Sinyakov himself never spoke of the war. The "flying witch" Anna Egorova told about his exploits.
After the capture of the Reichstag, he, a teetotaler, went into a German tavern and drank a glass of beer for the victory of the Soviet people - in memory of one prisoner. Didn't drink anymore. Even when, years later, the rescued prisoners of the Kyustrin concentration camp gathered to honor the head of the surgical department of the medical unit of the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant Sinyakov Georgy Fedorovich.
Passed the exam for a surgeon in the camp
Georgy Sinyakov, who graduated from the medical faculty of Voronezh University, left for the South-Western Front on the second day of the war. During the battles for Kiev to the last he helped the wounded soldiers who were surrounded … And then Sinyakov was taken prisoner. Two concentration camps - Boryspil and Darnitsa. And then - Küstrin, 90 km from Berlin. Now he served the people there.
Hunger, frostbite, dystrophy, wounds, colds. The Germans decided to give the Russian doctor an exam - he, hungry and barefoot, in front of the examiners, captured doctors from European countries, performed a stomach resection. Sinyakov's assistants trembled, and he calmly and accurately performed the manipulations. "The best surgeon from the USSR is not worth a German medical orderly" - from that day this offensive phrase was forgotten in Kustrin.
Georgy Sinyakov leads a meeting of war veterans.
Rumors about an intelligent doctor went beyond the concentration camp. The Germans began to bring their own people to the captured Russian doctor. Once Sinyakov operated on a German boy who choked on a bone. When the child came to his senses, the tear-stained wife of the "true Aryan" kissed his hand and knelt down. After that, Sinyakov was allowed free movement around the camp, fenced off by three rows of mesh with iron wire, and was assigned an additional ration. He shared this ration with the wounded prisoners.
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The relaxation of the regime made it possible to create an underground committee: to organize escapes, to distribute leaflets in which the successes of the Red Army were told. The surgeon saw a special meaning in this: to raise the spirits of people who find themselves in a concentration camp is one of the methods of treatment.
And Sinyakov also invented medicines that healed wounds, although the wounds themselves looked fresh. He applied this ointment to Anna Egorova. The legendary pilot was shot down by the Nazis near Warsaw in the 44th. According to the reports of the Sovinformburo, there was information about the assignment of Egorova, who made more than three hundred combat missions, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. No one knew that the burnt "flying witch" had been taken prisoner and ended up in a concentration camp. In the same Kustrin where Sinyakov stood at the operating table. The Nazis waited for her to recover in order to arrange a demonstrative execution, and the pilot was still "fading and fading."
The Russian doctor just threw up his hands - they say, the drugs do not help, Yegorova is doomed, and he continued to conjure over Anna. Sinyakov helped her and escape from the concentration camp as soon as she recovered.
Simulated death
Somehow, 10 Soviet pilots were driven to the concentration camp at once. Georgy Fedorovich managed to save the lives of all of them. The methods of saving the prisoners were different, but most often Sinyakov used imitation of death. Georgy Fedorovich taught the living to pretend to be dead (holding their breath, immobilized body, etc.). The doctor "made up" them with his ointments, hiding the remaining colors of life on the haggard faces. In addition, the ointments smelled monstrously, which reinforced the thought: "This one is dead." Sinyakov could only state death, and then the "corpse", together with those who had really outlived theirs, the soldiers threw into a ditch not far from the camp. As soon as the Nazis left, the prisoner came to life …
Ilya Ehrenburg, who came to Kyustrin when he was 18, was also a "corpse". His photograph with the caption on the back: "Georgy Sinyakov replaced my father" Georgy Fedorovich kept until the end of his life.
Ilya Ehrenburg. Photo: AiF / Nadezhda Uvarova.
Nodding at the thin Ehrenburg, the overseers asked the doctor: "Jude?" ("Jew" - German). “No, Russian,” Sinyakov answered confidently, realizing that the jude had no chance of salvation. The doctor hid his documents, just as he hid the awards of the pilot Egorova, invented the surname Belousov for the wounded soldier … But Ilya was still sent to the stone quarry. It was tantamount to being shot. Then the doctor turned Ehrenburg into "dead". He "died" in the infectious barracks, where the Nazis were afraid to poke their nose. Then "resurrected", crossed the front line and ended the war as an officer in Berlin.
Photo: AiF / Nadezhda Uvarova.
The doctor performed his last feat in the camp before our tanks liberated Kyustrin. Those prisoners who were stronger were thrown into the echelons by the Nazis, and the rest were decided to be shot. 3000 prisoners were doomed to death. Sinyakov found out about this by chance. They said to him: do not be afraid, doctor, you will not be shot. But Georgy Fedorovich could not leave his patients. He persuaded the translator to go to the authorities and ask the Nazis not to take another sin on their souls. The translator, hands shaking with fear, conveyed Sinyakov's words to the fascists. They left Kustrin without firing a shot. And then the tank group of Major Ilyin entered the concentration camp.
Not a word about the concentration camp
Once among his own, the doctor continued to operate. During the first day, 70 wounded tankers were saved.
And then - beer in Berlin … About how the mug ended up in the hands of Sinyakov, his adopted son Sergei Miryushchenko told. Once in the camp, Georgy Fedorovich witnessed a conversation between a Soviet prisoner and a German non-commissioned officer. The prisoner said: "I will have another drink in Berlin for our victory." The German just laughed: "We take your cities, you are dying in thousands, what kind of victory are you talking about?" It was this dialogue that Sinyakov recalled when he opened the door of a Berlin tavern in May 1945.
After the war, Sinyakov returned home, became the head of the surgical department of the medical unit of the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant. I did not speak about the war. Even more so about the concentration camp. Another breed of people. Another scale.
He just did what he had to do, leaving a deep mark on his life. Georgy Fedorovich even celebrated his birthday on the day he graduated from Voronezh University, believing that he was born when he received a medical degree.
Sinyakov Prize
And in 1961 an essay was published in the Literaturnaya Gazeta where Anna Egorova spoke about the doctor who saved her. After this publication, the pilots, whom Sinyakov saved their lives, invited a surgeon to Moscow. Hundreds of other former prisoners of Kustrin arrived there and managed to escape death thanks to him.
They said that Sinyakov was then tried to nominate for awards, but the captured past was not appreciated in post-war times. Georgy Fedorovich was left without high-profile titles. Only after his death, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Victory, Sinyakov's personal stand was opened in the museum of medicine of the Chelyabinsk hospital. Perhaps someday there will be a street named after him or the Sinyakov Prize.
Will it be given to doctors? People dedicated to their work? Or, more broadly, those in whom a person remains a person even where, it seems, there is only a place for instincts.
Authors: Nadezhda Uvarova, Margarita Izyumova