Читать книгу Inside the Rzhev Meatginder - Геннадий Федорович Русаков - Страница 9

In November, when the cold weather came, orders were posted in the village – to hand over warm clothes and shoes to the German command. Particular attention was paid to boots and fur coats, for hiding them – shooting. Houses were searched. But the inhabitants did not want to give what in such a harsh winter was necessary for themselves or their loved ones, husbands, sons and fathers who went to war, so they hid everything in some hiding places, often risking their lives.

I remember how my mother and I dragged my father’s boots and his two unmarried brothers, from one basement, where the boots were hidden, to another, in which the search had already passed. This allowed the installation of a basement in the house. I had already started walking by this time.

Even earlier, when the Nazis only visited the village, but already searched the houses and took away everything that they thought were valuable, my mother buried a bicycle, a sewing machine and a wooden barrel of salted pork in the garden. My mother sheathed a suitcase with fabrics with burlap and tied it to a children’s sled, it turned out to be a seat, that is, like a natural belonging to a sled. So they stood in the canopy until the very end of the village’s existence.

It also became clear why the German officer was interested in our rivers on his first visit. Women of the surrounding villages, including ours, began to be driven to dig trenches on the western, that is, opposite banks of our rivers. Trenching continued until the onset of frost in November. Therefore, when the Nazis were poured in full near Moscow, they retreated to the fortifications prepared in advance, and our village became the front line.