home › Horoscopes › Flower of Life, Friendship Alley and Tanya Savicheva's Diary. Tanya Savicheva: biography, blockade diary and interesting facts Tatyana Nikolaevna Savicheva short biography

Flower of Life, Friendship Alley and Tanya Savicheva's Diary. Tanya Savicheva: biography, blockade diary and interesting facts Tatyana Nikolaevna Savicheva short biography

She began keeping a diary in a notebook left over from her older sister Nina. This diary has only 9 pages, and six of them contain the dates of death of loved ones. Tanya Savicheva's diary became one of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War.

Childhood

It was impossible for Tanya and her brothers and sisters, as children of the “disenfranchised,” to receive a higher education. They also did not have the right to join the Komsomol and study at universities, and therefore could not get any decent profession. By the beginning of the war, Nina and Zhenya worked together at the Nevsky Machine-Building Plant named after Lenin (Zhenya in the archives, and Nina in the design bureau), Leonid served as a planer at the Ship Mechanical Plant, and Misha graduated from the factory school and at that time worked as a fitter . Maria Ignatievna became a seamstress; she worked as a home worker in the sewing “Artel named after May 1” and was considered one of the best embroiderers there.

Leonid was fond of music and, together with his friends, created an amateur string orchestra. Rehearsals were often held in his house - the Savichevs had many musical instruments: piano, guitar, banjo, balalaika, mandolin. In their free time, the family organized home concerts. Leonid and Mikhail played, Maria Ignatievna, who had excellent hearing and voice, sang along with Tanya, the rest kept up the chorus.

In the memory of Nina and Misha, Tanya remained as very shy and not childishly serious:

Tanya got her “angelic” voice from her mother. Tanya had a particularly good relationship with her uncle Vasily. He had a small library in his apartment, and Tanya asked him questions about life. The two of them often walked along the Neva.

Blockade

By the beginning of the war, the Savichevs still lived in the same house No. 13/6 on the 2nd line of Vasilievsky Island. Tanya, together with her mother, Nina, Leonid, Misha and grandmother Evdokia Grigorievna Fedorova (nee Arsenyeva, born in) lived on the first floor in apartment No. 1. By that time, Zhenya had married Yuri Nikolaevich Putilovsky and moved to Mokhovaya Street (house No. 20, apartment No. 11), but their relationship did not work out and they divorced. Despite the divorce, Zhenya continued to live on Mokhovaya, visiting home mainly on Sundays. On the floor above, in house No. 13/6, Tanya’s two uncles lived: Vasily and Alexey. After the liquidation of Artel, they changed professions: Vasily became the director of the Bukinist store on the Petrogradskaya side, and Alexey worked as a factory supplier until his retirement. Their brother Dmitry died before the start of the war, and his wife, Maria Mikhailovna Savicheva, died in February 1942 at the age of 46 (buried at the Piskarevskoye cemetery).

At first they wanted to bury Zhenya at the Serafimovskoye cemetery. However, this turned out to be impossible due to the fact that all approaches to the cemetery gates were littered with corpses that there was no one to bury. Therefore, it was decided to take Zhenya’s body to Decembrist Island and bury it there at the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery. With the help of her ex-husband Yuri, they managed to get the coffin. According to Nina’s recollections, already at the cemetery, Maria Ignatievna, bending over the coffin of her eldest daughter, uttered a phrase that became fatal for their family: “Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?”

Grandmother

Nina

Uncle Vasya

Tanya couldn’t go with us - she was completely weak. I remember the cart bouncing on the paving stones, especially when we walked along Maly Prospekt. The body wrapped in a blanket leaned to one side, and I supported it. Behind the bridge over Smolenka there was a huge hangar. Corpses were brought there from all over Vasilyevsky Island. We brought the body there and left it. I remember there was a mountain of corpses there. When they entered there, a terrible groan was heard. It was air coming out of the throat of someone dead... I became very scared.

The corpses from this hangar were buried in mass graves at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery, so Tanya’s mother lies there. When the newspaper “Arguments and Facts” in January 2004 published an article about Nina and Misha entitled “Not all of the Savichevs died,” Vera’s son called its editorial office and said that his mother was burying Tanya Savicheva’s mother. The editors called her and found out all the details. After which Vera met with Nina. Nina was very surprised when she learned that her mother was buried at the Smolensk cemetery, because before that she was sure that her mother, along with her uncles, grandmother and brother, were buried in mass graves at the Piskarevsky cemetery. The State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad at one time even told her the numbers of these graves. However, the staff of the archive of the Piskarevsky cemetery established with accuracy that Maria Ignatievna Savicheva was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox cemetery, right next to the grave of her husband. True, during registration they made a mistake: for some reason the middle name Ignatievna was replaced with Mikhailovna. She is listed under this name in the cemetery’s electronic Memory Book.

Tanya stayed with Nikolaenko all that day and stayed overnight.

Tanya went to see her grandmother’s niece, Aunt Dusa, Evdokia Petrovna Arsenyeva, who lived in a communal apartment on Proletarskaya Dictatorship Street (house No. 1a, room No. 3). She was born in Petrograd. In 1918, her father and mother died, and she and her sister Olga (future Krutous) were left orphans, after which they were separated. Olga ended up in an orphanage in Pushkin, and Evdokia was sent to a village family as a nanny. Long before the war, Olga found her sister and persuaded her to return to Leningrad, where she found work at a mica factory. Since 1930, the sisters had not communicated; as a result of a difficult childhood, Evdokia grew up very unfriendly.

Tanya took with her a Palekh box that was at their house, in which her mother’s wedding veil and wedding candles were kept. Now, along with them, there were six death certificates and Nina’s notebook. Aunt Dusya took custody of Tanya and moved many of the Savichevs’ things to her room for storage. At that time, she worked one and a half shifts at the factory without rest and, when leaving for work, she sent the girl outside and locked the room. This was done solely with good intentions, since by that time Tanya herself was already completely exhausted and for her it was best to stay in the fresh air. Despite the fact that it was already May, the girl, like all those Leningraders suffering from dystrophy, felt chills and wore winter clothes. It often happened that when Aunt Dusya returned home she found Tanya sleeping right on the stairs.

At the very beginning of June 1942, Tanya, who had also fallen asleep on the stairs, was found by Vasily Krylov, a friend of Löka (he played in his ensemble and was also a white ticket member, because during the Soviet-Finnish War he lost several fingers on his hand) and Nina’s admirer (Vasily profession was a gliding instructor, and Nina was seriously interested in gliding before the war). From him she learned that Nina was alive. It turned out that during the evacuation she became seriously ill, she was taken off the train and sent to the hospital, from where she ended up at a state farm in the Tver region (then Kalinin region). At the first opportunity, Nina sent Vasily (not knowing that he was also evacuated, but he managed to return home quite soon) a letter to let him know what was happening to her family. After some time, Krylov sent her a reply that Aunt Dusya, supposedly with good intentions, had removed custody of Tanya and sent her to evacuation.

Evacuation

Evdokia Petrovna Arsenyeva ultimately relinquished custody of Tanya and enrolled her in orphanage No. 48 of the Smolninsky district, which was then preparing for evacuation to the Shatkovsky district of the Gorky region (from 1990 Nizhny Novgorod region), which was 1,300 kilometers from Leningrad. Orphanages in besieged Leningrad were formed and staffed with teachers under the strict control of the NKVD, after which they were transported to the mainland. The train in which Tanya was was repeatedly bombed, and only in August 1942 finally arrived in the village of Shatki. One of the founders of the Shatkovo museum dedicated to Tanya Savicheva, history teacher Irina Nikolaeva, later recalled:

A lot of people came out to meet this train at the station. The wounded were constantly brought to Shatki, but this time people were warned that in one of the carriages there would be children from besieged Leningrad. The train stopped, but no one came out of the opened door of the large carriage. Most of the children simply could not get out of bed. Those who decided to look inside could not come to their senses for a long time. The sight of the children was terrible - bones, skin and wild melancholy in their huge eyes. The women raised an incredible cry. “They’re still alive!” - the NKVD officers accompanying the train reassured them. Almost immediately, people began to carry food to that carriage and give away their last. As a result, the children were sent under escort to a room prepared for an orphanage. Human kindness and the smallest piece of bread from starvation could easily kill them.

Orphanage No. 48, consisting of 125 children (including Tanya), was sent to the village of Krasny Bor, located not far from Shatki. There they were placed in one of the high school buildings, where they had to undergo a two-week quarantine. Despite the shortage of food and medicine, Gorky residents were able to take out Leningrad children. As follows from the report on the living conditions of the orphanage residents, all 125 children were physically exhausted, but there were only five infectious patients. One baby suffered from stomatitis, three had scabies, and another had tuberculosis. It so happened that this only tuberculosis patient turned out to be Tanya Savicheva.

Tanya was not allowed to see other children, and the only person who communicated with her was the nurse assigned to her, Nina Mikhailovna Seredkina. She did everything to ease Tanya’s suffering and, according to the recollections of Irina Nikolaeva, she succeeded to some extent:

But Tanya was still so weak that in early March

Tanya Savicheva

This girl, who did not live to be 15, is always remembered in connection with the siege of Leningrad. She is a symbol of the suffering that all its inhabitants endured. Her diary, consisting of only nine entries, conveys all the horror and feeling of hopelessness that gripped her soul when all her loved ones left one by one.

Tanya Savicheva was born on January 25, 1930 in the village of Dvorishchi near Gdov, and grew up, like her brothers and sisters, in Leningrad. Tanya was the fifth and youngest child in the family - she had two sisters and two brothers.

In the summer of 1941, the Savichevs were planning to leave Leningrad, but did not have time; the war took them by surprise. They had no choice but to help the front as best they could and hope for the end of this horror. Tanya got the notebook in memory of her older sister Nina, who went missing during the shelling. Everyone in the family considered her dead.

Then Tanya began to make her terrible notes.

“The Savichevs have died”

"Everyone died"

“Only Tanya remains”

Tanya was found in her house by members of the sanitary teams, who were going around the houses in search of survivors. She was taken to the village of Shatki along with many orphans like her, but the girl could not be saved.

Tanya Savicheva died on July 1, 1944, never having lived to see the Victory, never knowing that her sister Nina and brother Misha were alive, that she was not alone. Tanya’s diary became one of the evidence for the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials, and she herself remained forever in the memory of those who survived those terrible years.

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Tatyana Nikolaevna Savicheva(January 23, 1930, Dvorishchi, Lyadsky district, Leningrad region - July 1, 1944, Shatki, Gorky region) - a Leningrad schoolgirl who, from the beginning of the siege of Leningrad, began keeping a diary in a notebook left by her older sister Nina. This diary has nine pages, six of which contain the death dates of people close to her - her mother, grandmother, sister, brother and two uncles. Almost the entire family of Tanya Savicheva died during the Leningrad blockade between December 1941 and May 1942. Tanya herself was evacuated, but her health was severely compromised and she also died. Only her older sister Nina and brother Mikhail survived the blockade, thanks to whom Tanya’s diary became one of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War.

Tanya was born on January 23, 1930 in the family of NEPman Nikolai Rodionovich Savichev (born in 1884) and Maria Ignatievna Fedorova (born in 1889) in the village of Dvorishchi near Gdov near Lake Peipus, but, like her brothers and sisters, she grew up in Leningrad (from -for which Leningrad is often mistakenly indicated as her place of birth). Maria Savicheva decided in advance that she would not stay in Leningrad for the birth and, being in the last month of pregnancy, went to Dvorishche to see her sister Kapitolina, whose husband was a doctor and helped give birth to Maria. She returned to Leningrad when Tanya was already several months old. Three possible dates of Tanya’s birth are known: January 25, 1930 - this date is found in many sources and is probably adjusted to Tatiana’s day; February 23, 1930 - this date is written on a memorial plaque in the courtyard of her house; January 23, 1930 - Liliya Markova in her article “ Siege chronicle of Tanya Savicheva” claims that this particular date is the real date of birth of Tanya Savicheva.

Tanya’s father, Nikolai Savichev, owned the “Labor Artel of the Savichev Brothers”, which he opened in 1910 during the NEP years on the 2nd line of Vasilyevsky Island in house No. corner of Suvorovsky Prospekt and 6th Sovetskaya Street. Nikolai himself, Maria and Nikolai’s three brothers, Dmitry, Vasily and Alexey, worked in the bakery.

Tanya was the fifth and youngest child of Maria and Nikolai. She had two sisters - Evgenia (born in 1909) and Nina (born November 23, 1918); and two brothers - Leonid "Leka" (born in 1917) and Mikhail (born in 1921). Many years later, Nina Savicheva recalled the appearance of a fifth child in their family as follows:

Tanyusha was the youngest. In the evenings we gathered around the large dining table. Mom put the basket in which Tanya was sleeping in the center, and we watched, afraid to sigh again and wake up the baby.

In the 30s, Nikolai Savichev, as a NEPman, became “disenfranchised,” and in 1935 the Savichev family was expelled by the NKVD from Leningrad for the 101st kilometer to the Luga region, but after some time she was able to return to the city, but Nikolai In exile he fell ill and died of cancer on March 5, 1936 at the age of 52. He was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery, not far from the Chapel of Xenia the Blessed, where his son and two daughters, who died in infancy from scarlet fever, were buried earlier in 1916.

It was impossible for Tanya and her brothers and sisters, as children of the “disenfranchised,” to receive a higher education. They also did not have the right to join the Komsomol and study at universities. By the beginning of the war, Nina and Zhenya worked together at the Nevsky Machine-Building Plant named after Lenin (Zhenya in the archives, and Nina in the design bureau), Leonid served as a planer at the Ship Mechanical Plant, and Misha graduated from the factory school and worked as a fitter. Maria became a seamstress, worked as a home worker at the May 1st Sewing Artel and was considered one of the best embroiderers there. Leonid was fond of music and, together with his friends, created an amateur string orchestra. They often held rehearsals in his apartment - the Savichevs had many musical instruments: piano, guitar, banjo, balalaika, mandolin. In their free time, the Savichevs organized home concerts: Leonid and Mikhail played, Maria and Tanya sang, the rest kept in chorus.

In the memory of Nina and Misha, Tanya remained as very shy and not childishly serious:

Tanya was a golden girl. Curious, with a light, even character. She knew how to listen very well. We told her everything - about work, about sports, about friends.

Tanya had a particularly good relationship with her uncle Vasily. He had a small library in his apartment, and Tanya asked him questions about life. The two of them often walked along the Neva.

By the beginning of the war, the Savichevs still lived in the same house No. 13/6 on the 2nd line of Vasilievsky Island. Tanya, together with her mother, Nina, Leonid, Misha and maternal grandmother Evdokia Grigorievna Arsenyeva (born June 22, 1867) lived on the first floor in apartment No. 1. By that time, Zhenya had married Yuri Nikolaevich Putilovsky and moved to Mokhovaya Street (house No. 20, apartment No. 11), but their relationship did not work out and they divorced. Despite the divorce, Zhenya continued to live on Mokhovaya, visiting home mainly on Sundays. On the floor above, in house No. 13/6, Tanya’s two uncles lived: Vasily and Alexey. After the liquidation of Artel, they changed professions: Vasily became the director of the Bukinist store on the Petrogradskaya side, and Alexey worked as a factory supplier until retirement. Their brother Dmitry died before the start of the war, and his wife, Maria Mikhailovna Savicheva, died in February 1942 at the age of 46 (buried at the Piskarevskoye cemetery).

At the end of May 1941, Tanya Savicheva graduated from the third grade of school No. 35 on the Syezdovskaya line (now the Kadetskaya line) of Vasilyevsky Island and was supposed to go to the fourth in September.

The Savichevs planned to spend the summer of 1941 in the same Dvorishchi (my sister Maria Capitolina had two more brothers, Nikolai, who lived there: Grigory and Gabriel). On June 21, Mikhail boarded a train departing for Kingisepp. Two weeks later, after celebrating her grandmother’s birthday, Tanya and her mother were supposed to go there. Leonid, Nina and Zhenya were going to come to Dvorishchi depending on when one of them would be given leave from work. On the day of the German attack on the USSR on June 22, their grandmother Evdokia turned 74 years old. Having learned about the beginning of the war, the Savichevs decided to stay in the city and help the army.

In the very first days of the war, Leonid and his uncles Vasily and Alexey went to the military registration and enlistment offices, but received refusals: Leonid was not taken because of his eyesight, Vasily and Alexey because of their age. Nina and her factory colleagues began digging trenches in Rybatskoye, Kolpino, and Shushary, after which she began to be on duty at the tower of the air surveillance post at the factory anti-aircraft defense headquarters. Zhenya, secretly from her grandmother and mother, began to donate blood to save wounded soldiers and commanders. Maria, like all the sewing workshop workers in the city, was sent to the production of military uniforms. Tanya, like all Leningrad children, in those days helped clear attics of garbage and collected glass containers for fire bottles. When the Savichevs learned that Pskov had been captured by the Germans on July 9, they lost hope that Misha would be able to return home. Over time, they began to consider him dead, not knowing that he had ended up in a partisan detachment.

On September 16, in the Savichevs’ apartment, like in many others, the telephone was turned off. On November 3, the new school year began with a great delay in Leningrad; Tanya went to her school No. 35 until, with the onset of winter, classes in Leningrad schools gradually stopped.

Zhenya was the first to die. By December 1941, transport had stopped in Leningrad, and since the city streets were completely covered with snow, which had not been cleared all winter, Zhenya had to walk almost seven kilometers from her house to get to the plant. Sometimes she stayed overnight at the plant to save energy to work two more shifts. However, her health was no longer sufficient and one day Zhenya did not come to the plant. Concerned about her absence, on the morning of Sunday, December 28, Nina asked for time off from the night shift and hurried to her sister on Mokhovaya Street, where she died in her arms at 32 years old. Probably, in order not to forget the date of Zhenya’s death, Tanya decided to write it down. To do this, she took Nina’s notebook, which Leka had once given her. Nina turned half of the book into a draftsman's reference book, filling it with information about gate valves, valves, valves, pipelines and other fittings for boilers. The other half of the book, with the alphabet, remained blank and Tanya decided to write on it.

I still remember that New Year. None of us waited until midnight; we went to bed hungry and were glad that the house was warm. The neighbor lit the stove with books from his library. He then gave Tanya a huge volume of “Myths of Ancient Greece”. Just then, secretly from everyone, my sister took my notebook.

On the page under the letter “F” Tanya writes:

Even Nina and Misha themselves believed for a long time that Tanya made notes with a blue chemical pencil, which Nina used to line her eyes. And only in 2009, experts from the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, preparing the diary for a closed exhibition, established with certainty that Tanya made notes not with a chemical pencil, but with an ordinary colored pencil.

At first, they wanted to bury Zhenya at the Serafimovskoye cemetery, but this turned out to be impossible due to the fact that all the approaches to the cemetery gates were littered with corpses that there was no one to bury, and therefore it was decided to take Zhenya’s body to Decembrist Island and bury it there at the Smolensk Lutheran cemetery. With the help of her ex-husband Yuri, they managed to get the coffin. According to Nina’s recollections, already at the cemetery, Maria, bending over the coffin of her eldest daughter, uttered a phrase that became fatal for their family: “ Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?».

On January 19, 1942, a decree was issued to open canteens for children aged eight to twelve years. Tanya wore them until January 22. On January 23, she turned twelve years old, as a result of which, by the standards of the besieged city, she left childhood and henceforth received the same ration of bread as an adult.

In early January, Evdokia was given a terrible diagnosis: third degree nutritional dystrophy. This condition required urgent hospitalization, but Evdokia refused, citing the fact that Leningrad hospitals were already overcrowded. She died on January 25, two days after Tanya's birthday. In Nina’s book, on the page with the letter “B”, Tanya writes:

Before her death, my grandmother really asked that her card not be thrown away, because it could be used before the end of the month. Many people in Leningrad did this, and for some time this supported the life of the relatives and friends of the deceased. To prevent such “illegal use” of cards, re-registration was subsequently introduced in the middle of each month. Therefore, on the death certificate that Maria received at the district social security office, there is a different date - February 1. Evdokia is the only one from the Savichev family whose burial place remains unknown - Nina did not participate in her funeral, because, together with Leka, by that time she had long been in a factory barracks position and was almost never at home. Perhaps Evdokia was buried in a mass grave at the Piskarevskoye cemetery.

Nina and Misha

February 28, 1942 Nina was supposed to come home, but she never came. That day there was heavy shelling, and, apparently, the Savichevs considered Nina dead, not knowing that Nina, along with the entire enterprise where she worked, was hastily evacuated across Lake Ladoga to the “Great Land”. Letters almost never went to besieged Leningrad, and Nina, like Misha, could not convey any news to her family. Tanya never wrote down her sister and brother in her diary, perhaps hoping that they were alive.

Nina survived the war and lived in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) until the last days of her life. On February 6, 2013, Nina died at the age of 94. She was buried in a cemetery in the village of Vyritsa.

Leka literally lived at the Admiralty Plant, working there day and night. It was rare to visit relatives, although the plant was not far from home - on the opposite bank of the Neva, across the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge. In most cases, he had to spend the night at the plant, often working two shifts in a row. In the book “History of the Admiralty Plant” there is a photo of Leonid, and under it the inscription:

Leonid Savichev worked very diligently and was never late for a shift, although he was exhausted. But one day he didn’t come to the plant. And two days later the workshop was informed that Savichev had died...

Leka died of dystrophy on March 17 in a factory hospital at the age of 24. Mikhail remembered his brother as a great guy who was always proud of the fact that he was the same age as October and that the year of his birth was 1917. Tanya opens the notebook on the letter “L” and writes, hastily combining two words into one:

Leka, along with the factory workers who died at the same time in the hospital, were also buried in the Piskarevskoye cemetery.

Uncle Vasya

On April 13, at the age of 56, Vasily died. Tanya opens the notebook on the letter “D” and makes a corresponding entry, which turns out not very correct and confusing:

On May 4, 1942, 137 schools opened in Leningrad, but Tanya did not return to her school No. 35, because now she was taking care of her mother and uncle Lyosha, who by that time had already completely undermined their health. By that time, Alexey had already been diagnosed with third degree nutritional dystrophy, and at the same time it was advanced, and even hospitalization could not save him. Alexey died at the age of 71 on May 10. The page with the letter “L” was already occupied by Leka and therefore Tanya writes on the spread on the left. For some reason Tanya skips the word “died” on this page:

Maria Ignatievna passed away on the morning of May 13th. On the piece of paper under the letter “M” the girl makes a note, also omitting the word “died”:

Obviously, with the death of her mother, Tanya lost hope that Misha and Nina would ever return home, so on the letters “C”, “U” and “O” she writes:

The Savichevs died, everyone died, only Tanya Tanya remained

The first day when she was left alone, Tanya spent with her friend Vera Afanasyevna Nikolaenko, who lived with her parents on the floor below the Savichevs. Vera was a year older than Tanya and the girls communicated like neighbors, but during the Siege they had not seen each other until that day (Vera hardly left the house and did not know what was happening with the neighbors). Vera's mother, Agrippina Mikhailovna Nikolaenko, sewed Maria's body into a gray blanket with a stripe. Vera’s father, Afanasy Semyonovich, who was wounded at the front, was treated in a hospital in Leningrad and had the opportunity to come home often, went to a kindergarten that was nearby and asked for a two-wheeled cart there. On it, he and Vera together carried the body across the entire Vasilyevsky Island beyond the Smolenka River.

Tanya stayed with Nikolaenko all that day and stayed overnight.

She said that she would go to live with her aunt. In the evening my father came and brought some herring. We sat down to dinner. Tanya ate a piece and said: “Oh, I’m all salty.” When we went to bed, she showed a cloth bag hanging on a rope around her neck. She explained that there were jewels left from her father. She was going to exchange them for bread. The next morning Tanya left. I never saw her again.

Tanya took with her a Palekh box that was at their house, in which her mother’s wedding veil and wedding candles were kept. Now, along with them, there were six death certificates and Nina’s notebook. Aunt Dusya took custody of Tanya and moved many of the Savichevs’ things to her room for storage. At that time, she worked one and a half shifts at the factory without rest and, when leaving for work, she sent the girl outside and locked the room. This was done solely with good intentions, since by that time Tanya herself was already completely exhausted and for her it was best to stay in the fresh air. Despite the fact that it was already May, the girl, like all Leningraders who suffered from dystrophy, felt chills and wore winter clothes. It often happened that, upon returning home, Aunt Dusya found Tanya sleeping right on the stairs.

Evacuation

After some time, Tanya was able to walk on crutches, and later she moved around holding onto the wall with her hands.

But Tanya was still so weak that at the beginning of March 1944 she had to be sent to the Ponetaevsky nursing home in the village of Ponetaevka, which was 25 kilometers from Krasny Bor, although she did not get better there either. For health reasons, she was the most seriously ill patient, and therefore two months later, on May 24, Tanya was transferred to the infectious diseases department of the Shatkovo district hospital, where nurse Anna Mikhailovna Zhurkina cared for her until her last day:

I remember this girl well. Thin face, wide open eyes. Day and night I did not leave Tanya, but the illness was inexorable, and it snatched her from my hands. I can't remember this without tears...

Progressive dystrophy, scurvy, nervous shock, and even bone tuberculosis, which Tanya suffered from in early childhood, took their toll. Of all the children from orphanage No. 48 who arrived at that time, only Tanya Savicheva could not be saved. She was often tormented by headaches, and shortly before her death she became blind. Tanya Savicheva died on July 1, 1944 at the age of 14 and a half years from intestinal tuberculosis.

When the girl died, Zhurkina was sent to the regional center for disinfectant materials. She had to ride on the roof of the carriage and also return back with two bags of bleach. Once in Tanya's room, she saw that her bed was already empty. It turned out that on the same day, Tanya, as if she were rootless, was buried by the hospital groom. He showed Zhurkina a place in the village cemetery. Anna Mikhailovna's relatives were buried near this place. From the same year, she began to take care of Tanya’s grave.

Diary of Tanya Savicheva

Diary pages.

December 28, 1941. Zhenya died at 12 o'clock in the morning.
Grandmother died on January 25, 1942, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
Leka died on March 17 at 5 am.
Uncle Vasya died on April 13 at 2 am.
Uncle Lyosha May 10 at 4 pm.
Mom - May 13 at 730 am 1942.
The Savichevs died.
Everyone died.
Tanya is the only one left.

Tanya Savicheva (right) and her niece Masha Putilovskaya a few days before the start of the war, the village of Sablino, June 1941. Tanya is 11 years old, Masha is 6.

Returning to Leningrad, Tanya’s sister Nina accidentally saw a familiar Palekh box at Aunt Dusya’s place. Finding her notebook in it, she took it away, not suspecting what was written in this notebook. Then Nina met Major L. L. Rakov (1904-1970), the former scientific secretary of the Hermitage. Seeing the mournful notes made by a child’s hand in a small notebook, Rakov suggested that Nina place the siege diary on display at the exhibition “Heroic Defense of Leningrad,” in the formation of which, from the end of 1943, on behalf of the Political Directorate of the Leningrad Front, he took part. This exhibition was then transformed into the Leningrad Defense Museum, which officially opened on January 27, 1946. But in 1953, this museum was closed, and Tanya Savicheva’s diary, along with numerous documents, including the “Books of registration of burials at the Piskarevsky cemetery,” ended up in the Museum of the History of Leningrad.

Tanya Savicheva's diary appeared at the Nuremberg trials as one of the indictment documents against Nazi criminals. Nevertheless, the winner of the gold medal “Personality of St. Petersburg” Markova Liliya Nikitichna in the online newspaper “Petersburg Family” questions this fact. She believes that if this were so, the diary would have remained in Nuremberg, and would not have been exhibited at the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg.

The diary is now on display in the Leningrad History Museum, and a copy of it is in the window of one of the pavilions of the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery. In the near future, it is planned to show the original for the first time in thirty-five years, but in a closed form.

In January 2010, the Leningrad History Museum showed for the first time a photograph of Tanya, which was taken a few days before the war. In the photo, Tanya is eleven years old (that’s how old she was when she started keeping a diary). Before this, the most common photograph was the one taken in 1936, when Tanya was six years old. It was then that it turned out that one more person from the Savichev family was still alive. Until the 90s of the 20th century, all sources said that none of the Savichevs survived. Information about Nina and Misha began to appear later. Thanks to this photo, it turned out that Tanya had a niece - Zhenya’s daughter Maria Yuryevna Putilovskaya, who brought this photo to the museum. During the siege she was not evacuated and survived only thanks to her father.

Memory

A mountain pass in the Dzungarian Alatau, Kazakhstan, is named after Tanya Savicheva.
In memory of Tanya Savicheva, the minor planet “2127 Tanya” was named after her, discovered in 1971 by Soviet astronomer L.I. Chernykh. On May 31, 1981, a monument was unveiled at the Shatkovskoye cemetery - a marble tombstone and a stele with a bronze bas-relief (sculptor Kholuyeva, architects Gavrilov and Kholuev). Nearby is a stele erected in 1975 with a bas-relief portrait of a girl and pages from her diary.

In St. Petersburg, at the address 2nd line of Vasilievsky Island, building 13 (apartment building of V.F. Gromov), memorial plaques were installed on the house and in the yard where Tanya Savicheva lived.

At school No. 35, where Tanya Savicheva studied, there is a museum named after her.

The song “The Ballad of Tanya Savicheva” (music by E. Doga, lyrics by V. Gin), first performed by Edita Piekha, is dedicated to Tanya Savicheva.

Tanya Savicheva is one of four famous girls whose stories are dedicated to Yuri Yakovlev’s work “Passion for Four Girls. Mystery" (Tanya Savicheva, Anne Frank, Sadako Sasaki, Samantha Smith).

A little girl whom everyone knows as the author of a terrible siege diary, nine pages long. These diary entries became a symbol of those terrible days that the residents of the besieged city experienced.

Biography

Tanechka was born on January 23, 1930 in the village of Dvorishchi. Her parents are Maria Ignatievna and Nikolai Rodionovich, native Leningraders. From the village, the family returned home to Leningrad a few months after the birth of the girl.

Tanya lived in a large and friendly family. There were brothers - Levka and Mishka, sisters - Evgenia and Nina. My father had his own bakery, a bun production shop and a cinema.

After the NEP years, persecution of private owners began and Tatyana’s father was exiled in 1935. The whole family went into exile. My father fell ill and died in March 1936. The remaining family members settled again in Leningrad.

They began to live in the house with other relatives. These are my father's brothers - Uncle Vasily and Uncle Alexey, who lived on the floor below, and my grandmother. The family's life gradually began to improve. And then it struck.

War years

On that ill-fated day, members of the girl’s family were thinking of going to visit relatives in Dvorishchi. First, we wanted to congratulate our grandmother, who, ironically, had her birthday on June 22. At 12:15 p.m. the radio said that Nazi Germany had attacked the Soviet Union. The family remained at home, all the Savichevs, in full force, helped in repelling the fascist invaders.

Nina, Tanya’s sister, dug trenches, the girl herself was looking for containers to make a Molotov cocktail, Zhenya became a blood donor for combatants, her mother sheathed the defenders of the Motherland, and Lyovka and uncle Lesha went to join the ranks of the active army. But uncle was already old, and Lyovka’s vision was impaired.

The city was surrounded by a tight blockade ring on September 8, 1941. The Savichevs were optimistic. We will stand, we will endure, that’s how it was in the family.

Diary

One winter day, Tatyana, while cleaning, found Nina’s notebook in one of the closets. It was partially covered with writing, but the part with letters in alphabetical order of telephone numbers remained clean. I left the find. After some time, she wrote in large letters: “Zhenya died on December 28 at 12:00 am 1941.” Evgenia, being in an exhausted state, worked as a donor until the end. And three days before the New Year, I was also going to go take the test. But I was exhausted and couldn’t do it. She died in the arms of her sister Nina from hunger and anemia.

Less than a month passed and on January 25, 1942, Tanya recorded the death of her grandmother. The elderly woman walked around almost hungry all the time. I tried to leave more food for my grandchildren. She refused hospitalization and rightly believed that she would take the place of the wounded. On February 28, Nina disappeared. Tanya did not take any notes. I hoped to the last that my sister survived.

Then Leonid (Leka) died on March 17, 1942, Uncle Vasya died on April 13, and Uncle Lesha died on May 10. Having made a note about the death of her last uncle, Tanyusha put the diary away. 3 days passed and Tanya again brought up the story of the death of the Savichev family. She wrote on four more sheets of paper: “Mom on May 13 at 7.30 am 1942,” then “The Savichevs died,” “Everyone died,” “Only Tanya remained.”

Immediately after her mother’s death, Tanechka went to her grandmother’s niece, whose name was Evdokia, and she took custody of the girl. T. Dusya worked a lot and Tanya was left alone for a long time. The girl wandered around the street almost all day. After some time, Tanya became even worse; she was severely exhausted. The aunt revoked guardianship and the girl was sent to an orphanage in the Gorky region at the beginning of the summer. The condition of all the children was serious, but Tanya was also diagnosed with tuberculosis.

At the beginning of the summer of 1942 she ended up in an orphanage, and in August he moved to the village of Shatki. After 2 years, she was transferred to a home for the disabled (Ponetaevka village). In addition to the listed inert tuberculosis and dystrophy, she also suffered from blindness and scurvy. The courageous girl passed away on July 1, 1944. Tanya did not know that her sister Nina and brother Misha survived. Nina was evacuated along with the plant and was unable to inform her family, and Mikhail fought against the Germans in a partisan detachment.

The girl’s notes were found by her sister Nina, with her grandmother’s niece. Then these recordings were seen by a family acquaintance who worked in the Hermitage. Thus, the fate of this courageous girl became significant for the Leningrad blockade, the fortitude and heroism of the Soviet people. The diary is kept in the “State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg”

In fact, it is not clear now where Tanya left the diary. One version says that Mikhail found him in his parents’ apartment, and the other says that his sister found him in Evdokia’s apartment. It was kept in Tanya's box.
Tatyana's brother and sister lived a long life. Mikhail until 1988, Nina until 2013.
Tanya’s native school No. 35 in St. Petersburg has a museum named after her.

Twelve-year-old girl from besieged Leningrad Tanya Savicheva

makes the last entries in his diary:

“Mom on May 13 at 7-30 in the morning”, “The Savichevs died”, “Everyone died”, “Only Tanya remained.”

Tanya Savicheva, a Leningrad schoolgirl, was the daughter of a baker and a dressmaker, the youngest in the family and beloved by everyone. My father died early. The mother worked hard to raise five children. She, a dressmaker at the Leningrad Fashion House, always had a lot of orders and earned good money. Skillful embroidery decorated the Savichevs’ cozy home - elegant curtains, napkins, tablecloths. Everyone in the Savichev family was musically gifted. The Savichevs planned to spend the summer of 1941 in a village near Lake Peipsi. Only Misha managed to leave.

The outbreak of war changed plans. The Savichev family decided to stay in Leningrad and help the front. Mother sewed uniforms for soldiers. Brother Leonid, due to poor eyesight, did not join the army and worked as a planer at the Admiralty plant. Sister Zhenya sharpened casings for mines, Nina was mobilized for defense work. Vasily and Alexey Savichev, Tanya’s uncles, served in the air defense. Tanya, along with other children, helped the adults put out lighters and dig trenches.

Hitler promised to “strangle Leningrad with hunger and raze it to the ground.” The blockade ring quickly tightened.

One day Nina did not return from work. That day there was heavy shelling, people at home were worried and waiting. But when all the waiting periods had passed, the mother gave Tanya, in memory of her sister, her small notebook, in which the girl, starting in December 1941, wrote down the dates of death of her relatives who died of hunger.

Sister Zhenya worked 2 shifts at the factory. She also donated blood for wounded soldiers, but she didn’t have enough strength - she died right at the factory. Soon they took my grandmother to the Piskarevskoye cemetery - her heart could not stand it. In the “History of the Admiralty Plant” there are the following lines: “Leonid Savichev worked very diligently, although he was exhausted. One day he didn’t show up for his shift at the shop, they reported that he had died...”

Tanya opened her notebook more and more often - one after another, her uncles passed away, and then her mother. One day the girl will draw a terrible conclusion: “The Savichevs all died. Tanya is the only one left."

The tragedy of this family is typical of besieged Leningrad: how many people died from hunger, how many families died out!

Tanya was discovered by employees of special sanitary teams who were visiting Leningrad houses. Life barely glimmered in her. In the summer of 1942, the girl was evacuated from Leningrad along with other Leningrad children exhausted by hunger to the Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) region, to the village of Shatki.

Residents fed and warmed orphan souls. Many of them got stronger and got back on their feet. But Tanya never got up. On July 1, 1944, Tanya Savicheva died in the hospital from an incurable disease - progressive dystrophy.

She was buried in the village cemetery. They installed a stele with a bas-relief of a girl and pages from her diary.

Tanya Savicheva's diary is exhibited in the Leningrad History Museum, and a copy of it is in the window of one of the pavilions of the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery.

In memory of Tanya Savicheva, an asteroid was named after her.

Tanya never found out that not all the Savichevs died, their family continues. Sister Nina, in whose book Tanya kept notes, did not actually die. She didn’t come home from work because she was taken to the hospital and then taken to the rear. In 1945, she returned to her hometown, to her home, and among the bare walls, fragments and plaster she found a notebook with Tanya’s notes. Brother Misha also recovered from a serious wound at the front.
Among the incriminating documents against fascist criminals presented at the Nuremberg trials was a small notebook from Leningrad schoolgirl Tanya Savicheva.

Tannin records are also carved on the gray stone of the “Flower of Life” monument, near St. Petersburg, on the third kilometer of the blockade “Road of Life”.

There were eight children in the family of Nikolai Rodionovich and Maria Ignatievna Savichev, Tanya was the youngest. Only her sister Zhenya and brother Leonid were included in her mournful diary. Two other children, Nina and Mikhail, were considered missing, and three more died in infancy.

Tanya's father, Nikolai Rodionovich, died shortly before the war, in 1936. Even before the revolution, he opened a bakery, bakery and cinema, which brought in a good income. After the Soviet government curtailed the new economic policy, Nikolai Savichev lost his enterprises and was expelled from Leningrad. However, to their misfortune, after some time the family was still able to return to their hometown.

“Zhenya died on December 28. at 12.30 o'clock. morning 1941"

The first victim of the war in the Savichev family was Zhenya, the eldest child of Nikolai Rodionovich and Maria Ignatievna. She was born in 1909, managed to get married and divorced. After marriage, Zhenya left her father’s house on the 2nd line of Vasilyevsky Island and moved to Mokhovaya. She continued to live in the new apartment after the divorce. Here Evgenia Nikolaevna Savicheva died on December 28, 1941.

Zhenya worked in the archives of the Nevsky Machine-Building Plant. She, like hundreds of thousands of other rear workers, performed a real feat every day: in this difficult, hungry time, she not only worked overtime (sometimes two shifts in a row), but also donated blood for the Red Army soldiers.

This was one of the reasons for her death in the winter of 1941. Leningrad was hit by severe frosts, which the townspeople had to endure without heating, electricity or public transport. Zhenya, exhausted from work and constant blood donation, covered a 7 km long path twice a day - from home to the factory. She walked in the terrible cold and in a blizzard, invariably falling into deep snowdrifts that no one cleared away. Sometimes Zhenya stayed overnight at the plant, but this did not bring her any rest: the eldest of the Savichev children took on an extra shift.

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Zhenya did not come to work only once, at the very end of December 1941. Her sister Nina, who worked at the same plant as a designer, began to worry. On Sunday morning, December 28, she took time off from her shift and ran to Mokhovaya. Nina Savicheva found her sister already dying.

Zhenya was very afraid that dirt would get into her eyes if she was buried without a coffin, so the Savichevs gave two loaves of bread and cigarettes from their meager supplies to find a coffin and bury Zhenya at the Smolensk cemetery.

On the day of the funeral, Maria Ignatievna Savicheva said over her daughter’s grave: “Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?” On the day of Zhenya’s death, her sister Tanya began her mournful diary. She took Nina's notebook and flipped through the pages where her older sister described the structure of steam boilers. On each sheet of notebook there was a letter of the alphabet. Tanya found the letter “zh” in the empty half of the book and wrote in blue pencil: “Zhenya died on December 28. at 12.30 o'clock. morning 1941." The short sentence took up the entire page: the girl wrote in large, uneven handwriting, placing one or two words on a line.

“Grandmother died on January 25th. 3 o'clock in the afternoon 1942."

On June 22, 1941, Maria Ignatievna’s mother, Evdokia Grigorievna Fedorova, turned 74 years old. In early January, Tanya’s grandmother was diagnosed with the last degree of nutritional dystrophy. This meant that Evdokia Grigorievna’s weight loss exceeded 30%, and she had no chance of surviving without urgent hospitalization. But she refused the hospital, saying that all the wards were already full. Evdokia Grigorievna died on January 25, 1942, two days after Tanya’s 12th birthday. The exact burial place of Evdokia Grigorievna is unknown - by this time the dead were rarely buried separately, most often they ended up in mass graves. Most likely, Evdokia Grigorievna ended up in one of these graves at the Piskarevskoye cemetery.

Before her death, the grandmother asked not to bury her until the beginning of February - thus, the Savichevs kept Evdokia Grigorievna’s January food card, which could be used to receive food for the few days remaining in January.

People dying during the Leningrad siege often bequeathed their cards to relatives. To stop the distribution of food to the dead, the city authorities introduced additional registration in the middle of each month.

Wikimedia

On January 25, another entry appeared in Tanya’s diary : “Grandmother died on January 25th. 3 p.m. 1942.” The official date of death of Evdokia Grigorievna Fedorova was February 1, 1942 - the day when her food card expired.

“Leka died on March 17 at 5 o’clock in the morning in 1942.”

Tanya's older brother Leonid (or Leka, as his relatives called him) was the same age as the revolution and had the appropriate character. He rushed to the military registration and enlistment office immediately after he learned about the start of the war, but he was not taken to the front - his myopia was too severe. And in the rear, Leonid was much more useful: the eldest son in the Savichev family was a talented engineer. If it were not for his father’s exile, he could have received a higher education and achieved success in his chosen field, but the son of the “dispossessed” was allowed to graduate only from a factory school. According to the memoirs of Nina Savicheva, Leonid once made a receiver and promised his sister that someday she would be able to sit at home and watch performances from any theater in the world. Nina actually lived to see this time.

In addition, the young man was musically gifted. The Savichev family encouraged music lessons, so Leonid and his friends even had their own string orchestra. Perhaps this hobby would have grown into something more if not for the siege of Leningrad.

Wikimedia

The fate of Leonid largely repeats the fate of Zhenya Savicheva. Also a factory, also grueling work, never ending day or night. At his native Admiralty plant, young Savichev was highly valued: the young man was not only capable, but also diligent and efficient. Like his sister Zhenya, he did not come to work only once - on the day when he ended up in a factory hospital with dystrophy. The younger sister, making mistakes in her diary out of grief and weakness, will write: “Leka died on March 17 at 5 o’clock in the morning in 1942.” Leonid Savichev was only 24 years old.

“Uncle Vasya died on April 13, 2 a.m. 1942.”

Tanya's father, Nikolai Rodionovich, had five brothers and a sister. Three brothers lived in the same house on the 2nd line of Vasilievsky Island, but on a higher floor. Two of them - Vasily and Alexey - survived to see the war. During the difficult times of blockade, all the Savichevs decided to live in the same apartment to help each other.

In 1941, Vasily Savichev was 56 years old. During the First World War, he fought and received a military award, then, together with his brothers, he ran a bakery. After the Savichevs’ enterprise was closed, he became the director of the “Bukinist” store, where he worked until the end of his days.

Vasily Savichev, like his nephew Leonid, aspired to go to the front, but, despite his combat experience, he was not accepted as a volunteer due to his age.

Uncle Vasya, like other family members, adored little Tanya. In the terrible winter of 1941-1942, he lit the stove with his library, but did not touch one book, “Myths of Ancient Greece” - he gave it to his niece. “Uncle Vasya died on April 13, 2 a.m. 1942,” Tanya will write, confusing prepositions and cases. By an evil irony of fate, it was at this time that hope began to glimmer in the souls of Leningraders: the bread quota was increased, bathhouses were opened, and trams began to operate.

“Uncle Lyosha May 10 at 4 pm 1942.”

Alexey Savichev was much older than his brothers Nikolai and Vasily - by the beginning of the war he was 71 years old. Despite his advanced age, Alexey Rodionovich wanted to be in combat ranks. Of course, he was not accepted as a volunteer for the front.

Alexey Savichev did the same work as the rest, much younger members of the family. He built barricades, dug trenches, and was on duty on rooftops. Like thousands of other Leningraders, he died from the last stage of dystrophy. In the entry about the death of Uncle Lyosha, the exhausted, seriously ill and completely exhausted Tanya missed the word “died”. It probably became unbearable for the child, exhausted by suffering.

“Mom on May 13 at 7.30 a.m. 1942.”

In the spring of 1942, Maria Ignatievna was already seriously ill with scurvy. Tanya ran to the market, tried to get onions for her mother - the girl did not believe that her always kind, strong and resilient mother could die and leave her alone. But Maria Ignatievna herself understood that this would soon happen, and after her death she ordered her daughter to go to a distant relative, Aunt Dusya.

RIA News

After the collapse of her husband’s enterprises, Maria Ignatievna began working at the May 1 Sewing Artel, where she soon became the best embroiderer. She loved music very much. The house had a wide variety of instruments, from banjos to pianos, and the Savichevs organized home concerts. The boys, Mikhail and Leonid, played, the girls, Nina and Tanya, sang. With the war, all entertainment ended: Maria Ignatievna began sewing uniforms for front-line soldiers and going on defensive duty.

The entry about the death of my beloved mother is the most confusing in the diary. Tanya again misses the word “died” and gets confused with prepositions. On May 13, 1942, broken by scurvy, dystrophy and tuberculosis, Tanya Savicheva left her home. For one day, she was sheltered by her neighbors - the Nikolaenko family. They buried Maria Ignatievna.

“The Savichevs died. Everyone died"

Tanya knew nothing about the fate of her sister Nina and brother Mikhail. Nina disappeared on the last day of winter 1942. She worked together with Zhenya, and the path from the factory to home was just as difficult for her. Nina increasingly spent the night at work, and on February 28 she disappeared. That day there was heavy shelling in the city, and Nina’s relatives considered her dead. In fact, the girl found herself in evacuation: the entire plant was urgently sent across Lake Ladoga, and she did not have time to send a message to her family. Nina was ill for a long time, then she worked in the Kalinin region and could not find out anything about her family - letters did not reach besieged Leningrad. But the girl did not stop writing and waiting that one fine day the answer would come.

RIA News

Nina Nikolaevna Savicheva returned to Leningrad in August 1945. The war had already ended, but it was still very difficult to get into the city legally, so Nina was “smuggled” in a truck. Only then did she find out what happened to her family.

Mikhail was the only member of the Savichev family who did not end up in the blockade. The day before the start of the war, he left for Kingisepp. Mikhail found himself in German-occupied territory and went into the forest to join the partisans. He fought for a long time, until January 1944. After being seriously wounded, he was sent to liberated Leningrad. The war left him disabled; he walked on crutches. Returning to his hometown, Mikhail began making inquiries about his relatives. He managed to find out everything about the fate of his family before Nina. Having learned that none of his relatives were in Leningrad anymore, he left the city forever and moved to Slantsy, in the Leningrad region. He got a job at the post office, where he worked all his life.

“Only Tanya remains”

Tanya could not bury her mother - she was too weak. The neighbors’ daughter Vera recalls Maria Ignatievna’s final journey this way:

“Behind the bridge over Smolenka there was a huge hangar. Corpses were brought there from all over Vasilyevsky Island. We brought the body there and left it. I remember there was a mountain of corpses there. When they entered there, a terrible groan was heard. It was air coming out of the throat of someone dead... I became very scared.”

The next morning, Tanya, taking all the valuables from the house, went to Aunt Dusya. Evdokia Petrovna Arsenyeva was the niece of Tanya’s grandmother. A difficult childhood made her withdrawn and unsociable, but she took Tanya in with her. Evdokia Petrovna transported many of the Savichevs’ things for safekeeping and tried to get Tanya out. But in vain. The only chance of salvation for the girl was evacuation and urgent medical care. Evdokia Petrovna relieved herself of guardianship and placed Tanya in orphanage No. 48.

In the Gorky region, children were released. 125 young passengers arrived in the village of Krasny Bor, 124 of them survived the war. Only Tanya Savicheva died.

RIA News

Almost all the children suffered from the consequences of a severe hunger strike, but did not suffer from infectious diseases. Of the 125 people, three suffered from scabies, one from stomatitis, but these ailments were not considered fatal. Only Tanya Savicheva turned out to be a seriously ill child: in childhood she had spinal tuberculosis, which again made itself felt.

The girl was isolated from other children; only one person could be near her - nurse Nina Mikhailovna Seredkina. From the outside it might seem that Tanya was recovering - she gradually began to walk with crutches, and then began to do without them altogether, holding on to the wall. But in fact, the disease only progressed. In May 1944, Tanya Savicheva was transferred to the Shatkovo regional hospital, from where she was never destined to leave.

“I remember this girl well,” recalls Shatkovo Hospital nurse Anna Zhurkina. - Thin face, wide open eyes. Day and night I did not leave Tanya’s side, but the illness was inexorable, and it snatched her from my hands. I can’t remember this without tears..."

This happened on July 1, 1944. Short entry, “Savicheva T.N. Ponetaevka. Intestinal tuberculosis. She died on 07/01/44,” and an abandoned grave is all that remains after the death of Tanya Savicheva. Only many years later, her diary will spread throughout the world, her image will be recreated in monuments, and her grave will be discovered.

She never grew up

There is a legend that Tanya Savicheva’s diary was used during the Nuremberg trials as one of the main prosecution documents, but this is unlikely to be true: all documents from the Nuremberg trials are stored in a special archive, and Tanya Savicheva’s diary is exhibited in the Museum of the History of Leningrad. But unofficially, it did become one of the main indictments of World War II. It is tearfully remembered in the same way as Anne Frank's diary or Sadako Sasaki's cranes. The memory of Tanya Savicheva’s diary is perpetuated so that no one forgets about the hundreds of thousands of children who were deprived of the right to become adults.

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