From the Depths of Hunger

October 29, 1941

My dearest Katja,

How I miss you my darling wife and wish you hadn’t fallen so ill that you required hospitalization. My fervent hope is that the good care of our devoted doctors will see you healthy again soon.

(The Reality) Hospital staffs were sparse having suffered from the same deprivations and hunger as others in the city. Patients were fed thin watery soup but otherwise not attended to medically. All were suffering starvation, a word which was never to be uttered aloud for fear of being arrested; the permitted term “distrofia”, meaning the weakening of muscles, having taken its sanctioned place.

How I longed for you to be strolling by my side choosing ingredients for dinner at the market today. There wasn’t very much for sale but we’ve been told that as soon as Lake Ladoga freezes over, convoys of sledges and trains will transport food to fill the market stalls again. So please do not worry about me, just rest and heal so we can ramble together through the market again.

Until the ice road across Lake Ladoga from the western unoccupied area became useable, food supplies were scarce and then non-existent except for small piles of ground greyish flesh marked “cat” or other unmarked sausages of questionable origin. Human flesh found its way to the market as well as starvation drove people to commit the unthinkable.

Thankfully I have enough to eat even though I miss your wonderful borscht and stroganoff. Knowing I don’t have your knack for baking, you’ll be happy to know that bread is being disturbed throughout the city at special bakeries.

Sawdust has lately been added to the flour and even then the bread ration has been cut to two or three slices per day for which there are long lines on the street where we’re always in danger of the relentless bombing while hoping the bread doesn’t run out. Hiding my portion inside my coat, I hurry home through the streets in fear of being robbed of both the bread and my ration card.

Take heart, dear Katja, I am certain that this terror cannot last long as our brave soldiers fight for this siege to end soon. By spring we’ll once again spend sunny days and later white summer nights when the sun barely sets, at our dacha in the countryside. We’ll scour the woods for mushrooms and berries--aah, just the memory of the wonderful jams and soups you make with the berries makes my mouth water!

The Nazi siege of Leningrad lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27,1944, a period of almost 3 years. Of the nearly 3 million people in the city, almost 1 million died of starvation as the Nazis encircled the city, preventing the transport of food and wood used for generating electricity and heating supplies into the city. Very few had permission to leave the city which required a special document difficult to obtain. Children of factory workers and other essential workers were among those sent away to unoccupied areas.

Our neighbors send their greetings and wish you a speedy recovery.

Their bodies were removed from the apartment yesterday and piled up on the sidewalk with the others, awaiting to be picked up and taken to a large central cemetery where long trenches have been dug to serve as mass graves. Two-to- three- thousand people die of starvation each day.

Even Pucci, your faithful little dog wanders the rooms searching for you until he finally settles on a cushion or blanket where the scent of your perfume still lingers. I no longer take him for walks outside, so I’m afraid, dear Katja, that a few accidents happened until he found his way to the far corner where I have put down paper for him to do his business.

There are no more cats and dogs to be seen in the city. All have been captured and eaten. Anything made of leather- belts, gloves and purses, has been boiled down to make jelly for the protein they contain. Even the rats have left the city headed for the German bunkers lining the perimeter where food is more plentiful.

Please know dear Katja, I am safe in our cozy apartment that you so beautifully decorated. Remember how we put up the wall paper together? We laughed when the paper refused didn’t stick in places and uncurled from the wall to flop on your head. It certainly wasn’t a job we wanted to do again any time soon!

After many days of no food, like so many others, I had to resort to tearing off the wallpaper that you so carefully chose so I could scrape off and eat the potato- based glue on the back for some nourishment.

Our apartment is especially cozy at night and I think of you when I light the candle, remembering how you always prefer candle light instead of turning on the electricity. Such a romantic you are! I’ve even bought a small tin stove that I light at night to make it cozier.

With the power cut all over the city as there is no more fuel for the generators that now stand frozen (as do the trams), I light the small stove at night to keep warm in the living room where I sleep on a mattress beside it, wrapped in my overcoat. I do not have enough fuel to keep the fire burning during the day even though the outside temperature hovers near minus 20 Celsius.

I spend the evenings catching up on reading now that you are not here to talk to. How I miss our friendly debates about who is the better author, Pushkin or Chekov! You would be pleasantly surprised that I’m beginning to think that you perhaps were right about Chekov, but we’ll talk about that again when you return home.

Our books were the first to be burned as fuel for the stove. All the wood work is gone now too as I have torn if off the walls and burned it all. Scavenging for wood from bombed-out buildings is a daily chore for us all.

November 7, 1941

What wonderful news today, my dear Katja! I’ve only just learned that you and others will be evacuated today from the city by train to keep you safe. I will come to the station tonight to see you off and hopefully catch a glimpse of you before the train departs. It breaks my heart that you will be even farther away but I am grateful you will no longer be in danger from the relentless bombing.

Look for me on the station platform. I will be the one with my hand on my heart and love, perhaps mingled with tears, shining from my eyes.

On the night of November 7, 1941, the Germans used some of their heaviest bombs to destroy “Finland Station”, the only terminus that remained in use, where one train carrying food from the Lagoda was being emptied and another filled with women, children and the injured sat waiting for evacuation. Railway cars were flattened and rails torn up as the station platform took a direct hit, the worst barrage of bombing to have taken place to date, leaving hundreds dead and injured.

The Post Script That Remained Unwritten:

We are finally united, my dear Katja…you, free from pain and I, free from the agony of separation from you…far from the cold, hunger and destruction of our beautiful city and all the devastation we’ve left behind.. together, my dearest Katja, for eternity…

The timeline of events has been slightly compressed, but the first winter (1941-42) of the Siege of Leningrad, was one of the cruelest as the city was not prepared and had not stocked food and fuel to face such a devastating blockade.