Posted on 05/10/2005 3:51:40 PM PDT by struwwelpeter
(Orginal title: "It is love between them")
They met on the front, married after the war, and are still together.
What was the wedding dress like?
He (with a smile:)
"There wasn't any wedding dress!"
She (without pause):
"Pale blue, with short sleeves..."
Yesterday's groom is now 83, and the bride 82.
"Do you remember how we met?" Blinking, he turns to her.
"During the war!" she ferverntly replied. "In 44!"
The story of the Miroshnichenko's meeting is told by the couple together. Sometimes they interrupt or add to each other. Mikhail begins the sentence, Aleksandra then grabs it. Surprisingly, this does not spoil the story at all. On the contrary, it makes for a bright picture, as if from a mosaic.
"THEY LIKED EACH OTHER"
They fought in the same division, the 136th. In 1943 Aleksandra was still assigned to a field bakery:
"There were 10 thousand men in the division, and we had to bake bread for all of them," remembers Aleksandra. "We'd stop in the forest and set up tents to bake in. In the end, during air raids we stopped running away and hiding. War is war, what does it matter now?
Mikhail arrived after being seriously wounded near Stalingrad. After the hospital the senior sergeant was declared fit for non-regular service. He was sent to the 136th to work in the quartermaster's detachment.
"We would get uniforms at the station, cart them in and distribute them," explains Mikhail Trofimovich. "And transport: carts and horse harnesses. Field kitchens, stoves, mugs, spoons."
In November of '43 the division was transferred across the Dnepr.
"We spent the night of the 6th on the march," Mikhail explains. "While on the 7th, on the holiday, they'd already taken Kiev. After this, our division was called the Kievan Division."
"We forced the Dnepr on a pontoon bridge," Aleksandra breaks in. "But the Germans bombed us, and the bridge was bouncing to and fro, frightening. At any moment you could have fallen in. My duffle bag swam off." Desperately she reaches out. To this very day the loss brings her to tears. "All my documents were in there, photographs, awards for military service."
Later, below the city of Korsun, the division was surrounded.
"True, at first it was the Germans who were surrounded," explains Mikhail. "But later a few divisions were sent to their rescue, which got into our rear. Our unit had someone wounded every day. Soldiers were being killed. In the end everyone in the rear was issued rifles: drivers, musicians. Later our tank unit broke through, and our division was sent to Belaya Tserkov. It was a city not too far away. I remember, I went to our commander," the veteran turned to his spouse. "But he was in the bakery with you all. Me and the captain talked while the girls were there... Well, and that's how it happened..." smiled the narrator.
"We liked each other!" Aleksandra laughs. "We had a Zina working there. She says: 'Sashka, you want to talk to him? I'll introduce you. But I don't know, maybe he has a girlfriend, I'll find out anyway'."
"In general, we liked each other," resumes Mikhail. "We met, it's true, very infreqently."
THEY GO TO THE CINEMA 'CHAPAEV'
"Though we were in the same division, we weren't together," recounts Aleksandra.
"Sometimes we were in the same village. When there was no fighting, and all was peaceful and the division was resting," the spouse interjects.
"When the division was moving in eschelons, we could meet at the stops and sub-stations..."
"Sometimes I'd go to her in the bakery, or she'd come to me..."
"But our commander was very strict!" Aleksandra shakes her head. "A tiny infraction - clothing out of order, and you have to stand all night with a rifle. But I practically didn't know how to shoot. I never had a rifle in my hand."
How did you look after your bride?
"He brought me a dark green beret once," smiles 'the bride'. "I had kept dark wool skirt, which I brought from home. He had my dress repaired - we had a cobbler and seamstress." (Recall that Mikhail was head of the quartermaster detachment - author).
"I gave her some nice boots, and they got her proper overcoat, it fit well, like a house coat," recalls 'the groom'.
"Later, my mother sewed this overcoat into a winter coat."
"Remember how we went to a club on the 23rd of February?" recalls Mikhail, suddenly becoming lively from the recollection. "It was in the town in Poland. There was a concert, some artists from Moscow came."
"Where was this?" Aleksandra frowns. "I remember that they brought us a cinema."
"Ah, that was when they showed 'Chapaev'!".
"BITTER!"
When the war ended, Mikhail and Aleksandra decided to marry. Women were demobilized from the army earlier than the men, and so a question stood before the young couple: Where to send Shura (Aleksandra)? To her mother in Krasnoyarsk or to the future mother-in-law in Karaganda (Kazakhstan)? They chose the second option, and the future daughter-in-law was well met here.
"Mom received Shura, I warned her in a letter, and sent a package of things home. We were allowed to send home one package a month," recalls the veteran. "But when Shura left, I immediately went to the commander, the head. I asked for a vacation. When I got here, we went to the ZAGS (wedding bureau) right away. Just the two of us, and we did the papers. Not like they do it nowadays, with witnesses."
Aleksandra interrupts her husband: "They threw us a big party, I wasn't expecting it. They called over the neighbor, their brother and his wife came, with sister, mother. They bought a bottle. The neighbor lady took a drink and shouted 'bitter'!"
"But soon there was war with Japan. The draft board called me up, didn't even let me finish my leave, and sent me to a unit. It's true, the war soon ended, and I was demobilized. I was sent home at the end of '45."
"Right after the war he studied to be a standards and measures specialist. We ate whatever we could get our hands on," adds the spouse. "But later he got on at the mine. It got better. Later the children arrived, and that's how we lived. We never got mad at anyone. Whatever was, so it was."
| To remember everything "SHE BAKED BREAD TO THE VERY END" "I was called to the front in '43," Aleksandra recalls. "I was 19. They called up me and five other girls from Krasnoyarsk to be nurses. I finished a year-long course to be a nurse, and we travelled to Bologoe station. Everything was destroyed. We found the military commandant, and showed us where the headquarters was. At headquarters they kept us there until evening, then took us in a truck to the medical battalion. It turned out, however, that they had just been reinforced with nurses, and we were unneeded. They offered to let us bake for the division, and we agreed. In the morning we were taken to the bakery: 'Here's the dough, bread-forms, and oven. Set up here, go and knead the dough'. And so, until the end of the war I worked in the bakery. I was surrounded, bombed, everything happened." "HE SHOT A WOMAN AND CHILDREN" "In June of '41 I had finished 10th grade. The 21st was graduation evening, but in the morning it was war," remembers Mikhail Trofimovich Miroshnichenko. "I was drafted in '42. Back then there weren't a lot who even had a 10th grade education. I was sent to the instructor company. In three months I was a senior sergeant. "When the Germans broke through the front and started to attack Stalingrad, our division was thrown there to protect the steamship crossing. There were already terrible battles going on in the city, and I was wounded. All the wounded were brought to the pier. Whoever could walk would limp a little, while others simply lay there. At that time they put some children on the steamer. As I remember it now: the beautiful, white, two-deck 'Komsomolets'. The German aircraft flew at us continuously. One dropped a bomb, and missed. But the second one hit it. The steamer went down right away. The wounded were laying on the riverbank, they see it all. They are swearing: who are they killing?! Those are children! Then another aircraft flew over. The fascist saw a woman, she had been able to save two children and was swimming to the bank. He shot her up with his machinegun..." Marina Funtikova, photo Valeriya Kalieva
|
I loved my M79
["Bloopsie", where are you now?]
*sigh*
I love reading magazines from the miscellaneous absurdistans that used to make up the Soviet Union, especially veterans' remembrances of 'how it was'. Here are some more from the same place:
She only knows her nameCongrats on your expert daughter.
A War Veteran's Memoirs
Dark is the Night
Music by N. Bogoslovskiy, Lyrics V. Agatov Dark is the night, only bullets whine over the the steppe, Only the wind howls in the barbed wire, faintly the stars twinkle. On a dark night I know that you, my love, don't sleep, And at the children's bed you are secretly wiping away your tears. How I love the depth of your affectionate eyes, How I wish I could get close to them with my lips! Dark night divides us, my love, And the dangerous, black steppe lays between us. I trust in you, in my dear girlfriend, This belief protected me from bullets of the dark night..; It is happiness to me, I am calm in the mortal battle, I know that I will meet my love, that nothing will happen to me, Death isn't frightening, more than once we've met it on the steppe... Here and now it is circling over me. You wait for me and by the children's bed aren't sleeping, And therefore I know: nothing will happen to me!
"I'm not afraid of death, but I'd like to live"
- wrote the soldier to his loved ones back in Karaganda, shortly before his death near StalingradRunning his finger along the pale lines of text, Vladimir Petrovich Bliyalkin reads aloud: "Papa, it's hard for me to write this, but I'll write it anyway. They gave me a medal for bravery. You can congratulate me and wish further success in the fight against the German occupiers." These are letters from his older brother. Nikolai Bliyalkin was taken to the front in June of 1942. That December the soldier perished near Stalingrad.
Now Vladimir Petrovich keeps five of his brother's letters. The thin, wrinkled pages are frightening to pick up: it seems as if they will simply fall apart.
"Nikolai was only 22 years old when they took him to the front. He worked as an art teacher in the school number one," recounts Vladimir, carefully placing the letters on the table. "I was five years old back then.
Judging from things, the retiree reads the letters frequently. Nikolai's simple messages provide their own commentary.
Vladimir Nikolaevich brings out the next letter. "Look here: 'Death follows us at each step. But we insist on life and happiness and we live. If I have to die, I'll die for the homeland as a hero. Don't think that I'll surrender'... 'If I find a free minute I spend it on letters to home'... 'I miss you all a lot, but I have to say that we're used to combat conditions'... 'We go into battle without fear in our eyes, I'm not afraid to die, papa, but I'd like to live'."
Sixty-three years later, the retiree cannot accept that Nikolai is no more. Nikolai loved his little brother very much, and he never forgot to send greetings to him: 'A burning front-line greetings from your son, Nikolai. And the same to my little brothers and sisters. Most of all, of course, to little Volodechka. Stay well, and wait for your brother, Kolya. I sent some verses, father, don't forget to transcribe them, and read them to him'.
When I return, if only you knew'Hello, dear papa and mama! I'm alive and well for now. I'm living alright. In general, life goes on as usual. We fight and beat the German. Combat life goes by fast and unnoticed. Days follow days and months. It seems that it wasn't so long ago that I was home with you, but here it's been already seven months in combat. Papa, it would be interesting to know if you celebrated my namesake's day or not. If not, too bad. I'm going into battle, wish me luck. For now, until we meet again. Kisses'.
How I'd like to be with you, my dear Vova.
But I'm in war, and the time in the front lines
Will be over once we've beaten the German.
When I come back with victory,
I'll put by duffle bag on the table,
Probably you won't recognize me at first,
I'll wash up from the road and tell everything
Or perhaps... Anything can happen,
But remember, one is never alone:
You don't have to make way for other people,
You'll never have to be ashamed of me.
This was the letter that Nikolai Bliyalkin wrote before his last battle.
'Papasha and Mama, don't worry about me'
The district government archives preserve letters from soldiers who never returned from the front. The letters of the Zabara brothers lay side by side. Official documents are attached to the sheets: one brother 'in combat for our socialist homeland, true to his military oath displaying heroism and courage' was killed on September 18th, 1942. The second was missing in action a year later.
After studying the 'funerary notices', it is impossible to read the brothers' letters with indifference.
'Hello, parents. Papasha, mama, and brothers Fedya, Kolya (the same one who later was MIA - author), Shura, Vanya, and all our friends, relatives, and acquaintances.
'My parents, right now I'm in a reserve rifle regiment (the next lines are blotted out by military censors - author). Our mood and feelings are great in all regards.
'...Papasha and mama, don't worry about me, don't be sad. I don't have an exact address, since I'm not going to be here long, but we're going to protect Leningrad. When I know the place I'll write, and you can send a telegram on how things are back at home. Well, goodbye for now. With greetings, your son Pyotr.'
'Greetings from the front!' - This is from brother Nikolai's letter. 'Right now I'm on the road, we're coming up to a transit camp. As soon as we settle things with Hitler, we'll come back, since victory is already coming closer (the message was sent in 1943 - author). The weather here is unenviable. Freezing rain'...
Marina Gorobtsova, photo Valeriya Kalieva
Awwwwwww
I haven't seen a post by you for at least three years.....
Marking for later. Very beautiful.
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