In the year of the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Victory, Constantinople tells about the exploits of people during the Second World War. Today, on Children's Day, we will talk about the unique and most ambitious operation to rescue little ones during the war years. The top-secret and difficult task was to be performed by a former primary school teacher, 23-year-old Matryona Volskaya.
An important assignment
Matryona Volskaya was born on November 6, 1919 in the Dukhovshchinsky district of the Smolensk province. Parents and friends affectionately called her Motya. She was responsible, flexible, loved to read books and tell fairy tales to all the neighbour's children. From the age of 18, Matryona began to teach at the Basin elementary school. In 1941 she graduated from the Dorogobuzh Pedagogical College.
Shortly before the start of the war, Motya married Mikhail Volsky. As soon as the Germans began to approach Smolensk, men from the surrounding villages began to go into the forests and create partisan detachments. It was decided to arrange a safe house in the Volskys' house. In the neighboring building, where the village council was formerly located, the Nazis set up their police station, so the underground workers worked right under the Germans' noses. Motya multiplied and distributed leaflets and reports of the Sovinformburo, collected information about the location of enemy units and passed them on to the partisans. Soon she became a liaison named Month. When it became dangerous to be in the village, Matryona joined the detachment.
Partisan detachment on the march.
She made daring sorties, sabotage, participated in military operations. In 1942, she was awarded the Order of the Battle Red Banner. When the commander of the detachment Nikifor Kolyada, whom everyone called Batey, received information that the Germans were going to drive all local children to Germany, he reported this to the Center. It was urgently decided to organize a special operation to rescue and evacuate the children. Matryona Volskaya was appointed responsible for the transfer of children across the front line, who herself at that time was preparing to become a mother.
Promotional video:
The Germans attacked the children's trail
The route was fully coordinated with Moscow. A column of many thousands of children had to walk 200 km in ten days through the forests and swamps of the Smolensk region. At the appointed time, it was necessary to go to the Toropets station, which was located in the Kalinin (now Tver) region. From there, the rescued children were planned to be sent to the rear by special trains.
On 23 July, 1,500 children set out on a dangerous journey. The teacher Varvara Polyakova and the nurse Yekaterina Gromova were assigned as assistants to Mote. It was decided to split the guys into detachments, each assigned to a commander from among those older children. To control all the charges, Volskaya had to put in a lot of effort. On the very first day, a German reconnaissance aircraft attacked the trail of the convoy. First, leaflets fell from the sky on children, and after a few hours, bombs.
The secret path became known to the Nazis. It was originally planned to go through the Matissky swamps to Zhelyukhovo and Sloboda, but the route had to be changed urgently. They decided to take the children along a different, more difficult road for them. We walked mainly at night. With each passing day, the number of children accompanied by Motea increased. Children from neighboring villages plundered and burned by the Germans constantly adjoined their endless column. After a few days of the march, there were already about two thousand wards at Volskaya. When the children were resting, Matryona went on reconnaissance several kilometers ahead, then returned and made a decision on further movement. The modest food supplies ran out very soon.
Matryona Volskaya.
The children were constantly experiencing a breakdown and could hardly walk. They ate mainly the remaining crumbs from bread crumbs, forest berries, dandelions and plantain. They were especially thirsty. In the destroyed villages and villages, the water in the wells was poisoned by the Germans.
On one's last legs
On July 29, the especially emaciated ones were loaded into four one and a half lorries that overtook the column and sent to the Toropets station. The rest went on foot. When it was 8 km to the point of arrival, the children were completely weakened. The elders carried the kids in their arms, many of them had their feet bloody. Gathering their last strength, they were able to reach Toropets on August 2. Volskaya handed over 3225 children to new accompanying persons. In the act of acceptance of evacuated children, the following entry appears:
On August 5, the team came for the guys. Exhausted, they were loaded into heating cars. All were allocated 500 kilograms of bread. No one expected that Volskaya would bring so many children.
Each person had 150 grams of bread. At the station, soldiers were being loaded into the echelon in parallel. Having learned that there were hungry children in the neighboring train, they gave them their rations.
On the way, the children were still scared. The train was repeatedly raided by fascist aircraft, despite the fact that “Children” was written on the roof of each carriage. Our fighters, accompanying the train, circled around like kites, not allowing the Fritzes to approach the train.
On August 14, the children were safely delivered to the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). Many of them returned to their native villages and villages after the war. Matryona Volskaya from 1943 to 1976 worked as a primary school teacher at the Smolkovo secondary school in the Gorodetsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod region, where she was sent immediately after the successful completion of the special operation "Children". In 1977, a year before her death, she met with some of the rescued children. These were already adults who had considered Matryona their second mother all their lives. After all, she also gave them life, taking care of them all those terrible ten days of the journey. The title of Hero was given to Matryona Isaevna Volskaya when she was no longer alive.
Author: Loseva Olesya