Veterans of the Great Patriotic War told about the trials they experienced during the war

On April 18, veterans of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) told Izvestia about the trials they endured during the years of confrontation with Nazi Germany. Video interviews with those who met the defeat of the enemy in 1945 are posted in the "Living History" section of the Izvestia virtual Museum "Great Victory".

Zinovy Petrovich Goldberg was only eight years old in 1941. He lived with his mother and sister in the village of Pargolovo near Leningrad. The boy's father was repressed before the war.

During the siege, Zinovy Petrovich's mother did everything to save the children from starvation. In the end, the family was helped by the fact that the veteran's older sister entered the medical institute and got a job at the hospital — medical students received an increased bread allowance.

Zinovy Petrovich's most terrible memory of the blockade is one of his trips to the Neva River to get water.

"I'm going to the Neva River, I have a bucket and pots tied to my sleigh. And a young man with absolutely glassy eyes is walking towards me. And literally two steps away from me, he fell, and that's the end.… That's how people died on the move. I remember this incident, his glass eyes, for the rest of my life," the veteran said.

The Goldberg family was evacuated to Kazan in the summer of 1942. On the way, the evacuees were bombed, but managed to survive. Zinovy Petrovich returned to Leningrad after the war and worked there for more than 30 years at a machine-building plant. Now the veteran lives in Cologne, Germany.

Maria Alexandrovna Malyuk, a resident of Kursk, who was 18 years old at the time of the German invasion, also traveled a long way during the war. In 1941, the students of the college where she studied were mobilized to build fortifications.

A little later, the students were called to the military enlistment office and offered to go to agricultural work on the Black Sea coast. In the Georgian city of Kobuleti, Kursk volunteers, including Maria Alexandrovna, were assigned to a three-month training course at a communications school.

In the spring of 1944, the girl's unit arrived in the liberated Crimea. Subsequently, the veteran traveled with her unit throughout Eastern Europe. Grateful people were waiting for the Red Army everywhere, the veteran said.

Maria Alexandrovna celebrated the victory in Berlin — her unit was stationed near the Reichstag.

"That's how we celebrated Victory Day. Everyone was crying, especially the girls. We were glad that everything turned out well and the war was over," the woman shared.

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Earlier, on April 13, WWII veteran Anatoly Parubin told Izvestia about the capture of Vienna by the Red Army in 1945. According to him, the Germans blew up almost all the bridges across the Danube in the city, but the Soviet soldiers managed to clear the last remaining crossing.