Humanity Test: The Incredible Story of an Armenian Officer During the Great Patriotic War

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

Sometimes events occur in life that cannot be explained by either logic or chance. They are presented to a person, as a rule, in their most extreme, most severe manifestations. But it is precisely in situations that are usually called extreme that one can see, or rather feel, how this amazing mechanism works - human destiny.

… February 1943, Stalingrad. For the first time in the entire period of World War II, Hitler's troops suffered a terrible defeat. More than a third of a million German soldiers were surrounded and surrendered. We all saw these documentary footage of military newsreels and remembered forever these columns, or rather crowds of soldiers wrapped in whatever they got, wandering under escort through the frozen ruins of the city they had torn to pieces.

True, in life everything was a little bit different. The columns were met infrequently, because the Germans surrendered mainly in small groups throughout the vast territory of the city and the surrounding area, and secondly, no one escorted them at all. They just showed them the direction where to go into captivity, and there they wandered, some in groups, and some alone. The reason was simple - on the way there were heating points, or rather dugouts, in which the stoves were burning, and the prisoners were given boiling water. In the conditions of 30-40 degrees below zero to walk away or run away was simply tantamount to suicide. Nobody ever escorted the Germans, except for newsreels …

Lieutenant Vahan Khachatryan fought for a long time. However, what does long mean? He has always fought. He has simply forgotten the time when he did not fight. In war, a year goes for three, and in Stalingrad, probably, this year could be safely equated to ten, and who would undertake to measure such an inhuman time as war with a piece of human life!

Khachatryan is already used to everything that accompanies the war. He is used to death, they quickly get used to it. He was used to the cold and lack of food and ammunition. But most importantly, he got used to the idea that "there is no land on the other bank of the Volga." And with all these habits, he lived to see the defeat of the German army at Stalingrad.

But it turned out that Vagan had not yet had time to get used to something at the front. Once, on the way to the next part, he saw a strange picture. On the side of the highway, near a snowdrift, there was a German prisoner, and about ten meters from him was a Soviet officer who from time to time … shot at him. The lieutenant has never met such a thing: to kill an unarmed person in cold blood like this ?! “Maybe he wanted to run away? - thought the lieutenant. - So nowhere else! Or maybe this prisoner attacked him? Or maybe….

A shot rang out again, and again the bullet did not touch the German.

- Hey! - shouted the lieutenant, - what are you doing?

Great, - as if nothing had happened the "executioner" answered. - Yes, the guys here gave me "Walther", I decided to try it on the German! I shoot, I shoot, but I can’t hit it in any way - you can see German weapons right away, they don’t take their own! - the officer grinned and began to aim again at the prisoner.

The lieutenant gradually began to understand all the cynicism of what was happening, and he was already numb with rage. In the midst of all this horror, in the midst of all this human grief, in the midst of this icy devastation, this bastard in the uniform of a Soviet officer decided to "try" the pistol on this barely living person! Kill him not in battle, but just like that, hit him like a target, just use him as an empty tin can, because there was no can at hand ?! But whoever he was, he is still a man, even a German, even a fascist, even an enemy yesterday, with whom he had to fight so desperately! But now this person is in captivity, this person, in the end, was guaranteed life! We are not them, we are not fascists, how is it possible to kill this person, who is so barely alive?

And the prisoner both stood and stood motionless. He, apparently, had long since said goodbye to his life, was completely numb and seemed to just wait for him to be killed, and still could not wait. The dirty coils around his face and hands were unwound, and only his lips whispered something silently. On his face there was no despair, no suffering, no pleading - an indifferent face and those whispering lips - the last moments of life in anticipation of death!

And then the lieutenant saw that the "executioner" was wearing the shoulder straps of the quartermaster service.

“Oh, you bastard, rear rat, never having been in battle, never having seen the death of his comrades in the frozen trenches! How can you, such a bastard, so spit on someone else's life when you do not know the price of death! - flashed through the head of the lieutenant.

“Give me a gun,” he said barely.

- Here, try, - not noticing the state of the front-line soldier, the quartermaster held out "Walther".

The lieutenant drew his pistol, threw it wherever he could look, and hit the villain with such force that he jumped up before falling on his face in the snow.

There was complete silence for a while. The lieutenant stood and was silent, the prisoner was also silent, continuing to move his lips as silently as before. But gradually, the still distant, but quite recognizable sound of a car engine began to reach the lieutenant's hearing, and not just some kind of engine, but a passenger car M-1 or "emka", as the front-line soldiers fondly called it. Only very large military commanders drove emkas in the front line.

The lieutenant was already cold inside … This is necessary, such bad luck! Here is just a "picture from an exhibition", even crying: here is a German prisoner, there is a Soviet officer with a broken face, and in the middle he himself is the "hero of the occasion." In any case, it all smelled very distinctly of a tribunal. And it’s not that the lieutenant would be afraid of the penal battalion (his own regiment for the last six months of the Stalingrad front did not differ from the penalty battalion in the degree of danger), he just really didn’t want to shame on his head! And then, either from the intensified sound of the engine, or from the "snow bath" and the quartermaster began to come to himself. The car stopped. The division commissar with the guards came out of it. In general, everything was very welcome.

- What's going on here? Report! the colonel barked. His appearance did not bode well: a tired unshaven face, eyes red from constant lack of sleep. … …

The lieutenant was silent. But the quartermaster spoke up, quite recovered at the sight of his superiors.

- I, comrade commissar, this fascist … and he began to defend him, - he rumbled. - And who? This bastard and murderer? Is it really possible to beat a Soviet officer in front of this fascist bastard ?! And I didn’t do anything to him, I even gave the weapon, there’s a pistol lying around! And he. … …

Vagan continued to be silent.

- How many times did you hit him? - looking at the lieutenant, asked the commissar.

“Once, Comrade Colonel,” he replied.

- Few! Very few, Lieutenant! It would be necessary to hit more, until this brat would not understand what this war is! And why do we have lynching in our army !? Take this Fritz and bring him to the evacuation point. Everything! Execute!

The lieutenant went up to the prisoner, took him by the hand, which was hanging like a whip, and led him along the snow-covered road without turning around. When they reached the dugout, the lieutenant glanced at the German. He stood where they stopped, but his face gradually began to come to life. Then he looked at the lieutenant and whispered something.

Probably thanks, the lieutenant thought. - Yes, really. We are not animals!"

A girl in a sanitary uniform came up to "accept" the prisoner, and he again whispered something, apparently, he could not speak in a voice.

- Listen, sister, - the lieutenant turned to the girl, - what is he whispering there, do you understand German?

- Yes, he says all sorts of nonsense, as they all do, - answered the nurse in a tired voice. - Says: "Why are we killing each other?" Only now it has come when I was taken prisoner!

The lieutenant went up to the German, looked into the eyes of this middle-aged man, and imperceptibly stroked the sleeve of his greatcoat. The prisoner did not look away and continued to look at the lieutenant with his petrified indifferent gaze, and suddenly two large tears flowed from the corners of his eyes and froze in the stubble of long unshaven cheeks.

… Years have passed. The war is over. Lieutenant Khachatryan remained in the army, served in his native Armenia in the border troops and rose to the rank of colonel. Sometimes in the bosom of his family or close friends, he would tell this story and say that maybe this German lives somewhere in Germany and maybe he also tells his children that a Soviet officer once saved him from death. And that sometimes it seems that this man who was saved during that terrible war left in his memory a bigger mark than all the battles and battles!

At noon on December 7, 1988, a terrible earthquake happened in Armenia. In an instant, several cities were razed to the ground, and tens of thousands of people died under the ruins. From all over the Soviet Union, teams of doctors began to arrive in the republic, who, together with all their Armenian colleagues, rescued the wounded and injured day and night. Rescue and medical teams from other countries soon began arriving. Vagan Khachatryan's son, Andranik, was a traumatologist by profession and, like all his colleagues, worked tirelessly.

And then one night the director of the hospital where Andranik worked asked him to take his German colleagues to the hotel where they lived. The night freed the streets of Yerevan from transport, it was quiet, and nothing seemed to portend a new trouble. Suddenly, at one of the crossroads, a heavy army truck took off right across the road to Andranik's Zhiguli. The man in the back seat was the first to see the impending disaster and with all his might pushed the guy from the driver's seat to the right, covering his head for a moment with his hand. It was at this moment and in this place that a terrible blow fell. Fortunately, the driver was no longer there. Everyone survived, only Dr. Miller, that was the name of the man who saved Andranik from imminent death, received a serious injury to his arm and shoulder.

When the doctor was discharged from the trauma department of the hospital in which he worked, Andranik's father, along with other German doctors, invited him to his home. There was a noisy Caucasian feast, with songs and beautiful toasts. Then all were photographed for memory.

A month later, Dr. Miller left for Germany, but promised to return soon with a new group of German doctors. Soon after his departure, he wrote that his father, a very famous surgeon, was included in the new German delegation as an honorary member. Miller also mentioned that his father saw a photograph taken at the house of Andranik's father and would very much like to meet with him. They did not attach much importance to these words, but Colonel Vahan Khachatryan nevertheless went to the meeting at the airport.

When a short and very elderly man got off the plane, accompanied by Dr. Miller, Vagan recognized him immediately. No, I didn’t seem to remember any external signs then, but the eyes, the eyes of this man, his gaze could not be forgotten … The former prisoner walked slowly towards him, but the colonel could not budge. It just couldn't be! There are no such accidents! No logic could explain what had happened! It's all just some kind of mysticism! The son of the man who was saved by him, Lieutenant Khachatryan, more than forty-five years ago, saved his son in a car accident!

And the “prisoner” almost came close to Vagan and said to him in Russian: “Everything returns in this world! Everything comes back!...

“Everything is coming back,” the colonel repeated.

Then two old people embraced and stood there for a long time, not noticing the passengers passing by, not paying attention to the roar of jet engines of airplanes, to people saying something to them … Saved and savior! Father of the savior and father of the saved! Everything is back!

The passengers went around them and, probably, did not understand why the old German was crying, silently moving his senile lips, why tears were flowing down the cheeks of the old colonel. They could not know that one single day in the cold Stalingrad steppe united these people in this world. Or something more, incomparably greater, that binds people on this small planet, binds, despite wars and destruction, earthquakes and catastrophes, binds everyone together and forever!

PS:,, It is instructive … People are basically Human. But nonhumans, oddly enough, most often get into power and give criminal commands to People, themselves remaining in the shadows with gray mice."

Portal "Code of honor of an officer" -