Russians remember World War II

I saw it is a collection of letters from ordinary Russians to the about their experiences during World War II. According to this review in the Moscow Times, the letters began arriving at the offices of Izvestia in the 1980s when perestroika allowed Russians to speak openly for the first time ever.

Two weeks before the start of the war, they gathered us in the building where the top brass lived to listen to a lecture called "Germany -- The Faithful Friend of the Soviet Union." Our tanks had been mothballed, our weapons were stored in the warehouse.

I got to the park at 12:30 a.m. Planes were buzzing in the sky. Everyone was happy; the maneuvers had started! The first bomb strike hit our supplies. People shouted, "They're dummy bombs made of cement." The second one hit the neighboring battalion. People shouted that somebody had been killed, another had his leg blown off. ... Only then did we realize that this was war.

Why was it forbidden to tell us the truth, that Hitler was going to attack us? Who can believe that Stalin and the General Staff did not know that 200 German divisions were moving toward the border? Could it have been possible that the local population knew but Stalin didn't?

Modest Markovich Markov
Anzhero-Sudzhensk, Kemerovo region

Read it all.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.