Hertz Rogovoy with his friends

This is I, Hertz Rogovoy (on the left) attending the places of the battle honor in Stalingrad (now Volgograd), where I used to fight. There is another person in the picture who fought in Staligrad, viz. my close friend Peter Idelman. He worked as a radiograph in Kiev. Recently he immigrated to Canada with his wife. There is a medal "For Stalingrad Battle" on his chest. Irina Dmitrieva, our regiment doctor, is in the middle of the picture. The picture was taken at the central square in Stalingrad in 1973.

In early 1942 I was brought to the military school in Balakhna [Russia, 1100 km from Kiev], a town about 50 km away from Nizhniy Novgorod. The studies lasted for 5 months, and then we got the rank of the junior lieutenant. It was the 3rd months when the horrible battle by Stalingrad started. The entire school, 450 people, was sent to Stalingrad. This period was characterized by fierce battle. I had never felt more fear, terror and hatred to the Germans during entire war experience. The city was devastated, shells and mortar bombs were aimed at one and the same place, making a powder out of sand. We went by Kalach and I saw the camp of our captured soldiers, frozen to death in dug-outs, with frozen blood, with wounds not being bandaged. I saw the tiers of frozen, coated in ice cadavers of the captured soldiers together with the wood for burning. I saw huge moats with corpses. Just imagine a moat as deep as 3-storied building, and not the house length, but the block length. In spite of the winter time we could feel cadavers smell.

After Stalingrad Battle I was given two awards for the battle, i.e. medal “for Bravery” and the Order of Red Banner, the second high award after Lenin Order. Chuikov, commander in chief [Chuikov, Vasiliy Ivanovich (1900-1982) prominent military commander, conferred of many Soviet and foreign orders and medals], shook my hand. I was sent to the medical and sanitary battalion. I spend there more than two weeks. On February 2, 1943 I was discharged from the sanitary battalion and attended the meeting, devoted to the exemption of Stalingrad. Only 45 out of 450 people, sent to the front from our school were present at the meeting. I do not know who from the absentees was killed or who was wounded. After this battle I was to be conferred the rank of a lieutenant. I was appointed the commander of the 112th platoon the regiment of the 37th Stalingrad Guards division 62, 8.

In 1949 I was allotted to work as a therapist in Podol. My district was: Zhdanov street [today Sagaydachnogo street] and adjacent streets to the right: Andreyevskiy street, Pokrovskiy lane. Those streets are on the steep upland. It was difficult for me walk. Nonetheless I had worked on that district for 25 years and 3 months, before 1975.