The blockade diary of Tanya Savicheva: the most terrible 9 pages about the war

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

This diary of an 11 year old schoolgirl Tanya Savicheva has become one of the most dire evidence of the horrors of war. The girl kept these records during blockade of Leningrad in 1941, when hunger took her loved ones out of her life every month. Only nine pages, on which Tanya briefly reports on the death of relatives, have become a real chronicle of death. Tanya Savicheva's diary was presented at the Nuremberg trials as evidence of the crimes of fascism. The girl survived the blockade, but never learned about the long-awaited Victory on May 9, 1945.

She was born in 1930 in a large family. She had 2 brothers and 2 sisters, they did not need anything - her father owned a bakery, a bakery and a cinema in Leningrad. But after the private property began to be alienated, the Savichev family was exiled for the 101st kilometer. Tanya's father was very worried about his helplessness and lack of money, and in March 1936 he suddenly died of cancer.

After the death of her father, Tanya with her mother, grandmother, brothers and sisters returned to Leningrad and settled in the same house with relatives on the 2nd line of Vasilievsky Island. In June 1941, they were going to visit friends in Dvorishchi, but they were delayed because of the grandmother's birthday. On the morning of June 22, they congratulated her, and at 12:15 pm they announced the beginning of the war on the radio.

During the first months, all family members provided all possible assistance to the army: the sisters dug trenches and donated blood for the wounded, put out "lighters", Tanya's mother Maria Ignatievna sewed uniforms for the soldiers. On September 8, 1941, the blockade of Leningrad began. Autumn and winter were very difficult - according to Hitler's plan, Leningrad should have been "strangled with hunger and wiped off the face of the earth."

One day after work, Tanya's sister Nina did not return home. There were heavy shelling that day, and she was presumed dead. Nina had a notebook, part of which - with the alphabet for the phone book - remained empty. It was in it that Tanya began to make her notes.

There was no fear, no complaint, no despair in them. Only a stingy and laconic statement of terrible facts: “December 28, 1941. Zhenya died at 12.00 in the morning of 1941. "Grandmother died on January 25 at 3 o'clock 1942." "Leka died on March 17 at 5 o'clock in the morning. 1942.”“Uncle Vasya died on April 13 at 2 am. 1942.”“Uncle Lesha, May 10 at 4 pm. 1942. "Mom - May 13 at 7:30 am. 1942. "The Savichevs are dead." "They all died." "There is only Tanya left."

Tanya never found out that not all of her relatives had died. Sister Nina was evacuated directly from the factory and taken to the rear - she did not have time to warn her family about this. Brother Misha was seriously wounded at the front, but survived. Tanya, who lost consciousness from hunger, was found by the sanitary team, who went around the house. The girl was sent to an orphanage and evacuated to the Gorky region, to the village of Shatki. From exhaustion, she could hardly move and was sick with tuberculosis. For two years, doctors fought for her life, but they failed to save Tanya - her body was too weakened by prolonged starvation. On July 1, 1944, Tanya Savicheva passed away.

Tanya Savicheva's diary, which was soon seen by the whole world, was found by her sister Nina, and her acquaintance from the Hermitage presented these notes at the exhibition "The Heroic Defense of Leningrad" in 1946. Today they are kept in the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, and copies were sold all over the world … Next to the grave of Tanya Savicheva is a wall with a bas-relief and pages from her diary. The same records are carved on the stone next to the “Flower of Life” monument near St. Petersburg.

Photos of besieged Leningrad and now no one is left indifferent.