VISIT TO LENINGRAD
"A Strange And Moving Experience"
| From a recent BBC talk by |
ALEXANDER
WERTH
T is for me one of the strangest and most moving experiences to be in Leningrad to-day, to be sending this despatch to you from Leningrad. The last time I was here I was a school boy, and the place was still called Petrograd. As I went for a walk this morning along the Neva embankment, the most beautiful and most majestic waterfront in the world, everything seemed much the same as in those distant days. In a square facing the Neva stands the statue of Suvorov, clad according to the sculptural fashion of the time in Roman armour. I asked somebody why it hadn’t been sandbagged like Peter’s famous equestrian statue and most of the other valuable statues. I was told that soldiers of the Leningrad front liked to come into the city and see their national hero. Yesterday, shells were bursting occasionally and whining overhead. A little boy in the street remarked to me, "If they’re whining it’s all right. It means they’re high up. When they start sizzling you've got to be careful." I'd like to teli you something of this Leningrad of to-day. Never mind about old St. Petersburg. The buildings are there, but it’s gone for ever. The calm, clear, classical austerity of those 18th century and early 19th century buildings have acquired a new significance. They’re like a part of that strength of character, that spiritual greatness of Leningrad’s people, a greatness which has perhaps no parallel in the whole of human history. For Leningrad to-day isn’t what it was two years ago, or even one year ago. Yesterday, the Germans fired 1500 shells into Leningrad. But everybody’s attitude was, "This is our last remaining hardship, and it’s small compared with what we’ve gone through. We're sitting pretty now. They can do all the shelling they want: it won’t get them anywhere." Casualties Every Day Yes, there are killed and wounded in Leningrad every day, but not as many as you might expect. People have learned to dodge the shells, strange as |
it seems. The first quite unexpected shells are the most dangerous. Sometimes the first shell hits a tram-car full of people, and that’s horrible. But generally, people have a. rough idea which way the shells are coming after the first two or three have landed. Even so, this shelling is a great ordeal. I have spent several days here now, and I could talk to you fér hours about what .Leningrad’s people have gone through since the end of August, 1941, when like a tidal wave, Hitler’s triumphant armies were sweeping on towards Russia’s old capital. When the Mayor of Leningrad and Marshal Voroshilov issued their grave warning to Leningrad’s people that the city was in danger, thousands and ‘thousands of workers abandoned their factories and went into what-we might call Home Guard Divisions. For weeks these divisions fought one of the greatest rearguard actions in history, while behind them 400,000 men, women and children dug hundreds of miles of trenches. anti-tank ditches and fortifications. For weeks they built them, and when the enemy reached the gates of Leningrad, he was out of breath, and when on his last lap, he stormed the city, he failed. Thanks to these super-human efforts, Leningrad was saved in the nick of time. * What the Blockade Meant Then came the grim second phase, when Hitler announced that the city would be starved into surrender. For four months Leningrad lived through something no city its size had ever lived through. Most of the food reserves had been destroyed by bombs. There was no fuel, no water supply, no light. Food was limited to half a pound of bread for those doing hard work, and a quarter of a pound for everybody else. And it
wasn’t real bread at that. From 30 to 40 per cent was substitute, with little or no food value. People died daily, but they died calmly, without fuss. Across the snow-drifts, loaves of this inferior bread were dragged by sledges drawn by hand to the distributing centres, There wasn’t a single case of these bread sledges being attacked by the starving people. Such was the discipline. The manager of a factory I visited told me of a typical scene of those days. An elderly workman staggered into his room one morning and said "I’m not very strong. I know I’m going to die to-morrow. My wife is in a poor way, and she wouldn’t have the strength to bury me. You’ve been a friend for many years. Would you send her a coffin so that she hasn’t the extra bother?" Their Faith Never Faltered Even then, people never believed that Leningrad would fall; something would happen. The German rout. outside Moscow convinced them that a solution to a seemingly insoluble problem would be found; but people continued to die. Yesterday I went to a school in the most shelled area of Leningrad. It had had fowr direct hits, but it had never ceased functioning. Only recently, a shell killed one of the women teachers in the yard outside. The children to-day are well fed, cheerful, and superbly tough. But several times I asked "Where’s your father?" and many times I received the reply "He died during the famine." Since then, I have stopped asking that question. But it will be years before the full story of all that Leningrad lived through during these four months _ will be told. The Mayor of Leningrad, when I asked him whether the famous Leningrad documentary film wasn’t an understatement of the city’s ordeal, said "Yes, I suppose so. Our cameramen started filming Leningrad systematically only after the worst was over." No doubt under the influence of hunger, many people began to fall to pieces, but the authorities did everything to keep up their morale. Operetta played by hungry singers to hungry audiences, never ceased to function. Writers and painters who began to brood and despair, were given jobs to do. "It will make tex feel better," said the Mayor. City Becomes a Fortress And so the city survived, and meanwhile, the army and volunteers continued to build a ring of fortifications round Leningrad, better and stronger fortifications every day. ‘The soldiers weren’t well clad either. They received less than a pound of bread a day in that ‘grim winter, and many tried to share it with the population, though this wasn’t encouraged. No sector of the Russian front has such concentration of firing-power per mile. I’ve seen hundreds of powerful block houses and gun emplacements everywhere. The ground floor of every house is a fortress. As somebody remarked, Hitler will sooner get into Paradise than into Leningrad. Yet there are places where the Germans (continued on next page)
(continued from previous page) are barely three miles outside the city. From Leningrad’s harbour I can clearly see German positions without field glasses. From an observation post, I could watch them making a_ white smoke-screen in order to conceal their batteries, and then they started firing. The Russian’ batteries immediately answered back, firing across the bay towards the white building of the Leningrad Typewriter Factory, which is one of the principal German strongpoints. In peacetime you could go there by tramcar in a few minutes. But the Germans can’t concentrate very large artillery forces for shelling Leningrad. They tried it a few weeks ago, and for three days Leningrad went through some of its worst shelling. But the Russian Air Force then replied with a tremendous mass raid on the German positions, and for a fortnight after that, hardly any shells fell. A great munitions factory is within two or three miles of the German lines. You have to be incredibly hardened to do war work there day after day, and thousands. of women and young girls with a relatively smaller number of men, are working there right under the Germans’ noses. The works are, as it were, de-centralised; lathes and machinery and the people working on them are split up into small groups, so that a direct hit shouldn’t kill too many people at once. Well, women and young girls are working there in smithies and foundries, heaving lumps of red-hot, iron; work never done by women _ before. These people aren’t cheerful-there’s a nervous strain on their faces; there’s natred in their tired eyes-hatred against the Germans. This hatred keeps them going, and they are determined to stay on at the Works and not look for a safer job. Yet they’ve all seen terrible things. ; Rest And Relexation The other day I went to an island on the north side of Leningrad where among the autumn trees are many stone villas which once belonged to the rich people of Petrograd. Now a dozen of them have been turned into rest homes for young lads and girls. Those who are run down
spend from time to time a fortnight there, eating especially well and going in for sports, dancing and recreation. They were happy, those kids of 15 and 16. At one villa the boys were playing outdoor games, and in another, the girls were dancing in a sumptuous ballroom. One bright girl told me how she and several other kids captured two German parachutists in the summer of °41. To-day, apart from the: shelling, Leningrad is living almost a normal life. Since the blockade was broken last February, things have become much easier. Last night I was received by the Mayor at the famous Smolvy Institute, the girls’ high school which became Lenin’s headquarters in 1917. He explained in detail how, sfter the rupture of the blockade, a railway was built from Schusselburg in 22 days, and how along this railway Leningrad now received everything it needed-food, munitions, and’ coal. There’s light and water in all the houses now, but Leningrad still tries to be self-supporting. Thousands of women are cutting timber on the other side of Lake Ladoga so that the city won't be cold this winter,’ and the city is producing enough vegetables to feed not only itself but also to supply the whole Leningrad front arniy. It’s all done scientifically with the greatest care. A gigantic effort was required to put the water supply and light into perfect working order. Houses are being patched up as soon as they are hit. Ply wood is put into broken’ windows immediately. Children, for whom every sacrifice was made during the terrible famine months, are given the greatest care and exceptionally good food, and nearly all children spend the summer in_ the country. « f Although there is only a fraction of the original popuiation living in Leningrad now, the city is very much alive. On Sundays the famous Nevsky Prospect is crowded, and Leningrad women are much more smartly dressed than the women of Moscow. Theatres are crowded, and all the shows I went to are gay and frivolous. It’s right that it should be so. You need to relax in a place like Leningrad.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 8
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1,843VISIT TO LENINGRAD New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 8
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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