Mother and Inhumans. The immortal feat of the peasant Alexandra Dreyman

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In 1943, at the Kiev film studio, evacuated to Central Asia, the director Mark Donskoythe war drama "Rainbow" was filmed. For the first time in this film, the theme of the horrors of the Nazi occupation and the suffering of those who fell under the rule of the Nazis were raised.

Pain "Rainbow"

In the center of the plot is the story of a partisan Olena Kostyukwho has to make a choice - betray her comrades or save the life of her newborn child.

"Rainbow" made a strong impression on the audience. Even today, this film is physically difficult to watch, such is the concentration of human pain in it.

The crew recalled that the filming itself was a test. Among the actors were those who lost loved ones in the war, and they, in fact, had to relive personal suffering. When it got especially hard, director Mark Donskoy approached the actors and said only one word: "We must."

In 1944, "Rainbow" was released not only in the Soviet, but also in the US. They say that after the screenings of the tape, an influx of volunteers was observed in the recruiting offices of the American army - men were eager to take revenge on the Nazi non-humans for the suffering of women in a distant Soviet country. Rainbow was honored with the United States Film Critics' Association Grand Prize and the Daily News Superior Award for Best Foreign Film in the United States in 1944, as well as the National Council of Film Reviewers of the United States.

The picture was an adaptation of the novel of the same name by the writer Wanda Vasilevskaya. The story that became the basis of the work was not fictional - Vasilevskaya only moved the scene from the Moscow region to the occupied Ukraine.

Latvian peasant woman in the suburbs

The woman who had to make the worst choice in life was called Alexandra Draiman.

The Latvian Dreiman family moved from Libava to Porechye near Moscow in 1911. Here, in the estate of Count Uvarov, their fellow countryman worked as a gardener. Alexandra's father worked as a manager of the Surovtsevo estate near Porechye. In 1914, the head of the family went to war. He returned from the front disabled. The Dreymans lived in poverty. So that the younger sister could study, Alexandra grazed the cattle of a wealthier fellow villager. And in the evenings, Sasha repeated her lessons for the youngest in order to master the literacy.

Over time, the brothers and sisters parted, and only Alexandra remained to live with her mother. She worked on a collective farm, became a foreman, then the chairman of the village council. Then she graduated from a construction college in absentia. In 1939, together with her mother, Alexandra moved to the village of Uvarovka, where she was offered the position of head of the regional road department. She coped with her duties perfectly and quickly earned the respect of the residents of Uvarovka.

Alexandra devoted all of herself to work also because it did not work out with her personal life. In 1941 she turned 33 years old, and there was no husband or children.

Therefore, marriage with an employee of the office "Zagotzerno" Ermolenko, decorated in the spring of 1941, the people around were sympathetic. Although they were wary of Alexandra's chosen one. He arrived in Uvarovka recently, no one knew anything about his past, and he made some unpleasant impression on people.

"Uvarovsky" detachment

The war destroyed all previous plans. The front line was rapidly approaching the Moscow region. Alexandra sent her mother to her sister Anna, who lived in Moscow, while she continued to work.

In case of the seizure of territory by the Germans, a partisan detachment was formed in Uvarovka. Alexandra Dreyman also signed up for it. But her husband was not accepted - Ermolenko's incomprehensible past made the organizers refuse him. The partisan detachment went into the woods on the evening of October 12, 1941, when German tanks were already approaching Uvarovka.

The partisan detachments of 1941 were, for the most part, a chaotic and spontaneous phenomenon. There was a sorely lack of specialists versed in military affairs. According to statistics, out of 2,800 detachments and underground groups formed in 1941, only about 10 percent survived by 1942 - the rest were defeated by the Nazis. It is possible that the same fate could await the "Uvarovsky" detachment. Suffice it to say that Alexandra Dreiman, a road construction specialist, was the only one who was quite well versed in mine explosives. Therefore, in addition to conducting reconnaissance in settlements, she was engaged in training fighters. These briefings were not in vain. At the end of October, the "Uvarovsky" detachment carried out a successful operation to blow up four bridges at once, seriously disrupting German communications.

But immediately after this success, Alexandra Draiman disappeared from the detachment.

We have an order to shoot you

Guerrilla life in the cinema is most often cozy dugouts, in which cheerful soldiers sing to the accompaniment of an accordion. In reality, life in the forest was very difficult even for healthy people. Cold, dampness, often a lack of food … Partisans tried to transport the wounded across the front line or send them to villages to reliable people. They did the same with the sick, because it was very difficult to recover in the forest. Returning to settlements is a serious risk, because local collaborators were always ready to hand over partisans in order to receive a reward from the German command. But often there was simply no other way out. Not only the sick, but also the healthy left the detachments. Unable to withstand the hardships, people became deserters.

So Alexandra Dreyman was suspected of desertion. And the command of the detachment decided - to punish the traitor. It didn't take long to look for her, because the woman returned to her own home. The envoys, who came to Alexandra's house at night, said directly: "We have an order to shoot you!" The woman calmly replied: “Shoot! And me and the child! " And she showed the stunned partisans her rounded belly.

She hid her pregnancy to the last. The cold weather that came early helped in this - under her winter clothes, Alexandra's interesting position was not visible.

But when the due date approached, the woman simply did not have the strength to stay in the forest, especially since she turned from a fighter into a burden. Alexandra was used to solving everything herself and this time she also felt that no one should suffer because of her problems.

I have a boy

The partisans returned to the detachment to report on how things are in reality. And then it became known that a few hours later Aleksandra Dreiman was arrested by the Germans.

Resident of Uvarovka Evdokia Kolenova, Alexandra's neighbor said that before her arrest her husband came to her: “Ermolenko disappeared somewhere just before the Germans arrived. Then, when they were already looting, he showed up again and immediately came to Alexandra. What did you talk about? Nobody knows that. But on the coming night, the Germans took her away, in what she was - in a tunic and a skirt. And in the morning people saw Dreyman's husband in German uniform, cheerfully striding through the village. There is a version that Ermolenko was a German agent since the pre-war period, and his appearance in Uvarovka and his marriage to Aleksandra Dreiman were part of his task - to settle, become one of the locals, so that he could take action at the right time.

German commandant of the village chief lieutenant Haase Dreyman began interrogating. He had no doubt that a woman who was about to give birth would break quickly. And then - a quick defeat of the partisan detachment and a reward from the command. But Alexandra was silent. They beat her, drove her barefoot and practically naked in the cold, beat her again.

In the midst of this bullying, the woman gave birth to her first child. The partisan was kept in a barn, to which her friend managed to get through Anna Minaeva … “I have the boy, Nyura,” said Alexandra. "I feel very bad - at least the end has come sooner."

The worst test

And at the next interrogation, the most terrible moment came. The German said - either she betrays the location of the partisans, or the child will be killed right in front of her eyes.

What was she experiencing in those seconds? She waited so long for her happiness, and here he was, was born, her first-born, her long-awaited baby. What could be stronger than the maternal instinct, forcing to protect her child at any cost? Who would have been able to condemn a tortured woman if at that moment she had been saving the life of a baby by sacrificing dozens of lives of members of the partisan detachment?

But Alexandra Draiman did not tell the Germans anything. Her baby was stabbed with bayonets in front of her eyes. And then they beat her again, not so much out of a desire to achieve something, but out of rage, hatred and misunderstanding - how can this little fragile woman have such incredible resilience?

The next day, Alexandra Dreyman was shot.

Do you hear me, mothers ?

The Nazis fled from Uvarovka on January 22, 1942. The war correspondent of Pravda arrived in the village together with the advanced units of the Red Army. Oscar Kurganov. From local residents, he learned the story of Alexandra Dreyman. In February 1942, the essay "Mother" was published in the main newspaper of the Soviet Union.

“They pushed her with the butt, she slipped into the snow, but got up again, barefoot, exhausted, blue, swollen, tortured by the executioners. And her voice arose again in the evening darkness:

- Mothers, relatives, can you hear me? I accept death from the hands of animals, I did not spare my son, but I did not betray my truth. Can you hear me, mothers?!..

And until the enemy is defeated, all honest people of the earth, everyone in whom a mother's heart beats, will not forget the dying cry of Alexandra Martynovna Dreyman. It sounds, this cry, from the depths of her martyr's soul. And the image of a mother, whose love for the motherland, for freedom, for her land turned out to be stronger than all her maternal feelings, will never be washed off in the memory of the people.

Eternal and immortal glory to her!"

By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of February 16, 1942, for the valor and courage shown in the partisan struggle in the rear against the German invaders, Alexandra Martynovna Dreyman was posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin.