Revelations from the front. Women at war: the truth that is not usually talked about. Women captured by the Germans. How the Nazis abused captured Soviet women
3.8 (75.79%) 38 votesWomen captured by the Germans. How the Nazis abused captured Soviet women
Second world war rolled through humanity like a skating rink. Millions of dead and many more crippled lives and destinies. All the warring parties did truly monstrous things, justifying everything by war.
Carefully! The material presented in this collection may seem unpleasant or intimidating.
Of course, the Nazis were especially distinguished in this regard, and this does not even take into account the Holocaust. There are many documented and outright fictional stories about what German soldiers did.
One senior German officer recalled the briefings they received. Interestingly, there was only one order regarding female soldiers: “Shoot.”
Most did just that, but among the dead they often find the bodies of women in the uniform of the Red Army - soldiers, nurses or orderlies, on whose bodies there were traces of cruel torture.
Residents of the village of Smagleevka, for example, say that when the Nazis visited them, they found a seriously wounded girl. And despite everything, they dragged her onto the road, stripped her and shot her.
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But before her death, she was tortured for a long time for pleasure. Her entire body was turned into a bloody mess. The Nazis did much the same with female partisans. Before execution, they could be stripped naked and for a long time keep in the cold.
Women servicemen of the Red Army captured by the Germans, part 1
Of course, the captives were constantly raped.
Women servicemen of the Red Army captured by the Finns and Germans, part 2. Jewish women
And if the highest German ranks were forbidden to join intimate relationship with captives, then ordinary privates had more freedom in this matter.
And if the girl did not die after the whole company had used her, then she was simply shot.
The situation in the concentration camps was even worse. Unless the girl was lucky and one of the higher ranks of the camp took her as a servant. Although this did not save much from rape.
In this regard, the most brutal place was Camp No. 337. There, prisoners were kept naked for hours in the cold, hundreds of people were put into barracks at a time, and anyone who could not do the work was immediately killed. About 700 prisoners of war were exterminated in Stalag every day.
Women were subjected to the same torture as men, if not much worse. In terms of torture, the Spanish Inquisition could envy the Nazis.
Soviet soldiers knew exactly what was happening in the concentration camps and the risks of captivity. Therefore, no one wanted or intended to give up. They fought to the end, until death; she was the only winner in those terrible years.
Happy memory to all those who died in the war...
During all the armed conflicts in the world, the weaker sex was the most unprotected and subject to bullying and murder. Remaining in territories occupied by enemy forces, young women became targets of sexual harassment and... Since statistics on atrocities against women have only been conducted recently, it is not difficult to assume that throughout the history of mankind the number of people subjected to inhuman abuse will be many times greater.
The greatest surge in bullying of the weaker sex was observed during the Great Patriotic War, armed conflicts in Chechnya, and anti-terrorist campaigns in the Middle East.
Displays all atrocities against women statistics, photos and video materials, as well as stories of eyewitnesses and victims of violence, which can be found in.
Statistics of atrocities against women during the Second World War
The most inhumane in modern history there were atrocities committed against women during the . The most perverted and they were scary Nazi atrocities against women. Statistics count about 5 million victims.
In the territories captured by the troops of the Third Reich, the population before it complete liberation was subjected to cruel and sometimes inhumane treatment by the occupiers. Of those who found themselves under the power of the enemy, there were 73 million people. About 30–35% of them are female of different ages.
The Germans’ atrocities against women were extremely cruel - under the age of 30–35 they were “used” by German soldiers to satisfy their sexual needs, and some, under threat of death, worked in brothels organized by the occupation authorities.
Statistics on atrocities against women show that older women were most often taken by the Nazis for forced labor in Germany or sent to concentration camps.
Many of the women suspected by the Nazis of having connections with the partisan underground were tortured and subsequently shot. According to rough estimates, every second of the women in the territory former USSR During the occupation of part of its territory by the Nazis, she experienced abuse from the invaders, many of them were shot or killed.
The Nazi atrocities against women in concentration camps were especially terrible - they, along with men, experienced all the hardships of hunger, hard labor, abuse and rape by the German soldiers guarding the camps. For the Nazis, prisoners were also material for anti-scientific and inhumane experiments.
Many of them died or were seriously injured in experiments on sterilization, studying the effects of various asphyxiating gases and changing factors environment on the human body, testing a vaccine against. A clear example bullying are about the Nazi atrocities against women:
- "SS Camp Number Five: Women's Hell."
- "Women deported to the SS special forces."
A huge share of brutalities against women during this time was committed by OUN-UPA fighters. The statistics of atrocities against women by Bandera’s supporters total hundreds of thousands of cases in various parts Ukraine.
Stepan Bandera's wards imposed their power through terror and intimidation of the civilian population. For Bandera's followers, the female part of the population was often the object of rape. Those who refused to cooperate or were associated with the partisans were brutally tortured, after which they were shot or hanged along with their children.
The atrocities were also monstrous Soviet soldiers over women. Statistics as the Red Army advances through countries previously captured by the Germans Western Europe towards Berlin gradually increased. Embittered and having seen enough of all the horrors created by Hitler’s troops on Russian soil, the Soviet soldiers were spurred on by a thirst for revenge and some orders from the highest military leadership.
Victory procession Soviet Army according to eyewitnesses, it was accompanied by pogroms, robberies and often gang rapes of women and girls.
Chechen atrocities against women: statistics, photos
Throughout all armed conflicts on the territory of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (Chechnya), Chechen atrocities against women were particularly brutal. In three Chechen territories occupied by militants, genocide was carried out against the Russian population - women and young girls were raped, tortured and killed.
Some were taken away during the retreat and then, under threat of death, demanded a ransom from their relatives. For the Chechens, they represented nothing more than a commodity that could be profitably sold or exchanged. Women rescued or ransomed from captivity spoke about the terrible treatment they received from the militants - they were poorly fed, often beaten and raped.
For attempting to escape they threatened with immediate death. In total, during the entire period of confrontation between federal troops and Chechen militants, more than 5 thousand women were injured, brutally tortured and killed.
War in Yugoslavia - atrocities against women
The war on the Balkan Peninsula, which subsequently led to a split in the state, became another armed conflict in which the female population was subjected to terrible abuse, torture, etc. The reason for the ill-treatment was different religions among warring parties, ethnic strife.
As a result of the Yugoslav wars between Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, and Albanians that lasted from 1991 to 2001, Wikipedia estimates the death toll at 127,084 people. Of these, about 10–15% are civilian women shot, tortured, or killed as a result of airstrikes and artillery shelling.
ISIS atrocities against women: statistics, photos
IN modern world The most terrible in their inhumanity and cruelty are considered to be the atrocities of ISIS against women who find themselves in territories controlled by terrorists. Representatives of the fairer sex who do not belong to the Islamic faith are subjected to particular cruelty.
Women and minor girls are kidnapped, after which many are resold many times on the black market as slaves. Many of them are forcibly forced to sexual relations with militants – sex jihad. Those who refuse intimacy are publicly executed.
Women who fall into sexual slavery by jihadists are taken away from them, from whom they are trained as future militants, forced to do all the hard work around the house, to join intimacy, both with the owner and with his friends. Those who try to escape and are caught are brutally beaten, after which many are publicly executed.
Today, ISIS militants have kidnapped more than 4,000 women of various ages and nationalities. The fate of many of them is unknown. The approximate number of women injured, including those killed during the most major wars XX century, presented in the table:
| Name of the war, its duration | Approximate number of women victims of the conflict |
| Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 | 5 000 000 |
| Yugoslav Wars 1991–2001 | 15 000 |
| Chechen military companies | 5 000 |
| Anti-terrorism campaigns against ISIS in the Middle East 2014 - to date | 4 000 |
| Total | 5 024 000 |
Conclusion
Military conflicts arising on earth lead to the fact that the statistics of atrocities against women without intervention international organizations and the manifestations of humanity of the opposing sides towards women will steadily increase in the future.
The Great Patriotic War - known and unknown: historical memory and modernity: materials of international. scientific conf. (Moscow - Kolomna, May 6–8, 2015) / rep. editor: Yu. A. Petrov; Institute grew. history of Russia acad. sciences; Ross. ist. about; Chinese history o-vo, etc. - M.: [IRI RAS], 2015.
June 22, 1941 is the day on which the countdown to the Great Patriotic War began. This is the day that divided the life of mankind into two parts: peaceful (pre-war) and war. This is the day that made everyone think about what he chooses: to submit to the enemy or fight him. And each person decided this question himself, consulting only with his conscience.
Archival documents indicate that the vast majority of the population Soviet Union made the only correct decision: to devote all her strength to the fight against fascism, to defend her Motherland, her family and friends. Men and women, regardless of age and nationality, non-party members and members of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Komsomol members and non-Komsomol members, became the Army of volunteers that lined up to apply for enlistment in the Red Army.
Let us recall that in Art. 13th Universal Law military duty, adopted by the IV session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 1, 1939, the People's Commissariats of Defense and Navy were given the right to recruit women with medical, veterinary and special-technical training into the army and navy, as well as to attract them to training camps. IN wartime women with the specified training could be drafted into the army and navy to perform auxiliary and special service.
After the announcement of the start of the war, women, citing this article, went to party and Komsomol organizations, to military commissariats and there persistently sought to be sent to the front. Among the volunteers who submitted applications in the first days of the war to be sent to the active army, up to 50% of the applications were from women. Women also went and signed up for the people's militia.
Reading the applications of girl volunteers that were submitted in the first days of the war, we see that for young people the war seemed completely different from what it turned out to be in reality. Most of them were confident that the enemy would be defeated in the near future, and therefore everyone sought to quickly participate in its destruction. The military registration and enlistment offices at this time mobilized the population, following the instructions received, and refused those who were under 18 years old, refused those who were not trained in military craft, and also refused girls and women until further notice. What did we know and know about them? There are many about some, and about most of them we talk about “defenders of the homeland,” volunteers.
It was about them, about those who went to defend their Motherland, that the front-line poet K. Vanshenkin later wrote that they were “knights without fear or reproach.” This applies to men and women. This can be said about them in the words of M. Aliger:
Everyone had their own war,
Your path forward, your battlefields,
And everyone was himself in everything,
And everyone had the same goal.
The historiography of the Great Patriotic War is rich in collections of documents and materials about this spiritual impulse of women of the USSR. A huge number of articles, monographs, collective works and memories of the work of women during the war in the rear, of exploits at the fronts, in the underground, in partisan detachments operating in the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union. But life testifies that not everything, not about everyone, and not everything has been said and analyzed. Many documents and problems were “closed” to historians in past years. Currently, there is access to documents that are not only little-known, but also to documents that require an objective approach to study and impartial analysis. It is not always easy to do this due to the existing stereotype in relation to one or another phenomenon or person.
The problem “Soviet women during the Great Patriotic War” has been and remains in the field of view of historians, political scientists, writers and journalists. They wrote and write about women warriors, about women who replaced men in the rear, about mothers, less about those who took care of evacuated children, who returned from the front with orders and were embarrassed to wear them, etc. And then the question arises: why ? After all, back in the spring of 1943, the Pravda newspaper stated, referring to the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, that “never before in all past history a woman did not participate as selflessly in the defense of her Motherland as during the Patriotic War of the Soviet people.”
The Soviet Union was the only state during World War II in which women took a direct part in the fighting. At the front in different periods From 800 thousand to 1 million women fought, 80 thousand of them were Soviet officers. This was due to two factors. Firstly, an unprecedented rise in the patriotism of young people, who were eager to fight the enemy who had attacked their homeland. Secondly, difficult situation prevailing on all fronts. Losses Soviet troops on initial war led to the fact that in the spring of 1942 there was a mass mobilization of women to serve in the active army and rear units. Based on the resolution of the State Defense Committee (GKO), mass mobilizations of women took place on March 23, April 13 and 23, 1942 to serve in the air defense, communications, internal security forces, on military roads, in the Navy and Air Force, in the signal troops.
Healthy girls aged at least 18 years were subject to mobilization. The mobilization was carried out under the control of the Komsomol Central Committee and local Komsomol organizations. Everything was taken into account: education (preferably at least 5th grade), membership in the Komsomol, state of health, absence of children. The majority of the girls were volunteers. True, there were cases of reluctance to serve in the Red Army. When this was discovered at the assembly points, the girls were sent home to their place of conscription. M.I. Kalinin, recalling in the summer of 1945 how girls were drafted into the Red Army, noted that “the female youth who participated in the war... were taller than average men, there’s nothing special... because you were selected from many millions . They didn’t choose men, they threw a net and mobilized everyone, they took everyone away... I think that the best part of our female youth went to the front...”
There are no exact figures on the number of conscripts. But it is known that more than 550 thousand women became warriors only at the call of the Komsomol. Over 300 thousand patriotic women were drafted into the air defense forces (this is over ¼ of all fighters). Through the Red Cross, 300 thousand Oshin nurses, 300 thousand nurses, 300 thousand nurses, and over 500 thousand air defense sanitary workers received a specialty and came to serve in the military medical institutions of the sanitary service of the Red Army. In May 1942, the State Defense Committee adopted a decree on the mobilization of 25 thousand women in the Navy. On November 3, the Central Committee of the Komsomol carried out the selection of Komsomol and non-Komsomol members of the formation of the women's volunteer rifle brigade, a reserve regiment and the Ryazan Infantry School. The total number of people mobilized there was 10,898. On December 15, the brigade, reserve regiment and courses began normal training. During the war, five mobilizations were held among communist women.
Not all women, of course, took direct part in the fighting. Many served in various rear services: economic, medical, headquarters, etc. However, a significant number of them directly participated in the hostilities. At the same time, the range of activities of women warriors was quite diverse: they took part in raids of reconnaissance and sabotage groups and partisan detachments, were medical instructors, signalmen, anti-aircraft gunners, snipers, machine gunners, drivers of cars and tanks. Women served in aviation. These were pilots, navigators, gunners, radio operators, and armed forces. At the same time, female aviators fought both in regular “male” aviation regiments and in separate “female” ones.
During the Great Patriotic War, women's combat formations appeared for the first time in the Armed Forces of our country. Three aviation regiments were formed from female volunteers: the 46th Guards Night Bomber, the 125th Guards Bomber, the 586th Air Defense Fighter Regiment; Separate women's volunteer rifle brigade, Separate women's reserve rifle regiment, Central women's sniper school, Separate women's company of sailors, etc. The 101st long-range air regiment was commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union B.S. Grizodubova. The Central Women's Sniper Training School provided the front with 1,061 snipers and 407 sniper instructors. Graduates of this school destroyed over 11,280 enemy soldiers and officers during the war. The youth units of Vsevobuch trained 220 thousand female snipers and signalmen.
Located near Moscow, the 1st Separate Women's Reserve Regiment trained motorists and snipers, machine gunners and junior commanders of combat units. There were 2899 women on staff. 20 thousand women served in the Special Moscow Air Defense Army. Documents in the archives of the Russian Federation speak about how difficult this service is.
The largest representation of participants in the Great Patriotic War was among female doctors. From total number of doctors in the Red Army - 41% were women, among surgeons there were 43.5%. It was estimated that female medical instructors of rifle companies, medical battalions, and artillery batteries helped over 72% of the wounded and about 90% of sick soldiers return to duty. Women doctors served in all branches of the military - in aviation and marines, on warships of the Black Sea Fleet, Northern Fleet, Caspian and Dnieper flotillas, in floating naval hospitals and ambulance trains. Together with horsemen, they went on deep raids behind enemy lines and were in partisan detachments. With the infantry they reached Berlin and took part in the storming of the Reichstag. For special courage and heroism, 17 female doctors were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
A sculptural monument in Kaluga reminds of the feat of female military doctors. In the park on Kirov Street, a front-line nurse in a raincoat, with a sanitary bag over her shoulder, stands at full height on a high pedestal.
Monument to military nurses in Kaluga
During the war, the city of Kaluga was the center of numerous hospitals that treated and returned tens of thousands of soldiers and commanders to duty. In this city there are always flowers at the monument.
There is practically no mention in the literature that during the war years, about 20 women became tank crews, three of whom graduated from the country’s tank schools. Among them are I.N. Levchenko, who commanded a group of T-60 light tanks, E.I. Kostrikova - commander of a tank platoon, and at the end of the war, commander of a tank company. And the only woman who fought in heavy tank IS-2, - A.L. Boykova. Four female tank crews took part in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943.
Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko and Evgenia Sergeevna Kostrikova (daughter of the Soviet state and politician S.M.Kirova)
I would like to note that among our female Heroes there is the only foreign woman - 18-year-old Anela Krzywoń, a shooter of a female company of machine gunners of the female infantry battalion of the 1st Polish Infantry Division of the Polish Army. The title was awarded posthumously in November 1943.
Anelya Kzhivon, who has Polish roots, was born in the village of Sadovye, Ternopil region of Western Ukraine. When the war began, the family was evacuated to Kansk, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Here the girl worked in a factory. I tried several times to volunteer for the front. In 1943, Anelya was enlisted as a rifleman in a company of machine gunners of the 1st Polish Division named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko. The company guarded the division headquarters. In October 1943, the division fought offensive battles in the Mogilev region. On October 12, during another German airstrike on the division’s positions, rifleman Krzywoń served at one of the posts, hiding in a small trench. Suddenly she saw that the staff car had caught fire due to the explosion. Knowing that it contained maps and other documents, Anelya rushed to save them. In the covered body she saw two soldiers, stunned by the blast wave. Anelya pulled them out, and then, choking in the smoke, burning her face and hands, began throwing folders with documents out of the car. She did this until the car exploded. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 11, 1943, she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. (Photo courtesy of the Krasnoyarsk Museum of Local Lore. Natalya Vladimirovna Barsukova, Ph.D., Associate Professor of the Department of History of Russia, Siberian Federal University)
200 women warriors were awarded Orders of Glory II and III degrees. Four women became full Knights of Glory. We almost never called them by name in recent years. In the year of the 70th anniversary of the Victory, we will repeat their names. These are Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Zhurkina (Kiek), Matryona Semenovna Necheporchukova, Danuta Yurgio Staniliene, Nina Pavlovna Petrova. Over 150 thousand women soldiers were awarded orders and medals of the Soviet state.
The figures, even if not always accurate and complete, that were given above, the facts of military events indicate that history has never known such a massive participation of women in the armed struggle for the Motherland, as was shown by Soviet women during the Great Patriotic War. Let's not forget that women also showed themselves heroically and selflessly under the most difficult conditions of occupation, standing up to fight the enemy.
There were only about 90 thousand partisans behind enemy lines at the end of 1941. The issue of numbers is a special issue, and we refer to official published data. By the beginning of 1944, 90% of the partisans were men and 9.3% women. The question of the number of female partisans gives a range of figures. According to data from later years (obviously, according to updated data), during the war there were over 1 million partisans in the rear. Women among them accounted for 9.3%, i.e. over 93,000 people. The same source also contains another figure - over 100 thousand women. There is one more feature. The percentage of women in partisan detachments was not the same everywhere. Thus, in units in Ukraine it was 6.1%, in the occupied regions of the RSFSR - from 6% to 10%, in the Bryansk region - 15.8% and in Belarus - 16%.
Our country was proud during the war years (and now it is also proud) of such heroines of the Soviet people as partisans Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Lisa Chaikina, Antonina Petrova, Anya Lisitsina, Maria Melentyeva, Ulyana Gromova, Lyuba Shevtsova and others. But many are still unknown or little known due to years of background checks on their identities. Girls - nurses, doctors, partisan intelligence officers - gained great authority among the partisans. But they were treated with a certain distrust and with great difficulty were allowed to participate in combat operations. At first, the opinion was widespread among partisan detachments that girls could not be demolitions. However, dozens of girls have mastered this difficult task. Among them is Anna Kalashnikova, the leader of a subversive group of a partisan detachment in the Smolensk region. Sofya Levanovich commanded a subversive group of a partisan detachment in the Oryol region and derailed 17 enemy trains. Ukrainian partisan Dusya Baskina had 9 enemy trains derailed. Who remembers, who knows these names? And during the war, their names were known not only in the partisan detachments, but the occupiers knew and feared them.
Where partisan detachments operated, destroying the Nazis, there was an order from General von Reichenau, who demanded that in order to destroy the partisans “... use all means. All captured partisans of both sexes in military uniform or hanging in public in civilian clothes.” It is known that the fascists were especially afraid of women and girls - residents of villages and hamlets in the area where the partisans operated. In their letters home, which fell into the hands of the Red Army, the occupiers wrote frankly that “women and girls act like the most seasoned warriors... In this regard, we would have to learn a lot.” In another letter, Chief Corporal Anton Prost asked in 1942: “How much longer will we have to fight this kind of war? After all, we, a combat unit (Western Front, p/p 2244/B. - N.P.) are opposed here by the entire civilian population, including women and children!..”
And as if confirming this idea, the German newspaper “Deutsche Allheimeine Zeitung” dated May 22, 1943 stated: “Even seemingly harmless women picking berries and mushrooms, peasant women heading to the city are partisan scouts...” Risking their lives, the partisans carried out tasks .
According to official data, as of February 1945, 7,800 female partisans and underground fighters received the “Partisan of the Patriotic War” medal of II and III degrees. 27 partisans and underground women received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 22 of them were awarded posthumously. We cannot say with certainty that these are accurate numbers. The number of awardees is much larger, since the process of awards, or more precisely, the consideration of repeated nominations for awards, continued in the 90s. An example could be the fate of Vera Voloshina.
Vera Voloshina
The girl was in the same reconnaissance group as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Both of them went on a mission for the intelligence department of the Western Front on the same day. Voloshina was wounded and fell behind her group. She was captured. She was executed, like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, on November 29. Voloshina’s fate remained unknown for a long time. Thanks to search work journalists established the circumstances of her captivity and death. By Presidential Decree Russian Federation in 1993, V. Voloshina was (posthumously) awarded the title of Hero of Russia.
Vera Voloshina
The press is often interested in numbers: how many feats have been accomplished. At the same time, they often refer to the figures taken into account by the Central Headquarters partisan movement(TSSHPD).
But what kind of accurate accounting can we talk about when underground organizations arose on the ground without any instructions from the TsShPD. As an example, we can cite the world-famous Komsomol youth underground organization “Young Guard”, which operated in the city of Krasnodon in the Donbass. There are still disputes about its numbers and its composition. The number of its members ranges from 70 to 150 people.
There was a time when it was believed that the larger the organization, the more effective it was. And few people thought about how a large underground youth organization could operate under occupation without revealing its actions. Unfortunately, a number of underground organizations are waiting for their researchers, because little or almost nothing has been written about them. But the fates of underground women are hidden in them.
In the fall of 1943, Nadezhda Troyan and her fighting friends managed to carry out the sentence pronounced by the Belarusian people.
Elena Mazanik, Nadezhda Troyan, Maria Osipova
For this feat, which entered the annals of the history of Soviet intelligence, Nadezhda Troyan, Elena Mazanik and Maria Osipova were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Their names are usually not remembered often.
Unfortunately, our historical memory has a number of features, and one of them is forgetfulness of the past or “inattention” to facts, dictated by various circumstances. We know about the feat of A. Matrosov, but we hardly know that on November 25, 1942, during the battle in the village of Lomovochi, Minsk Region, partisan R.I. Shershneva (1925) covered the embrasure of a German bunker, becoming the only woman (according to others according to data - one of two) who accomplished a similar feat. Unfortunately, in the history of the partisan movement there are pages where there is only a listing of military operations, the number of partisans who participated in it, but, as they say, “behind the scenes of events” remain the majority of those who specifically took part in the implementation of partisan raids. It is not possible to name everyone right now. They, the ordinary ones - living and dead - are rarely remembered, despite the fact that they live somewhere near us.
Behind the bustle of everyday life in the last few decades, our historical memory of everyday life past war somewhat faded. Victory’s privates are rarely written or remembered. As a rule, they remember only those who accomplished a feat already recorded in the history of the Great Patriotic War, less and less, and even then in a faceless form about those who were next to them in the same formation, in the same battle.
Rimma Ivanovna Shershneva is a Soviet partisan who covered the embrasure of an enemy bunker with her body. (according to some reports, the same feat was repeated by medical service lieutenant Nina Aleksandrovna Bobyleva, a doctor of a partisan detachment operating in the Narva region).
Back in 1945, during the beginning of the demobilization of girl warriors, words were heard that little was written about them, girl warriors, during the war years, and now, in peacetime, they might be completely forgotten. On July 26, 1945, the Central Committee of the Komsomol hosted a meeting of girls warriors who had completed their service in the Red Army with the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR M.I. Kalinin. A transcript of this meeting has been preserved, which is called “a conversation between M.I. Kalinin and girl warriors.” I will not retell its contents. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in one of the speeches of the Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot N. Meklin (Kravtsova), the question was raised about the need to “popularize the heroic deeds and nobility of our women.”
Speaking on behalf and on behalf of the warrior girls, N. Meklin (Kravtsova) said what many were talking and thinking about, she said what they are still talking about. In her speech there was, as it were, a sketch of a plan that had not yet been told about girls, women warriors. We must admit that what was said 70 years ago is still relevant today.
Concluding her speech, N. Meklin (Kravtsova) drew attention to the fact that “almost nothing has been written or shown about girls - Heroes of the Patriotic War. Something has been written, it is written about partisan girls: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Liza Chaikina, about the Krasnodonites. Nothing has been written about the girls of the Red Army and Navy. But this, perhaps, would be pleasant for those who fought, it would be useful for those who did not fight, and it would be important for our posterity and history. Why not create documentary By the way, the Komsomol Central Committee has long been thinking about doing this, in which to reflect women’s combat training, as, for example, during the defense of Leningrad, to reflect best women working in hospitals, show snipers, traffic police girls, etc. In my opinion, literature and art for that matter owe a debt to warrior girls. That's basically all I wanted to say."
Natalya Fedorovna Meklin (Kravtsova)
These proposals were partially or not fully implemented. Time has put other problems on the agenda, and much of what the girl warriors proposed in July 1945 is waiting for its authors now.
The war separated some people in different directions, and brought others closer together. During the war there were separations and meetings. During the war there was love, there was betrayal, everything happened. But the war united in its fields men and women of different ages, mostly young and healthy people who wanted to live and love, despite the fact that death was at every turn. And no one condemned anyone during the war for this. But when the war ended and demobilized women soldiers began to return to their homeland, on whose chests were orders, medals and stripes about wounds, the civilian population often threw insults at them, calling them “PPZh” (field wife), or poisonous questions: “Why did you receive awards? How many husbands have you had? etc.
In 1945, this became widespread and even among demobilized men caused widespread protest and complete powerlessness on how to deal with it. The Central Committee of the Komsomol began to receive letters asking them to “put things in order in this matter.” The Komsomol Central Committee outlined a plan on the issue raised - what to do? It noted that “...we do not always and not everywhere sufficiently propagate the exploits of girls among the people; we tell the population and young people little about the enormous contribution made by girls and women to our victory over fascism.”
It should be noted that then plans were drawn up, lectures were edited, but the urgency of the issue practically did not decrease for many years. The girl warriors were embarrassed to put on their orders and medals; they took them off their tunics and hid them in boxes. And when their children grew up, the children sorted out expensive awards and played with them, often not knowing why their mothers received them. If during the Great Patriotic War women warriors were talked about in the reports of the Sovinformburo, written in newspapers, and posters were issued where there was a woman warrior, then the further the country moved away from the events of 1941-1945, the less often this topic was heard. A certain interest in it appeared only in the run-up to March 8th. Researchers tried to find an explanation for this, but we cannot agree with their interpretation for a number of reasons.
There is an opinion that “the starting point in the policy of the Soviet leadership in relation to women’s memory of the war” is M.I. Kalinin’s speech in July 1945 at a meeting at the Komsomol Central Committee with female soldiers demobilized from the Red Army and Navy . The speech was called “Glorious Daughters of the Soviet People.” In it, M.I. Kalinin raised the question of adapting demobilized girls to peaceful life, finding their own professions, etc. And at the same time he advised: “Don’t be arrogant about your future practical work. Don’t talk about your merits, let them talk about you - it’s better.” With reference to the work of the German researcher B. Fieseler “Woman at War: The Unwritten History”, these above words of M.I. Kalinin were interpreted by the Russian researcher O.Yu. Nikonova as a recommendation “for demobilized women not to brag about their merits.” Perhaps the German researcher did not understand the meaning of Kalinin’s words, and the Russian researcher, while building her “concept,” did not bother to read the publication of M.I. Kalinin’s speech in Russian.
Currently, attempts are being made (and quite successfully) to reconsider the problem of women's participation in the Great Patriotic War, in particular, what motivated them when they applied for enlistment in the Red Army. The term “mobilized patriotism” appeared. At the same time, a number of problems or incompletely explored subjects remain. If women warriors are written about more often; especially about the Heroes of the Soviet Union, about women at the labor front, about women at the rear, there are fewer and fewer generalizing works. Obviously, it is forgotten that it was possible to “participate directly in the war, and one could participate by working in industry, in all possible military and logistical institutions.” In the USSR, assessing the contribution made Soviet women in defense of the Motherland, guided by the words Secretary General The Central Committee of the CPSU L.I. Brezhnev, who said: “The image of a female fighter with a rifle in her hands at the helm of an airplane, the image of a nurse or a doctor with shoulder straps will live in our memory as a shining example of dedication and patriotism.” Correctly, figuratively said, but... where are the women of the home front? What is their role? Let us recall that what M.I. Kalinin wrote about in the article “On the moral character of our people,” published in 1945, directly applies to the women of the home front: “... everything previous pales before the great epic of the current war, before the heroism and the sacrifice of Soviet women, showing civic valor, endurance in the loss of loved ones and enthusiasm in the struggle with such strength and, I would say, majesty, which have never been seen in the past.”
About the civil valor of women on the home front in 1941-1945. one can say in the words of M. Isakovsky, dedicated to “Russian Woman” (1945):
...Can you really tell me about this?
What years did you live in?
What an immeasurable burden
It fell on women's shoulders!..
But without facts to the current generation it's hard to understand. Let us remind you that under the slogan “Everything for the front, everything for victory!” All the teams of the Soviet rear worked. Sovinformburo in the most difficult time of 1941-1942. in its reports, along with reports about the exploits of Soviet soldiers, it also reported about the heroic deeds of home front workers. In connection with the departure to the front, to the people's militia, to the destruction battalions, the number of men in the Russian national economy by the fall of 1942 fell from 22.2 million to 9.5 million.
The men who went to the front were replaced by women and teenagers.
Among them were 550 thousand housewives, pensioners, and teenagers. In the food and light industry, the share of women during the war years was 80-95%. In transport, more than 40% (by the summer of 1943) were women. The “All-Russian Book of Memory of 1941-1945” in the review volume contains interesting figures that do not need commentary on the increase in the share of female labor throughout the country, especially in the first two years of the war. Thus, among machinists steam engines- from 6% at the beginning of 1941 to 33% at the end of 1942, compressor operators - from 27% to 44%, metal turners - from 16% to 33%, welders - from 17% to 31%, mechanics - from 3.9% to 12%. At the end of the war, women in the Russian Federation made up 59% of workers and employees of the republic, instead of 41% on the eve of the war.
Up to 70% of women came to some enterprises where before the war only men worked. There were no enterprises, workshops, or areas in industry where women did not work; there were no professions that women could not master; the proportion of women in 1945 was 57.2% compared to 38.4% in 1940, and in agriculture- 58.0% in 1945 versus 26.1% in 1940. Among communication workers it reached 69.1% in 1945. The share of women among industrial workers and apprentices in 1945 in the professions of drillers and revolvers reached 70 % (in 1941 it was 48%), and among turners - 34%, against 16.2% in 1941. In the country's 145 thousand Komsomol youth brigades, 48% of the total number of young people were employed by women. Only during the competition for increasing labor productivity, for manufacturing above-plan weapons for the front, more than 25 thousand women were awarded orders and medals of the USSR.
Women warriors and women of the home front began to talk about themselves, their friends, with whom they shared their joys and troubles, years after the end of the war. On the pages of these collections of memoirs, which were published locally and in capital publishing houses, the conversation was primarily about heroic military and labor exploits and very rarely about the everyday difficulties of the war years. And only decades later they began to call a spade a spade and not hesitate to remember what difficulties befell Soviet women and how they had to overcome them.
I would like our compatriots to know the following: on May 8, 1965, in the year of the 30th anniversary of the Great Victory, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the SR, International Women's Day March 8 became a holiday non-working day “in commemoration of the outstanding merits of Soviet women... in defending the Motherland during the Great Patriotic War , their heroism and dedication at the front and in the rear...".
Turning to the problem of “Soviet women during the Great Patriotic War,” we understand that the problem is unusually broad and multifaceted and it is impossible to cover everything. Therefore, in the presented article we set one task: to help human memory, so that “the image of a Soviet woman - a patriot, a fighter, a worker, a soldier’s mother” will forever be preserved in the memory of the people.
NOTES
See: Law on General Military Duty, [dated September 1, 1939]. M., 1939. Art. 13.
Is it true. 1943. March 8; Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI). F. M-1. He. 5. D. 245. L. 28.
See: Women of the Great Patriotic War. M., 2014. Section 1: official documents testify.
RGASPI. F. M-1. He. 5. D. 245. L. 28. We quote from the transcript of a meeting at the Komsomol Central Committee with demobilized girl soldiers.
The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: encyclopedia. M., 1985. P. 269.
RGASPI. F. M-1. He. 53. D. 17. L. 49.
Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945: encyclopedia. P. 269.
See: Women of the Great Patriotic War.
The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: encyclopedia. P. 440.
Right there. P.270.
URL: Famhist.ru/Famlrist/shatanovskajl00437ceO.ntm
RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 13. L. 73.
The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: encyclopedia. P. 530.
Right there. P.270.
URL: 0ld. Bryanskovi.ru/projects/partisan/events.php?category-35
RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 13. L. 73–74.
Right there. D. 17. L. 18.
Right there.
Right there. F. M-7. Op. 3. D. 53. L. 148; The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: encyclopedia. C. 270; URL: http://www.great-country.ra/rabrika_articles/sov_eUte/0007.html
For more details, see: “Young Guard” (Krasnodon) - artistic image and historical reality: collection. documents and materials. M, 2003.
Heroes of the Soviet Union [Electronic resource]: [forum]. URL: PokerStrategy.com
RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 5. D. 245. L. 1–30.
Right there. L. 11.
Right there.
Right there. Op. 32. D. 331. L. 77–78. Emphasis added by the author of the article.
Right there. Op. 5. D. 245. L. 30.
See: Fieseler B. Women in War: The Unwritten History. Berlin, 2002. P. 13; URL: http://7r.net/foram/thread150.html
Kalinin M.I. Selected works. M., 1975. P. 315.
Same place. P. 401.
Right there.
All-Russian Book of Memory, 1941-1945. M., 2005. Review volume. P. 143.
The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945: encyclopedia. P. 270.
All-Russian Book of Memory, 1941-1945. Review volume. P. 143.
RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 3. D. 331 a. L. 63.
Right there. Op. 6. D. 355. L. 73.
Quoted: from: Bolshaya Soviet encyclopedia. 3rd ed. M., 1974. T. 15. P. 617.
CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee. Ed. 8th, add. M., 1978. T 11. P. 509.
O. Kazarinov "Unknown faces of war". Chapter 5. Violence begets violence (continued)Forensic psychologists have long established that rape, as a rule, is explained not by a desire to obtain sexual satisfaction, but by a thirst for power, a desire to emphasize one’s superiority over a weaker person through humiliation, and a feeling of revenge.
What if not war contributes to the manifestation of all these base feelings?
On September 7, 1941, at a rally in Moscow, an appeal was adopted by Soviet women, which said: “It is impossible to convey in words what the fascist villains are doing to women in the areas of the Soviet country they temporarily captured. There is no limit to their sadism. These vile cowards are driving women, children and old people ahead of them in order to hide from the fire of the Red Army. They rip open the bellies of the victims they rape, cut out their breasts, crush them with cars, tear them apart with tanks..."
What state can a woman be in when she is subjected to violence, defenseless, depressed by the feeling of her own defilement, shame?
A stupor arises in the mind from the murders happening around. Thoughts are paralyzed. Shock. Alien uniforms, alien speech, alien smells. They are not even perceived as male rapists. These are some monstrous creatures from another world.
And they mercilessly destroy all the concepts of chastity, decency, and modesty that have been brought up over the years. They get to what has always been hidden from prying eyes, the exposure of which has always been considered indecent, what they whispered about in the gateways, that they trust only the most beloved people and doctors...
Helplessness, despair, humiliation, fear, disgust, pain - everything is intertwined in one ball, tearing from the inside, destroying human dignity. This tangle breaks the will, burns the soul, kills the personality. They drink away life... They tear off clothes... And there is no way to resist this. THIS will still happen.
I think thousands and thousands of women cursed at such moments the nature by whose will they were born women.
Let us turn to documents that are more revealing than any literary description. Documents collected only for 1941.
“...This happened in the apartment of a young teacher, Elena K. In broad daylight, a group of drunken German officers burst in here. At this time, the teacher was teaching three girls, her students. Having locked the door, the bandits ordered Elena K. to undress. The young woman resolutely refused to comply with this impudent demand. Then the Nazis tore off her clothes and raped her in front of the children. The girls tried to protect the teacher, but the scoundrels also brutally abused them. The teacher's five-year-old son remained in the room. Not daring to scream, the child looked at what was happening with his eyes wide open in horror. A fascist officer approached him and cut him in two with a blow from his saber.”
From the testimony of Lydia N., Rostov:
“Yesterday I heard a strong knock on the door. When I approached the door, they hit it with rifle butts, trying to break it down. 5 German soldiers burst into the apartment. They kicked my father, mother and little brother out of the apartment. Then I found my brother's body on the staircase. A German soldier threw him from the third floor of our house, as eyewitnesses told me. His head was broken. Mother and father were shot at the entrance to our house. I myself have been subjected to gang violence. I was unconscious. When I woke up, I heard the hysterical screams of women in the neighboring apartments. That evening all the apartments in our building were desecrated by the Germans. They raped all the women." Terrible document! The fear this woman experienced is involuntarily conveyed in a few meager lines. Blows of rifle butts on the door. Five monsters. Fear for oneself, for relatives taken away in an unknown direction: “Why? So they don't see what's going to happen? Arrested? Killed? Doomed to vile torture that leaves you unconscious. A multiply amplified nightmare from the “hysterical screams of women in neighboring apartments,” as if the whole house was groaning. Unreality…
Statement from a resident of the village of Novo-Ivanovka, Maria Tarantseva: “Having broken into my house, four German soldiers brutally raped my daughters Vera and Pelageya.”
“On the very first evening in the city of Luga, the Nazis caught 8 girls on the streets and raped them.”
“To the mountains. Tikhvin Leningrad region 15-year-old M. Kolodetskaya, having been wounded by shrapnel, was brought to the hospital (formerly a monastery), where wounded German soldiers were located. Despite being wounded, Kolodetskaya was raped by a group of German soldiers, which was the cause of her death.”
Every time you shudder when you think about what is hidden behind the dry text of the document. The girl is bleeding, she is in pain from her wound. Why did this war start? And finally, the hospital. The smell of iodine, bandages. People. Even if they are non-Russian. They will help her. After all, people are treated in hospitals. And suddenly, instead, there is a new pain, a cry, an animal melancholy, leading to madness... And consciousness slowly fades away. Forever.
“In the Belarusian town of Shatsk, the Nazis gathered all the young girls, raped them, and then drove them naked into the square and forced them to dance. Those who resisted were shot on the spot by the fascist monsters. Such violence and abuse by the invaders was a widespread mass phenomenon.”
“On the very first day in the village of Basmanovo, Smolensk region, fascist monsters drove into the field more than 200 schoolchildren and schoolgirls who had come to the village to harvest the harvest, surrounded them and shot them. They took the schoolgirls to their rear “for the gentlemen officers.” I struggle and cannot imagine these girls who came to the village as a noisy group of classmates, with their teenage love and experiences, with the carefreeness and cheerfulness inherent in this age. Girls who then immediately, instantly, saw the bloody corpses of their boys and, without having time to comprehend, refusing to believe in what had happened, found themselves in a hell created by adults.
“On the very first day of the Germans’ arrival in Krasnaya Polyana, two fascists came to Alexandra Yakovlevna (Demyanova). They saw Demyanova’s daughter, 14-year-old Nyura, in the room, a frail and weak girl. A German officer grabbed the teenager and raped her in front of her mother. On December 10, a doctor at a local gynecological hospital, having examined the girl, stated that this Hitler bandit had infected her with syphilis. In the next apartment, the fascist beasts raped another 14-year-old girl, Tonya I.
On December 9, 1941, the body of a Finnish officer was found in Krasnaya Polyana. A collection of women's buttons was found in his pocket - 37 pieces, counting rape. And in Krasnaya Polyana he raped Margarita K. and also tore a button off her blouse.”
Killed soldiers were often found with “trophies” in the form of buttons, stockings, and locks of women’s hair. They found photographs depicting scenes of violence, letters and diaries in which they described their “exploits.”
“In their letters, the Nazis share their adventures with cynical frankness and bragging. Corporal Felix Capdels sends a letter to his friend: “Having rummaged through the chests and organized a good dinner, we began to have fun. The girl turned out to be angry, but we organized her too. It doesn’t matter that the whole department...”
Corporal Georg Pfahler writes without hesitation to his mother (!) in Sappenfeld: “We stayed in a small town for three days... You can imagine how much we ate in three days. And how many chests and closets were rummaged through, how many little young ladies were spoiled... Our life is now fun, not like in the trenches...”
In the diary of the killed chief corporal there is the following entry: “October 12. Today I took part in clearing the camp of suspicious people. 82 were shot. Among them was beautiful woman. We, me and Karl, took her to the operating room, she bit and howled. 40 minutes later she was shot. Memory - a few minutes of pleasure."
With the prisoners who did not have time to get rid of such documents compromising them, the conversation was short: they were taken aside and - a bullet in the back of the head.
A woman in military uniform aroused special hatred among her enemies. She is not only a woman - she is also a soldier fighting with you! And if captured male soldiers were broken morally and physically by barbaric torture, then female soldiers were broken by rape. (They also resorted to him during interrogations. The Germans raped the girls from the Young Guard, and threw one naked onto a hot stove.)
The medical workers who fell into their hands were raped without exception.
“Two kilometers south of the village of Akimovka (Melitopol region), the Germans attacked a car in which there were two wounded Red Army soldiers and a female paramedic accompanying them. They dragged the woman into the sunflowers, raped her, and then shot her. These animals twisted the arms of the wounded Red Army soldiers and also shot them...”
“In the village of Voronki, in Ukraine, the Germans housed 40 wounded Red Army soldiers, prisoners of war and nurses in a former hospital. The nurses were raped and shot, and guards were placed near the wounded...”
“In Krasnaya Polyana, wounded soldiers and a wounded nurse were not given water for 4 days and food for 7 days, and then they were given salt water to drink. The nurse began to agonize. The Nazis raped the dying girl in front of the wounded Red Army soldiers.”
The twisted logic of war requires the rapist to exercise FULL power. This means that humiliating the victim alone is not enough. And then unimaginable abuses are committed against the victim, and in conclusion, her life is taken away, as a manifestation of the HIGHEST power. Otherwise, what good, she will think that she gave you pleasure! And you may look weak in her eyes if you can’t control your sexual desire. Hence the sadistic treatment and murder.
“Hitler’s robbers in one village captured a fifteen-year-old girl and brutally raped her. Sixteen animals tormented this girl. She resisted, she called for her mother, she screamed. They gouged out her eyes and threw her, torn to pieces, spit on the street... It was in the Belarusian town of Chernin.”
“In the city of Lvov, 32 workers of a Lvov garment factory were raped and then killed by German stormtroopers. Drunken German soldiers dragged Lviv girls and young women into Kosciuszko Park and brutally raped them. Old priest V.L. Pomaznev, who with a cross in his hands tried to prevent violence against girls, was beaten by the Nazis, tore off his cassock, burned his beard and stabbed him with a bayonet.”
“The streets of the village of K., where the Germans were rampaging for some time, were covered with the corpses of women, old people, and children. The surviving village residents told the Red Army soldiers that the Nazis herded all the girls into the hospital building and raped them. Then they locked the doors and set the building on fire.”
“In the Begomlsky district, the wife of a Soviet worker was raped and then put on a bayonet.”
“In Dnepropetrovsk, on Bolshaya Bazarnaya Street, drunken soldiers detained three women. Having tied them to poles, the Germans savagely abused them and then killed them.”
“In the village of Milutino, the Germans arrested 24 collective farmers and took them to a neighboring village. Among those arrested was thirteen-year-old Anastasia Davydova. Throwing the peasants into a dark barn, the Nazis began to torture them, demanding information about the partisans. Everyone was silent. Then the Germans took the girl out of the barn and asked in which direction the collective farm cattle had been driven away. The young patriot refused to answer. The fascist scoundrels raped the girl and then shot her.”
“The Germans broke into us! Two 16-year-old girls were dragged by their officers to the cemetery and violated. Then they ordered the soldiers to hang them from trees. The soldiers carried out the order and hung them upside down. There, soldiers violated 9 elderly women.” (Collective farmer Petrova from the Plowman collective farm.)
“We were standing in the village of Bolshoye Pankratovo. It was on Monday the 21st, at four o'clock in the morning. The fascist officer walked through the village, entered all the houses, took money and things from the peasants, and threatened that he would shoot all the residents. Then we came to the house at the hospital. There was a doctor and a girl there. He told the girl: “Follow me to the commandant’s office, I have to check your documents.” I saw how she hid her passport on her chest. He took her into the garden near the hospital and raped her there. Then the girl rushed into the field, she screamed, it was clear that she had lost her mind. He caught up with her and soon showed me his passport covered in blood...”
“The Nazis broke into the sanatorium of the People's Commissariat of Health in Augustow. (...) The German fascists raped all the women who were in this sanatorium. And then the mutilated, beaten sufferers were shot.”
It has been repeatedly noted in historical literature that “during the investigation of war crimes, many documents and evidence were discovered about the rape of young pregnant women, whose throats were then cut and their breasts pierced with bayonets. Obviously, hatred of women’s breasts is in the blood of the Germans.”
I will provide several such documents and evidence.
“In the village of Semenovskoye, Kalinin region, the Germans raped 25-year-old Olga Tikhonova, the wife of a Red Army soldier, the mother of three children, who was on last stage pregnancy, and they tied her hands with twine. After the rape, the Germans cut her throat, pierced both breasts and sadistically drilled them.”
“In Belarus, near the city of Borisov, 75 women and girls fell into the hands of the Nazis, who fled when they approached German troops. The Germans raped and then brutally killed 36 women and girls. 16-year-old girl L.I. Melchukova, on the orders of the German officer Hummer, was taken into the forest by soldiers, where she was raped. After some time, other women, also taken into the forest, saw that there were boards near the trees, and the dying Melchukova was pinned to the boards with bayonets, in front of whom the Germans, in front of other women, in particular V.I. Alperenko and V.M. Bereznikova, they cut off her breasts..."
(With all my rich imagination, I cannot imagine what kind of inhuman scream that accompanied the torment of women must have stood over this Belarusian town, over this forest. It seems that you will hear this even in the distance, and you will not be able to stand it, you will cover your ears with both hands and run away , because you know that it is PEOPLE SCREAMING.)
“In the village of Zh., on the road, we saw the mutilated, naked corpse of old man Timofey Vasilyevich Globa. He is all striped with ramrods and riddled with bullets. Not far away in the garden lay a murdered naked girl. Her eyes were gouged out, her right breast was cut off, and there was a bayonet stuck in her left. This is the daughter of old man Globa - Galya.
When the Nazis burst into the village, the girl was hiding in the garden, where she spent three days. By the morning of the fourth day, Galya decided to make her way to the hut, hoping to get something to eat. Here I overtook her German officer. The sick Globa ran out to his daughter’s scream and hit the rapist with a crutch. Two more bandit officers jumped out of the hut, called the soldiers, and grabbed Galya and her father. The girl was stripped, raped and brutally abused, and her father was kept so that he could see everything. They gouged out her eyes, cut off her right breast, and inserted a bayonet into her left. Then they stripped Timofey Globa, laid him on his daughter’s body (!) and beat him with ramrods. And when he, having gathered his remaining strength, tried to escape, they caught him on the road, shot him and bayoneted him.”
It was considered some kind of special “daring” to rape and torture women in front of people close to them: husbands, parents, children. Maybe the audience was necessary to demonstrate their “power” in front of them and emphasize their humiliating helplessness?
“Everywhere, brutalized German bandits break into houses, rape women and girls in front of their relatives and their children, mock the raped and brutally deal with their victims right there.”
“The collective farmer Ivan Gavrilovich Terekhin walked through the village of Puchki with his wife Polina Borisovna. Several German soldiers grabbed Polina, dragged her aside, threw her into the snow and, in front of her husband’s eyes, began to rape her one by one. The woman screamed and resisted with all her might.
Then the fascist rapist shot her at point-blank range. Polina Terekhova began to writhe in agony. Her husband escaped from the hands of the rapists and rushed to the dying woman. But the Germans caught up with him and put 6 bullets in his back.”
“On the Apnas farm, drunken German soldiers raped a 16-year-old girl and threw her into a well. They also threw her mother there, who tried to stop the rapists.”
Vasily Vishnichenko from the village of Generalskoye testified: “German soldiers grabbed me and took me to headquarters. At that time one of the fascists dragged my wife into the cellar. When I returned, I saw that my wife was lying in the cellar, her dress was torn and she was already dead. The villains raped her and killed her with one bullet in the head and another in the heart.”
The female part of our multinational people, together with men, children and the elderly, bore all the hardships on their shoulders Great War. Women wrote many glorious pages in the chronicle of the war.
Women were on the front line: doctors, pilots, snipers, in air defense units, signalmen, intelligence officers, drivers, topographers, reporters, even tank crews, artillerymen and served in the infantry. Women actively participated in the underground, in the partisan movement.
Women took on many “purely male” professions in the rear, since men went to war, and someone had to stand behind a machine, drive a tractor, become a railway lineman, master the profession of a metallurgist, etc.
Figures and facts
Military service in the USSR is an honorable duty not only for men, but also for women. This is their right written in Art. 13th Law on General Military Duty, adopted by the IV session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 1, 1939. It states that the People's Commissariats of Defense and Navy are given the right to recruit women into the army and navy who have medical, veterinary and special - technical training, as well as attracting them to training camps. In wartime, women who have the specified training may be drafted into the army and navy to perform auxiliary and special service. The feeling of pride and gratitude of Soviet women to the party and government regarding the decision of the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was expressed by Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR E.M. Kozhushina from the Vinnitsa region: “All of us, young patriots,” she said, “are ready to speak out in defense of our beautiful Motherland. We women are proud that we are given the right to protect it on an equal basis with men. And if our party, our government calls, then we will all come to the defense of our wonderful country and give a crushing rebuff to the enemy.”
Already the first news of Germany’s treacherous attack on the USSR aroused boundless anger and burning hatred of their enemies among women. At meetings and rallies held throughout the country, they declared their readiness to defend their Motherland. Women and girls went to party and Komsomol organizations, to military commissariats and there they persistently sought to be sent to the front. Among the volunteers who applied to be sent to the active army, up to 50% of the applications were from women.
During the first week of the war, applications to be sent to the front were received from 20 thousand Muscovites, and after three months, 8,360 women and girls of Moscow were enrolled in the ranks of the defenders of the Motherland. Among the Leningrad Komsomol members who submitted applications in the first days of the war with a request to be sent to the active army, 27 thousand applications were from girls. More than 5 thousand girls from the Moskovsky district of Leningrad were sent to the front. 2 thousand of them became fighters of the Leningrad Front and selflessly fought on the outskirts of their hometown.
Rosa Shanina. Destroyed 54 enemies.
Created on June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) adopted a number of resolutions on the mobilization of women to serve in the air defense forces, communications, internal security, on military roads... Several Komsomol mobilizations were carried out, in particular the mobilization of Komsomol members in Navy, V Air Force and signal troops.
In July 1941, over 4 thousand women Krasnodar region asked to send them to the active army. In the first days of the war, 4 thousand women of the Ivanovo region volunteered. About 4 thousand girls from the Chita region, over 10 thousand from the Karaganda region became Red Army soldiers using Komsomol vouchers.
From 600 thousand to 1 million women fought at the front at different times, 80 thousand of them were Soviet officers.
The Central Women's Sniper Training School provided the front with 1,061 snipers and 407 sniper instructors. Graduates of the school destroyed over 11,280 enemy soldiers and officers during the war.
At the end of 1942, the Ryazan Infantry School was given an order to train about 1,500 officers from female volunteers. By January 1943, over 2 thousand women arrived at the school.
For the first time during the Patriotic War, female combat formations appeared in the Armed Forces of our country. 3 aviation regiments were formed from female volunteers: 46th Guards Night Bomber, 125th Guards Bomber, 586th Air Defense Fighter Regiment; Separate women's volunteer rifle brigade, Separate women's reserve rifle regiment, Central women's sniper school, Separate women's company of sailors.
Snipers Faina Yakimova, Roza Shanina, Lidiya Volodina.
While near Moscow, the 1st Separate Women's Reserve Regiment also trained motorists and snipers, machine gunners and junior commanders of combat units. There were 2899 women on staff.
20 thousand women served in the Special Moscow Air Defense Army.
Some women were also commanders. One can name Hero of the Soviet Union Valentina Grizodubova, who throughout the war commanded the 101st Long-Range Aviation Regiment, where men served. She herself made about two hundred combat missions, delivering explosives, food to the partisans and removing the wounded.
The head of the ammunition department of the artillery department of the Polish Army was engineer-colonel Antonina Pristavko. She ended the war near Berlin. Among her awards are the orders: "Renaissance of Poland" IV class, "Grunwald Cross" III class, "Golden Cross of Merit" and others.
In the first war year of 1941, 19 million women were employed in agricultural work, mainly on collective farms. This means that almost all the burdens of providing food for the army and the country fell on their shoulders, on their working hands.
5 million women were employed in industry, and many of them were entrusted with command posts - directors, shop managers, foremen.
Culture, education, and health care have become a matter of concern mainly for women.
Ninety-five women in our country have the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Our cosmonauts are among them.
The largest representation of participants in the Great Patriotic War among other specialties were female doctors.
Of the total number of doctors, of whom there were about 700 thousand in the active army, 42% were women, and among surgeons - 43.4%.
More than 2 million people served as middle and junior medical workers at the fronts. Women (paramedics, nurses, medical instructors) made up the majority - over 80 percent.
During the war years, a coherent system of medical and sanitary services for the fighting army was created. There was a so-called doctrine of military field medicine. At all stages of the evacuation of the wounded - from the company (battalion) to hospitals in the rear - female doctors selflessly carried out the noble mission of mercy.
Glorious patriots served in all branches of the military - in aviation and marines, on warships of the Black Sea Fleet, Northern Fleet, Caspian and Dnieper flotillas, in floating naval hospitals and ambulance trains. Together with horsemen, they went on deep raids behind enemy lines and were in partisan detachments. With the infantry we reached Berlin. And everywhere doctors provided specialized assistance to those injured in battle.
It is estimated that female medical instructors of rifle companies, medical battalions, and artillery batteries helped seventy percent of wounded soldiers return to duty.
For special courage and heroism, 15 female doctors were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
A sculptural monument in Kaluga reminds of the feat of women military doctors. In the park on Kirov Street, a front-line nurse in a raincoat, with a sanitary bag over her shoulder, stands at full height on a high pedestal. During the war, the city of Kaluga was the center of numerous hospitals that treated and returned tens of thousands of soldiers and commanders to duty. That is why they built a monument in a holy place, which always has flowers.
History has never known such massive participation of women in the armed struggle for the Motherland as Soviet women showed during the Great Patriotic War. Having achieved enrollment in the ranks of the soldiers of the Red Army, women and girls mastered almost all military specialties and, together with their husbands, fathers and brothers, carried military service in all branches of the Soviet Armed Forces.
Unidentified Soviet private girls from an anti-tank artillery unit.