For the inhabitants of Leningrad, the siege of almost 900 days was a real hell on earth. The darkest instincts were awakening in people, and family ties ceased to count. It was experienced by Jura Riabinkin, who ... stole food from his mother and sister.
At the time of the Third Reich's invasion of the USSR, the people of Leningrad had no idea what awaited them. Fed on propaganda, they were sure that the Germans would be defeated quickly. However, it happened otherwise. Hitler ordered the metropolis to be surrounded and starved. The 872 day nightmare has begun.
Hunger made people ready to steal food from even the closest family. Illustrative photo.
One of the millions of people trapped was sixteen-year-old Jura Riabinkin, who lived with his mother and eight-year-old sister. Like most Leningradians, he did not leave the city because Stalin did not allow a mass evacuation. The boy left a unique testimony - a journal in which he described the struggle with himself. Extensive excerpts from it are quoted by Alexis Peri in the book "Leningrad. Journals from the besieged city ” .
"What happened to me?"
The only breadwinner in the family was the mother, but it was Jura who had to stand in lines for hours to collect modest rations of food. This is why felt he deserved more food than his sister . However, this was not the case:
Mother always eats her bite first and then takes a bite from us. When we split the bread, Ira bursts into tears if my piece is even half a gram heavier than her piece.
Bread of poor quality was the staple of the menu in besieged Leningrad.
The feeling of injustice meant that in November 1941 he asked his mother to give him the cards that his sister was entitled to. He was well aware that this would be a death sentence for an eight-year-old girl . When his mother refused him, he began to eat up the family's supplies. He meticulously described his actions in his journal:
I quietly stole the butter and cabbage from the hidden stock for this time and watched eagerly as my mother split the candy into pieces for me and Ira. And I argued over every bit of food, every crumb. What happened to me?
In another entry, dated December 1941, he noted:
Two days ago [mother and sister - ed. ed.] sent me for sweets. Not only did I buy sweetened cocoa instead of sweets (I was hoping that Ira would not want to eat it and more would stay for me), but I also had half of it - a paltry 600 grams that would be enough for us for ten days - and made up a story about how someone stole three packets of cocoa from my hands.
I played all this comedy at home with tears in my eyes and gave my mother a pioneering word of honor that I did not hide a single package, (...) and then, looking heartlessly at my mother's tears and her despair at missing something sweet to eat, I secretly devoured this cocoa .
"I wish two things could happen soon"
However, anyone who thinks that Jura was a monster devoid of human feelings would be wrong. On the contrary. Remorse did not give him peace. He poured out his torment on paper, writing among other things:
I have fallen to the bottom of iniquity, where the voice of conscience is silent, and where dishonesty and dishonor reign. I am my mother's unworthy son and my sister's brother. I am an egoist, someone who, in times of trouble, forgets everything that is closest and dearest to him. (...) I am a wicked one. Life is over for me. The prospect of what awaits me is not life .
With time, the contempt for one's own actions only grew. On December 15, 1941, the boy confessed:
I would like two things to happen quickly:that I should die myself and that my mother read this journal. Let him curse me as a hideous, perfidious creature without conscience, let him renounce me. (…) I am dying too slowly, too slowly….
Jura Riabinkin was too weak to evacuate the city. He became one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the siege.
Three days later, he made his last journal entry. He was glad his mother and sister had been evacuated from the city. Unfortunately, he himself was too weak to reach the assembly point, and they did not have the strength to move him. He soon joined the hundreds of thousands of victims of the siege. His mother also died during the transport to Vologda. Only Ira survived the war, and only many years later got acquainted with her brother's notes.
The Jury's report is unique. As he emphasizes in the book "Leningrad. Journals from a Besieged City "Alexis Peri," only a few journalists have written about family theft as openly and honestly as Riabinkin did.
Source:
Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on the book:
- Alexis Peri, Leningrad. Journals from the besieged city , Horizon 2019 sign.