|
By RT Documentaries
from RTD
Monday, Feb 15, 2021
In 1982, I visited Leningrad (now St Petersburg) for the first time. While there, I joined a group of people who were taken to a memorial site at the edge of the city. It was a graveyard, with 24 mass graves filled with the remains of some 10,000 souls who died - of starvation - during the siege.
There is an eternal flame and an honour guard who keep vigil each and every day.
Among the crowd were a large number of Soviet citizens who were placing flowers on whatever mound they had chosen to believe held their relatives and friends - they couldn't really know, because only the number of bodies were counted, not their names. But these citizens - mostly, but not all, elderly - were tenderly placing their flowers while openly weeping.
At no time in my life have I ever felt more like an intruder. But at the same time, I knew this is a scene that everyone should be forced to watch. That was nearly 40 years ago and its memory still burns strongly in my soul.
- prh, ed.
Leningrad blockade victims share stories of starvation, death, and survival
Lidia Sudina's life was changed forever when her carefree summer was interrupted by the horrors of World War Two. Her diary bears witness to the bombs, the starvation, and the other horrors that she lived through during the siege of Leningrad. Dmitry Buchkin has his own personal account of the events, but his is recorded in sketches. Hear their firsthand accounts of the terror, trauma and ultimate triumph that characterized the siege of Russia's heroic northern capital.
|
 Print This
|
Print This 