I want to tell you a story.
It happened in January 1942. That year, cold weathers settled in in the city of Leningrad in the beginning of October. The winter of 1941-42 lasted for 178 days and witnessed the hungriest month in Leningrad’s history, when soldiers were receiving about 500 grams of bread a day, while workers, children and elders had only 125 grams. Due to the lack of flour that bread was half made of sawdust and cake mill.
Those were the most difficult days of the Nazi Siege of Leningrad. The starvation claimed thousands of lives every day, bombardments and shell attacks increased the demand for casket even worth, along the way destroying the beauty of Leningrad’s architecture. A city millions of people no longer had running water, heat or power. Enemies expected the city to fall any day then. From December 1941 to January 1942, the explosives were placed under the most important buildings, bridges, cultural centres and factories, so when the last hope would disappear the city would get wiped off from the face of the earth.
Leningrad froze in a death spasm. Citizens looked like shadows, starved and weak they slowly moved around, many suddenly fell to never get up again. The city was scary and dangerous; robbers were all over the place. People tried to exchange everything they had for an extra piece of bread, or a dash of salt, or a few matches.
That winter a 10-year-old boy, his little sister and brother and their mother lived in a tiny room on the last floor of a three-store building downtown Leningrad. By the end of December they were at the last stage of malnutrition. He hardly could get up to get water from the river. Mother tried to get at least a little bit of bread, and the little ones just stayed in beds and waited for them to come back.
There was no more firewood left. They counted every match. The room temperature was almost as low as outside. By January none of them could get out of bed. They used every rag, coat and blanket left to stay warm. They were slowly freezing and dying of starvation.
And when they quit fighting and just were silently waiting for death, the miracle happened. It was dawn time, when they heard heavy man’s steps on the stairs. Somebody knocked at the door (doorbells quit a long time ago). They couldn’t get up to answer it, and it wasn’t locked anyways. In a minute a soldier came into the room.
Mother lifted her head and said, “Close the door, wind is coming in.” And the soldier replied, “Your husband sent me from the other side of the Ladoga Lake. Hardly found you thank God! Where are the kids?”
Little ones couldn’t move, but the older boy lifted his head and looked at the soldier.
“I have something for you,” the soldier said. “Hope I made it on time.”
Even though it was very cold, he took off his greatcoat, pulled out a couple of logs and fired up the small stove. Right away, it became lighter and warmer. He opened up his rucksack and pulled out a bag of dry bread, some porridge, sugar, salt, soap, bread, a piece of butter and a few cans of meat.
They cooked the porridge and ate a little bit of it with a piece of bread with butter, then had some hot tea with sugar. The soldier told them that their father was doing fine and promised to get them soon. Soon after, the soldier left.
For a long time they just were looking at each other and then the mother broke in tears. “We are saved,” she said. “Now we are saved!” The older boy was crying too, and the little ones just kept staring at them waiting to get more warm food.
Two months later, the father took them out of Leningrad through the lifeline across frozen Ladoga Lake. They all survived the war and lived long lives. Actually, the little girl still lives in St.-Petersburg, she is 81 years old now. And the older boy was my grandfather - Kim Bykhovskiy.
On Jan. 27, the former Leningrad, which is now St.-Petersburg, celebrated the End of Siege. It’s been 75 years since the city broke the Nazi blockade ring. Grandpa didn’t make it to this day, but he passed his stories and experiences to us, so we would remember.
