The act of a simple Russian woman Praskovya Shchegoleva

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

The name of the Voronezh compatriot Praskovya Ivanovna Shchegoleva, who accomplished an unparalleled feat during the war years, is inscribed in gold letters in the annals of the Great Patriotic War.

On September 15, 1942, junior lieutenant of the aviation regiment Mikhail Maltsev received a combat mission: to carry out an attack on enemy equipment accumulated in the forest near the Don River and return to the airfield. During the execution of this mission, Maltsev's plane was shot down, fell on a high hill and rapidly began to slide on his belly along a steep slope to the river … right into the garden. Praskovya Schegoleva was in the garden with her children and mother. She came to her native village of Semiluki, occupied by the Nazis, to dig up potatoes, pick tomatoes and feed the children.

The plane was on fire.

- Mom, give me a shovel! - ordered Praskovya and immediately began to throw the earth into the fire with a wide male swoop. Maltsev regained consciousness, got up, opened the lantern and went down to the ground. A woman ran up to him.

- Go to the hut! She pointed to the house.

- Where are the Germans? - he asked.

- Throughout the village.

Indeed, departments of the secret field police settled in the village of Devitsa and on the Sevastyanovka farm, and in addition to these villages, the field gendarmerie detachments were also on the Semiluksky state farm, where the headquarters of the 7th German Army Corps was stationed.

Meanwhile, the Nazis with dogs ran to the burning plane.

- Where can I go? Praskovya pointed to the house.

- So go along the ravine now and leave. He crawled. Schegoleva warned the children not to say anything to the Germans, she herself will answer them. Praskovya did not yet know what awaited her and the children, did not foresee the near end.

As expected, the Germans arrived at the crash site a few minutes later. The only surviving son of the family, Alexander, told about the atrocities of the Nazis (husband and father Stepan Yegorovich died at the front).

The Germans began to question Shchegoleva and the children about the pilot's hiding place, but none of them betrayed the pilot. The woman stood her ground, declaring that she knew nothing. Enraged, the Nazis began to beat Shchegoleva and her children and poison with shepherd dogs, who tore them to shreds. Adults and children were silent. Then the Germans seized 12-year-old Sasha, took him into an empty house and, threatening to shoot his mother, tried to get him where the pilot was hidden. Having achieved nothing, they beat him, saying that everyone would be shot. Returning to the courtyard, they once again perpetrated a brutal reprisal against Praskovya, her mother and five young children: the German held out his hand to the mother, tore Nina from her chest, the blanket opened, the girl fell to the ground. The dogs were unleashed … and then they were all killed:

Praskovya Ivanovna (she was 35 years old), her mother, Anya - 9 years old (her plush jacket was all like a sieve from bullets), Polina - 7, Nina, who was barely two years old. And two Nikolai (son and nephew) 5 - 6 years old.

Sasha got scared when he heard screams and shots. He was sitting in a locked closet. I remembered that there is a narrow hole here. Through it and ran away, hid.

The memory of people like Praskovya is unforgettable …

Praskovya Ivanovna Shchegoleva - height above average, simple face, high cheekbones, brown eyes, straight nose, thick crescent eyebrows. The look is attentive, intelligent, a half-smile lurks in the dimples near the lips. This is how this Russian woman appears in front of us from a single photograph.

Don't judge me, Praskovya, That I came to you like this:

I wanted to drink to health

And I must drink to the peace."

The poet M. Isakovsky dedicated these lines to a courageous and courageous woman.

Description of PI Shchegoleva's feat became the plot of E. Veltistov's documentary story "Praskovya".

The rescued pilot Mikhail Tikhonovich Maltsev took refuge in one of the houses with. Semiluki. At night he tried to cross the Don, but he failed and had to return to his hiding place. The next day, he was accidentally discovered by local residents and later given to the occupiers by one of the women.

Maltsev survived captivity and was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945.

Lived and worked in Bashkiria. Awarded with the order for labor services.

Repeatedly visited Semiluki at the grave of Shchegoleva.

On his first visit, he met in the field and identified the woman who betrayed him to the Germans.

Did Praskovya have a choice? Probably was. She, together with the children, could have run away before the Germans arrived and hide, or she could not have approached the burning plane at all, where the pilot would have probably burned out without her help. She could have betrayed him, indicating the direction where he went to hide. Look, for this the Nazis could give the children a chocolate bar or a harmonica, and she herself a ration of surrogate products. But Praskovya did what she did, as her conscience told her. Praskovya Ivanovna Shchegoleva was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the first degree, Alexander Stepanovich Shchegolev - the medal "For Courage".

From the certificate of the Voronezh KGB department:

- The Germans took the 12-year-old son of Shchegoleva Alexander, took him to a nearby empty house and, threatening to shoot his mother, tried to find out where the Soviet pilots were. Not having achieved this, they beat him. Returning to the courtyard, the Germans perpetrated brutal reprisals against Shchegoleva, her mother and five children. Before shooting them, they set dogs on them, which bit them, tore them to shreds (Shchegoleva's jaws were knocked out and her breasts were torn off), and then they were all shot.

Died: Praskovya Ivanovna (she was 35 years old), her mother 70 years old, Anya - 9 years old (her plush jacket was all like a sieve from bullets), Polina - 7, Nina, who was barely two years old. And two Nikolai (son and nephew) 5-6 years old.

Sasha Shchegolev managed to escape. After killing his mother, he secretly climbed out of the locked closet through the attic. Later it was he who told about what happened.

Pilot Mikhail Maltsev took refuge in one of the houses of Semiluk. There he was found the next day by one of the women, Natalya Misareva, and handed him over to the invaders. Maltsev will remember her words all his life:

“I think I'll go and report it to the commandant’s office,” she said calmly.

- In which? - the pilot did not believe.

- In German.

And than:

- Why are you squinting? The Germans will not be worse for you.

Before declaring, she fed him. The pilot woke up from pain in his arms and chest - two Germans held his hands, the third aimed his rifle. They dragged him to Endovishche, put him near the field kitchen. Dinner has already been distributed, someone shouted: "Comrade pilot, can you drink some milk?" It was Natalya.

- Thank you, you've already got me drunk. I'm fed up, - Maltsev answered dully.

Having survived almost three years of captivity, the pilot was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. After the war, Maltsev married and gave birth to three children. He returned to his native Bashkir forests and got a job in one of the forestries. Once his eldest daughter Tatyana read in "Soviet Russia" about the feat of a woman from Semiluki, who at the cost of her life saved the pilot. So Maltsev learned the name of a woman who sacrificed her family's life for him. In 1965 he came to Semiluki. For a long time he lay, crying, at the grave of Praskovya. He also met with Natalia …

She did not recognize him. Only when he showed her his damaged tongue (during the crash of the plane, Maltsev bit him hard). She turned pale: "What will happen to me now?" Martynenko, the Chekist who was with Maltsev, said:

- Let your conscience torment you all your life.