The war has been going on for the fourth year. A terrible time, sad, hungry ... I remember how my mother turned gray overnight, having received two funerals at once in 1942 - for Father and the elder Vasyutka. I remember how terribly she cried, did not even cry - howled in a voice, with anguish, swaying from side to side, clasping her head with both hands, and then hugged me tightly and firmly and said firmly: "I won't let go!" I had asked for the front for a long time, but they didn’t take me, they said that I didn’t fit in my age. I was only 16 years old. And a year later I ran away from home. I really wanted to beat the hated enemy, avenge my father and my older brother!
I finished short-term courses and sent me to the 39th Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front. So I ended up in Konigsberg - a fortress city, an enemy citadel, bristling with forts and moats. For four days the aviation worked, ironing the enemy, ripping apart the concrete fortifications. And here we are! It was my first fight, so my heart was breaking out with excitement and impatience, and a nervous shiver ran through my body.
On the night of April 5-6, we conducted reconnaissance in force. We met strong resistance, lost three comrades. The weather was nasty: it was drizzling with a fine and cold rain, the creeping fog made it difficult to see. An order was given to take fort number 8 - Kalgen, which covered the approaches to the city from the south-east. The attack drowned out under the fire of enemy machine gunners. Then artillery came into play. Then, under a smoke screen, sappers blew up the gate. Our platoon broke into the fort first, I fired and ran, choking on dust and burning. In battle, we took 150 German prisoners.
The Germans resisted desperately. On the way to the station, our platoon commander was killed. I took command. The Nazis put the locomotives in two rows and fired back from there so that they could not raise their heads. What to do? They tied the grenades, crawled closer and sent "presents" ... They just made their way through the barrier, and machine gunners again watered them across the square from the entrance to the station, from the chapel. There were two mortar men in our assault group. So the guys took off the top of the tower together with the Nazis.
When, after a long two hours, cleaning house after house, we got to Pregolya, to be honest, they were numb with surprise. A strange procession emerged from the church standing on the river bank. They were nuns in their strange clothes. The oldest of them stepped forward, calling herself Katarina. She very much reminded me of my neighbor Aunt Klava, who there, in a distant and happy childhood, treated the yard boys with delicious pies with potatoes and cheesecakes. Katharina asked in Polish and broken Russian not to kill them. She said that six submachine gunners were hiding at the top ...
Ahead was Pregolya, rolling its leaden waters, in which the blue sky trembled, gray with smoke and soot. The river smelled of fresh dampness, and the bank shook from explosions and tried to hand me a bunch of blue flowers. How they look like my mother's eyes! ... Something hit me hard and very painfully in the back ... it became hot and sticky in my chest ... I can't breathe ... dead lips whisper: "Ma-ma ..."
