Children who died with a bombing in the garden of Pioneers became the first victims of the war among the civilian population of Voronezh.
After that tragedy, people became less likely to gather together, and some left the city at all. However, the mass evacuation of the population began only after large bombing teams on July 4 and 5. And already on July 7, during the General German offensive operation, "Blau", the right-bank part of the city was busy with the fascists.
212 days lasted fierce battles literally for each quarter and every home. And only on January 25, 1943, the city managed to completely free. At the cost of incredible victims. But then, in June 1942, all this was still ahead. There was only a peaceful city, shocked by a terrible event.
It so happened that about those innocent victims speak a little bit, on a rumor - larger events and battles. However, for Voronezh, not yet the "snuffing porch", a discarded bomb on the garden, where children were walking, became a real shock. Of course, the townspeople knew that the war was close. Many families have already received the funerals on their relatives. Yes, and the first bomb directed to the air facility, broke back in October 1941. True, then it cost no victims. And until the summer of 1942, although battles went very close and most of the enterprises were evacuated to the east, the city lived and worked.
And so, on Saturday day, June 13, 1942, or to distract the population, or to please the children, decided to arrange a holiday for schoolchildren. Then it was possible to get into the garden only by invitations, which were distributed for excellent studies. And then the parents learned that donuts were punished for babies, and, of course, they released their children - even then there were empty counters in the city. Cheerful guys continued all day. "I played the orchestra on the drums, and my older sister sang in the choir," recalls the Chairman of the Council of Veterans of the Electrosignal Plant Mitrofan Moskalev. - And we at the weekend performed on the stage, entertained children.
June 13 closer to seven o'clock in the evening we also started playing. And suddenly, without an ads of an air alarm, without firing anti-aircraft guns, the plane flew over us and dropped the bomb right on the children who sat and listened to the concert. We, speakers, dropped the blast wave, and literally scattered into pieces. " When the young musician came to himself, there was a nightmare around. Around the blood, on the trees of the part of the bodies, and there is a big funnel on the spot. The wounded shouted, wrought out and moaned. With difficulty rising, Mitrofan tried to find sister and acquaintances. Polina was alive, but a friend of Yura, who was sitting in the first row, died, his back was extended by fragments. In all the nearest buildings, a glass flew out, somewhere flew the roof.
In one of the houses, the windows of which were almost on the garden dance floor, lived the family of Voronezh Medica Viktor Ivanovich Bobrov. "My parents were surgeons who worked in the first world war in the field hospital," the doctor's daughter, Candidate of Medical Science, Elena Bobrov, wrote in their memoirs. - They immediately took the dressing material, which was in the house, and went to the garden of the pioneers to provide first help to children. Later, when they began to take the wounded, Dad went to the faculty surgical clinic, where he worked, and began to operate children there.
After many years later, I accidentally heard the person dad operated on that day. In 1942, he was still a child and received 17 injuries. It was operated on several hours. " After the explosion to the scene of the incident quickly arrived at ambulance carriages. At that time, cars were almost no - most part were taken to the front, and the main way of movement was trams. In order to take the body, the rails were brought along the rails and completely loaded it with the remains of people.
From this day, the city plunged into mourning. How many died? Today at the site of tragic events is a memorable stone with the inscription that more than 300 children died that day. But, according to historians, this figure is overestimated. "In 1996-1997, Journalist Evgeny Shkrykin found an information certificate in the archive, provided on June 14, 1942 in the Obtnik of the Party," Candidate of Historical Sciences, co-author of the book of Pioneers, Tatyana Chernoboeva. - It said that only 247 people were injured on the day from enemy climb. Of these, those killed and died from injuries - 71. These are victims throughout the city, and not just in the garden. After all, on that day, several bombs dropped a prospekt of the revolution. "
Later, a journalist and local historian Pavel Popov, comparing all the data, found out that, taking into account the dead from the Russian Academy of Sciences in the garden, more than 35-45 children could die. Although it does not detract from the broken tragedy. However, over time, the event began to grow all new details and rumors. So the version appeared that a woman was sitting behind the steering wheel and purposefully dropped the bomb into the cluster of children. It was assumed that this was Elsa Koch, which in 1940 flew to competitions under Voronezh and knew the terrain well.
"But this is only a hearing that has no evidence," explains Tatyana Chernoboeva. It has already been established that German aviation was based in Kursk, apparently, from there and was made by departure. Theoretically, of course, you can install who was behind the steering wheel, since the German departures magazines should have been preserved. But so far no one has done it. "
The tragedy, about which no one heard?
Today, the memory of that bombing is kept by an initiative team of historians, local history and witnesses of events. Every year on June 13, they arrange a rally from the stone, which comes more and more people. As Tatyana Chernoboeva said, somehow a woman approached them, whose half of the face was disfigured. It turned out that in 1942 she was only two years old, and a neighbor girl took her to the garden for a holiday. When the explosion thundered, the girl, trying to protect the child, severely pressed him to the ground. The tragic case for many years in the literal sense left the imprint on the face of Olga - so calling the woman.
By the way, the memory of the tragedy in the garden of the pioneers has been preserved precisely thanks to people who have witnessed those terrible events. Kravenedied Faina Bluchevskaya scrupulously recorded eyewitness memories for the book "Garden of Pioneers". "During the tragedy I was in Babyakovo, we were evacuated from Bryansk," says Fain Zinovievna. - When the bombing happened, everything around it only about her, and I perfectly understood what horror it was. And when my grandchildren asked what event of war can be written in the school essay, I called the tragedy in the garden of the pioneers. But it turned out that no one had heard about her, even teachers at school! And then I started calling friends, went to the library, found eyewitnesses. Now the few alive, after all the war has undermined the health of people. "
Most of all Blynchevskaya remembered the memories of Olga Tikhomirova, in which she tells how late to the beginning of the concert. Mom dressed up a girl in a festive dress and sent to the garden, because sweet gifts promised children there. Olga was waiting for his girlfriend for a long time and when she finally came out, they ran from all his feet, but fortunately did not have time.
reference
Since the beginning of the war, Voronezh was periodically subjected to bombardments. The fascists bombed, first of all, the Aviation Plant, the station and the central Chernivsky Bridge. Ruins remained from a huge Mitrofan monastery. The bombs constantly destroyed strategically important tramways in the city, because in 1942 the tram remained the only means of transport in Voronezh. Loads were transported on it and the wounded to hospitals were delivered. From July 7, 1942 to January 25, 1943, the right-bank part of Voronezh was occupied by the Germans who destroyed the city almost to the ground ...