First Person

From the diaries of Leningraders.

V. G. Mantulin

(died of starvation, January 24, 1942.)

January 4, 1942

The New Year is here. We greeted it with a cup of tea, a bit of bread and a spoonful of jam … The firewood is running out. There is nowhere to get any more. And there is still all of January and February. Two months yet of freezing cold! ..

January 13, 1942

I must, apparently, go for some water. The water is completely frozen everywhere, and I have to carry it 4 kilometers home from the well. There is not even a drop of water left in the apartment to brew tea. Tea! How incredible this word sounds, when one is happy with just boiling water and bread! There is absolutely nothing to make tea with. There is not a crumb of anything sweet, and I have to flavor boiling water with salt. The only thing which we have enough of is salt. There is none in the stores, but we had a small reserve – some 2-3 kilograms, and it is holding out for now.

Well, there you have it. I have to go for some water … I so fear the cold. If I make it back, I will be wonderfully happy.

Mark Finkelstein

I related to my neighbors my theory of the “low probability of death by bombing.” The representative of the family’s youth, the delightful Masha, followed my example and stopped going to the bomb shelter. If I was at home at these times, I would turn on the gramophone, invite Masha over, and we would dance and, God forgive me, we would kiss. We laughed for the slightest reason and for no reason at all. We were simply happy – they were bombing the city, horror was everywhere, and we went nowhere, remaining upstairs, dancing. I have always loved the dances in fashion then – the foxtrot, the tango, and the Boston waltz. But I have never experienced the supreme pleasure from dancing that I felt then, when the alarm had been sounded. They were bombing the city and we were dancing. If we were unlucky, it would be our last dance.

Once I was told that Masha was not home, so I did not turn on the gramophone. But she came running into the room and cried: “What happened? Why is the music not on? The alarm sounded ten minutes ago!” I smiled and turned on the gramophone.

z y z

In October in Leningrad camouflage work was being organized. We workers of the Narkomat Planning Institute of the Chemical Industry were transferred to barracks. When we worked on military objects, they fed us there. What is more, we did not have to show our food ration cards and, if we were lucky, we could receive food with them at the institute cafeteria. One time we worked at the aerodrome for almost a month. Returning home, we redeemed all our outstanding ration coupons at the cafeteria. For each coupon, they gave us a dessert spoonful of pearl kasha, served in a little dish. I received 22 servings of kasha, arrayed on my tray in several layers. It was a fantastic sight! I sat down at a table by myself and started to eat. I put a spoonful of kasha in my mouth and set aside the empty dish. Everyone watched me with envy. I slowly ate my 22 portions and drank up almost a month’s worth of tea. That never happened again.

I was at that time a fearsome, bloated, dying old man of just 32.

z y z

Not long before the New Year, I witnessed a tragic episode. I was at the aerodrome, meeting airplanes that had flown in with produce for Leningrad. The unloading was done and suddenly I heard a desperate cry:

“Let me go! I only took a small bit! For my child! He is starving,” cried some fellow, who was being dragged away by several other guys. In those severe times there was an ironclad law: execution was the singular punishment for theft of food. The sentence could not be appealed and was carried out the very same day.

Alexei Zorgenfrey

The pigeons and sparrows are disappearing from Leningrad. The dark ones – crows – are next. Signs are appearing in many houses: “Would like to buy a cat,” “Who will sell a dog to a good home?” Workers in scientific laboratories – with their experimental animals – and zoo workers are the source of great envy. The last of everything is disappearing from already empty stores – dry mustard, pepper, bay leaves, cornstarch, bone meal. People try to bake cakes or boil up a soup from these things. Castor oil is worth its weight in gold: there is no other fat. But it has already disappeared from pharmacies. Cough drops and all other oral medicines have also been bought up. People learned how to make cutlets from oil cakes. But even oil cakes can not be found anymore.

Leningraders’ outward appearance is changing.

Hunger.

z y z

“Comrade Bogdanovich, please come to Party Committee Headquarters. You will be given something there.”

I went.

“We have succeeded in obtaining for the professorial-teaching group two boxes of carpenter’s glue. Here is one pound for you. You can make a soup from it or make a jelly. Be sure to add a bit of pepper.”