckily for me, one of the girls noticed that I was gone. Let’s go look and help free the braids.” Not everyone agrees that there were lice. But F.Ya. Etina states: “Literally everyone had lice! Nobody was ashamed of this. It happened that we were sitting, and they were jumping on clothes and on the bed, openly crushing them like seeds. There was no time to take them out, and there was no point, they had to be taken out at once and from everyone.” Belotserkovets O.V. recalls everyday hygienic difficulties due to the fact that in films now the everyday life of women at the front is often embellished: “You sleep for three or four hours, sometimes right at the table, and then go back to work. What kind of lipstick is there, earrings, like they sometimes show in the movies. There was nowhere to wash, and there was nothing to comb with.”

The following is recalled about moments of relaxation during the war: “... Front-line brigades of artists arrived... Everyone gathered in the hospital and sang songs. I really liked the song “Dark Night”. ...There was a gramophone, they played rumba, they danced.” It’s more difficult to ask about relationships with men. All respondents denied the facts of harassment or any threats to themselves personally, mainly referring to the old age of the soldiers they served next to - 45-47 years. Doctor N.N. Nikiforova recalls that she had to travel alone, accompanied by a soldier-driver and an officer, several tens of kilometers to the wounded man at night, and only now she thinks about why she did not doubt and was not afraid? Nadezhda Nikolaevna claims that the officers treated the young doctors with respect and ceremony and invited them to holidays, about which a note was preserved.

So, the everyday experience of war, endured and preserved by women, is a significant layer of historical memory of the war in its everyday everyday manifestation. A woman's view is a mass of everyday details of life at the front without a touch of glorification. It is very difficult for women to remember mutual hatred with the population of liberated countries; they do not want to talk about whether they experienced violence or whether they had to kill enemies. Oral histories of participants in the Great Patriotic War require careful preservation and attention of researchers.

Women of the war 1941-1945.

The Great War of 1941-45, which, according to the plan of Hitler's Germany, which started it, should bring it world domination, ultimately turned out to be a complete collapse for it and proof of the power of the USSR. Soviet soldiers proved that victory can only be achieved by showing courage and valor, and they became models of heroism. But at the same time, the history of the war is quite contradictory.

As we know, there were not only men, but also women in the war. It is about women of war that our conversation today will be.

The countries participating in World War II made every effort to win. Many women voluntarily enlisted in the armed forces or performed traditional male jobs at home, in factories, and at the front. Women worked in factories and government organizations, and were active members of resistance groups and auxiliary units.

Relatively few women fought directly on the front lines, but many were victims of bombings and military invasions. By the end of the war, more than 2 million women worked in the military industry, hundreds of thousands voluntarily went to the front as nurses or enlisted in the army. In the USSR alone, about 800 thousand women served in military units on an equal basis with men.

Many articles of that time have been written about the women of the war, about their heroic deeds and courage, they were ready to give their lives for their homeland,
and there was nothing to be afraid of

Women who served in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Signalmen, nurses, anti-aircraft gunners, snipers and many others. During the war years, more than 150 thousand women were awarded military orders and medals for heroism and courage shown in battle, of which 86 became Heroes of the Soviet Union, 4 became full holders of the Order of Glory. These are the awards that the women of war received; they received them for a reason, but because they defended our homeland and were no worse than our stronger sex.

Rudneva Evgenia Maksimovna

Zhenya Rudneva was born in 1920 in Berdyansk.

In 1938, Zhenya graduated from high school with an excellent student certificate and became a student at Moscow State University.
When the Great Patriotic War began, Zhenya was taking the spring exam session, finishing her 3rd year. Passionately in love with her specialty, with the distant undying stars, a student who was predicted to have a great future, she firmly decided that she would not study until the war was over, that her path lay at the front.
... On October 8, 1941, the secret order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Army N 00999 was signed on the formation of three women's aviation regiments NN 586, 587, 588 - fighters, dive bombers and night bombers. All organizational work was entrusted to Hero of the Soviet Union Marina Raskova. And then, on October 9, the Komsomol Central Committee announced a call throughout Moscow for girls who wanted to voluntarily go to the front. Hundreds of girls joined the army following this conscription.
In February 1942, our 588th night air regiment with U-2 aircraft was separated from the formation group. The entire composition of the regiment was female. Zhenya Rudneva was appointed navigator of the flight and was given the rank of foreman.
In May 1942, Marina Raskova brought our regiment to the Southern Front and transferred it to the 4th Air Army, commanded by Major General K.A. Vershinin. ...German aviation dominated the air, and it was very dangerous to fly the U-2 during the day. We flew every night. As soon as dusk fell, the first crew took off, three to five minutes later - the second, then the third, when the last one was taking off, we could already hear the rumble of the engine of the first one returning. He landed, bombs were hung on the plane, refueled with gasoline, and the crew again flew to the target. The second one follows, and so on until dawn.
On one of the first nights, the squadron commander and navigator died, and Zhenya Rudneva was appointed navigator of the 2nd squadron, to the squadron commander Dina Nikulina. The Nikulin-Rudnev crew became one of the best in the regiment.
Army commander Vershinin became proud of our regiment. “You are the most beautiful women in the world,” he said. And even the fact that the Germans called us “night witches” became a recognition of our skill... Less than a year at the front, our regiment, the first in the division, was awarded the Guards rank, and we became the 46th Guards Night Bomber Regiment.
On the night of April 9, 1944, over Kerch, Zhenya Rudneva made her 645th flight with pilot Pana Prokopyeva. Over the target, their plane was fired upon and caught fire. A few seconds later, bombs exploded below - the navigator managed to drop them on the target. The plane began to fall to the ground slowly at first, in a spiral, and then more and more quickly, as if the pilot was trying to put out the flames. Then rockets began to fly out from the plane like fireworks: red, white, green. The cabins were already on fire... The plane fell behind the front line.
We grieved the death of Zhenya Rudneva, our “stargazer,” dear, gentle, beloved friend. Combat sorties continued until dawn. The soldiers wrote on the bombs: “For Zhenya!”
... Then we learned that the bodies of our girls were buried by local residents near Kerch.
On October 26, 1944, the navigator of the 46th Guards Aviation Regiment, senior lieutenant Evgenia Maksimovna Rudneva, was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, posthumously... Zhenya’s name is immortalized among her favorite stars: one of the discovered small planets is named “Rudneva”.

“32 girls died in our 588th night air regiment. Among them were those who burned alive on a plane, were shot down over a target, and those who died in a plane crash or died from illness. But these are all our military losses.

The regiment lost 28 aircraft, 13 pilots and 10 navigators from enemy fire. Among the dead were squadron commanders O. A. Sanfirova, P. A. Makogon, L. Olkhovskaya, air unit commander T. Makarova, regiment navigator E. M. Rudneva, squadron navigators V. Tarasova and L. Svistunova. Among the dead were Heroes of the Soviet Union E. I. Nosal, O. A. Sanfirova, V. L. Belik, E. M. Rudneva.
For an aviation regiment, such losses are small. This was explained primarily by the skill of our pilots, as well as by the characteristics of our wonderful aircraft, which were both easy and difficult to shoot down. But for us, every loss was irreplaceable, every girl was a unique personality. We loved each other, and the pain of loss lives in our hearts to this day.

Pavlichenko Lyudmila Mikhailovna - Hero of the Defense of Odessa and Sevastopol

Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko - sniper of the 54th Infantry Regiment (25th Infantry Division (Chapaevskaya), Primorsky Army, North Caucasus Front), lieutenant.

Born on June 29 (July 12, 1916 in the village of Belaya Tserkov, now a city in the Kyiv region of Ukraine, in the family of an employee. Russian. Graduated from the 4th year of Kyiv State University.

Participant in the Great Patriotic War since June 1941 - volunteer. Member of the CPSU (b) / CPSU since 1945 As part of the Chapaev division, she participated in defensive battles in Moldova and southern Ukraine. For her good training, she was assigned to a sniper platoon. Since August 10, 1941, as part of the division, it has participated in the heroic defense of the city of Odessa. In mid-October 1941, the troops of the Primorsky Army were forced to leave Odessa and evacuate to Crimea to strengthen the defense of the city of Sevastopol, the naval base of the Black Sea Fleet.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko spent 250 days and nights in heavy and heroic battles near Sevastopol. She, together with the soldiers of the Primorsky Army and the sailors of the Black Sea Fleet, courageously defended the city of Russian military glory.

By July 1942 from a sniper rifle Lyudmila Pavlichenko destroyed 309 Nazis. She was not only an excellent sniper, but also an excellent teacher. During the period of defensive battles, she trained dozens of good snipers, who, following her example, exterminated more than one hundred Nazis.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 1218) was awarded to Lieutenant Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated October 25, 1943.

Maria Dolina, crew commander of the Pe-2 dive bomber

Maria Dolina, Hero of the Soviet Union, guard captain, deputy squadron commander of the 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment of the 4th Guards Bomber Aviation Division.

Maria Ivanovna Dolina (b. 12/18/1922) performed 72 combat missions on a Pe-2 dive bomber and dropped 45 tons of bombs on the enemy. In six air battles she shot down 3 enemy fighters (in a group). On August 18, 1945, for the courage and military valor shown in battles with the enemy, she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Photos of women of the Great Patriotic War

A Soviet traffic policewoman against the backdrop of a burning building on a Berlin street.

Deputy commander of the 125th (women's) Guards Borisov Bomber Regiment named after Hero of the Soviet Union Marina Raskova, Major Elena Dmitrievna Timofeeva.

Knight of the Order of Glory II and III degrees, sniper of the 3rd Belorussian Front, senior sergeant Roza Georgievna Shanina.

Fighter pilot of the 586th Air Defense Fighter Regiment, Lieutenant Raisa Nefedovna Surnachevskaya. In the background is a Yak-7 fighter. One of the most memorable air battles with the participation of R. Surnachevskaya took place on March 19, 1943, when she, together with Tamara Pamyatnykh, repelled a raid by a large group of German bombers on the Kastornaya railway junction, shooting down 4 aircraft. She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the Patriotic War, as well as medals.

Soviet girl partisan.

Scout Valentina Oleshko (left) with a friend before being deployed to the German rear in the Gatchina region.

The headquarters of the 18th German Army was located in the Gatchina area; the group was tasked with kidnapping a high-ranking officer. Valentina and the other scouts of the group, who parachuted at the prearranged signal - five fires - were met by disguised Abwehr officers. This happened because the Germans had previously captured a Soviet resident who had previously been sent to the area. The resident could not stand the torture and said that a reconnaissance group would soon be sent here. Valentina Oleshko, along with other intelligence officers, was shot in 1943.

Kolesova Elena Fedorovna
8. 6. 1920 - 11. 9. 1942
Hero of the Soviet Union

Kolesova Elena Fedorovna - intelligence officer, commander of a sabotage group of a special-purpose partisan detachment (military unit No. 9903).

In the fall of 1942, notices were posted in the villages of the Borisov district, Minsk region, occupied at that time by fascist troops:

For the capture of the hefty woman Ataman-paratrooper Lelka, a reward of 30,000 marks, 2 cows and a liter of vodka is given.

Of all that was written in the advertisements, the only truth was that Lelya wore the Order of the Red Banner on her chest. But apparently, the paratroopers caused a lot of trouble to the invaders if the group of Muscovite girls grew in their imagination to a detachment of 600 people.

Born on August 1, 1920 in the village of Kolesovo, now Yaroslavl district, Yaroslavl region, into a peasant family. Russian. Her father died in 1922, she lived with her mother. The family also included brother Konstantin and sister Galina, brother Alexander. From the age of 8 she lived in Moscow with her aunt and her husband Savushkin (Ostozhenka Street, 7). She studied at school No. 52 of the Frunzensky district (2nd Obydensky lane, 14). Finished 7th grade in 1936.

In 1939 she graduated from the 2nd Moscow Pedagogical School (now Moscow City Pedagogical University). She worked as a teacher at school No. 47 in the Frunzensky district (now gymnasium No. 1521), then as a senior pioneer leader.

Participant in the Great Patriotic War since June 1941. Until October 1941 she worked on the construction of defensive structures. She completed courses for sanitation workers. After two unsuccessful attempts to get to the front in October 1941, she was accepted into the group (official name - military unit No. 9903) of Major Arthur Karlovich Sprogis (1904-1980) - the special authorized intelligence department of the Western Front headquarters. She underwent short training.

For the first time she found herself behind enemy lines on October 28, 1941, with the goal of mining roads, destroying communications and conducting reconnaissance in the area of the Tuchkovo, Dorokhovo stations and the village of Staraya Ruza, Ruza district, Moscow region. Despite the setbacks (two days in captivity), some information was collected.

Soon there was a second task: a group of 9 people under the command of Kolesova conducted reconnaissance and mined roads in the Akulovo-Krabuzino area for 18 days.

In January 1942, on the territory of the Kaluga region (near the city of Sukhinichi), combined detachment No. 1 of the intelligence department of the headquarters of the Western Front, in which Kolesova was, entered into battle with an enemy landing force. Group members: Elena Fedorovna Kolesova, Antonina Ivanovna Lapina (born 1920, captured in May 1942, driven to Germany, upon returning from captivity lived in Gus-Khrustalny) - deputy group commander, Maria Ivanovna Lavrentieva (b. 1922, captured in May 1942, deported to Germany, further fate unknown), Tamara Ivanovna Makhonko (1924-1942), Zoya Pavlovna Suvorova (1916-1942), Nina Pavlovna Suvorova (1923-1942), Zinaida Dmitrievna Morozova (1921-1942), Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Belova (1917-1942), Nina Iosifovna Shinkarenko (1920-). The group completed the task and detained the enemy until units of the 10th Army arrived. All participants in the battle were awarded. In the Kremlin on March 7, 1942, the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the USSR M.I. Kalinin presented the Wheel with the Order of the Red Banner. In March 1942 she joined the ranks of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

On the night of May 1, 1942, a sabotage-partisan group of 12 girls under the command of E.F. Kolesova was dropped by parachute in the Borisov district of the Minsk region: many girls had no experience of parachute jumping - three crashed upon landing, one broke her spine. On May 5, two girls were detained and taken to the Gestapo. In early May, the group began hostilities. The partisans blew up bridges, derailed military trains with Nazis and military equipment, attacked police stations, set up ambushes, and destroyed traitors. For the capture of “chieftain-paratrooper Lelka” (“tall, hefty, about 25 years old, with the Order of the Red Banner”), 30 thousand Reichsmarks, a cow and 2 liters of vodka were promised. Soon 10 local Komsomol members joined the detachment. The Germans found out the location of the camp of the sabotage-partisan group and blocked it. The activities of the partisans were greatly hampered, and Elena Kolesova led the group deep into the forest. From May 1 to September 11, 1942, the group destroyed a bridge, 4 enemy trains, 3 vehicles, and destroyed 6 enemy garrisons. In the summer, during the day, in front of a sentry, she blew up an enemy train with enemy equipment.

On September 11, 1942, an operation began to destroy the heavily fortified village of Vydritsy by a group of partisan detachments of the German garrison. Kolesova’s group also took an active part in this operation. The operation was successful - the enemy garrison was defeated. But Elena was mortally wounded in the battle.

Initially, she was buried in the village of Migovshchina, Krupsky district, Minsk region. In 1954, the remains were transferred to the city of Krupki to a mass grave, in which her fighting friends were also buried. A monument was erected at the grave.

These lists can be continued indefinitely.

Our Soviet women went through thick and thin and some did not return, but they did not give their lives in vain; they defended their Motherland and did not die for it in vain. They died courageously and their feat will always remain in our memory.

One person wrote very beautiful praise about these Women

“I look at these photographs and think - how beautiful they all are! And let the wings that the war gave them be made of plywood. Let the Germans call them nothing more than witches - they are goddesses! They didn't need makeup for this. Maybe sometimes a greasy pencil will draw an eyebrow and curls will curl thanks to a piece of paper and a bandage - that’s the whole joke. But still - beautiful! They didn’t sport branded clothes, but all the same, the uniform suited the face and figure.

I especially look at the faces of those who remained in the military sky. What kind of children would they have? And how proud their grandchildren must be of them now...
This is how in these lines that Natalya Meklin dedicated to her fighting friend Yulia Pashkova - Yulka...
Yula Pashkova

You stand, caressed by the wind.

Sun glare on the face
How alive you look from the portrait,
Smiling in a mourning ring.

There is no you - but the sun has not gone out...

And the lilacs are still blooming...
I can’t believe that you suddenly died!
On this bright and spring day.

Why are you lying alone now?

Plunged into unearthly dreams,
Without living the due date,
Having not reached the twentieth spring.

Minutes years, and you will be given

A monument to pay tribute.
In the meantime - plywood, simple,
A star has lit up above you."