Tag #146787 - Interview #83398 (Ninel Kunina)

In Leningrad under the blockade Mother and I lived together. It is very hard for me to recall this. These dreadful bombardments, these destroyed houses, these hungry people, these huge trucks transporting naked corpses with cut-off soft body parts to the present memorial cemetery [the Piskaryovskoe Memorial Cemetery]. My whole maternal kinsfolk, except Granny Evgenia and Mom’s sister Zinaida and her daughter, perished, mainly from starvation. Zinaida’s husband was killed at the factory because of ration cards [i.e. someone killed him to get his ration cards]. He was an electrician and lived in barracks. He was found in spring, covered with coal, when his corpse had already begun to decay. Many close friends of ours perished on the Leningrad front. Boys from our school didn’t reach the front line [the foremost front line]; they were killed during the bombardment.