Here is a recollection by the esteemed Russian poet and author Vera Mikhailovna Inber (1890 - 1972) as to what it was like to live through the thirty-month long siege of Leningrad as a civilian. When the battle reached its conclusion, she wrote:
"Our city, our time, our lives all belong to us again. We seem to have been reborn. We see German prisoners conveyed through the streets of our city. Scowling like wolves, with furtive gaze, they plod under convoy of our sub-machine gunners. And when they find themselves under the cross fire of our eyes, these Germans tremble with fear. And if looks could kill, every German would be dead a hundred times. Those Nazis were certain they would enter Leningrad. Well, they did - as our prisoners."
More on Inber's Leningrad memoir can be read at the Kirkus Review website...
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