... Valeria’s life before the war was the same as that of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Soviet girls. Born in 1923, in the village of Modolitsy near Pskov, in the family of a postman. Father...
... Valeria’s life before the war was the same as that of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Soviet girls. Born in 1923, in the village of Modolitsy near Pskov, in the family of a postman. Father - Osip Osipovich Gnarovsky, participant Civil War- worked as the head of the post office, mother - Evdokia Mikhailovna, took care of the housework and raised children. There was a legend in the family that Osip Gnarovsky was a direct descendant of the Polish revolutionary Ignatius Gnarovsky, exiled to Siberia for his participation in the Polish uprising of 1863-64.
In 1924, the Gnarovsky family moved to the village of Bardovskoye, Yandebsky village council in the Podporozhye district Leningrad region. Here is a girl after graduating from Yandebskaya primary school entered the secondary school named after A.S. Pushkin in the city of Podporozhye. In 1941, she graduated from the 10th grade, planned to enter the mining institute, studied in an amateur art group, and joined the Komsomol.
Valeria Gnarovskaya
With the first salvos of the war in the summer of 1941, Valeria’s father Osip Osipovich volunteered to go to the front. And the family of a Soviet postal employee was asked to evacuate. It seems like the Gnarovskys didn’t have any more fighters; without a father, it’s not a family—a woman’s kingdom: an elderly grandmother, a hard-working mother, and two daughters, one of whom has barely crossed the school threshold, and the second is still studying. In September 1941, having collected simple belongings, the family and their fellow villagers left for the Tyumen region, to the distant Siberian village of Berdyuzhye.
What will you do with us, beauty? - a one-armed, stern man from the board of the local collective farm asked Valeria. - Even though you are poor refugees, you are a prominent girl, there, the Komsomol badge on your jacket... This means that you are not used to sitting idle. And at work it’s easier to forget about grief. I judge by myself. We will know each other: Timofey Kiryanov, a former soldier, named Mikhailovich by his father.
And Valeria decided:
Dad is at the front with us, Timofey Mikhalych. I'm also thinking of going...
Forget it, asshole. War is not for girls. Do you see how I came back from the war - a cancer with one claw? And just imagine, if you were like that, beauty?.. That’s the same thing... The war, my dear, is always won by the wounded, believe the old man, the burnt Kerzhak, who has seen four of them in his lifetime, wars!
Four wars!
What kind of history did you have at school?.. The first one was Japanese, in 1905. I was the same age then as you are now, no older. The second is Imperialist, also, as now, against the Germans. Then - the Civil War, “Everyone to fight Denikin!”... And for the fourth time I had to fight in Turkestan, when after the Civil War the Basmachi went on a rampage there with the support of English agents. And I’ll tell you, girl, that you have nothing to do there, in the war. Blood, death, dirt, lice and trench spirit are worse than in the stable. The peasants - not everyone can stand it, but the peasants, as it were, are supposed to lay down their heads for their homeland. And we’ll find something for you that’s more suitable for the female class. With your train of children, about two dozen fatherless children were brought from an orphanage. I placed them with Makarovna, she has a lot of space - four sons are at the front, their women are in the city at the factory. Will you go to Makarovna as a helper - as a nanny, to look after the kids?..
Can. As a child, I babysat my younger sister - my parents were at work.
That's okay. But forget about the war!
However, the branch of the collective farmer’s orphanage did not last long. The “fatherless” orphans were quickly taken home by compassionate villagers; consider them adopted. Then for several weeks I helped the signalmen at the telephone exchange. But the Sovinformburo kept bringing news in its evening reports about the retreat of the Red Army.
And then Valeria, together with several rural girls, begged the chairman to send them to Ishim for nursing courses. And already in Ishim, Lera began to knock on the thresholds of the military registration and enlistment office, demanding that after her studies she be assigned to a military hospital or to a front-line unit - as a medical instructor.
She achieved her goal just when the glow of the Battle of Stalingrad rose over the Volga steppes.
A medical instructor assists a wounded man in combat
In June 1942, when the 907th Infantry Regiment of the 244th rifle division The 12th Army of the Southwestern Front was occupying defenses along the eastern bank of the Seversky Donets River; a frail girl in a soldier’s uniform entered the dugout of the commander of the 1st battalion and reported:
Red Army medical instructor Gnarovskaya. She arrived after studying at the Ishim Medical School to serve.
The battalion commander looked the girl up and down. Skinny little pig! The boots are two sizes too big, no less, the tunic on narrow shoulders looks like it’s on a hanger. Not a soldier, but a yellow-throated chick.
So, fighter Gnarovskaya, how old are you? Perhaps she lied to the military registration and enlistment office and said that she was already seventeen?
I was born in 1923.
I see,” the commander said, carefully examining the girl’s documents, “but you look like a schoolgirl - that means you’re weak.” Besides, you were one of the evacuees, which means you had to starve and win. I won’t let you go to the front line. For now, serve at the first aid post in the near rear... Pigalitsa!
Comrade Major, don’t take me to the first aid station! I've always been short, but I can handle it. I'm strong. She was an athlete before the war.
Did you play chess?
In volleyball. And our team was second in the region among juniors. Don't look that I'm short, I'm tough. And in your battalion, a medical instructor was killed, I know.
Yes, they killed... - the commander became serious, ruffled his forelock, which had already begun to turn gray, - you’re right, soldier Gnarovskaya, I don’t have anyone for this position right now... I still have a hard time imagining how you, for example, like me, left the battlefield you'll drag it on a drag. I have almost eighty kilos, and in the battalion I am still considered puny, the other guys are still heroes.
I can do it, comrade commander!
The major took from under the table a skinny canvas bag with a red cross on the flap.
Here you go, take it. But you still have to go to the first aid station - the staff here needs to be supplemented. Take it, take it, don't look at it like that. Natasha’s legacy... Fighter Snegireva, that is. What's your name?
Lera. Valeria.
If one of the fighters out of habit calls you Natasha, don’t hesitate. She was a nice girl!
If the medical instructors were captured, the Germans could hang them...
A feat captured on canvas. V. GnarovskayaGnarovskaya Valeria Osipovna- medical instructor of the 907th Infantry Regiment of the 244th Infantry Division of the 12th Army of the Southwestern Front, private.
Born on October 18, 1923 in the village of Modolitsy, Plyussky district, Pskov region, in the family of an employee. Russian. Graduated from Podporozhye secondary school named after A.S. Pushkin.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War her father was drafted into the ranks of the Red Army, and with the approach of German troops to Leningrad, the Gnarovsky family was evacuated to Ishim, Tyumen region. There they were sent to the village of Berdyuzhye, where Valeria and her mother began working at the local post office.
From the very beginning of the war, Valeria repeatedly appealed to the local military registration and enlistment office with a demand to send her to the front, but each time she was refused. In the spring of 1942, Komsomol members of the village of Berdyuzhye went to the Ishim station and achieved their enrollment in the 229th Infantry Division that was being formed there. Valeria and her friends underwent military training and studied sanitary science.
In July 1942, the division was sent to the Stalingrad Front and immediately entered heavy fighting, in which Valeria Gnarovskaya showed courage, raising the Red Army soldiers to attack and carrying the wounded from the battlefield.
According to the memoirs of her front-line friend E. Doronina:
On the approaches to the front, in the heat, along a dusty road, in full gear, we walked day and night... Not far from the Surovikino station, our unit went into action. There were heavy battles. .. My soul was anxious, especially in the first minutes. We were so confused that we were afraid to leave cover on the battlefield. The impacts of artillery shells, bomb explosions - everything mixed into a continuous roar. It seemed that everything on earth was collapsing and the ground was crumbling under our feet.
As I remember now: Valeria was the first to run out of the trench and shouted: “Comrades! It’s not scary to die for your Motherland! Went!" “And without the slightest hesitation, everyone left the trenches and rushed to the battlefield.
For 17 days, the division waged continuous battles with the enemy, was surrounded and fought its way to its own within a week. Valeria courageously fulfilled her duty as a physician. But soon she fell ill with typhoid fever. The soldiers, having broken through the encirclement, carried out a barely alive girl in their arms. She was awarded the medal "For Courage". After recovery, he returned to the front.
In the summer of 1943, Valeria Gnarovskaya was again hospitalized with a shell shock, but soon returned to her unit. In a letter to her mother dated August 22, 1943, she wrote that she was alive and well, she had been in the hospital for the second time, and after the concussion she had difficulty hearing, but hoped that it would pass:
From August 15 to August 21, 1943 there was a hot battle with the Fritz. The Germans were rushing to the high-rise where we were, but all their attempts to break through were in vain. Our soldiers fought steadfastly and bravely - all my dear and dear comrades... Many of them died the death of the brave, but I remained alive and I must tell you, my dears, that I did a great job. About 30 seriously wounded soldiers were carried from the battlefield.
During the period of offensive battles, V. O. Gnarovskaya saved the lives of over 300 wounded.
On September 23, 1943, in battles near the village of Ivanenki, now the village of Gnarovskoye, Volnyansky district, Zaporozhye region of Ukraine, the sanitary instructor of the 907th Infantry Regiment of the 244th Infantry Division, Private Valeria Gnarovskaya, pulled out the wounded and delivered them to the dressing station. At this time, two German “tigers” broke through in the direction of the dressing station. Saving the wounded, Valeria Gnarovskaya with a bunch of grenades threw herself under one of them and blew it up, the second was hit by the Red Army soldiers who arrived in time. She was buried in the village of Gnarovskoye.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated June 3, 1944, for the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command and the courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders, Red Army soldier Valeria Osipovna Gnarovskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
She was awarded the Order of Lenin and a medal.
In the city of Podporozhye, Leningrad Region, to the Hero of the Soviet Union Gnarovskaya V.O. A monument has been erected, and a memorial plaque has been erected on the school building. The streets in the cities of Podporozhye and Tyumen are named after the Heroine. In the center of the village of Gnarovskoye there is a bust of V.O. Gnarovskaya, and at the site of her death there is a memorial sign.
From performance to award
Only in the battle for the city of Dolitsa near the Seversky Donets River she carried 47 wounded soldiers and officers with their weapons from the battlefield... Personally destroyed 28 German soldiers and officers. Near the Ivanenkovo state farm, 2 enemy Tiger tanks broke through our defense line and rushed to the location of the regiment headquarters. At this critical moment, the tanks approached 60-70 meters to the headquarters location. Gnarovskaya, grabbing a bunch of grenades and rising to her full height, rushed to meet the enemy tank in front and, sacrificing her life, threw herself under the tank.
As a result of the explosion, the tank was stopped...
V. MALYSHEV
Feat of "Swallow"
The small houses of the village of Yandeby are freely spread out near a shallow transparent river. The river is surrounded by dense Karelian forests, and near the village itself, fragrant bird cherry trees grow on its banks. White shocks of fragrant crowns delight old and young. At this time, the village is filled with the aroma of spring. And a smile appears on the faces of even gloomy people.
In the middle of the village there is a thin wooden bridge across the river. This is the favorite place of big-eyed Vavusi and all the Yandeb children.
Vavusya, that was the name of Valeria Gnarovskaya at home, had not yet gone to school, but she knew the alphabet and read “Murzilka” syllable by syllable... Once, together with her mother, Evdokia Mikhailovna, Vavusya read a story. It was called "Thrown". She felt very sorry for the little lion cub, whom the mother lioness did not allow near her. And he had to be raised by a zoo employee.
But all this is behind us. Behind is the secondary school named after A.S. Pushkin in the village of Podporozhye, which Valeria Gnarovskaya graduated successfully...
A beautiful dress was made for Valeria's prom. There were many flowers at school, especially lilies of the valley. They stood in vases, jars, pots and even buckets. The classrooms and corridor looked elegant and festive. The final exams are over, but the 10th graders are still nervous.
Tall, slender, with curly blond hair slightly touched with red, Valeria did not know what to do with the blush that filled not only her cheeks, but also her upturned nose, speckled with freckles. She didn't know where to put her blue radiant eyes. Quite a few guys, holding out hope, looked in her direction.
A lot of people came to the prom. The guys greeted the guests with bouquets of lilies of the valley. What about the teachers? For some reason, teachers today are noticeably leisurely and a little sad.
But then the string orchestra announced in unison: “The moon is shining, the moon is shining...” The graduates, furtively glancing at their teachers and parents, invited their classmates. And the tightness was gone. Then everything went according to the program and without it. Songs, dances, speeches, promises... The teachers admonished: “Don’t forget school! Keep learning!”
And the pets chanted in response:
“Not for-bu-dem, not for-bu-dem, not for-bu-dem!”
The evening was warm and windless. The school ball spread to the shore of the bright Svir. Valeria had fun with everyone else. Until dawn, along the banks of the river, ringing young voices sang: “Three tankers, three cheerful friends...”, “Apple and pear trees were blooming...”, “If tomorrow there is a war, if tomorrow there is a campaign...”
The guys didn’t know that the war had already begun, that already that morning there were fierce battles on the border of our Motherland...
Valeria's father, Osip Osipovich, went to the front in the first days of the war. She also asked - they refused. Together with her mother, grandmother and sister, Victoria, she had to leave her home. In September '41, the entire population of Yandaba went into the forest. At first they lived in huts, then they had to leave them too.
Explosions of shells and bombs forced people to go deeper into the forest. Heavy bundles with household belongings. Bloody scars from them. Fear, constant fear for the life of my sister, grandmother and mother. All dreams collapsed. Hard trials began. What will happen next? For the second month there was forest life. It was getting cold. But here is finally the saving wilderness. And what happiness! - lumberjack barracks. For several days the whole village lived peacefully in this barracks. But the enemy was advancing.
The shells began to explode here too. Valeria wanted to join the partisan detachment, but when she saw the tears of her grandmother and Vika, she stayed with them. After some time, the Gnarovskys, together with others, reached the city of Tikhvin. From here, with the last echelon, they left for the interior of the country.
Dear Valeria saw how fascist planes bombed and shot trains with women and children. One day their train was fired upon. The girl’s heart was filled with burning hatred at the sight of the suffering and torment of innocent people.
- Mom, will they take me to the front?
- What are you saying, Vavusenka, what a front! Either to join the partisans or to the front. You never know how much fear you have already seen! Thank God, at least they survived.
“That’s why, mommy, I’ll ask.”
- But you’re not a guy! Who will take you? The Gnarovskys ended up in the Omsk region. Evdokia
Mikhailovna had to work for three people. Valeria also went to work and helped the family. But the thought of the front did not leave her. For the umpteenth time she went to the district military commissar. I was in a demanding mood. Seeing a military man with a black bandage on his left eye and the empty left sleeve of his tunic, Valeria calmly said:
— Please tell me why the application was returned to me? I want to go to the front.
“The time has not come yet,” the military commissar answered sharply.
- But I’m eighteen years old! I’ve been in the Komsomol for two years now... And I saw what the Nazis were doing,” Valeria said, barely holding back tears.
“It’s early, it’s early,” the military commissar repeated.
- If you don’t send me, I’ll run away myself! — A treacherous tear rolled down Valeria’s cheek. The military commissar stood up from the table.
- Uh-uh... We're crying... And we're also asking to fight.
But the major spoke in a different tone. And his one eye looked kinder.
- Okay, we'll enroll you in nursing courses. And it will be seen there.
Having said: “Thank you,” Valeria quickly left the military registration and enlistment office. And a few months later she and her Siberian friend, teacher Katya Doronina, were already in soldier's overcoats.
Even during nursing courses, Valeria often heard: “Remember, friends! Our whole country is looking at a soldier with a medical bag, bending over a wounded comrade!” Valeria knew that these words belonged to the greatest Soviet scientist, the chief surgeon of the army N. N. Burdenko, who was still in Russian-Japanese war I was a nurse myself. Now Private Gnarovskaya is also a nurse...
“On April 10, 1942,” says Evdokia Mikhailovna, “I said goodbye to my Vavusya for the last time. I didn’t notice the bright sun then. It was so hard for me. After all, she went to war...
And here’s what Valeria wrote, reassuring Evdokia Mikhailovna: “Mommy, my beloved and troublesome one! Soon I will be where dad is. Don't worry. Everything will be fine. I will be able to stand up for myself, for you, for all of us. After all, I will go, mommy, to help the wounded, to save them. Could there be anything nobler and more useful... And now our girls, sitting in a pine forest, sing:
If you hurt a friend,
A friend can do it
The enemies will avenge him.
If you hurt a friend,
A friend will bandage it
His hot brines.
You know this song, mom. Do you remember how we often sang it together? All Siberian women are in a cheerful mood. We are waiting for shipment. Everything will be fine, honey. Don’t worry, don’t worry about me...”
When the military train was on its way to the front, Valeria wrote a letter to Osip Osipovich:
“My dear daddy! I know this is hard for you and your friends. But how long will you retreat? You rent out city after city. After all, this is how the Nazis will reach the Urals. I could no longer sit as a telephone operator in Siberia. I'm going to your front. Maybe we'll be together. Maybe I’ll meet our Podporozhye and Yandeb people. Until now I have done very little to drive out the damned invaders. We didn't touch them. They are to blame for everything. How much grief and suffering these savages brought us! Dad, when the Nazis fire shells at Leningrad, it seems to me that they are shooting at me; when they trample on our native land (they probably burned our school and house), it seems to me that they are trampling on me. And I tell myself: “Go where it is difficult, if you are human.” And I'm going, dad. Let it be difficult, let the frost freeze to the bones, let it be creepy and scary - I will not abandon the wounded, no matter how hard it is for me... We cannot retreat further, my dear...”
With such thoughts and feelings, Valeria Gnarovskaya arrived at the front.
By this time, the enemy had already been defeated near Moscow, stopped near Leningrad, but now he was rushing to the Volga. In July 1942, the rifle regiment in which Valeria served crossed the great Russian river and took the first battle near the village of Surovikino. This was also Valeria Gnarovskaya’s first fight.
“Everything was mixed up in a continuous roar, it seemed that everything on the earth was collapsing, and the earth under our feet was also collapsing!” It was a long time ago,” recalls Valeria’s fighting friend E. Doronina, “but, as I remember now, Valeria was the first to run out of the trench and shouted: “Comrades! It’s not scary to die for your Motherland! Went!" - And everyone left the trenches and rushed to the attack...
The company burst into the enemy trenches, and hand-to-hand combat ensued.
“Sis-tra-a...” Valeria heard the groans of the young Red Army soldier. And, despite the firing of machine guns and machine guns, she rushed to the wounded man.
- But-ha... right...
Valeria quickly removed the tape from the fighter’s shot leg and, applying a bandage and tourniquet, stopped the bleeding.
- Be patient. The wound is small.
Having shifted the fighter onto the cape, Valeria stood up and, half-bent, dragged him to the medical unit...
The battles were hot and bloody. The regiment fought steadfastly, but was forced to leave the battlefield to the enemy. Valeria selflessly fulfilled her duty. She has already saved the lives of more than a dozen soldiers. Near the Northern Donets alone, medical instructor Gnarovskaya carried forty-seven seriously wounded soldiers and officers from the battlefield.
Valeria really, really wanted our troops to go on the offensive as quickly as possible, so that the battlefield from which the orderlies had to carry the wounded out would be behind us. One day, with a group of wounded, she and her fighting friends found themselves cut off from their own. There were enemies all around, but there were also friends everywhere, our own - Russian and Ukrainian women and old people. To get out of the encirclement at any cost - that was the task. The seriously wounded were carried on stretchers. The slightly wounded carried weapons and ammunition. Nurses, orderlies and paramedics often had to pick up machine guns and use lemons.
Somewhat later, presenting Valeria for a government award, the regiment commander wrote: “Personally participating in the battles, Gnarovskaya destroyed twenty-eight German soldiers and officers.”
The path from encirclement to our own was long and difficult. Endless skirmishes with the enemy. New wounded. Long wanderings through forests and swamps. December frosts, searches for water and bread, bandages and medicines.
- Leave us alone, sisters. We still have to die. Fight your way,” said the wounded soldiers.
- Chu, do you hear! Artillery speaks. These are ours. We’ll get there soon, there’s not much left,” Valeria affectionately encouraged the sick and wounded.
But Valeria was unable to reach the front line: she fell ill. Those emerging from the encirclement fought their way through the front line and carefully brought Valeria to the hospital, already in an unconscious state. And then, when she began to recover, letters were sent to her. Letters from the front and from the rear. Warm, sincere, warming letters. And on almost every envelope there is an additional note: “To our swallow.”
The chief doctor of the hospital, presenting Valeria with the medal “For Courage,” said smiling:
- Well, swallow, stop flying and crawling on the front line - you will work with us.
- What do you! What do you! Thank you. After all, now ours are advancing. Only to the regiment. And as quickly as possible,” answered Valeria.
“Don’t rush, rest, think,” the doctor insisted.
“While I was sick, I already changed my mind, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel.” And there is only one request...
- Yes, apparently, you can’t talk me out of it. We will have to call you not a swallow, but a falcon.
“She, comrade chief military doctor, with the wounded is like a swallow with her chicks, and with the enemy she is braver than a falcon,” added Valeria’s fellow soldier.
- If so, I give up!
In the spring of 1943, Valeria was already on the 3rd Ukrainian Front. There were many battles and many victories.
On August 22, 1943, sending a message to her father, who was now also moving forward to the west, Valeria wrote:
“Dear daddy!
About four days ago I received a letter from you, and you can’t even imagine what joy it brought me. I received it right in the trench; I didn’t have time to write an answer.
From 15.08-43 to 21.08-43 we were always on the front line... What terrible battles those were, daddy! I can’t even tell you how much I experienced in these six days. The regiment command noted my work. I heard that I was nominated for a new award. But for me, dad, the best reward is the soldier’s words: “Thank you, sister! I won’t forget this century,” which I often hear from the wounded.
Now we have been replaced. I don’t know what will happen next, but for now I’m alive. Yesterday I received a letter from Vicky. She writes that it is very difficult for them now. I advised her to squeeze stronger teeth and not give in to difficulties, but fight. In general, everything is fine at home. Everyone is alive and well. Okay, goodbye for now. I hug you, daddy, tightly, tightly. Now it won't be long until victory.
See you later, my dear.
Write often. I am waiting.
Yours Valeria Gnarovskaya.”
It was September 1943. By this time, Valeria had three hundred wounded soldiers and officers, whom she carried from the battlefield.
Ahead are the Dnieper, Zaporozhye, Dneproges. The enemy fortified the left bank of the Dnieper in advance. The front line of its defense passed through the villages of Georgievskoye, Verbovoye, and Petro-Mikhailovka.
Verbovoe... A large Ukrainian village. All that was left of it was its name: the huts were burning, the firebrands of outbuildings were smoldering and sticking out chimneys... It seemed that there was not a single living soul in the village. But it only seemed so. Verbovoe changed hands several times. The battle was especially fierce on September 23, 1943, when the enemy attacked our positions near Verbovoy. Captain Romanov's company held the commanding heights over the area and entrenched itself one hundred and fifty meters from the enemy trenches. It was not possible to dislodge the enemy from the pre-prepared line. There was no artillery or tank support. As soon as our attack failed, the enemy immediately launched a counterattack.
The orderlies had a lot of work. Valeria and her friends carried the wounded to safe places. They were helped by the residents of Verbovoy. Among them was the fearless and tireless Maria Tarasovna Didenko, in whose house the nurses stayed. On the way back, Valeria carried food and ammunition to the soldiers... She didn’t close her eyes for two days. During the day, six attacks were repulsed. Captain Romanov was wounded, but he continued to lead the battle. We were waiting for reinforcements.
Towards evening, the enemy, having concentrated two tank companies against a handful of low-level defenders, threw them again into the attack. Two “tigers” broke through our defenses and rushed towards Verbovoy.
Valeria, along with the wounded, was at the medical station, near the headquarters dugout. As she bandaged the wound of one of the fighters, his neighbor shouted:
- Little sister, run! Tanks on the left!
Valeria, seeing the approaching “tigers,” commanded:
- Whoever can - take cover! Grenades for me!
Constantly firing from cannons and machine guns, the tanks approached the medical center.
Running towards the tank, Valeria threw a grenade and fell. Explosion! But the lead tank was moving. There were already thirty... twenty... ten meters left to the wounded. Dead zone! A bunch of grenades... Stand up! Throw! And... And under the tank caterpillar! The roar of an explosion, the clang, the black smoke!
The stunned wounded looked in fear. The Tiger was on fire. And Valeria?! Valeria was not there...
People were saved. And Valeria died. The soldiers who arrived in time knocked out the second tank. The breakthrough was eliminated. Night has come.
Radio Moscow reported: “On September 23, forty-nine German tanks were knocked out and destroyed on all sectors of the front.” While rescuing the wounded, Valeria Gnarovskaya destroyed one of them. This is how victory was forged.
Battle friends and fellow soldiers of Valeria Gnarovskaya wrote to her father: “Every time we go into battle, we remember your daughter, Osip Osipovich. Her feat calls us forward! Forward to final victory!”
On June 3, 1944, the glorious, courageous Soviet patriot was awarded high rank Hero of the Soviet Union.
More than twenty-five years have passed since the faithful daughter of the Motherland died. Verbovoye was renamed the village of Gnarovskoye. The state farm also bears Valeria's name. The memory of her feat will not die. Valeria is still in combat formation. The best street of the former village, and now the city of Podporozhye, bears the name of Valeria Gnarovskaya. A monument to the heroic girl was erected in the park of the Verkhne-Svirskaya Hydroelectric Power Station. At the school named after A.S. Pushkin, where Valeria studied, the children sacredly honor the memory of the heroine. They want to be as honest and courageous as their glorious countrywoman was. Their motto is “Love the Motherland as Valeria loved it!”
Valeria's mother, Evdokia Mikhailovna, is often visited by young men and women. Telling them about her daughter, she says:
“I receive letters from people whom Valeria saved. They build in Siberia and plow in virgin lands. They invent machines and teach children. They protect our borders and world peace. Each of them at his post works in a shock, combative manner. Let us also work so that there will never be a war, so that people will never die at the age of twenty.
A feat captured on canvas. V. Gnarovskaya
Gnarovskaya Valeria Osipovna – medical instructor of the 907th Infantry Regiment of the 244th Infantry Division of the 12th Army of the Southwestern Front, private.
Born on October 18, 1923 in the village of Modolitsy, Plyussky district, Pskov region, in the family of an employee. Russian. Graduated from Podporozhye secondary school named after A.S. Pushkin.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, her father was drafted into the ranks of the Red Army, and with the approach of German troops to Leningrad, the Gnarovsky family was evacuated to Ishim, Tyumen region. There they were sent to the village of Berdyuzhye, where Valeria and her mother began working at the local post office.
From the very beginning of the war, Valeria repeatedly appealed to the local military registration and enlistment office with a demand to send her to the front, but each time she was refused. In the spring of 1942, Komsomol members of the village of Berdyuzhye went to the Ishim station and achieved their enrollment in the 229th Infantry Division that was being formed there. Valeria and her friends underwent military training and studied sanitary science.
In July 1942, the division was sent to the Stalingrad Front and immediately entered heavy fighting, in which Valeria Gnarovskaya showed courage, raising the Red Army soldiers to attack and carrying the wounded from the battlefield.
According to the memoirs of her front-line friend E. Doronina:
On the approaches to the front, in the heat, along a dusty road, in full gear, we walked day and night... Not far from the Surovikino station, our unit went into action. There were heavy battles. .. My soul was anxious, especially in the first minutes. We were so confused that we were afraid to leave cover on the battlefield. The impacts of artillery shells, bomb explosions - everything mixed into a continuous roar. It seemed that everything on earth was collapsing and the ground was crumbling under our feet.
As I remember now: Valeria was the first to run out of the trench and shouted: “Comrades! It’s not scary to die for the Motherland! Went!" - And without the slightest hesitation, everyone left the trenches and rushed to the battlefield.
For 17 days, the division waged continuous battles with the enemy, was surrounded and fought its way to its own within a week. Valeria courageously fulfilled her duty as a physician. But soon she fell ill with typhoid fever. The soldiers, having broken through the encirclement, carried out a barely alive girl in their arms. She was awarded the medal "For Courage". After recovery, he returned to the front.
In the summer of 1943, Valeria Gnarovskaya was again hospitalized with a shell shock, but soon returned to her unit. In a letter to her mother dated August 22, 1943, she wrote that she was alive and well, she had been in the hospital for the second time, and after the concussion she had difficulty hearing, but hoped that it would pass:
From August 15 to August 21, 1943 there was a hot battle with the Fritz. The Germans were rushing to the high-rise where we were, but all their attempts to break through were in vain. Our soldiers fought steadfastly and bravely - all my dear and dear comrades... Many of them died the death of the brave, but I remained alive and I must tell you, my dears, that I did a great job. About 30 seriously wounded soldiers were carried from the battlefield.
During the period of offensive battles, V. O. Gnarovskaya saved the lives of over 300 wounded.
On September 23, 1943, in battles near the village of Ivanenki, now the village of Gnarovskoye, Volnyansky district, Zaporozhye region of Ukraine, the sanitary instructor of the 907th Infantry Regiment of the 244th Infantry Division, Private Valeria Gnarovskaya, pulled out the wounded and delivered them to the dressing station. At this time, two German “tigers” broke through in the direction of the dressing station. Saving the wounded, Valeria Gnarovskaya with a bunch of grenades threw herself under one of them and blew it up, the second was hit by the Red Army soldiers who arrived in time. She was buried in the village of Gnarovskoye.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated June 3, 1944, for the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command and the courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders, Red Army soldier Valeria Osipovna Gnarovskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
She was awarded the Order of Lenin and a medal.
In the city of Podporozhye, Leningrad Region, to the Hero of the Soviet Union Gnarovskaya V.O. A monument has been erected, and a memorial plaque has been erected on the school building. The streets in the cities of Podporozhye and Tyumen are named after the Heroine. In the center of the village of Gnarovskoye there is a bust of V.O. Gnarovskaya, and at the site of her death there is a memorial sign.
From performance to award
...Only in the battle for the city of Dolitsa near the Seversky Donets River she carried 47 wounded soldiers and officers with their weapons from the battlefield... Personally destroyed 28 German soldiers and officers. Near the Ivanenkovo state farm, 2 enemy Tiger tanks broke through our defense line and rushed to the location of the regiment headquarters. At this critical moment, the tanks approached 60-70 meters to the headquarters location. Gnarovskaya, grabbing a bunch of grenades and rising to her full height, rushed to meet the enemy tank in front and, sacrificing her life, threw herself under the tank.
As a result of the explosion, the tank was stopped...
Commander of the 907th Infantry Regiment of the 244th Zaporozhye Red Banner Division, Colonel Pozhidaev, March 21, 1944.
And in the pre-dawn silence - the long-awaited distant rumble of the engine. Not otherwise - cars from the hospital are coming for the wounded... - I’ll run onto the road and meet you! - Cleverly...
And in the pre-dawn silence - the long-awaited distant rumble of the engine. It’s no different - cars from the hospital are coming for the wounded...
I’ll run onto the road and meet you! - Having deftly completed the next dressing, Lera threw it to her comrades.
Dawn spread like a pink stripe over the wide wasteland. And then Lera saw that on the dirt road, broken by hundreds of boots and wheels, from behind a fishing line, crawling out, rumbling, was not a truck with a red cross on board - a terrible German tank in black and green frog camouflage... And behind it - a second one.
The Germans had mostly boys serving as orderlies. In the Red Army, 40% of the medical service were girls.
Guys, tanks!..
The Germans did not hear her over the roar of their engines, but the temporary field evacuation point did. Soldiers poured out of the tents - both orderlies and some walking wounded. A handful of people, exhausted from previous battles, and most of them already crippled, who had neither anti-tank rifles nor artillery - only about ten grenades for all, blocked the path of the enemy tankers breaking through from the encirclement.
Crushing the small forest at the edge of the forest with its tracks, the lead “tiger” turned off the dirt road and crawled, growling, straight towards the tents. A long trunk swayed in an angular armored tower artillery barrel. If he shoots, it’s death for everyone. Both the wounded and the survivors. Straightaway. No questions. Whoever believes in God - “save and preserve!” won't have time to whisper!
Assisting a wounded man in a field hospital tent
But a fragile figure with a medical bag on his shoulder rushed across the heavy combat vehicle. In her hands - a grenade... And when did she manage to grab these grenades?
A moment later, a loud explosion burst across the sky above the clearing. And the German armored monster froze, shrouded in smoke, and a multi-pound caterpillar crawled off the rollers with a roar. Throwing back the hatches, the tankers jumped out of the smoking colossus - like black devils in their overalls, they rushed away. A sharp burst of someone’s PPSh struck after the fleeing Germans...
And a staggering soldier with a bandaged head, shooter Ryndin, was already walking towards the second tank, as if not seeing anything around him, clutching a bunch of grenades in his hand.
He will be destined to knock out this tank and, together with the Red Army soldiers who ran up, endure hand-to-hand combat with a German who fell out of the hatch. He will remain alive, and together with his comrade, the Red Army soldier Turundin, will be presented with a government award. And Lera...
The feat of Lera Gnarovskaya. From a painting by a contemporary artist
When the convoy, which had been delayed on the way, finally arrived at the site of the recent battle, there was silence over the edge of the forest. Destroyed tanks towered like dead lumps of metal. Two captured Germans with their elbows tied back to back were sitting by a broken birch tree, and standing above them, with their legs spread wide apart, was a Red Army sentry: a pistol in one hand, a crutch in the other, a trouser leg cut to the knee, a fresh bandage above the boot like an accordion.
Lieutenant medical service jumped off the running board of the hospital semi-truck.
It was hot here, brothers... Who is the senior in rank alive?
“I,” the foreman with a red cross on his sleeve responded from the tents, “there is still a captain, but he is “heavy.” He lies delirious and cannot command. The machine gunner pierced him across the chest - I’m afraid you won’t make it...
Report the situation.
Seventy wounded soldiers and commanders, eighteen of them “severely”. Four healthy ones. And so, I am Sergeant Major Tikhonenko. We withstood a battle with an enemy formation consisting of two tiger tanks breaking out from encirclement... You can see the results for yourself. Both tanks were hit, two prisoners were taken, one of them was an officer, wounded, first medical aid was provided. The rest of the guys decided - some with a bullet, and some with hand-to-hand combat.
They were heading towards the regimental headquarters, there were tanks, reconnaissance found out... He was right here on their way, behind the abandoned village. It turns out that you saved both yourself and the headquarters here! Losses?
Lera... medical instructor Valeria Gnarovskaya. She lay down under a tank with grenades. Several more soldiers were wounded for the second time in a day. Already bandaged, take it.
Award list of Valeria Granovskaya
When the last wounded man had already been loaded into the vehicles, the tents had been taken down, the soldiers’ weapons and property had been taken away, and the column was buzzing along the rutted road to the hospital, only five surviving soldiers were left near the damaged tank. They had to catch up with the battalion, but first pay their last respects to the nurse who shielded them from armored death.
Soon a small mound of fresh earth appeared at the side of the road. The foreman brought boards from the abandoned village, hastily knocked together a tetrahedral obelisk with the butt of an ax, and used a knife to carve a five-pointed star into the top.
Sleep well, little sister. We'll take revenge. We'll crush the reptile - I give you my word. Let's come back here and we'll erect a real monument to you, one that will last forever...
The old soldier was choked with tears. And the crackling volley of five rifles, which gave the last salute over Lera’s grave, seemed quiet in the autumn forest.
A monument for centuries...
Having learned about the death of her daughter, Valeria’s mother, Evdokia Mikhailovna, sent a letter to the commander and all the soldiers of the 907th regiment. She wrote:
“It is unbearably painful for a mother’s heart to realize that my daughter, my Swallow, is no longer in the world. It seems that not tears, but blood are flowing from my eyes. I lived with the hope of seeing her, and now this hope is gone... But I am proud of my daughter. I am proud that she did not hide during a difficult time for her Motherland, did not chicken out, and accepted death with her head held high, saving the wounded. The people will not forget her, just as they will not forget other defenders of the Fatherland who laid down their lives for the freedom of their native land...”
In response, the fighters wrote:
“You have become a dear mother to all of us. We swear to you that we will avenge the death of our sister Valeria, for your bitter tears, for the tears of all our mothers, wives and sisters, our brides”...
A year after the battle, Lera was reburied by local residents in the mass grave of the fighters who died for the village of Ivanenkovo. In the center of a large state farm park. And the village itself was given a new name - Gnarovskoye. And a monument was erected for centuries.
For saving the lives of seventy wounded soldiers at the cost of her own life and destroying an enemy tank, medical instructor Valeria Osipovna Gnarovskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Wars are won by the wounded