Below is one of them, reminiscences recorded from Ivan Klimenko, a WWII veteran from Krasnodar:
I was conscripted from my native town of Rubtsovsk, Altai, in January 1943. I could not get to the battlefronts earlier, although I - like all my peers - had been longing to go there. First I and other raw recruits were sent to an infantry cadet school for a training course. What I remember most of all is parting with Mom: she gave me a small sack with the soil from our yard [as a mascot to protect me at the war]. She understood that very soon I would be at a battlefield.
“Keep this as your talisman and remember that the native land will protect you and you will come back,” said she.
The first battle was simply horrible. I don’t remember the details, what I do is the feeling of the end of the world - exploded bombs, hostile raids, air strikes, dust, smoke and blood…
And in the following battle I wounded in the arm. I was sent to hospital to Voronezh, where I stayed nearly three months. Until now I have this track of the terrible war.
After leaving hospital, I joined the reserve regiment of a mortar unit - where I served as a mortar charger. [With that unit,] I took part in the liberation of Moldova, Romania and Hungary. By the way, it was in Hungary in 1944 that I was wounded for the second time - and in the same arm was that again. After hospital, I was sent to Czechoslovakia, and it was there that I met V-Day.
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