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Shortly after she left school in 1941, Yelena F. Tarakanova began working at
a hospital train. Being a member of the Komsomol, a Communist party youth
organization, she had received some training as a nurse at school. However, the
train was bombed and never reached the front. She had to return home to the
Voroshilovgrad region and work there at an outpatient clinic.
Then she was recruited to work in the medical battalion of the 18th Army. She
spent the entire war on the front, carried the wounded from the battlefield and
assisted during surgeries. She was even injured. She also participated in
crossing the Dnieper River. Yet, her commander discharged her from the first
intelligence paratroopers.
She received all her awards after the war because her bosses could not
believe that such a young girl could be a hero. Yet, her young age was her
lifesaver when she found herself in a death camp after escaping a siege (the
doctor had left her and another male nurse with a few chair-bound patients, and
it took them a long time to reach the Soviet soldiers). She cried for three days
and three nights. Deserters were shot at night.
When the war ended, she found herself in Budapest at the rank of a senior
NCO. In the postwar years, she worked at a construction site. Now she lives in
Moscow; and has a daughter, a granddaughter and a great granddaughter.
Her brother Albert went missing during the war. Her grandmother, who had
brought up the two parentless children, died too. She was a good singer and was
even invited to join the famous Pyatnitsky choir.
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