As a volunteer working with the Red Army as they fought their bloody battles against Nazi Germany in Kharkov in eastern Ukraine, 99-year-old Livdmila Lishtvanonva will take unexploded ordnance and ammunition with her bare hands to help clear the streets for warring men and women. . “Even from the roofs of buildings,” she recalls with a smile. “We fought for our land.
Eight decades ago, as it is today, Kharkov was the site of fierce battles in which many lives were lost, and Lishtvanonva says she and her mother, a nurse, had to leave their hometown and return to the village. in its suburbs after his apartment was destroyed by bombing.
Lishtvanonva complains that the last two months, especially the sounds and sights of the shelling, have led to such invading memories. This weekend, as Ukraine quietly celebrates a day of remembrance and reconciliation and Russia prepares for the noisier Victory Day in honor of the defeat of Nazi Germany, these thoughts are even more touching.
But now there are new memories.
From the window of his sparsely decorated room at a nursing home in Kyiv’s Chayki village on the western outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, near the now infamous and devastated cities of Irpin and Bucha, Lishtvanonva watched a neighboring business center go on fire just a few weeks ago from a rocket.
Like the other 160 residents of the home, she spent days in its dusty and dark basement in the midst of battle and later had to be evacuated downtown when Russian soldiers climbed over a perimeter fence on March 8 to fire. its drones from its leafy soil.
The basement where residents took refuge during Russia’s initial attack on Kyiv in a nursing home in the village of Chaiki. Photo: Alexey Furman / Getty Images
“We had a problem with garbage because it didn’t come together, so I was digging a big hole in the ground to put it in when I suddenly saw Russians climbing over the fence,” recalled Evhen Krivtsov, 38, director of the institution. “I was in a big hole with a shovel. I thought my time was running out. “
Thanks to the Ukrainian defense of Kyiv, the Russians’ stay at home proved short, and Ukraine’s victory in battle allowed everyone to return three weeks ago. Tatiana Rudik, 42, the deputy director of the home, laughs, admitting that staff checked behind every curtain and in every room to hide Russian soldiers. But there is deep grief in the three women who live here who are old enough to have memories of the war with Germany.
Lishtvanonva, who lives in room 407, says she has always considered herself Russian and “will not choose a country.” “It’s like any other war – two political parties are fighting because someone wants to be noticed,” she said. But Lishtvanonva added: “We fought for peace [in the second world war]. I just want peace. It’s much harder to build than to demolish. “
Maria Lebid, 94, in room 406, who took a gun to the Red Army, is too ill to talk for long, but cries when the war breaks out, and Valentina Lits, 94, in room 444, who says she you can’t understand how such a brutal conflict came to the country again – and through Russia everywhere.
Lits’ father, Pavel, was in the Red Army artillery corps during the fighting around Kyiv in the 1940s, and she remembers a letter he wrote in which he said he had been ordered to fire. an area where Russian troops are in close combat with the Germans. “He said he didn’t know if his own people survived,” Lits said.
Sign up for the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am
She has two grandchildren in Russia, about 40 years old. They do not talk about the conflict with her when they call, she says, although one of them seems to believe in “Putin’s special military operation.”
Yet Lits, who stopped reading some old newspaper clippings about healthy living to remember and share her thoughts, seems almost embarrassed to admit that what she reads and hears in the news has filled her with an emotion that has been foreign and unthinkable to her until now.
Valentina Lits, 94, shares memories of her World War II experience. Photo: Alexey Furman / Getty Images
“I’ve felt good with the Russians all my life,” she said, stopping her emotions. “I took some anxiety pills before you came, but it didn’t work,” she added, before continuing: “My husband was from the Far East of Russia and his mother didn’t want him to marry a Ukrainian woman, but I was fine with Russians. . Now I see and hear what is happening, the murder and rape, the death of children and I feel hatred, I am full of hatred. And I never thought I would hate the Russians, ever.
Add Comment