Tag #115120 - Interview #78047 (Eva Ryzhevskaya)

I asked the girl to stay with us. She promised that she would come to the basement, but later. She said she had to do something first. We went down to the basement, our operations started again. The girl didn't show up. When the bombing came to a halt again, we rushed to her apartment. We couldn't find her there. We went outside and saw her lying by the fence in a pool of blood. Her intestines were falling out from her abdomen, as a result of a shell fragment that had pierced her belly. Her serene and bright face and fair hair were covered in brick dust. I wasn't the only one who was crying. Even battle-seasoned soldiers, who went through pandemonium, were crying like babies. We couldn't get over that. Soldiers were supposed to die at war, not children, not the girl who was playing the piano. I would never forget that, even if I had lost my memory I would have never forgotten that girl. I will remember her till my death. She wasn't the first child murdered by the Germans. When we were retreating at the beginning of the war and moving towards Ukraine, we often saw the wells full with bodies of children. It was horrible, but these were nameless children. I saw the heaps of the murdered soldiers on the streets of Stalingrad. Death was everywhere. Everybody has his own perception and image of war. As for me, the image of war is that slender fair-haired girl lying in a pool of blood...