Senior Sergeant Moiseev. Gloomy afternoon XXI century. One day I found my husband and lost my daughter

Children's faces of the non-childish war August 20th, 2015

Children in Stalingrad are hiding from bombing German planes. 1942

War, as you know, has a face that is not at all childish. But the war spares no one, not adults, no children. Let's look at the faces of the children on whom the war has walked with its heavy tread. There is something in their eyes that usually only happens in adults who have seen a lot in their lives. The lives of these children, children of war, were not easy. Their faces from old photographs speak without words.

The commander of the rifle battalion, Major V. Romanenko (in the center), tells the Yugoslav partisans and residents of the village of Starchevo (in the Belgrade region) about the military affairs of the young intelligence officer - Corporal Vitya Zhaivoronka. October 1944 Yugoslavia.

Commander of the torpedo boat brigade of the Northern Fleet A.V. Kuzmin presents the cabin boy Sasha Kovalev (01/04/1927 - 05/09/1944) with the Order of the Red Star. 05/01/1944.

A group of officers of the 8th Guards Mechanized Brigade of the 3rd Stalingrad Mechanized Corps with the son of the regiment.

13-year-old partisan intelligence officer Fedya Moshchev. October 1942

Young of the guards cruiser of the Black Sea Fleet of project 815 “Red Caucasus”.

The son of the regiment, Volodya Tarnovsky, with his comrades in Berlin.

Son of the regiment Pyotr Korolev (1930-1998). 1945

Young partisan Vladimir Ivanovich Bebekh from the Chernigov detachment named after Stalin, commander Nikolai Popudrenko. 1943 Chernigov region, Ukraine.

Son of the regiment. On the chest are the insignia “Guard” and “Excellent Mortarman”.

Soviet teenage partisan Kolya Lyubichev from the partisan unit A.F. Fedorov with a captured German 9-mm MP-38 submachine gun in a winter forest. 1943

Portrait of 15-year-old partisan reconnaissance Misha Petrov from the Stalin detachment with a captured German 9-mm MP-38 submachine gun. The fighter is belted with a Wehrmacht soldier's belt, and behind his boot is a Soviet anti-personnel grenade RGD-33. Belarus, 1943

Young partisan reconnaissance Tolya Gorokhovsky. 1943

Two partisans from the Bryansk region. 1943

Partisan reconnaissance officer of the Chernigov formation “For the Motherland” Vasily Borovik against a background of trees.

Liberated children from the Auschwitz concentration camp. January 1945

Soviet soldiers communicate with children liberated from Auschwitz. Poland. January 1945

Liberated children, prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp (Auschwitz) show camp numbers tattooed on their arms. Brzezinka, Poland. February 1945

Children from an orphanage, orphans who lost their parents in the war. Some of these children were themselves prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. Malaya Lepetikha village, Velikolepetikha district, Kherson region. 1949.

Liberated children of Salaspils. 1944

A boy of about seven years old at the site of the last battle, near the exploded Soviet T-34-85 tank. Two more of the same tanks are visible behind.

Children on a Soviet T-34-76 tank abandoned near the bridge. The photo was not taken earlier than the fall of 1942, since the tank is equipped with a “nut” turret, which began to be installed from that time on.

Soviet children playing on an abandoned German Pz.Kpfw tank. V Ausf. D "Panther" in Kharkov. September 1943.

A Soviet teenager sits near the barrel of an artillery piece abandoned during the German retreat.

Soviet soldiers with a teenager (possibly the “son of the regiment”) in the liberated Czech village of Tsotkitla. 1945

Son of a partisan. Belarus. 1944

Schoolchildren from liberated Gzhatsk (now the city of Gagarin) show German “ersatz felt boots” to the Red Army soldiers. Smolensk region. March 1943

Soviet children in the middle of a destroyed village. 1942

Kitten on the ashes of the city of Zhizdra, Kaluga region, August 1943. Before the retreat, the invaders systematically destroyed the city for two weeks, burning it quarterly. Stone churches and houses were blown up. As a result, the city was completely destroyed. Wells were also poisoned, roads, sidewalks and vegetable gardens were mined. Able-bodied urban youth were forcibly sent to Germany. From the memoirs of the author of the photograph, M. Savin: “In this small town of Zhizdra after the fighting, I did not find anyone alive except this wounded cat.”

Civilians with children at a rally in Smolensk liberated from German troops. September 1943

“The Nazis kidnapped everyone.” Senior Sergeant Moiseev, commander of a separate artillery reconnaissance unit of the 2nd division of the 4th battery of the 308th regiment, feeds the two-year-old girl Valya, whom he found in one of the empty huts in the village of Izvekovo. Smolensk region, Vyazemsky district, 1.

Poet E.A. Dolmatovsky and Soviet children.

An unknown Red Army soldier talks with ten-year-old Volodya Lukin, whose parents were driven to Germany by the Germans. Having lost his home, the boy froze his feet. 2nd Baltic Front. 1944

Leningrad schoolboy Andrei Novikov gives an air raid signal.

Children from Leningrad orphanage No. 38.

A crippled teenager in besieged Leningrad.

Ten-year-old Polish girl Kazimiera Mika mourns her sister, who was killed by German machine gun fire in a field outside Warsaw.

Pskov priest Fyodor Puzanov with his parishioners at the church. 1943

Hero of the Soviet Union Guard Major Nikolai Pinchuk on his native collective farm. July-August 1945

Red Army soldier Ivan Kuznetsov arrived in his native village of Beldyashki, Oryol region. 1945

Pioneers Tanya Kostrova and Manya Mikheeva look after a mass grave in a village liberated from the Germans. 1942

It is impossible to look at these images with a cold heart... Today, when the topic of war has become more relevant than ever, we want to present photographs that once again prove: in war it is always the most innocent who suffer...

Students of the 3rd grade of girls' school No. 216 in the Kuibyshevsky district of Leningrad are preparing pouches as gifts for front-line soldiers. 1943.

Boys collecting trophies from the Sineokovsky farm (Stalingrad Region). From left to right: Serezha Zemlyansky, Shura Velichenko, Shura Ivashchenko and Volodya Polomarshchuk. Stalingrad region. February 1943, Budapest, Hungary. Author: Evgeny Khaldey. Source of information about the photo: tos-sineok.livejournal.com" src="http://www.rosphoto.com/images/u/articles/1405/897.had0k1y2rmgc8w4ogkk8so0s.ejcuplo1l0oo0sk8c40s8osc4.th.jpg" style="height:530px ; width:740px" title="Boys collecting trophies from the Sineokovsky farm (Stalingrad Region). From left to right: Seryozha Zemlyansky, Shura Velichenko, Shura Ivashchenko and Volodya Polomarshchuk. Stalingrad Region. February 1943, Budapest, Hungary.

A Soviet boy in a liberated village shows a comrade the German Iron Cross found during field work. Southwestern Front. June-July 1942. Author: Natalya Bode" src="http://www.rosphoto.com/images/u/articles/1405/bode_gk_deti_1942_2.78je66iomuwww8owc80goc4s8.ejcuplo1l0oo0sk8c40s8osc4.th.jpg" style="height:490px; width:740px" title="A Soviet boy in a liberated village shows a comrade the German Iron Cross found during field work. Southwestern Front. June-July 1942.

A German soldier treated a Russian boy to bread. Somewhere in the forests near Volkhov during the Volkhov Cauldron. Photo from the album of German photographer Georg Gundlach “Battle of Volkhov. Documents of Horror: 1941–1942." Time taken: 1942

Jewish, Polish and Ukrainian women and children locked in a greenhouse awaiting their fate. They were shot by the Germans the next day. In total, at the end of August 1941, 700 civilians, including women and children, were shot near the House of the Red Army in Novograd-Volynsk. " src="http://www.rosphoto.com/images/u/articles/1405/swiahel_negativ22.e4djgbco0bsosc0ks4ocw84gg.ejcuplo1l0oo0sk8c40s8osc4.th.jpg" style="height:488px; width:740px" title="Jewish, Polish and Ukrainian women and children locked in a greenhouse awaiting their fate. They were shot by the Germans the next day. Just at the end of August 1941 at the House of the Red Army Novograd-Volynsk they were shot 700 civilians, including women and children.">!}

Children on a Soviet T-34-76 tank abandoned near the bridge. The photo was not taken earlier than the fall of 1942, since the tank is equipped with a “nut” turret, which began to be installed from that time on.

Senior Sergeant Moiseev feeds a child in a liberated village. Author's title of the photograph: “The Nazis stole everyone away.” Senior Sergeant Moiseev, commander of a separate artillery reconnaissance unit of the 2nd division of the 4th battery of the 308th regiment, feeds the two-year-old girl Valya, whom he found in one of the empty huts in the village of Izvekovo. Source of information about the photo: ursa-tm.ru

Sergeant S. Weinshenker and Technical Sergeant William Topps with the son of the 169th Special Purpose Air Base Regiment. Name unknown, age - 10 years old, served as an assistant weapons technician. Poltava airfield." src="http://www.rosphoto.com/images/u/articles/1405/20090704_son1.3b6og7970lescgck08gk8ckwo.ejcuplo1l0oo0sk8c40s8osc4.th.jpg" style="height:512px; width:740px" title="Sergeant S. Weinshenker and Technical Sergeant William Topps with the son of the 169th Special Purpose Air Base Regiment. Name unknown, age - 10 years old, served as an assistant weapons technician. Poltava airfield.">!}

FROM THE NEWSPAPER OF THE NOVODUGINSKY DISTRICT “RURAL DAWNS” 02/23/1984

April 14, 1983 at "Working Path" A photograph of front-line correspondent Viktor Kinelovsky was published - a Soviet machine gunner in an army sheepskin coat feeding a girl wrapped in a blanket from a soldier's bowler.

"Help me find it"- that was the title of G. Ivanov’s note, briefly telling about the photograph. The photograph was taken in March 1943 in the village of Izvekovo (now Novoduginsky district), liberated from the fascist invaders.

And now we can tell the story of the heroes of this photograph. First - about the events of that time, and then - about the history of the double search.

It was the spring of 1943, on March 2, the Rzhev-Vyazemsky offensive operation of the troops of the Kalinin and Western Fronts began with the goal of destroying the enemy group on the Rzhev-Vyazemsky bridgehead.

On the same day, from the area of ​​​​the village of Khlepen, from a bridgehead on the western bank of Vazuza in the southwestern Sychevsky direction and further to Lipetsy - Izvekovo - Grigorievskoye - Khmelita, they went on the offensive troops of the 31st Army , commanded by Major General V.A. Gluzdovsky, and included the 308th Artillery Regiment.

Severe spring thaw and difficult conditions in the wooded and swampy terrain, the enemy's widespread use of various obstacles and the use of pre-prepared positions slowed down the pace of the offensive. Fulfilling Hitler's orders, the enemy turned the abandoned bridgehead into " desert zone": settlements were burned, residents were driven away, bridges were blown up, roads were mined, food and fuel supplies were destroyed.

However, Soviet troops, overcoming stubborn enemy resistance, shot down enemy rearguard units, forestalled the enemy in occupying advantageous defensive lines and prevented the deportation of Soviet people to Germany.

Having liberated the city of Sychevka on March 8 and Novodugino on March 10, the troops of the 31st Army, including the 308th Artillery Regiment, cleared the half-broken, half-burnt, and plundered villages of Babniki, Makariki, Tyukhovo, Pustoshka, Kuzhnino, Ivaniki, Kulementyevo from the enemy, Zhukovo, Novoduginsky district and went to the village of Izvekovo, where, out of 53 houses, only a few huts and a small church remained. The Germans either killed the villagers or drove them into slavery, and some may have taken refuge in the forests. Empty.

Here, the commander of the reconnaissance department of the 2nd division of the 308th artillery regiment, senior sergeant Valentin Aleksandrovich Moiseev, dropped into one of the surviving houses after the enemy was expelled. There were no adults in the house, things were scattered. But, looking around, he saw a very tiny girl at the table leg in the corner, and at the first moment he mistook her for a doll. But it turned out to be a miraculously surviving little girl of about two years. He wrapped her in something that came to his hand like a blanket. Frightened by the battle, dumbfounded, at first she could not utter a word. The soldiers surrounding them said:

Come on, Valentin, let's call her by your name - Valya.

And then she babbled the name. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's her real name that she remembered.

The sergeant carried her out of the house into the March sun, and at that moment a front-line photojournalist appeared here. Izvestia“Viktor Kinelovsky, who could not pass by such a scene moving the soul and heart and took several photographs of Sergeant V.A. Moiseev and Valya, including a photograph of the moment when he feeds her near the house from a soldier’s cauldron, sitting on a charred bed. On the back of the photographs he noted: “ Izvekovo, northwest of Vyazma - Sergeant Moiseev, 308th artillery regiment" With this mark they ended up in the archive of film and photo documents.

There was not a single living soul in Izvekovo, there was no one to hand over the girl, so the artillerymen sheltered Valya in their battery, where she stayed for about 3 days. She began to get used to " father", smile, everyone at the battery was worried about her, even the stern commander Captain Zharikov (is he somewhere?). But war is war. Front roads led the fighters to the west. Valya was handed over first to doctors, and then to the Smolensk (front-line) evacuation point, which was engaged in the evacuation of children left homeless and parents, lonely old people, as well as wounded civilians from the front line and liberated areas to the east.

At this point, their connection was interrupted... But wherever the front-line soldier was, he remembered the girl for the rest of his life, thinking about her often both during the war and after: how did her fate turn out?

Valentin Aleksandrovich fought the Patriotic War from Moscow to Nazi Germany. At the front he joined the party. For military exploits he was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the medal " For courage"and other medals. Wounded twice. Before the Patriotic War, he already had combat experience - he participated in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, in the Finnish campaign, and the liberation of Bessarabia. He himself is from Novosibirsk. But, having been demobilized, he came to live in Kaluga, where one day, after being seriously wounded, he was in the hospital, where he left his beloved Masha. He got married, worked as a mechanic at the Kaluga Turbine Plant, had a son, Sasha, but the thought of Valya did not leave him. He tried several times to look for his own “ goddaughter", but in vain...

And then one day in June 1961, his sixteen-year-old son Sasha came home with the newspaper “ News" in his hands and says to his father:

Isn't it you, dad, they're looking for?

The veteran looked at the photo and read the text of the note: “ Where are you, Senior Sergeant Moiseev?", which said: " Where are you, the soldier who saved the girl Valya, good Russian man? Respond if the war spared you and you survived!" Tears involuntarily appeared in my eyes. My memory immediately came back: the spring of 1943, the Smolensk region, front-line friends from the artillery regiment, the battles for Izvekovo and a tiny child - alone in an empty house...

And this note and photo appeared in “ Izvestia” like this: while sorting through the war relics dear to his heart, photojournalist V. Kinelovsky stopped at a photograph of a sergeant and a girl. He wanted to know where the soldier who saved the baby was now. This is how the first note appeared. Two months later in Izvestia"A second correspondence appeared - " It was near Vyazma”, which reported that Valentin Aleksandrovich Moiseev was alive, well, and working in the city of Kaluga. But Vali’s fate remained unknown.

Editors of the newspaper " News" and magazine " Soviet Union"turned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR for help. Passport department workers led by Major Valentina Fedorovna Yudaeva joined the search. Criminologists also got involved:

The search lasted five years. After all, more than 1,800 girls named Valya were evacuated from the Western Front, having lost their parents. Those most similar in age, time and circumstances of evacuation were photographed. When in Moscow V. A. Moiseev was shown photographs of two young girls, he immediately recognized Valya. That's how they found her.

What happened to her after the evacuation? After she was transferred to the evacuation point, she was transported to the Urals, to the Perm region, where she was raised first in Okhansky and then in other orphanages, where she was given the surname Zhukova and patronymic Georgievna in honor of Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov.

When she grew up, she graduated from school, then from the Kungur Art Stone-Cutting School, and worked as a foreman at the famous Perm plant “ Russian gems”, and in 1965 she moved to Donetsk, where she still works in one of the city’s organizations. In August 1966, the first post-war meeting of V. A. Moiseev and his rescued daughter V. G. Zhukova took place in Kaluga. Yes, yes, during meetings and telephone conversations Valentin Aleksandrovich told everyone this: “ My daughter has arrived" She then spent several days with the Moiseev family. Then there were more meetings.

They were going to visit the Smolensk region, but circumstances did not allow it.

Now Valya has two children. She really wants to know if any of her relatives are still alive. Maybe someone will recognize themselves by her facial features. We need to help her with this.

When I saw in " Working way"a photograph of a soldier with a bowler hat and a little girl on his lap, then I began to strain my memory and, in the end, I remembered that I had seen such a photograph in one of the military history books, found it, and then in my archive I found a clipping from " Izvestia", which is mentioned above. The thread stretched further, but not as quickly as this tale says. That's how I ended up in Kaluga. I found, not without difficulty, the address of the Moiseevs I needed. I met with Maria Ivanovna, the wife of Valentin Alexandrovich. She told me, showed me the necessary documents and materials, on the basis of which this essay was written. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to meet with V. A. Moiseev - he died in 1978.

This is the brief history of a photograph taken forty years ago, the story of two people.

* * * * *

Additional Information:

Kinelovsky Viktor Sergeevich (1899-1979)

Born in 1899. Soviet photojournalist. In the mid-1920s he graduated from the workers' faculty. He worked as a typesetter in a printing house. Having mastered photography, he began publishing photographs in newspapers. In 1931 he was hired as a photojournalist for the magazine " USSR at a construction site", later worked for a magazine" Soviet Union"During the Great Patriotic War he became a newspaper correspondent." Frontline illustration", at the same time a correspondent for the Sovinformburo. Photographed the battles near Moscow, in the Kalinin and Kursk directions. In the post-war period, he worked in the TASS photo chronicle. Laureate and prize-winner of all-Union art photography exhibitions. Died in 1979. Buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow (Closed columbarium, section 4 , row 2).