The Great Patriotic War in the history of my family

Bogdanova Manefa Mikhailovna

1916 – 2006

When the war just started, my great-grandmother Bogdanova Manefa Mikhailovna  worked at the Gorky paper mill. They were sent to dig trenches, anti-tank ditches.

Once on an open platform by rail they were brought to Lake Ladoga. Local administration evacuated residents from the shore of Ladoga went to meet them so that their houses could be used for the needs of the front. And suddenly one old woman says:

- where are you going, mothers? Everything is on fire there!

They were quickly put in line and handed over a shovel, brought closer to the shore of Lake Ladoga. Around them German planes appeared and they scattered all over the place in the barn. When the bombing ended, they went again. We walked along the shore of Ladoga towards Shlisselburg, - around them lay the dead, wounded met. When they were stopped, they began to dig an anti-tank moat. They slept that night in the rain, huddled together.

A few days later they returned to Leningrad. Their thoughts were only about food. One day the great-grandmother bought a can of land, which they dug up in the place where the Badayevsky warehouses with food burned down after the bombing. She ate the earth with a spoon, spreading it on bread. The earth seemed sweet.

She received a summons from the draft board with a note: “Take a linen change, a towel, a bowl, a mug and go to the Red Triangle factory. This saved my great-grandmother: she lived there in a barracks position from 1942 to 1946.

She was given 500 grams of bread there.

My great-grandmother worked in workshop № 3 as an operator of glue-drying machines and was a firefighter during the Great Patriotic War.

For every high-explosive bomb dropped, there were more than thirty “lighters” of the breakdown power of the “lighter”. It was enough to pierce the roof, covered with roofing iron. Great-grandmother was part of the MPVO group and she protected the building from destruction and fires. When dumping the lighter onto the roof, the great-grandmother took the lighter with tongs and extinguished it in water or sand or dropped it to the ground, where there were also those on duty and extinguished incendiary bombs. Many houses were wooden and did not have time to save them. However, later the Germans realized the inefficiency of incendiary bombs and began to throw off more high-explosive bombs, which caused significantly more destruction.

In Obukhovo there was a subsidiary farm. The head of the fire brigade Kulakov was very nice to the girls. He felt sorry for them: many died in extinguishing fires, during shelling, on duty around the clock.

Once on the "Triangle" warehouses with materials burned, they extinguished fires, the wall collapsed, one man and several girls died.

Immediately after demobilization in 1947, she got a job at the Leningrad paper factory Goznak and worked there for 38 years.

Great-grandmother has a number of awards:

Order of the Great Patriotic War. The status of the order is higher than the status of the medal - it was awarded exclusively by decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and on the basis of a decree of its presidium.

The star of the hero. The hero of the Soviet Union and the golden star were the highest state promotion. A gold star was awarded for outstanding merit and feats in battle - for this it was necessary to distinguish himself more than once.

Medal “For the Defense of Leningrad. ” The medal “For the Defense of Leningrad” was awarded to all participants in the defense of Leningrad.

The order of Lenin. The highest award of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Order of the Red Banner. The first of the Soviet orders. It was established for rewarding for special courage, dedication and courage shown in the defense of the socialist Fatherland.