It was in Izvekov (History of one search). “They shouted to the photographer:“ Don't shoot the child! ” - they thought he was aiming at me ... ": five poignant stories of children from famous military photographs Senior Sergeant Moiseyev feeds a two-year-old girl
I picked up a few heart-pinching photographs of Soviet children during the Great Patriotic War on the website waralbum.ru. Oh, and these prematurely matured children have taken a full grief!
Children hide from bombing German planes in a shelter on the outskirts of Chisinau. 06/29/1941
Tatyana Onishchenko with her daughter in her arms, mortally wounded by fragments of a German bomb during an enemy air raid. 1941 g.
Photojournalist of the newspaper "Pravda" Alexander Vasilyevich Ustinov (1909-1995) talks with the commander of a foot reconnaissance platoon of the 1069th rifle regiment of the 311th rifle division Dmitry Pavlovich Petrov (1908-1941) in the village of Tuhan, Leningrad Region. In the frame, Petrov's pupil Sasha Popov (1929-1942). September 1941
A resident of the village of Serbolovo with her children in front of a burnt hut. The villagers were forced to leave their homes after the German punitive operation and go into the forests. Serbolovo, Pskov region, USSR. Time taken: 1942
Residents leave the village of Brody, set on fire by the Nazis, in the Pskov region. 1942 g.
Serezha Aleshkin, a young six-year-old soldier of the 142nd Guards Rifle Regiment.
Belarusian children at the destroyed German tanks Pz.Kpfw VI "Tiger" near Minsk. July-August 1944
13-year-old Lenya Fedorov and the collective farmer of the collective farm "Borets" I.V. Grishin, who joined the partisan detachment, despite his advanced age. July 1943
A group of Soviet prisoners of war with the son of the regiment.
Children wounded in the shelling of Leningrad, being treated at the Leningrad State Pediatric Institute. July 1943
Evacuation of nurseries and kindergartens from Stalingrad. 1942 g.
The son of a regiment with a 7.62-mm submachine gun of the 1943 model of the Sudaev system (PPS-43) on the street of Budapest. 1945 g.
A group photo of Soviet teenagers working at the Siegel factory in the Köln-Braunsfeld concentration camp. 1942 g.
Children at the ruins of a house in the Belarusian village of Lozovatka. 1944 g.
A teenager cleans the boots of a wounded German soldier at an occupied railway station in the USSR. 1943 g.
Schoolchildren of the village of Novaya Ivanovka during the Romanian occupation. In the center of the picture are representatives of the Romanian administration. New Ivanovka, Odessa region, Ukraine, USSR.
Soviet refugees on the outskirts of a village in the vicinity of Kharkov. February-March 1943.
An unknown Red Army soldier talks with ten-year-old Volodya Lukin, whose parents were taken to Germany by the Germans. Having lost his home, the boy froze his legs. 2nd Baltic Front. 1944 year.
Children of besieged Leningrad at the beds on the Mytninskaya embankment. 1942 g.
Schoolchildren of the liberated Gzhatsk (now the city of Gagarin) show German "ersatz-felt boots" to the Red Army soldiers. March 1943
Soviet refugees preparing food at the entrance to the dugout. Belarus. 1944 g.
Soviet women and children are returning home. 1943 g.
Soviet partisans are father and son. 1943 g.
Olga Shcherbatsevich, hanged by the Germans in the Alexander Square in Minsk. Olga Fedorovna Shcherbatsevich, an employee of the 3rd Soviet Hospital, who looked after the captured wounded soldiers and officers of the Red Army. She was hanged by the Germans in the Aleksandrovsky Park of Minsk on October 26, 1941. The inscription on the shield, in Russian and German, reads "We are partisans who fired at German soldiers." 10/26/1941
Young partisan Volodya Bebekh from the Stalin detachment in Chernigov. 1943 g.
Children on a Soviet T-34-76 tank abandoned by the bridge. Photo not earlier than autumn 1942, as the tank is equipped with a “nut” turret, which has been installed since that time.
Soviet children among the destroyed settlement. 1942 g.
The boys help a Red Army soldier equip machine-gun belts. Front-line village. 1942 g.
Senior Sergeant Moiseyev feeds a child in a liberated village. Author's title of the photo: "All were hijacked by the Nazis." Senior sergeant Moiseyev, the commander of the separate artillery reconnaissance of the 2nd battalion of the 4th battery of the 308th regiment, feeds a two-year-old girl Valya, which he found in one of the empty huts in the village of Izvekovo. Smolensk region, Vyazemsky district, Izvekovo village. 03/14/1943
Soviet children, prisoners of the 6th Finnish concentration camp in Petrozavodsk. During the occupation of Soviet Karelia by the Finns, six concentration camps were created in Petrozavodsk to contain local Russian-speaking residents. Camp 6 was located in the area of the Transshipment Exchange, it held 7000 people. The photo was taken after the liberation of Petrozavodsk by Soviet troops on June 28, 1944.
This picture was presented as part of the evidence at the Nuremberg trials of war criminals.
The girl who is the second from the pillar to the right in the photo - Klavdia Nyuppieva - published her memoirs many years later.
“I remember how people fainted from the heat in the so-called bathhouse, and then they were doused with cold water. I remember the disinfection of the barracks, after which there was a noise in my ears, and many had blood on their noses, and that steam room where all our rags were treated with great “diligence”. Once the steam room burned down, depriving many people of their last clothes.
Petrozavodsk. July 1944
A refugee family is carrying their belongings to escape the advancing Germans. The author's title of the photo is “In the bitter days of retreat. Dnepropetrovsk region ". 1941 g.
Young partisan intelligence officer Pyotr Gurko (born in 1928) from the For Soviet Power unit (4th partisan regiment of the 2nd partisan brigade) before being awarded the medal For Courage.
The young partisan was awarded the Medal "For Courage" on July 30, 1942 for valor and courage shown in two military operations against German punitive expeditions. 06/13/42, under heavy enemy fire, Pyotr Gurko carried out from the battlefield two seriously wounded partisans with weapons and delivered them to a dressing station located 2 kilometers away.
07/30/1942
Leningrad schoolgirls Valya Ivanova (left) and Valya Ignatovich who put out two incendiary bombs that fell into the attic of their house. 09/13/1941
Soviet children playing on an abandoned German tank "Panther" in Kharkov. September 1943
Soviet child next to his murdered mother. Concentration camp for the civilian population "Ozarichi". Belarus, the town of Ozarichi, Domanovichsky district, Polesie region. March 1944
Children of the liberated city of Zhizdra - Raya and Gena Shcheglova. August 1943
Zhizdra is a small ancient town on the banks of the river of the same name in the south of the Kaluga region, the first mention of Zhizdra dates back to 1146. On October 5, 1941, the city fell into the German occupation. From February to August 1943, fierce battles were again fought on the outskirts of the city. Before the retreat, the invaders systematically destroyed the city for two weeks, burning it quarterly. Stone churches and houses exploded. As a result, the city was completely destroyed. Wells were also poisoned, roads, sidewalks and vegetable gardens were mined. Able-bodied urban youth were forcibly sent to Germany.
Soviet refugee children from the village of Yagodnaya, Oryol Region. The original title of the photo is “Disadvantaged villages of Yagodnaya”. July 22, 1943
The village was liberated by Soviet troops from the German invaders during the Oryol offensive operation.
Soldiers of the 51st separate motorcycle battalion of the 22nd tank corps of the 38th army of the Southwestern Front with Soviet children. 1942 g.
The regiment's son Volodya Tarnovsky signs an autograph on the Reichstag column. He wrote: "Seversky Donets - Berlin", and signed for himself, the regiment commander and his fellow soldier, who supported him from below: "The gunners Doroshenko, Tarnovsky and Sumtsov." May 1945
The famous photo, which captured the young defenders of Leningrad on the Palace Square, accepted into the Suvorov School. Leningrad, 1944
From left to right: pupil of the 14th Guards Rifle Brigade and the 20th Front Reserve Automobile Regiment of the Leningrad Front Guard Junior Sergeant Nikolai Koliverdov (b. 1930), Guard Junior Sergeant, awarded medals "For the Defense of Stalingrad" and "For the Defense of Leningrad", Evgeny Bilindinov, Yuri Ivanov, graduate of the 935th artillery regiment of the 381st rifle division and the 919th artillery regiment of the 358th rifle division Lance corporal Afanasy Shkuratov (b. 1930), awarded two medals "For Courage", participant in the 1945 Victory Parade. , Yuri Stepenko, awarded with the medal "Partisan Patriotic War"And the medal" For the Defense of Leningrad ".
FROM THE NEWSPAPER OF THE NOVODUGINSKY DISTRICT "RURAL ZORI" dated 02.23.1984
April 14, 1983 at "Working way" A snapshot of the front correspondent Viktor Kinelovsky was published - a Soviet submachine gunner in an army sheepskin coat feeds a girl wrapped in a blanket from a soldier's bowler hat.
"Help to find"- this was the title of G. Ivanov's note, briefly describing the photograph. The photo was taken in March 1943 in the village of Izvekovo (now Novoduginsky district), liberated from the Nazi invaders.
And now we can tell the story of the heroes of this photo. First - about the events of that time, and then - about the history of the double search.
It was the spring of 1943, on March 2, the Rzhev-Vyazemsk offensive operation of the troops of the Kalinin and Western fronts began with the aim of destroying the enemy grouping on the Rzhev-Vyazemsky bridgehead.
On the same day, from the area of the village of Khlepen, from the bridgehead on the western bank of the Vazuza in the southwestern Sychevsk direction and further to Lipetsy - Izvekovo - Grigorievskoe - Khmelita, they went on the offensive troops of the 31st army , which was commanded by Major General V.A.Gluzdovsky, and in its composition and the 308th artillery regiment.
The strong spring thaw and difficult conditions of wooded and swampy terrain, the widespread use of various obstacles by the enemy and the use of pre-prepared positions reduced the pace of the offensive. Fulfilling Hitler's orders, the enemy turned the abandoned bridgehead into “ desert zone»: Settlements were burned, residents were hijacked, bridges were blown up, roads were mined, food and fuel supplies were destroyed.
However, the Soviet troops, overcoming the stubborn resistance of the enemy, shot down the enemy rearguard units, preempted the enemy in occupying advantageous defensive lines and prevented the hijacking of Soviet people to Germany.
Having liberated the city of Sychevka on March 8 and Novodugino on March 10, the troops of the 31st Army, including the 308th artillery regiment, cleared the enemy from the enemy half-destroyed, half-burnt, and plundered by the Germans the villages of Babniki, Makariki, Tyukhovo, Pustoshka, Kuzhnino, Ivaniki, Kulementyevo Zhukovo, Novoduginsky district, and went to the village of Izvekovo, where only a few huts and a small church remained out of 53 houses. The inhabitants of the village were either killed by the Germans or taken into slavery, and some may have taken refuge in the forests. Empty.
Here, after the enemy was driven out, the commander of the reconnaissance section of the 2nd division of the 308th artillery regiment, senior sergeant Valentin Aleksandrovich Moiseev, dropped into one of the surviving houses. There were no adults in the house, things were scattered about. But, looking around, he saw a very tiny girl at the table leg in the corner, and at the first moment he took her for a doll. But it turned out to be a girl who miraculously survived for about two years. He wrapped her in what had been tucked under his arm like a blanket. Frightened by the battle, dumbfounded, at first she could not utter a word. The soldiers surrounding them said:
Come on, Valentine, let's call her by your name - Valya.
And then she babbled the name. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's her real name that she remembered.
The sergeant carried her out of the house into the March sun, and at that moment there was a front-line photojournalist " Izvestia»Viktor Kinelovsky, who could not pass by such an exciting scene and heart and took several pictures of Sergeant V. A. Moiseyev and Vali, including a photo of the moment when he feeds her from a soldier's bowler hat at home, sitting on a burnt bed. On the back of the pictures he marked: “ Izvekovo, north-west of Vyazma - Sergeant Moiseev, 308th artillery regiment". With this mark, they ended up in the archive of film and photo documents.
In Izvekov there was not a single living soul, there was no one to transfer the girl, so the artillerymen sheltered Valya at their battery, where she stayed for about 3 days. She began to get used to " father”, To smile, everyone on the battery worried about her, even the stern commander Captain Zharikov (where is he?). But war is war. Front roads led the fighters to the west. Valya was transferred first to the doctors, and then to the Smolensk (front-line) evacuation point, which was involved in the evacuation of children left homeless and their parents, lonely old people, as well as wounded civilians from the frontline zone and liberated areas to the east.
At this point, their connection was interrupted ... But wherever the front-line soldier was, he remembered the girl for the rest of his life, thought about her often both during the war and after: how, they say, was her fate?
Valentin Alexandrovich went through the Patriotic War from Moscow to Nazi Germany. At the front he joined the party. For feats of arms he was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the medal " For courage"And other medals. Wounded twice. Before World War II, he already had combat experience - he took part in the battles on Khalkhin Gol, in the Finnish campaign, and the liberation of Bessarabia. He himself is from Novosibirsk. But, having been demobilized, he came to live in Kaluga, where once, after a serious injury, he was in the hospital, where he left his beloved Masha. He married, worked as a fitter at the Kaluga Turbine Plant, a son, Sasha, was born, but the thought of Valya did not leave him. He tried several times to look for his own " goddaughter", But in vain ...
And then one day, one June day in 1961, his sixteen-year-old son Sasha came home with the newspaper “ News"In his hands and says to his father:
Isn't that you, papa, they are looking for?
The veteran looked at the picture, read the text of the note “ Where are you, senior sergeant Moiseyev?", Which said:" Where are you, the soldier who saved the girl Valya, the kind Russian man? Respond if the war spared you and you survived!". Tears involuntarily appeared in my eyes. Immediately flooded in memory: the spring of 1943, Smolensk region, front-line friends in the artillery regiment, battles for Izvekovo and a tiny child - alone in an empty house ...
And this note and photo appeared in “ Izvestia"So: sorting through the relics of the war dear to his heart, the photojournalist V. Kinelovsky stopped at the snapshot of the sergeant and the girl. He wanted to know where the soldier who saved the baby was now. This is how the first note appeared. Two months later in " Izvestia"There was a second correspondence -" It was near Vyazma", In which it was reported that Valentin Aleksandrovich Moiseev is alive, well, working in the city of Kaluga. But the fate of Vali remained unknown.
Editorial office of the newspaper " News"And the magazine" Soviet Union»Turned for help to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR. The search included employees of the passport department, headed by Major Valentina Fedorovna Yudaeva. Criminologists also joined:
The search lasted five years. After all, more than 1,800 girls named Valya, who had lost their parents, were evacuated from the Western Front. The most similar in age, time and circumstances of the evacuation were photographed. When in Moscow V.A.Moiseev was shown photographs of two girls, he immediately recognized Valya. So they found her too.
What happened to her after the evacuation? After transferring her to the evacuation center, she was transferred to the Urals, to the Perm region, where she was brought up first in Okhansk and then in other orphanages, where she was given the surname Zhukova and patronymic Georgievna in honor of Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov.
When I grew up, I graduated from school, then the Kungur Art School of Stone Cutting, worked as a foreman at the famous Perm plant " Russian gems”, And in 1965 she moved to Donetsk, where she still works in one of the city's organizations. In August 1966, the first post-war meeting between V.A.Moiseyev and his named daughter V.G. Zhukova took place in Kaluga. Yes, yes, during meetings and telephone conversations Valentin Aleksandrovich said to everyone: “ Daughter arrived". She then spent several days in the Moiseev family. Then there were more meetings.
They were going to visit the Smolensk region, but circumstances did not allow.
Now Vali has two children. She really wants to know if any of her relatives, relatives, have survived. Maybe someone recognizes themselves by the features of her face. We need to help her in this.
When I saw in " Working way"A photograph of a soldier with a bowler hat and a little girl on his knees, I began to strain my memory and, in the end, I remembered that I saw such a photograph in one of the military history books, found it, and then in my archive I also found a clipping from" Izvestia"Mentioned above. The thread stretched further, but not as quickly as the story says. So I ended up in Kaluga. I found, not without difficulty, the address of the Moiseevs I needed. I met with Maria Ivanovna, the wife of Valentin Alexandrovich. She told me, showed me Required documents and the materials on the basis of which this essay is written. Unfortunately, it was not necessary to meet with V.A.Moiseev - he died in 1978.
Such is Short story picture of forty years ago, the story of two people.
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Additional Information:
Kinelovsky Victor Sergeevich (1899-1979)
Was born in 1899. Soviet photojournalist. In the mid-1920s he graduated from the workers' school. He worked as a typesetter in a printing house. Having mastered photography, he began to publish pictures in newspapers. In 1931 he was accepted as a photojournalist in the magazine " USSR at a construction site", later worked in the magazine" Soviet Union". During the Great Patriotic War, he became a correspondent for the newspaper." Frontline illustration", at the same time as a correspondent for the Sovinformburo. Photographed battles near Moscow, in the Kalinin and Kursk directions. In the post-war period he worked in the TASS photo chronicle. Laureate and prize-winner of all-Union exhibitions of art photography. Died in 1979. Buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow (Closed columbarium, section 4 , row 2).