My Grandmother during the Battle of Stalingrad
The door’s brush
On the wooden floor
Wakes me
Distant cannons
Smell of unwashed men
Smoke and spits
A young voice
Not from our village speaks:
“Take us in for a day,
Mother?”
She’s my Mother,
Not yours.
She’s giving them
My potatoes
My milk
She is laying my dowry
On the floor as their beds
I hug the calf
Nestled against the oven
At night
They go
Potatoes, milk
And warmth
Part of their bodies
They’re going to stop the cannons
My Mother says
Today, 9 May is the day when many countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia celebrate Victory over Nazi Germany in WWII.
My Grandmother Zinaida was a little girl and witnessed the Red Army gathering forces for the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943), key event of the war when the advance if the Nazi Army was stopped and the Red Army started pushing them back.
Winning that battle and the war on the whole was due to efforts of all Soviet people, not just the Army. Everyone: men, women, the elderly and children worked for war effort behind the front line. Civilians, themselves destitute and hungry, sent anything that could be useful to the soldiers such as warm mittens and socks to the front.
My Grandmother is 84 this year. I wish her good health and dedicate this poem to her and to my late Great Grandmother, whom I was lucky to know until her passing away eight years ago.
Oxana Poberejnaia 
Personal history…so poignant. Beautifully written : )
So kind of you to say so! Yes, I am very proud to say that my Great Grandmother and my Grandmother have contributed directly to the victory at Stalingrad.
Very much like how you have blended monumental history and the intimately personal here.
Thank you Steven, I really appreciate your kind words.