Remembering Stalingrad

The towering statue depicts a woman dressed in swirling robes, her sword raised and her mouth open in a battle cry. The hillside around the statue holds the graves of tens of thousands of soldiers who died in one of the bloodiest battle in history.

The struggle for control of the city cost the lives of over a million people, but exact figures are still difficult to estimate.

The battle began with Hitler's attempt to seize the Soviet Union's prized southern oil fields in a campaign that stretched through a bitter Russian winter from July 1942 to February 1943. It ended with the encirclement and destruction of the German 6th army, nearly half a million men, and changed the course of the war.

Situated in the southwest of Russia, Stalingrad is today called Volgograd. Yet even with the changes the place has undergone, the city offers constant reminders of the war.

City offers larger-than-life reminders of the war

The 82-meter-high (269-foot) "The Motherland Calls" statue is the centrepiece of the Mamayev Kurgan, a vast memorial complex on a hillside where fierce fighting took place during the Battle of Stalingrad.

"Even after more than half a century one can still feel that so many people died here, the air seems heavy, almost poisoned," Michael, an engineer from Volgograd, told Deutsche Welle during a recent visit to the Mamayev Kurgan memorial.

Michael was walking through the park with his family. His wife, Jekatarina, said that the place gives her goose bumps.

"It teaches us that we Russians also in the present should have pride in our country and in our troops," Jekatarina said. "This place shows that we have won the war, it shows that we can be stronger than anyone in the world."

Telling the story behind the monuments

But monuments are not enough, says Dea Gregorevna, a 70-year-old woman wearing a camouflage suit and military cap typical of the Red Army. Gregorevna works as a "poiskovik" or historical researcher. Although she was only a baby when the war broke out, as an adult she is working to prevent the people of Volgograd from forgetting their city's past.

Gregorevna researches the fate of the soldiers and the history of the city in order to teach children about the war. Eyewitnesses told Gregorevna that after the battle ended, the city had to be cleaned three times of dead bodies. Remains of fallen soldiers continue to be discovered in the area, she said.

"The ground on which we are standing is soaked with the blood of soldiers – and so is the whole city," Gregorevna said. "This city has paid a huge price for our peaceful life, we have to value that."

Veterans share first-person memories

When Gregorevna visits students, she often takes war veterans with her. Zoya Leontova, now 87, was 20 when she joined the Red Army as a radio operator. Leontova lost most of her family and her fiance in the war. Yet she has no hard feelings against Germany. The Red Army was fighting fascism, she says, not the German nation.

Like Gregorevna, she feels it is her duty to keep memories of the past alive. She is worried that young people will forget what happened during the war.

"They will only know that there was a war. But what kind of war was it? Who was fighting? How did it feel?" she asks. "We have to remind them. We all do what we can."

Marina Doyateva, 84, was drafted into the army as a nurse at the age of 18. Her dark blue veterans uniform is covered with medals. She was in the thick of the battle for Stalingrad, under the command of the legendary marshal Georgiy Zhukow, who was close to Stalin and later conquered Berlin. Like many other people living in the region, Marina Doyateva disagrees with the decision to rename Stalingrad in 1961, when Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev for a short period of time tried to de-stalinize the country.

What's in a name?

"We defended the city of Stalingrad – not Volgograd. It was Stalingrad we gave our blood for," Doyateva said. "Stalin might have been bad, yes, but just because Stalingrad was named after him, doesn't mean this heroic city had to be renamed. It makes me very sad."

Gregorevna agrees, saying that friends of hers who have travelled abroad say that people they meet are full of respect for what happened in Stalingrad. But they have never heard of Volgograd. She would like to see the city name revert back.

"It is a symbol and having lost that name is a great loss," Gregorevna said.

Gregorevna and her allies are determined to keep on fighting against forgetting. She wants her countrymen to remember the suffering and loss. And also to remember the most important lesson from World War II: that there must never be another one.

Author: Mareike Aden (th)
Editor: Andreas Illmer