Chapter 16
The very first feeling that engulfed everyone after the announcement of the end of hostilities was the joy of having survived. Every veteran remembers this day – 9 May 1945. For an Army driver; Lidya Gloushenko, it was like this:
I was on sentry duty with a carbine. Suddenly, shooting broke out – shouts of ‘Victory! Victory!’ I threw away my carbine and rushed to my girlfriends to tell them the Victory had come. I ran up to them, we began to hug each other; to cry – and I felt that something was squelching in my jackboot. I had a look – the jackboot was full of blood. I fainted away [she had been wounded by a bullet or splinter from the improvised victory salute – trans.].
Vladimir Temerov, a Pe-2 bomber navigator; remembers the moment he found out the war was over:
It happened, perhaps, about six in the morning. The squadron commander ran into the room shouting: ‘Victory! The war is over! Get up!’ He leaped out into the corridor and began to shoot the ceiling. Of course, everyone jumped out of bed, ran out onto the street and began shooting with pistols, yelling ‘Hurray!’ But combat sorties would go on for some more days.
When the euphoria of the first moment of peace had passed, many men began to wonder what to do next. Vasily Bryukhov, who found himself in Austria in the capacity of tank battalion commander, remembers:
I was billeted in a house with a café on the ground floor, and on the first floor were the premises of its owner, who had fled with his family. On the morning of 9 May I woke, swung the window open, sat on the windowsill. It was beautiful! Mountains, apple trees in blossom, green fields with crops, the sun. And I felt so sad! The war is over What next? What can I do? Only march, build up a defence line, lead people into battle. There were no unanswered questions during the war But what was ahead of me now? What to do? Where could I go when my house had been ruined, my family had perished or had been evacuated somewhere? Millions of people, who had to return to their pre-war occupations and rebuild the country ruined by the war, had to resolve these questions.
‘Motherland meets her victorious sons’ is written on the banner beneath the portrait of Stalin.
Senior sergeant Baranov returns to his home town, Ivanovo.
The victors returning from the front were received with joy – for short-handedness was everywhere. A battery commander, Alexander Rogachev, recalls:
We were received very cheerfully and treated very cordially. There was no aloofness or indifference. And we wouldn't put on airs either Well, you've been at war and what? You've come back – now enter the peaceful life. And we'd missed it so badly! So much we wanted to study to work. Despite all difficulties, the optimism and vivacity were always with us.
The invalids of war were worse off. Those who had lost limbs or sight had no chance to work. They lived on meagre pensions or went begging on trains. There were those who began to drink heavily on returning home. At first it was caused by the desire to have fun and get rid of the burdens of the war, then it would become a habit. By no means was life easy for women who had returned from the front. Lidya Gloushenko, a driver, remembers:
We are from Berlin! Lieutenant General Telegin bids farewell to his demobilized troops, departing for the Motherland from Berlin in July 1945.
The war is over – families reunited.
Of course, we who had been at war were called ‘frontovichki’ [i.e. ‘front-line’ girls – trans.], which was a synonym for ‘women of easy virtue’. That was why, at first, many of us were hiding the fact that we'd been at war – but not me. I had a younger sister born in 1941 and then one pesky admirer got into the habit of paying me visits. Once he asked me: ‘Is this girl yours?’ – I said, ‘Yeah, I've brought her from the front!’ I saw him no more. My Mum said, ‘My God! You front-line girls are not too popular anyway and you create a scandal for yourself on top of that ...’
Having returned from the wan people did their best to forget everything related to it as soon as possible. Olga Khod'ko remembers:
We wouldn't talk much about the war: All of us reckoned that this calamity had passed and needed to be forgotten. I remember very well that there was no such directive from above, but everyone had grown tired of the war so badly that we wanted to rid ourselves of all that was related to it.
Official propaganda extolled the role of Stalin and his generals in the war: Films were made and plays were staged in theatres about them and the abstract ‘Soviet people’. The oblivion lasted for twenty years until the trauma inflicted by the war had healed over A machine-gunner, Abram Shoikhet, remembers:
Before the war there was a soccer team in our Pervomaiskaya Street, and in a neighbouring street there was a rival team. And once we decided to get together: And when we met we were scared – only five of us were left, all invalids covered with wounds: Senya Feinberg, Yasha Kremer Misha Fishkis, Shika Vintfeld and I [. . .] All our other mates from the two streets had died in the war: Only then did I finally become aware how ruthlessly the war had mowed my generation ...
Kiev station in Moscow. The photo was probably taken in autumn 1945.
Demobilization continued for several years after the war ended. This photo was taken in 1948, in the ‘Krasnyi boets’ kolkhoz [collective farm – trans.], located in the Krasnodar region.
