This book should be in every home; every student should read it. This is a terribly convincing book; sorry, it was released in scanty circulation. However, its reprint under the author's title is now on sale.
I saw what a person cannot see … He cannot …
I saw how a German train went downhill at night and burned down, and in the morning they put all those who worked on the railroad on the rails and started a steam locomotive on them …
I saw how people were harnessed to carts … They had yellow stars on their backs … And they rode merrily … They drove them with whips …
I saw how mothers' children were knocked out of their hands with bayonets. And thrown into the fire. Into the well. But it was not up to my mother and me …
I saw the neighbor's dog cry. She sat on the ashes of a neighbor's hut. One…"
Yura Karpovich, 8 years old
"I remember how the murdered mother's hair was burning … And the little one next to her had swaddling clothes … We crawled through them with my older brother, I held on to his trouser leg: first, into the yard, then into the garden, lay in a potato until evening. bushes. And then I burst into tears …"
Tonya Rudakova, 5 years old
“The black German pointed a machine gun at us, and I realized what he would do now. I didn’t even have time to shout and hug the little ones …
I woke up from my mother's cry. Yes, it seemed to me that I was asleep. I got up, I see: my mother is digging a hole and crying. She stood with her back to me, and I did not have the strength to call her, I had enough strength just to look at her. Mom straightened up to rest, turned her head to me and when she would shout: "Innochka!" She rushed to me, grabbed me in her arms. He holds me in one hand, and with the other he probes the rest: what if someone else is still alive? No, they were cold …
When I was treated, my mother and I counted nine bullet wounds. I learned to count. There are two bullets in one shoulder and two bullets in the other. It will be four. There are two bullets in one leg and two bullets in the other. It will be eight, and there is a wound on the neck. It will be nine already."
Inna Starovoitova, 6 years old
“Six people gathered in our hut: grandmother, mother, older sister, me and two younger brothers. Six people … We saw through the window how they went to the neighbors, ran into the hallway with their smallest brother, locked themselves on a hook. and sit next to mom.
The hook is weak, the German tore it off immediately. He crossed the threshold and gave a turn. I didn’t have time to discern whether he was old or young? We all fell, I fell behind the chest …
The first time I regained consciousness when I heard that something was dripping on me … It drips and drips like water. He raised his head: my mother’s blood was dripping, my mother lay dead. I crawled under the bed, everything is covered in blood … I am in blood, as in water … Wet …
Consciousness returned when I heard a terrible female voice … The scream hung and hung in the air. Someone was shouting so that, it seemed to me, he did not stop. He crawled along this cry as if by a thread, and crawled to the collective farm garage. I don't see anyone … A scream comes from somewhere under the ground …
I could not get up, crawled to the pit and bent down … A full pit of people … They were all Smolensk refugees, they lived in our school. There are twenty families. Everyone lay in the pit, and a wounded girl rose and fell above. And she screamed. I looked back: where to crawl now? The whole village was already on fire … And no one was alive … This one girl … I fell down to her … How long I lay - I don't know …
I hear the girl is dead. I push and call - does not respond. I alone am alive, and they are all dead. The sun has warmed up, steam is coming from the warm blood. Head is spinning…"
Leonid Sivakov, 6 years old
“Yesterday afternoon, Anna Lisa Rostert came running to us. She was very embittered. A Russian girl was hanged in their pigsty. Our Polish workers said that Frau Rostert kept beating, scolding the Russian. She committed suicide, probably in a moment of despair. consoled Frau Rostert, you can get a new Russian worker for an inexpensive price …"
From a letter to Chief Corporal Rudolf Lammermeier
“HOUSE, DO NOT BURN! »NINA RACHITSKAYA - 7 YEARS
I remember in fragments, sometimes very vividly. How the Germans arrived on motorcycles … I still had two little brothers - four and two years old. We hid under the bed and sat there all day. The officer with glasses, it was very strange to me that a fascist with glasses, he lived with a batman in one half of the house, and we in the other. Brother, the smallest had a cold and coughed violently. he is his “poof-poof” - and points at his pistol. At night, as soon as the brother coughs or cries, his mother grabs him in a blanket, runs outside and shakes him there until he falls asleep or calms down.
They took everything from us, we were starving. We were not allowed into the kitchen, they cooked there only for themselves. Little brother, he heard the smell of pea soup and crept across the floor to this smell. Five minutes later, there was a terrible squeal from his brother,. They doused him with boiling water in the kitchen, doused him for asking for food.
And he was so hungry that he would approach his mother: "Let's cook my duck …". The duckling was his favorite toy, he did not give it to anyone, and then he says: "Let's cook a duckling, and we will all be well fed …"
Retreating, they set fire to our house on the last day. Mom stood looking at the fire, and she didn't have a tear. And the three of us ran and shouted: “House, do not burn! House, do not burn! ". They didn't have time to take anything out of the house, I just grabbed my primer …"
