Diary of Tanya Savicheva from besieged Leningrad briefly. When the word "died" disappears. The story of Tanya Savicheva. Diary of Tanya Savicheva
Twelve-year-old Leningrad resident Tanya Savicheva began keeping her diary a little earlier than Anne Frank, a victim of the Holocaust. They were almost the same age and wrote about the same thing - about the horror of fascism. And these two girls died without waiting for Victory: Tanya - in July 1944, Anna - in March 1945. The Diary of Anne Frank was published after the war and told the whole world about its author. “The Diary of Tanya Savicheva” was not published; it contains only 9 terrible entries about the death of her large family in besieged Leningrad. This small notebook was presented to Russia as a document accusing fascism.
Tanya Savicheva's diary is exhibited at the Museum of the History of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), a copy of it is in the display case of the Piskarevskoye cemetery memorial, where 570 thousand city residents who died during the 900-day fascist blockade (1941-1943) are buried, and on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow.
The child's hand, losing strength from hunger, wrote unevenly and sparingly. The fragile soul, struck by unbearable suffering, was no longer capable of living emotions. Tanya simply recorded the real facts of her existence - the tragic “visits of death” to her home. And when you read this, you freeze:
“December 28, 1941. Zhenya died at 12:00 in the morning of 1941.”
“Grandmother died on January 25 at 3 o’clock in 1942.”
“Leka died on March 17 at 5 am. 1942."
“Uncle Vasya died on April 13 at 2 am. 1942."
“Uncle Lesha, May 10 at 4 pm. 1942."
“Mom - May 13 at 7:30 am. 1942"
“The Savichevs are dead.” "Everyone died." “There’s only Tanya left.”
...She was the daughter of a baker and a seamstress, the youngest in the family, loved by everyone. Large gray eyes under light brown bangs, a sailor blouse, a clear, ringing “angelic” voice that promised a singing future.
The Savichevs were all musically gifted. And the mother, Maria Ignatievna, even created a small family ensemble: two brothers, Leka and Misha, played the guitar, mandolin and banjo, Tanya sang, the rest supported the choir.
The father, Nikolai Rodionovich, died early, and the mother spun with a spinning top to raise her five children. The seamstress at the Leningrad Fashion House had many orders and earned good money. Skillful embroidery decorated the cozy home of the Savichevs - elegant curtains, napkins, tablecloths.
Since childhood, Tanya also embroidered - all flowers, flowers...
The Savichevs were going to spend the summer of 1941 in a village near Gdov, near Lake Peipus, but only Misha managed to leave. The morning of June 22, which brought war, changed plans. The close-knit Savichev family decided to stay in Leningrad, stick together, and help the front. His mother, a seamstress, sewed uniforms for the soldiers. Leka, due to poor eyesight, did not join the army and worked as a planer at the Admiralty plant, sister Zhenya sharpened shells for mines, Nina was mobilized for defense work. Vasily and Alexey Savichev, two of Tanya’s uncles, served in the air defense.
Tanya also did not sit idly by. Together with other children, she helped adults put out lighters and dig trenches. But the blockade ring quickly tightened - according to Hitler’s plan, Leningrad should have been “strangled by hunger and razed to the ground.” One day Nina did not return from work. That day there was heavy shelling, people at home were worried and waiting. But when all the deadlines passed, the mother gave Tanya, in memory of her sister, her small notebook, in which the girl began to make her notes.
Sister Zhenya died right at the factory. I worked 2 shifts, and then also donated blood, and I didn’t have enough strength. Soon they took my grandmother to the Piskarevskoye cemetery - her heart could not stand it. In the “History of the Admiralty Plant” there are the following lines: “Leonid Savichev worked very diligently, although he was exhausted. One day he didn’t show up for his shift - the shop was informed that he had died...”
Tanya opened her notebook more and more often - one after another, her uncles passed away, and then her mother. One day the girl will draw a terrible conclusion: “The Savichevs all died. Tanya is the only one left."
Tanya never found out that not all the Savichevs died, their family continues. Sister Nina was rescued and taken to the rear. In 1945, she returned to her hometown, to her home, and among the bare walls, fragments and plaster she found a notebook with Tanya’s notes. Brother Misha also recovered from a serious wound at the front.
Tanya, who had lost consciousness from hunger, was discovered by employees of special sanitary teams who were visiting Leningrad houses. Life barely glimmered in her. Together with 140 other Leningrad children exhausted by hunger, the girl was evacuated to the Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) region, to the village of Shatki. Residents brought whatever they could to the children, fed and warmed the orphan souls. Many of the children got stronger and got back on their feet. But Tanya never got up. Doctors fought for the life of the young Leningrader for 2 years, but the disastrous processes in her body turned out to be irreversible. Tanya's arms and legs were shaking and she was tormented by terrible headaches. On July 1, 1944, Tanya Savicheva died. She was buried in the village cemetery, where she rests under a marble tombstone. Nearby is a wall with a bas-relief of a girl and pages from her diary. Tannin records are also carved on the gray stone of the “Flower of Life” monument, near St. Petersburg, on the 3rd kilometer of the blockade “Road of Life”.
Tanya Savicheva was born on January 25, the day of remembrance of the holy martyr Tatiana. The surviving Savichevs, their children and grandchildren, always gather at a common table and sing “The Ballad of Tanya Savicheva” (composer E. Doga, lyrics by V. Gin), which was first performed at the concert of People’s Artist Edita Piekha: “Tanya, Tanya ... your name is like an alarm bell in all dialects..."
The heart cannot stop remembering, otherwise our human race will be cut short.
One of the symbols of the siege of Leningrad was schoolgirl Tanya Savicheva, who began keeping a diary during the siege in the notebook of her older sister Nina. Her diary contains nine pages, six of which contain the dates of death of people close to her - her mother, grandmother, sister, brother and two uncles. Almost the entire family of Tanya Savicheva died during the Leningrad blockade between December 1941 and May 1942.
During the blockade, Tanya lived in house No. 13/6 on the 2nd line of Vasilyevsky Island. By the beginning of the blockade, the girl had completed three grades of school. Savicheva entered fourth grade only on November 3, 1941, when 103 schools were opened in Leningrad. However, with the onset of winter, classes practically stopped.
On December 28, 1941, her sister Zhenya was the first to die. By that time, transport had stopped in the city, so Tanya’s sister walked seven kilometers through the snowy streets to the factory where she worked. Often she even spent the night at the enterprise because she worked two shifts. One day she didn't come to work. Her older sister Nina went to her home. Zhenya died of hunger in her arms. Bending over the coffin, mother Maria Ignatievna uttered a prophetic phrase: “Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?”
At the beginning of 1942, canteens for children aged eight to twelve years opened in Leningrad. Tanya wore them until January 22. On January 23, she turned twelve years old, as a result of which, by the standards of the besieged city, there were “no more children” in the Savichev family and from now on Tanya received the same ration of bread as an adult.
At the same time, Tanya’s grandmother Evdokia Grigorievna became seriously ill with dystrophy. She refused hospitalization, saying that there were many sick people there without her. On January 25, my grandmother died. Before her death, my grandmother really asked that her card not be thrown away, because it could be used before the end of the month. Many people in Leningrad did this, and for some time this supported the life of the relatives and friends of the deceased. To prevent such “illegal use” of cards, re-registration was subsequently introduced in the middle of each month. Therefore, the death certificate that Maria Ignatievna received from the district social security office has a different date - February 1.
Lek's brother worked at the Admiralty plant, despite the hunger, he endured two shifts. A young man died of hunger on March 17 in a factory hospital.
By April, entire epidemics of many diseases caused by hunger began in the city, in particular scurvy and tuberculosis. On April 13, Uncle Vasya died from it.
In April, the evacuation of Leningraders along the Road of Life was stopped; in early May, 137 schools were opened, where 64 thousand children went, most of whom suffered from scurvy and dystrophy. Tanya Savicheva could not go to school because she was taking care of her mother and uncle Lesha.
On May 10, Uncle Lesha died, which he was struck by advanced dystrophy, for which he was no longer even hospitalized.
Three days later, Tanya’s mother Maria Ignatievna died.
At the same time, the girl recorded “The Savichevs have died.” However, she did not know that her sister Nina managed to evacuate along the Road of Life along with her enterprise. Since the letters did not arrive, she could not tell her family about herself. Nina died last August at the age of 94. Brother Misha, who was considered dead at the front, also survived, joining a partisan detachment near Pskov.
After her mother died, Tanya went to the neighbors on the floor below. Her peer Vera Nikolenko lived there. Her mother and father took Maria Ignatievna’s body to the cemetery. Tanya did not go with them because she was very weak. She stayed with the Nikolenko family for only one night, told that she still had family jewelry, and she would exchange it for bread. In the morning she left and the neighbors never saw her again.
Tanya went to her grandmother’s niece, Aunt Dusya. While she worked at the factory, Tanya walked outside to breathe fresh air and cope with dystrophy more easily. Because of the chills, the girl, like many other residents of Leningrad, wore winter clothes in May.
From a friend of Leka's brother Vasily Krylov, Tanya learned that sister Nina was alive and living in the Tver region, where she was sent to a hospital.
Aunt Dusya soon removed custody of Tanya, so the girl was sent to an orphanage that was preparing for evacuation to the Gorky region. Under bombing, 125 children reached their destination only in August. There, children, despite the lack of food and medicine, were nursed by ordinary Gorky residents. They discovered Tanya had tuberculosis, so she was sent to quarantine. She was weakening literally before our eyes; according to the testimony of the nurse caring for her, she was walking on the wall and on crutches. In March 1944, she was sent to a nursing home, and two months later to an infectious diseases hospital.
Tanya died on July 1, 1944 from bone tuberculosis, intestinal tuberculosis, scurvy, and dystrophy. Also, shortly before her death, the girl became completely blind. She was buried next to the grave of the relatives of nurse Anna Zhurkina, who cared for Tanya in her last days.
Her diaries were found by her sister Nina at Aunt Dusya's. Later they were presented in the exhibition “Heroic Defense of Leningrad”. The diary is now on display in the Leningrad History Museum, and a copy of it is in the window of one of the pavilions of the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery. In the near future, it is planned to show the original for the first time in thirty-five years, but in a closed form.
May 13, 1942 Tanya Savicheva inbesieged Leningrad made her last diary entries: “Mom on May 13 at 7.30 o’clock. morning 1942”, “The Savichevs died”, “Everyone died”, “Only Tanya remained”.
Before the war
Tanya was born on January 23, 1930 in a friendly large family. In the 1930s, when the alienation of private property began in the USSR, the Savichevs were forced to move from Leningrad 101 kilometers away, since Tanya’s father was an entrepreneur. In 1936, the head of the family died suddenly of cancer. Left without a breadwinner, the family soon returned to Leningrad, together with their grandmother, the Savichevs settled on the 2nd line of Vasilyevsky Island, in house 13/6, in apartment number 1, under the apartment of the late father’s brothers, Vasily and Alexei. In May 1941, Tanya graduated from the 3rd grade of school. In the summer, the Savichevs planned, as usual, to visit relatives in the Leningrad region. Tanya's brother Mikhail was the first to leave. Tanya and her mother stayed for two weeks to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday on June 22.
Nine lines of death
After the announcement of the start of the war, Tanya and her mother decided to stay in Leningrad, where, with the rest of the family, they were involved in work in the rear for the needs of the army. On September 8, 1941, the blockade of Leningrad began; according to Hitler’s plan, the city was supposed to slowly die of starvation. A hungry autumn gave way to an even harsher winter. Once, while cleaning, Tanya discovered a notebook forgotten by her older sister, the part of which, intended for recording telephone numbers, was not filled out. Tanya made her first entry on December 28, 1941 under the letter “F”, dedicating it to her deceased sister Zhenya. A month later - a second entry - under the letter “B”: “Grandmother died on January 25. 3 p.m. 1942.” Hunger killed the Savichevs one after another. In total, Tanya made nine recordings.
Tanya is alone
After the death of all Tanya’s closest relatives in Leningrad, two long and very difficult last years in the girl’s life followed. For several weeks she lived with her grandmother’s niece, who took custody of Tanya, but, due to the tragic events of her own childhood, was not very welcoming. Working one and a half shifts at the factory, the woman left Tanya on the street during her absence from home. In the summer of 1942, my aunt decided to send a girl weakened by hunger, dystrophy and, in addition, suffering from tuberculosis, to an orphanage, as part of the mass evacuation of children from besieged Leningrad, to the village of Shatki. On July 1, 1944, Tanya Savicheva died in a nursing home in Ponetaevka, where she was placed in March of the same year. The medical card stated: “Scurvy, dystrophy, nervous exhaustion, blindness...”. Since the beginning of the siege of Leningrad and during 1942, 430 thousand children were evacuated from the city. Tanya was the only one from her party to die. According to one version, Tanya’s diary was discovered by her sister Nina, returning to Leningrad after the blockade was lifted. The diary is now on display in the Leningrad History Museum. Nina lived in St. Petersburg for the rest of her life and died at the age of 94 in 2013. Brother Mikhail joined a partisan detachment at the beginning of the war, after the war he lived in the Leningrad region, in the city of Slantsy, and died in 1988.
I learned the history of besieged Leningrad as a child from a TV show about Tanya Savicheva. I remember how the story of her fate struck me. The girl lost her family and was left alone... Her story is the story of thousands of children of the besieged city, the tragedy of her family is the tragedy of thousands of families.
Photo from 1938. Tanya Savicheva is 8 years old (3 years before the start of the war).
Photograph in the exhibition of the Museum of the History of Leningrad.
Tanya Savicheva is known for her diary, which she kept in her sister’s notebook. The girl wrote down the dates of death of her relatives on the pages of her diary. These recordings became one of the documents accusing the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials.
The diary is exhibited in the Museum of the History of Leningrad (Rumantsev's mansion on the English Embankment).
On the eve of Victory Day, I visited this museum, the exhibits of which make you mentally relive the horrors of the blockade.
“No one is forgotten! Nothing is forgotten!
Diary of Tanya Savicheva (center).
Copies of pages from the diary are displayed around,
Each one contains the date and time of death of a loved one.
Tanya is the youngest child in the family. She had two brothers - Misha and Leka; two sisters - Zhenya and Nina.
Mother - Maria Ignatievna (nee Fedorova), father - Nikolai Radionovich. In 1910, Tanya’s father and his brothers opened their own bakery on Vasilievsky Island, “Labor Artel of the Savichev Brothers.”
In the 30s, the family enterprise was confiscated “for the just cause of the party,” and the family was expelled from Leningrad to the “101st kilometer.” Only a few years later the Savichevs were able to return to the city, however, remaining in the status of “disenfranchised” they could not obtain a higher education and join the Komsomol. My father became seriously ill and died in 1935 (at the age of 52).
Diary (entries from 1941-1942). Tanya is only 11-12 years old.
When the war began, Tanya was 11 years old. The Savichevs (mother, brothers Leka and Misha, sister Nina) lived in a house on Vasilyevsky Island. On the floor above in the same house lived my father’s brothers: Uncle Vasya and Uncle Lyosha.
The elder sister Zhenya got married and lived separately.
From the story of sister Nina: “Tanya was a golden girl. Curious, with a light, even character. She knew how to listen very well. We told her everything - about work, about sports, about friends.”
The most difficult period of the blockade occurred in the winter of 1941. People were killed by hunger and frost.
Zhenya was the first of the Savichev family to die (at the age of 32). At the funeral, my mother said a sad phrase that turned out to be prophetic “Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?”
“Zhenya died on December 28 at 12 am 1941.”— entry in Tanya’s diary, page starting with the letter “F.”
General view of the exhibition. Photo of Tanya and her diary.
Tanya’s grandmother refused hospitalization, knowing that Leningrad hospitals were overcrowded. “I’ll lie down in the next room,” she said. Grandmother died in the winter of 1942 (at the age of 72).
Grandmother died on January 25 at 3 p.m. 1942.— diary entry starting with the letter “B.”
Tanya's brother Leka worked at the Admiralty plant. Often I had to work two shifts in a row without a break - for 24 hours. In the plant book it is written about him: “Leonid Savichev worked very diligently, and was never late for a shift, although he was exhausted. But one day he didn’t come to the factory. And two days later the workshop was informed that Savichev had died...” He died at the age of 24.
“Leka died on March 17 at 5 a.m.”- Tanya wrote down.
The house where the Savichevs lived, on the Second Line of Vasilyevsky Island, 13/6
Uncle Vasya (56 years old) and Uncle Lesha (71 years old) died in the spring of 1942. They survived the harsh winter, but exhaustion led to fatal diseases.
Uncle Vasya died on April 13 at 2 am.
Uncle Lyosha May 10 at 4 p.m.
Schools reopened in the spring, but classes were canceled in the winter. But Tanya did not return to study; she cared for her sick mother, who died in May 1942 (at the age of 53).
Mom on May 13 at 7.30 a.m. 1942- write on a piece of paper with the letter “M”.
The last entry (copy) “Tanya is the only one left.” Page with letter "O"
Vera, Tanya's friend, told “Tanya knocked on our door this morning. She said that her mother had just died and she was left all alone. She asked me to help transport the body. She was crying and looked very sick."
Vera's mother helped with the "funeral", as she described: “Tanya couldn’t come with us - she was completely weak. I remember the cart bouncing on the paving stones, especially when we walked along Maly Prospekt. The body wrapped in a blanket was leaning to one side, and I supported it. Behind the bridge over Smolenka there was a huge hangar. Corpses were brought there from all over Vasilyevsky Island. We brought the body there and left it. I remember there was a mountain of corpses there. When they entered there, a terrible groan was heard. It was air coming out of the throat of someone dead... I became very scared.”
A memorial plaque to which is attached a stone page with the inscription “only Tanya left.”
Tanya did not know that sister Nina and brother Misha were alive.
The plant where Nina worked was urgently evacuated, Nina could not write to her family, letters did not go to besieged Leningrad.
Misha was considered dead when they learned that his detachment was surrounded by fascists near Pskov.
Stone page “Tanya is the only one left”
Tanya was evacuated from Leningrad in 1942 to the Nizhny Novgorod region (Shatki village). During the years of the blockade, she became very weak, and tuberculosis turned out to be incurable.
Tanya Savicheva died two years after the evacuation in 1944 at the age of 14.
Nurse Anna Zhurkina, who cared for Tanya, recalled:
I remember this girl well. Thin face, wide open eyes. Day and night I did not leave Tanya, but the illness was inexorable, and it snatched her from my hands. I can’t remember this without tears...
This sad composition was created in the Leningrad History Museum. The figure of a girl near a frozen glass shop window.
"Store window." At the bottom of the “showcase” there are old scales with a piece of bread. Glowing letters - a description of the composition of blockade bread, of which 5% is wallpaper dust, 15% is cellulose. The additives were officially approved, resulting in an additional 50 thousand tons of bread.
The norm for the distribution of bread to Leningraders (in grams).
A room from the times of the siege of Leningrad. This is how Tanya Savicheva and thousands of Leningraders lived. In winter, the stoves were heated with books and furniture.
I would like to add that the atmosphere in the museum is very difficult. At first it seemed to me that I was tired due to the stuffiness. The employee suddenly turned to me. She said that it was stuffy in the museum, although the windows were open, there was simply no wind. Then I noticed that the objects of the dead people themselves caused a depressing feeling. “The atmosphere is funeral,” I unexpectedly formulated her thought. The employee agreed. I remembered how one woman who survived the war brought her grandchildren to the museum, but did not go herself. She said she couldn't.
Indeed, the exhibits make you immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the siege for a while and feel the pain of the dying.
In conclusion, poems by S. Smirnov about Tanya Savicheva.
On the banks of the Neva,
In the museum building
I keep a very modest diary.
She wrote it
Savicheva Tanya.
He attracts everyone who comes.
Before him stand villagers, townspeople,
From the old man -
Until a naive boy.
And the written essence of the content
Stunning
Souls and hearts.
This is for everyone living
for edification,
So that everyone understands the essence of phenomena, -
Time
Elevates
Tanya's image
And her authentic diary.
Above any diaries in the world
He rises like a star from the hand.
And they talk about the intensity of life
Forty-two saints of his lines.
Each word contains the capacity of a telegram,
The depth of the subtext
The key to human destiny
The light of the soul, simple and multifaceted,
And almost silence about yourself...
This is a death sentence for murderers
In the silence of the Nuremberg trial.
This is pain that swirls.
This is the heart that flies here...
Time lengthens distances
Between all of us and you.
Stand up before the world
Savicheva Tanya,
With my
An unthinkable fate!
Let it pass from generation to generation
Relay race
She walks
Let him live without knowing aging,
And it says
About our times!
You can see an exhibition of Tanya Savicheva’s diary and other exhibits from the time of the siege in the Museum of the History of Leningrad (Rumantsev Mansion, English Embankment 44). Adult ticket 120 rub.
There were eight children in the family of Nikolai Rodionovich and Maria Ignatievna Savichev, Tanya was the youngest. Only her sister Zhenya and brother Leonid were included in her mournful diary. Two other children, Nina and Mikhail, were considered missing, and three more died in infancy.
Tanya's father, Nikolai Rodionovich, died shortly before the war, in 1936. Even before the revolution, he opened a bakery, bakery and cinema, which brought in a good income. After the Soviet government curtailed the new economic policy, Nikolai Savichev lost his enterprises and was expelled from Leningrad. However, to their misfortune, after some time the family was still able to return to their hometown.
“Zhenya died on December 28. at 12.30 o'clock. morning 1941"
The first victim of the war in the Savichev family was Zhenya, the eldest child of Nikolai Rodionovich and Maria Ignatievna. She was born in 1909, managed to get married and divorced. After marriage, Zhenya left her father’s house on the 2nd line of Vasilyevsky Island and moved to Mokhovaya. She continued to live in the new apartment after the divorce. Here Evgenia Nikolaevna Savicheva died on December 28, 1941.
Zhenya worked in the archives of the Nevsky Machine-Building Plant. She, like hundreds of thousands of other rear workers, accomplished a real feat every day: in this difficult, hungry time, she not only worked overtime (sometimes two shifts in a row), but also donated blood for the Red Army soldiers.
This was one of the reasons for her death in the winter of 1941. Leningrad was hit by severe frosts, which the townspeople had to endure without heating, electricity or public transport. Zhenya, exhausted from work and constant blood donation, covered a 7 km long path from home to the factory twice a day. She walked in the terrible cold and in a blizzard, invariably falling into deep snowdrifts that no one cleared away. Sometimes Zhenya stayed overnight at the plant, but this did not bring her any rest: the eldest of the Savichev children took on an extra shift.
- Wikimedia
Zhenya did not come to work only once, at the very end of December 1941. Her sister Nina, who worked at the same plant as a designer, began to worry. On Sunday morning, December 28, she took time off from her shift and ran to Mokhovaya. Nina Savicheva found her sister already dying.
Zhenya was very afraid that dirt would get into her eyes if she was buried without a coffin, so the Savichevs gave two loaves of bread and cigarettes from their meager supplies to find a coffin and bury Zhenya at the Smolensk cemetery.
On the day of the funeral, Maria Ignatievna Savicheva said over her daughter’s grave: “Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?” On the day of Zhenya’s death, her sister Tanya began her mournful diary. She took Nina's notebook and flipped through the pages where her older sister described the structure of steam boilers. On each sheet of notebook there was a letter of the alphabet. Tanya found the letter “zh” in the empty half of the book and wrote in blue pencil: “Zhenya died on December 28th. at 12.30 o'clock. morning 1941." The short sentence took up the entire page: the girl wrote in large, uneven handwriting, placing one or two words on a line.
“Grandmother died on January 25th. 3 o'clock in the afternoon 1942."
On June 22, 1941, Maria Ignatievna’s mother, Evdokia Grigorievna Fedorova, turned 74 years old. In early January, Tanya’s grandmother was diagnosed with the last degree of nutritional dystrophy. This meant that Evdokia Grigorievna’s weight loss exceeded 30%, and she had no chance of surviving without urgent hospitalization. But she refused the hospital, saying that all the wards were already full. Evdokia Grigorievna died on January 25, 1942, two days after Tanya’s 12th birthday. The exact burial place of Evdokia Grigorievna is unknown - by this time the dead were rarely buried separately, most often they ended up in mass graves. Most likely, Evdokia Grigorievna ended up in one of these graves at the Piskarevskoye cemetery.
Before her death, the grandmother asked not to bury her until the beginning of February - thus, the Savichevs retained Evdokia Grigorievna’s January food card, which could be used to receive food for the few days remaining in January.
People dying during the Leningrad siege often bequeathed their cards to relatives. To stop the distribution of food to the dead, the city authorities introduced additional registration in the middle of each month.
- Wikimedia
On January 25, another entry appeared in Tanya’s diary : “Grandmother died on January 25th. 3 p.m. 1942.” The official date of death of Evdokia Grigorievna Fedorova was February 1, 1942 - the day when her food card expired.
“Leka died on March 17 at 5 o’clock in the morning in 1942.”
Tanya's older brother Leonid (or Leka, as his relatives called him) was the same age as the revolution and had a corresponding character. He rushed to the military registration and enlistment office immediately after he learned about the start of the war, but he was not taken to the front - his myopia was too severe. And in the rear, Leonid was much more useful: the eldest son in the Savichev family was a talented engineer. If it were not for his father’s exile, he could have received a higher education and achieved success in his chosen field, but the son of the “dispossessed” was allowed to graduate only from a factory school. According to the memoirs of Nina Savicheva, Leonid once made a receiver and promised his sister that someday she would be able to sit at home and watch performances from any theater in the world. Nina actually lived to see this time.
In addition, the young man was musically gifted. The Savichev family encouraged music lessons, so Leonid and his friends even had their own string orchestra. Perhaps this hobby would have grown into something more if not for the siege of Leningrad.
- Wikimedia
The fate of Leonid largely repeats the fate of Zhenya Savicheva. Also a factory, also grueling work, never ending day or night. At his native Admiralty plant, young Savichev was highly valued: the young man was not only capable, but also diligent and efficient. Like his sister Zhenya, he did not come to work only once - on the day when he ended up in a factory hospital with dystrophy. The younger sister, making mistakes in her diary out of grief and weakness, will write: “Leka died on March 17 at 5 o’clock in the morning in 1942.” Leonid Savichev was only 24 years old.
“Uncle Vasya died on April 13, 2 a.m. 1942.”
Tanya's father, Nikolai Rodionovich, had five brothers and a sister. Three brothers lived in the same house on the 2nd line of Vasilievsky Island, but on a higher floor. Two of them - Vasily and Alexey - survived to see the war. During the difficult times of blockade, all the Savichevs decided to live in the same apartment to help each other.
In 1941, Vasily Savichev was 56 years old. During the First World War, he fought and received a military award, then, together with his brothers, he ran a bakery. After the Savichevs’ enterprise was closed, he became the director of the “Bukinist” store, where he worked until the end of his days.
Vasily Savichev, like his nephew Leonid, aspired to go to the front, but, despite his combat experience, he was not accepted as a volunteer due to his age.
Uncle Vasya, like other family members, adored little Tanya. In the terrible winter of 1941-1942, he lit the stove with his library, but did not touch one book, “Myths of Ancient Greece” - he gave it to his niece. “Uncle Vasya died on April 13, 2 a.m. 1942,” Tanya will write, confusing prepositions and cases. By an evil irony of fate, it was at this time that hope began to glimmer in the souls of Leningraders: the bread quota was increased, bathhouses were opened, and trams began to operate.
“Uncle Lyosha May 10 at 4 pm 1942.”
Alexey Savichev was much older than his brothers Nikolai and Vasily - by the beginning of the war he was 71 years old. Despite his advanced age, Alexey Rodionovich wanted to be in combat ranks. Of course, he was not accepted as a volunteer for the front.
Alexey Savichev did the same work as the rest, much younger members of the family. He built barricades, dug trenches, and was on duty on rooftops. Like thousands of other Leningraders, he died from the last stage of dystrophy. In the entry about the death of Uncle Lyosha, the exhausted, seriously ill and completely exhausted Tanya missed the word “died”. It probably became unbearable for the child, exhausted by suffering.
“Mom on May 13 at 7.30 a.m. 1942.”
In the spring of 1942, Maria Ignatievna was already seriously ill with scurvy. Tanya ran to the market, tried to get onions for her mother - the girl did not believe that her always kind, strong and resilient mother could die and leave her alone. But Maria Ignatievna herself understood that this would soon happen, and after her death she ordered her daughter to go to a distant relative, Aunt Dusya.
- RIA Novosti
After the collapse of her husband’s enterprises, Maria Ignatievna began working at the May 1 Sewing Artel, where she soon became the best embroiderer. She loved music very much. The house had a wide variety of instruments, from banjos to pianos, and the Savichevs organized home concerts. The boys, Mikhail and Leonid, played, the girls, Nina and Tanya, sang. With the war, all entertainment ended: Maria Ignatievna began sewing uniforms for front-line soldiers and going on defensive duty.
The entry about the death of my beloved mother is the most confusing in the diary. Tanya again misses the word “died” and gets confused with prepositions. On May 13, 1942, broken down by scurvy, dystrophy and tuberculosis, Tanya Savicheva left her home. For one day, she was sheltered by her neighbors - the Nikolaenko family. They buried Maria Ignatievna.
“The Savichevs died. Everyone died"
Tanya knew nothing about the fate of her sister Nina and brother Mikhail. Nina disappeared on the last day of winter 1942. She worked with Zhenya, and the path from the factory to home was just as difficult for her. Nina increasingly spent the night at work, and on February 28 she disappeared. That day there was heavy shelling in the city, and Nina’s relatives considered her dead. In fact, the girl found herself in evacuation: the entire plant was urgently sent across Lake Ladoga, and she did not have time to send a message to her family. Nina was ill for a long time, then she worked in the Kalinin region and could not find out anything about her family - letters did not reach besieged Leningrad. But the girl did not stop writing and waiting that one fine day the answer would come.
- RIA Novosti
Nina Nikolaevna Savicheva returned to Leningrad in August 1945. The war had already ended, but it was still very difficult to get into the city legally, so Nina was “smuggled” in a truck. Only then did she find out what happened to her family.
Mikhail was the only member of the Savichev family who did not end up in the blockade. The day before the start of the war, he left for Kingisepp. Mikhail found himself in German-occupied territory and went into the forest to join the partisans. He fought for a long time, until January 1944. After being seriously wounded, he was sent to liberated Leningrad. The war left him disabled; he walked on crutches. Returning to his hometown, Mikhail began making inquiries about his relatives. He managed to find out everything about the fate of his family before Nina. Having learned that none of his relatives were in Leningrad anymore, he left the city forever and moved to Slantsy, in the Leningrad region. He got a job at the post office, where he worked all his life.
“Only Tanya remains”
Tanya could not bury her mother - she was too weak. The neighbors’ daughter Vera recalls Maria Ignatievna’s final journey this way:
“Behind the bridge over Smolenka there was a huge hangar. Corpses were brought there from all over Vasilyevsky Island. We brought the body there and left it. I remember there was a mountain of corpses there. When they entered there, a terrible groan was heard. It was air coming out of the throat of someone dead... I became very scared.”
The next morning, Tanya, taking all the valuables from the house, went to Aunt Dusya. Evdokia Petrovna Arsenyeva was the niece of Tanya’s grandmother. A difficult childhood made her withdrawn and unsociable, but she took Tanya in with her. Evdokia Petrovna transported many of the Savichevs’ things for safekeeping and tried to get Tanya out. But in vain. The only chance of salvation for the girl was evacuation and urgent medical care. Evdokia Petrovna relieved herself of guardianship and placed Tanya in orphanage No. 48.
In the Gorky region, children were released. 125 young passengers arrived in the village of Krasny Bor, 124 of them survived the war. Only Tanya Savicheva died.
- RIA Novosti
Almost all the children suffered from the consequences of a severe hunger strike, but did not suffer from infectious diseases. Of the 125 people, three suffered from scabies, one from stomatitis, but these ailments were not considered fatal. Only Tanya Savicheva turned out to be a seriously ill child: in childhood she had spinal tuberculosis, which again made itself felt.
The girl was isolated from other children; only one person could be near her - nurse Nina Mikhailovna Seredkina. From the outside it might seem that Tanya was recovering - she gradually began to walk with crutches, and then began to do without them altogether, holding on to the wall. But in fact, the disease only progressed. In May 1944, Tanya Savicheva was transferred to the Shatkovo regional hospital, from where she was never destined to leave.
“I remember this girl well,” recalls Shatkovo Hospital nurse Anna Zhurkina. - Thin face, wide open eyes. Day and night I did not leave Tanya’s side, but the illness was inexorable, and it snatched her from my hands. I can’t remember this without tears..."
This happened on July 1, 1944. Short entry, “Savicheva T.N. Ponetaevka. Intestinal tuberculosis. She died on 07/01/44,” and an abandoned grave is all that remains after the death of Tanya Savicheva. Only many years later, her diary will spread throughout the world, her image will be recreated in monuments, and her grave will be discovered.
She never grew up
There is a legend that Tanya Savicheva’s diary was used during the Nuremberg trials as one of the main prosecution documents, but this is unlikely to be true: all documents from the Nuremberg trials are stored in a special archive, and Tanya Savicheva’s diary is exhibited in the Museum of the History of Leningrad. But unofficially, it did become one of the main indictments of World War II. It is tearfully remembered in the same way as Anne Frank's diary or Sadako Sasaki's cranes. The memory of Tanya Savicheva’s diary is perpetuated so that no one forgets about the hundreds of thousands of children who were deprived of the right to become adults.
