SERGEENKO ANDREY DANILOVICH

    I spent the years of the Great Patriotic War on the Southern Fronts. I participated in the Battle of Stalingrad, liberated Donbass, Left-bank Ukraine, Sevastopol.

    A little about the Battle of Stalingrad.

The battle of Stalingrad is divided into two periods:

1. Defensive period - July 17 - November 18, 1942

2. Offensive period - November 19, 1942 - February 2, 1943

    The second period of the Battle of Stalingrad began on November 19 with a powerful counteroffensive of the Southwestern Don and Stalingrad Fronts. The 62nd Army under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov and the 64th Army participated in the encirclement and destruction of the encircled enemy.

    On the evening of September 1, 1942, as part of the 80th Guards Mortar Regiment (Katyusha Regiment), they crossed the Volga River to Stalingrad. The city by this time were in ruins, the ashes were smoking. The civilian population—old people, women, children—hid in adapted dugouts, in drainpipes, where they could find some kind of shelter.

    Our mortar regiment did not have a permanent residence permit.He was part of Chuikov's army, but was transferred from one sector of the front to another, to where it was necessary to support the fire of guards mortars, where a difficult situation was created in the defense.

    The Nazis rushed to the city, rushed to the Volga. They threw new fresh tank and infantry units into battle. The task of our regiment was to repel the offensive of superior enemy forces. The fire of the guards mortars did not stop day or night. Rarely did they fire with individual mortars. Basically they beat with batteries and whole divisions.

    The soul of the Soviet warrior triumphed over the effect of fire. And the effect was stunning. It was joyful to watch when, after a battery salvo, a sea of fire raged, and German tanks flared up and burned like candles.

    German aviation dominated the air at first, before the encirclement. But then our fighter planes, attack aircraft, bombers drove the enemy Messers and Junkers into the "pipe". On November 19, 1942, the war of the South-Western and Don fronts launched a counteroffensive, and on November 23, the encirclement ring of fascist troops in the interfluve of the Don and Volga closed.The 6th and part of the forces of the 4th Panzer Army as part of the 22nd Division and 160 separate units with a total number of 330,000 people were surrounded.

    The destruction of the encircled enemy grouping began. The main role at this stage was played by artillery and our Katyusha guards mortars. The Katyusha mortar is a real god of war.

     To the rescue of the encircled, Hitler abandoned Monstein's army, but no support helped the encircled. The encirclement ring was shrinking every day under the powerful blows of the troops of the Stalingrad Front.

    On February 2, 1943, von Paulus came out of the basement of one of the shops in the city with a white flag in his hands with his headquarters and surrendered to our troops.

     The battle of Stalingrad ended with a brilliant victory for our troops. From July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943, the Nazi army lost about a quarter of the forces operating on the Soviet-German front. Up to one and a half million enemy soldiers and officers were killed, wounded and captured.

     We were leaving the city, which could only symbolically be called a city. Everything was destroyed to the ground, not a single whole house, not a single factory building. Snowdrifts covered the wreckage. We left the ruins of the city. Above this white, dead, pitted space, the wind dispersed the nauseating cadaverous smell. They removed the first layer of snow and removed the corpses, and below the second layer, and under it again the corpses.

     And after that I liberated Donbass, Sevastopol, Left-Bank Ukraine. I was wounded for the third time in the battles for the liberation of Sevastopol and, for health reasons, after being seriously wounded, went out of action.

From the archives of the school museum

Memories were recorded by

students of 10 "A" class. School №1

1984

    KOVALEV IVAN IVANOVICH

     (resident of the village of Pechkovka)

    When I remember the war, burnt houses rise before my eyes, black chimneys of furnaces on the ashes, exhausted people mourning their devastated places. Each of us, seeing the suffering of our people, burned with the desire to reach Berlin and destroy the lair of fascism.

    I commanded the 1st battalion of the 71st mechanized brigade of the ZGTA. The battalion took part in the attack on Berlin, and on the outskirts of it held a number of successful battles. In Berlin itself, the soldiers fought with particular courage. Every day brought us closer to victory. The Germans resisted fiercely. Every house, basement was turned into fortified points. But no fortifications could stop our warriors. The fighting was especially fierce on the holiday of May 1, 1945.The soldiers complained that there was no moment of respite to celebrate the holiday. And suddenly on May 2 at 10 o'clock in the morning there was a lull. What a joy it was! People went out into the street, women with dishes reached out to our kitchens, and Soviet soldiers shared their porridge. On the same day, our army was ordered to help the struggling Prague. In the evening we set out on a combat and difficult journey. At dawn on May 8, we entered Prague and, together with the liberated Czech brothers, celebrated the long-awaited Victory.

    I remember very well an incident that happened near Berlin. We advanced with battles. On the way there was a small river, but with steep banks and a high bridge, behind which the territory of the enemy began. The bridge was under heavy enemy fire. On the other side, 6 columns of troops gathered, a lot of equipment. I, with soldiers in cars, was also in a hurry to pass the dangerous bridge as soon as possible, but for now I stopped to clarify the situation. Suddenly, the commander of the army P.S. Rybalko drove up in a passenger car. he was strict, demanding, fearless in battle. At the top of his voice, Rybalko shouted: “Who is the elder here? To me!" no one responded, then I hurried to him and reported:

    - Major Kovalev arrived at your order!

     - Are you the senior here? Rybalko asked sternly.

     I was not at a loss and answered in a combative way:

     - You are the senior here, comrade commander!

     A smile crossed Rybalko's face. - You see, the Germans do not allow to cross. Send a company and knock out the enemy.

     - Have to knock out the enemy!

     Among the company commanders, the most combative was Comrade Senior Lieutenant Pogrebnyak, who successfully coped with the task of the commander.

     The closer we moved to Berlin, the more fierce the battles were with the Germans. Once, at dawn, the commander of our brigade, Colonel Mamchenko, called me:

     - At night, we must march along this road. Tanks and self-propelled guns of the enemy constitute a serious obstacle. Take a battalion and try to secure the offensive.

     I took a map, studied it and decided to advance to the right of the road, hiding behind the bushes. Coming out to the edge, I saw that in front of the defense there was an open area of 400-500 meters that had to be overcome. Not allowing the enemy to come to his senses, we immediately entered the battle, which lasted only 30-40 minutes.There were no rears in this battle, everything was decided by speed and surprise. The Germans did not have time to deploy tanks and self-propelled guns in our direction. From afar, we did not notice that, hiding behind a weight box, there was a “tiger”, which killed and wounded 24 of our soldiers and one officer with shots. But all the tanks and self-propelled guns were captured, the battalion developed an offensive, cut the railway line, and in the evening we freed a large number of Soviet citizens from the camp.

From the archives of the school museum

The story was recorded by Yury Vlasenko

School student №1

    I spent the years of the Great Patriotic War on the Southern Fronts. I participated in the Battle of Stalingrad, liberated Donbass, Left-bank Ukraine, Sevastopol.

     The enemy broke into Mstislavl. Immediately massacres of civiliansbegan, executions of communists and Soviet activistsbegan. In the military hospital, which was captured by the Germans, the identified commissars and communists were destroyed. Until recently, a bustling, college town was turned into a place of death and execution.

     The gallows built in the park became the symbol of the new power. The invaders drove the townspeople here to intimidate them with terrible spectacles of execution. The invaders were especially cruel to the Jewish population, for which a distinction was immediately introduced - a six-pointed yellow star on the back. Some Jews refused to wear the patch and were dealt with first.

     One summer morning they gathered a group of men ostensibly to work, but in fact they took them to a ditch near the village of Bolshaya Leshchenka and shot them.

     On a frosty February day in 1942, the punishers massacred the Jews of the village of Shamovo. About 500 people were herded into several houses, guarded by policemen, and at night they were taken to the edge of the village in small groups and shot.

     In March 1942, on the Trinity Hill of the city of Mstislavl, the Nazis destroyed more than 200 Mstislavites - women, the elderly and children.

     In Yanovsky Yar, near the village of Pechkovka, more than 500 Soviet citizens were shot and tortured by the Nazis, among them were both prisoners of war and civilians.

BLACK DATES OF OUR HISTORY

     In the early morning of October 15, 1941, Jews were driven out of their homes. It was windy and very cold. The Jews who lived in the Zarechye were formed into a column and taken to the city, accompanied by the Germans. All the Jews were gathered in the courtyard of the pedagogical school. From there they were taken out into the street and driven in a column of four people in a row to the Kagalny moat, located between the Castle and Troitskaya mountains. Not far from the place of execution, people were forced to completely undress and fold their clothes. Then 50 men were shot. After that, the next victims were brought to the pits by 10 people, laid in dense rows face down and shot. So first men were killed, then women with older children. The monsters hit small children against each other and threw them into the pits while still alive. This nightmare lasted from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

     Eyewitnesses said that for a long time the water in the Kagalny well was red from the blood of innocent victims. In total, on that day, police from Ukraine and local traitors killed 850 (according to other sources 1300) Jews. Only a few people survived.

     In 1941-1943. in Yanovsky Yar, near the village of Pechkovka, more than 500 Soviet citizens were shot and tortured by the Nazis, among them were prisoners of war and civilians.

     Memories of residents of the village of Pechkovka...

     We lived near Yanovsky Yar. I remember how in 1942 they began to bring people outside the village. The cars returned empty. After the first time, when everything was quiet, my daughter and her friend snuck in to see what was happening behind the outskirts. They returned in horror: the walls of the pit were covered in blood, they were killed at the bottom. They didn’t go to that place anymore, but they often heard shots and screams of victims. The one who was shot was known from conversations...

     O.N. Martinovskaya “... At about 9 o'clock in the morning on October 15, 1941, I saw a lot of people near the moat: old people, women, children. Around the moat were fascists with machine guns. A few minutes later the shooting began. The children who were held by their mothers in their arms were taken away by the Nazis, thrown up for fun and shot ...

     A group of Mstislav youth helped doctors rescue the wounded and take them out into the forest. These are V. Belostotsky, D. Bagretsov, Vera and Nadya Konoplev, O. Kushankova and others. The enemies managed to get on the trail of the patriots. After brutal torture, the Nazis shot L. Dolbezhkin and his wife, L. Reshetov, V. Oruzeinikov and his wife, and nurse Pilyut.

     Dolbezhkin's wife wrote in pencil on a strip of wallpaper: “My dear Galya and children! I am writing to you for the last time. Tomorrow we will be shot... Galya! Take care of the children, I want them to wait for freedom ... "Doctor L.E. Filiyan (Frydlyand) opened his own veins and died from blood loss. After 2 months of torture, some of the patriots died, unable to withstand the abuse, the rest were buried alive ...

     On a clear morning in August 1943, on the second Friday of the month, 30 people, undressed and barefoot, were driven three kilometers to the Yanovsky Forest, where the grave had already been prepared.

     Those who could not walk were taken in a closed car. Through the boards of the sides, blood oozed onto the dusty road ...

     Yanovsky Yar became their grave on August 12, 1943.

     When the first clods of earth fell on their heads, everyone who still had the strength sang the Internationale. They fell asleep higher and higher, but the song did not stop. It sounded from under the earth as a symbol of unbroken will, like approaching revenge, which was approaching from where the clear sun, the sun of liberation, was rising. The buried grave stirred for a long time, the groans muffled by the earth were heard by the inhabitants of the village of Yanovka. Then everything calmed down ... And a few hours later, the partisans of Asokin's battalion stood over the grave, bowing their heads. They were sent to save the underground by the command of the 13th partisan brigade S.A. Mazury. But the fighting on the road delayed the partisans, they were late ...

     The most difficult and unbearable loss for the Mstislav region was the lives of people - 6.5 thousand inhabitants of the region died on the battlefield; 1645 people were tortured by the Nazi invaders, 866 young men and women were taken to Germany.

     Together with the inhabitants, the villages of Rakitanka (32 people, 60 households) and Shamovo (500 people, 208 households) were burnt down.

     Let us honor with a minute of silence all those who died during the war years, who passed it, but did not live to this day.

"IT WAS IN SHAMOV"

     "On February 1, 1942, the commandant of Mstislavl, Captain Schrader, announced to the police that all Jews living in Shamov should be destroyed. The doomed were driven to the square in front of the church. There were about 500 of them: old people, old women, women with children. Ten people were assigned to the cemetery. They were shot there. Among the doomed were two sisters Simkinas . The youngest, Raisa, a student at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute, was killed the first.

     The eldest, Fenya, is a survivor teacher who says: - It was in the evening of February 1. My sister and I knew we were going to death. I had a son, Valery, he was 9 months old. I wanted to leave him at home, but my sister said: "No need, he will die anyway. Let him die with you. " I wrapped him in a blanket. The sister was taken first. We heard screams, gunshots. Then it all died down. Then we were brought to the cemetery. Children were lifted by their hair or collar like kittens and shot in the head. The whole cemetery was screaming.

     I had my boy ripped from my hands. He rolled out into the snow. He was screaming. Then I fell from the impact. They started shooting. I heard moans, curses, gunshots, and I realized that they beat every corpse, checked who was still alive. I was hit twice very hard , I was silent. They began to remove things from the dead. I was wearing a bad skirt, they ripped it off. Everyone's gone. I reached Valerick ,my son. He was very cold. I kissed him, said goodbye. Some people still moaned, wheezed, but what could I do? I went. I went all night. I froze my hands. I don't have fingers, but I reached the partisans. " In the morning, Captain Schrader again sent police officers to the cemetery to finish off the wounded. "

    Memory: Mscislauski region: Redkal.: W. S. Gasyankov and others: Polymya,1999