How teacher Matryona Volskaya saved over three thousand kids

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

In the year of the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Victory, Constantinople tells about the exploits of people during the Second World War. Today, on Children's Day, we will talk about a unique and largest-scale operation to rescue little ones during the war years. The top-secret and difficult task was to be performed by the former primary school teacher, 23-year-old Matryona Volskaya.

An important assignment

Matryona Volskaya was born on November 6, 1919 in the Dukhovshchinsky district of the Smolensk province. Parents and friends affectionately called her Motya. She was responsible, flexible, loved to read books and tell fairy tales to all the neighbour's children. From the age of 18, Matryona began to teach at the Basin elementary school. In 1941 she graduated from the Dorogobuzh Pedagogical College.

Shortly before the start of the war, Motya married Mikhail Volsky. As soon as the Germans began to approach Smolensk, men from the surrounding villages began to go into the forests and create partisan detachments. It was decided to arrange a safe house in the Volskys' house. In the neighboring building, where the village council was formerly located, the Nazis set up their police station, so the underground workers worked right under the noses of the Germans. Motya multiplied and distributed leaflets and reports of the Sovinformburo, collected information about the location of enemy units and passed them on to the partisans. Soon she became a liaison named Month. When it became dangerous to be in the village, Matryona joined the detachment.

She made daring sorties, sabotage, participated in military operations. In 1942 she was awarded the Order of the Battle Red Banner. When the commander of the detachment Nikifor Kolyada, whom everyone called Batey, received information that the Germans were going to take all the local children to Germany, he reported this to the Center. It was urgently decided to organize a special operation to rescue and evacuate the children. Matryona Volskaya was appointed responsible for the transfer of children across the front line, who herself at that time was preparing to become a mother.

The Germans attacked the children's trail

The route of movement was fully coordinated with Moscow. A column of many thousands of children had to walk 200 km in ten days through the forests and swamps of the Smolensk region. At the appointed time, it was necessary to go to the Toropets station, which was located in the Kalinin (now Tver) region. From there, the rescued children were planned to be sent to the rear by special trains.

Volskaya was convinced that the operation would be very difficult, already on July 22, on the first day of the campaign, - wrote Leonid Novikov in his documentary book Operation Children. parents.”They said goodbye, not knowing where they were being sent and whether they would be able to see their home again …

On 23 July, 1,500 children set out on a dangerous journey. The teacher Varvara Polyakova and the nurse Yekaterina Gromova were assigned as assistants to Mote. It was decided to split the guys into detachments, and each was assigned a commander from among those older children. To control all the charges, Volskaya had to put in a lot of effort. On the very first day, a German reconnaissance aircraft attacked the trail of the convoy. First, leaflets fell from the sky on children, and after a few hours, bombs.

The secret path became known to the fascists. It was originally planned to go through the Matissky swamps to Zhelyukhovo and Sloboda, but the route had to be urgently changed. They decided to take the children along a different, more difficult road for them. We walked mainly at night. Every day, the children accompanied by Motea became more and more. Children from neighboring villages plundered and burned by the Germans constantly adjoined their endless column. After a few days of the campaign, there were already about two thousand wards at Volskaya. When the children were resting, Matryona went on reconnaissance several kilometers ahead, then returned and made a decision on further movement. The modest food supplies ran out very soon.

The children were constantly experiencing a breakdown and could barely walk. They ate mainly the remaining crumbs from rusks, forest berries, dandelions and plantain. They were especially thirsty. In the destroyed villages and villages, the water in the wells was poisoned by the Germans.

Early in the morning of July 28, we went to the Western Dvina River, the children rushed to the river. - recalled Matryona Volskaya. - Three German planes flew in and began to fire at children, wounded Zhenya Alekhnovich. The children ran across the bridge to the other side and into the forest.

On one's last legs

On July 29, the especially emaciated ones were loaded into four lorries that overtook the column and sent to the Toropets station. The rest went on foot. When it was 8 km to the point of arrival, the children were completely weakened. The elders carried the babies in their arms, many of them had their feet bloody. Gathering their last strength, they were able to reach Toropets on August 2. Volskaya handed over 3,225 children to new companions. The statement of acceptance of evacuated children contains the following entry:

Children look awful, have no clothes or shoes at all. Adopted from Volskaya 3225 children.

On August 5, the team came for the guys. Exhausted, they were loaded into heating cars. All were allocated 500 kilograms of bread. No one expected that Volskaya would bring so many children.

Each person had 150 grams of bread. At the station, in parallel, the loading of the fighters into the echelon was going on. Having learned that there were hungry children in the neighboring train, they gave them their rations.

On the way, the children were still scared. The train was repeatedly raided by fascist aircraft, despite the fact that “Children” was written on the roof of each carriage. Our fighters, accompanying the train, circled around like kites, not allowing the Fritzes to approach the train.