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More than a dozen years have passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War, which claimed the lives of millions of our Soviet people. Time has practically erased the terrible traces of the war: the fields plowed up by bombs were again covered with grass and flowers, cities were rebuilt, peaceful life began to seethe. But this war left an unhealed mark in the heart of every person.
Let them now try with might and main to rewrite history, to cross out and trample on the heroic feat of our great-grandfathers, to deprive the future generation of pride and honor for their past ... But we - the grandchildren and great-grandchildren - remembered, remember and will keep with trepidation in our hearts and pass on to the next generations the memory of real victorious heroes worthy of love, respect and emulation. Their feat gave us freedom, the right to live and love in the world!
I remember the first time I asked my mother: “What is war?” Then she thoughtfully answered: “This, son, is an endless grief, when fathers, husbands die, mothers bury their children, and children - their mothers ...” And then she added: “You can be proud! There are three heroes in our family - veterans of the Great Patriotic War, who went through all the horror of the war from beginning to end. It is a pity, of course, that you could not catch them.
I really wanted to know what they suffered in those terrible years, but my great-grandfathers, like many others, did not like to talk about the war. Grandmother said that as soon as someone started talking about the war, grandfather immediately fell silent and his eyes became so sad, as if he was again on the battlefield.
My great-grandfather is Makhmud Ismailovich Shakhmirzov, born in 1916, senior lieutenant, veteran of three wars. In 1939, he was traveling from Kharkov, where he studied at a military school, was taken off the train and sent to war with Finland. From June 1941 to September 1945 he fought against Nazi Germany and Japan. His daughter, my grandmother, remembers that when he put on a uniform tunic (it was once a year, in honor of the parade dedicated to the Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War), his chest was all hung with awards. The medals “For Stalingrad”, “For the Defense of Leningrad”, the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Great Patriotic War of the 1st degree were especially honorable. There were many awards, he did not like to talk about them, only occasionally, fragments, apparently the most impressive, memories so strongly ingrained in his memory, he could share with his daughter.
He served in the artillery, commanding a gun. In the battle for Stalingrad, he was wounded in the face, but continued to command, and immediately after the battle he was awarded the medal "For Courage" and "For Stalingrad". This wound reminded of itself for the rest of his life, as the doctors could not remove all the fragments. Grandmother told how at the airport they could not calmly pass through the magnetic frame; the metal made a ringing ...
There was another memory that he shared with his family. When the Soviet army broke through the blockade of Leningrad and our troops entered the city, he said, they did not feel like liberating heroes, because in the dumb look of the surviving residents of the city one question was read: “Why is it taking so long ?!” And my grandfather, with tears in his eyes, admitted that at that moment he was very ashamed in front of them for not being able to save them, to come earlier. Then there were many more battles, many losses and victories ... Berlin was three days away when the Soviet army was declared victorious. These rare memories, devoid of details, shared by great-grandfather, grandmother keeps and retells to her children, and now to her grandchildren.
I do not know the war, but I know for sure that it should not happen again!
I am very proud that I am the heir of such heroes as my great-grandfather and other such great warriors who went through the whole war, died on the battlefields, and those who worked unceasingly and meekly in the rear, in factories, factories and fields, by joint efforts slowly but surely bringing the bright day of the Great Victory closer.
Eternal memory to all Heroes!
Mikhail Kartovoy, Municipal budgetary institution school No. 6 named after. M.V. Maslivets, municipal formation Bryukhovetsky district, Krasnodar Territory
Read also:
EURASIA KIDS: “Airplanes bombed the Barge”
EURASDIA KIDS about the Holocaust: A Great-Grandmother's Story
