Table of contents:
- What could be obtained during the war years on food ration cards
- How the USSR became the most writing country during the Second World War
- Award list, or how many millions of feats were accomplished during the Second World War
- Triangular wedge, or what the Form No. 4 Notice meant
Video: What the main documents of the Victory looked like: a food card, funerals, etc
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
In peacetime, there is no need for food ration cards, no one remembers what the front letters looked like, how the award sheets were drawn up and how much pain the funeral carried with it. However, during the Great Patriotic War, these were the most important documents: life depended on cards, happiness and the future depended on front-line letters or funerals, patriotism and a sense of need for the Motherland, which does not disregard personal services to it, on award sheets.
What could be obtained during the war years on food ration cards
The loss of arable land, livestock and agricultural production enterprises as a result of the retreat of the Red Army at the beginning of the war forced the country's leadership to resort to harsh economic measures. First of all, this concerned the order of distribution of food supplies. Already in July 1942, food standards began to be established for citizens of the USSR, the issuance of which was regulated by special cards for bread and other products necessary for life.
By the end of the fall of 1941, such coupons were in use practically throughout the country. However, the ordering of the rationing system took place only in November 1942, when the People's Commissariat of Trade issued an order "On streamlining the rationing system for bread, some food and industrial goods." Since that time, coupons have taken a single external form, as well as paid five-kopeck certificates for their receipt.
Cards were issued taking into account all citizens of the country, but they were distributed according to the number, depending on the severity of each person's work. The maximum rate was set for workers in strategic sectors, followed by employees, dependents, and children under 12 years of age. First of all, they all received the necessary food, namely bread, sugar, tea, salt. The next category of products consisted of meat, fish or fish products, vegetable and animal fats. Then came a variety of cereals, as well as pasta and products from them. The last in importance were cards for eggs, fruits, potatoes and other vegetables.
The population did not remain without industrial goods, receiving personal hygiene products (tooth powder, soap), hosiery and garments, knitwear, rubber and leather shoes at the norm.
How the USSR became the most writing country during the Second World War
During the war, the USSR from the most reading country turned into the most writing country in the world. As reported by the Office of the Military Field Mail, already in the first year of the war, the monthly turnover of letters, without counting parcels, postcards and transfers, reached 70 million pieces.
In total, during the war years, 2 billion 795 million letters were sent from the front, and taking into account the messages from the rear, their number for the entire time amounted to 10 billion 700 million. Of course, there weren't enough envelopes for that amount, so the messages were simply folded in a triangle, wrote the address and sent free field mail.
Letters were written by everyone - even those who in civilian life did not hold a tool lighter than an ax in their hands. In hospitals, the ward neighbors wrote for their seriously wounded comrades. In the villages, more literate fellow villagers came to the aid of the illiterate old people who were trying to send a return message to their sons or grandchildren. During the war, the Soviet Union became a single field post, where each street had a branch, and each person had his own, often far from the only, addressee.
Award list, or how many millions of feats were accomplished during the Second World War
The award list during the Great Patriotic War is a document that recorded the data of a fighter and personal merits, on the basis of which he was presented to one or another award. The document had a single form and certain columns that changed over the course of the war. So, if in 1941 it contained the column "Did he serve in the White bourgeois army and was he a prisoner?"
Obligatory columns in the document throughout the war remained: surname, name and patronymic; rank, position and unit; presented for awarding … (title of award); year of birth, nationality, party affiliation; the presence and concussions in the Patriotic War; time and place of conscription into the Red Army; are there any other awards; home address; description of personal feat or military merit; commanders' marks.
If there were not enough forms, a list of columns with the data of a fighter and a description of his feat was typed on a typewriter. However, often, while in combat conditions, the document was drawn up and all information was written down by hand. From the front, the completed sheets were delivered to Moscow, where, regardless of the status of the award, they were approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
In total, for the period from 1941 to 1945, about 30 million awards were approved - this is how many completely personal feats were. At the same time, a large number of Soviet officers and soldiers received several awards, which included orders and medals of various degrees.
Triangular wedge, or what the Form No. 4 Notice meant
They preferred not only not to talk about "Notice of Form No. 4", but they were also afraid to think about it: the decoding of the form under this number sounded like "Notice of the death of a serviceman." In the first years of the war, such notices (popularly called "funerals") formed a triangle and did not differ in any way from ordinary soldiers' letters. The initial alarm was caused only by someone else's handwriting, which, however, could be - as relatives often hoped - and because of the injury of a soldier.
The postmen sometimes refused to work - they felt too heavy a moral burden, seeing the unbridled grief from the triangles they handed over. People, on the one hand, were afraid of the postman, on the other, they always waited impatiently, hoping for news from a loved one at the front. Later, funerals began to be sealed in official envelopes with stamps and seals, and postmen, delivering letters, could determine in advance what sad news they were bringing to a particular family.
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