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Story by Nikolai Hello, my dear “frontline” site! I read your new articles avidly each time and re-read old ones sent in by your visitors and fans, people who are not indifferent to their forefathers, their grandfathers and grandmothers, to their history and, what is most important, to their Fatherland.
My name is Nikolai and I live in the city of Kiev, which they have given the title of Hero City for bearing the hard sanguinary burden of war and its valiant efforts to defend and liberate its people. I would like to tell you about my grandfather and namesake, Nikolai Vorobyov (1924-1997). His life was not easy from his very childhood, and he suffered a great deal of cruelty and injustice. His mother died early, and his father, who remarried, was very strict towards his children. My grandfather had two younger brothers and he looked after them and more than that, raised them. When the war broke out, he was about my age.
The Nazis swept across the country at the time. My grandfather and his comrades were captured by the Germans, and, since he was very big and strong, he was sent to Germany for forced labor. My grandpa seldom talked about the war, but when he did, we could not listen to his stories about life in captivity without tears. But he was strong in spirit, and after a while he tried to escape with his compatriots. He and two other men made it, but many met their death in Germany. His crossing of the frontline alone deserves a separate story.
It was a trying time for them, but they persevered and in 1943, at the height of military action in Ukraine, the fugitive laborers returned to their native village in the Chernigov region. They immediately fell into the hands of the NKVD and passed through numerous checks and interrogations. As a result, my grandfather was made a rank and file soldier of the Worker and Peasant Red Army.
He fought furiously and stubbornly, taking revenge on the Nazis for incurable scars on his body and soul, and he fought not just for himself, but for his homeland. He served with the flak battery – shooting down the enemy planes and destroying other military equipment. Perhaps my grandfather was born under a lucky star: he had many close escapes and it was truly a miracle that he survived the war. I will never forget a story he told me when I was a child. Each soldier dug a trench for himself and lay there while the German artillery was going full-blast with a five-minute pause every now and then. During a brief interval, my granddad proposed that he and the soldier in a nearby trench have a smoke together. Neither of the two wanted to leave their own trench. They exchanged words with each other, and finally my granddad decided to take the risk and go to the other trench. As soon as he left his trench and began to worm his way to his comrade’s, intense fire resumed. He had to decide whether to go back or make a run for his neighbor’s trench. My grandfather chose the last option and in a few seconds he was already in his comrade’s trench. Suddenly, they heard an explosion close by. When the shelling stopped, my grandpa raised his head and saw a shell crater at the spot where his trench used to be.
I will always remember my gray-haired, courageous and strong grandfather, though I was a little boy when he died. During the war, he was awarded the Medal For Courage, the Order of Glory, 3rd class and Medals For the Liberation of Prague and For the Capture of Berlin. In our family archives, we have quite a few certificates of honor granted to my grandfather by the Army Command. We are currently marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Kiev from the Nazis. We will remember all those who did not come back from the front and those who came back, but are not with us to celebrate.
Eternal glory to the HEROES…
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