“Nobody is forgotten; nothing is forgotten.” These powerful words echo through the ages here. We stand before the poignant Bratscoe Grazhdanskoe Zahoronenie Pogibshih v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine 1941-1945 in Saint Petersburg. This hallowed ground serves as a solemn reminder of the countless lives lost during the Great Patriotic War.
Let’s delve into the story of this memorial. It is a place of immense historical and cultural significance. This is a cemetery. It honors those who perished during the tumultuous years of 1941 to 1945.
The most significant monument is the Piskaryovskoe Memorial Cemetery. This enormous memorial cemetery is on the north-eastern outskirts of the city. It holds the graves of around 420,000 civilian victims of the siege. The majority died of cold and starvation. It also holds the graves of 70,000 soldiers who died in the defense of the city. On Victory Day, the cemetery is a center of activity. Relatives of those who are buried there come to commemorate the thousands of victims. It is undoubtedly the greatest tragedy in St. Petersburg’s history.
Piskarevskoe Cemetery was established in 1939. This was shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. War was declared between Nazi Germany and the USSR on June 22 1941. By September, German forces had surrounded and laid siege to Leningrad. As the harsh winter of 1941-1942 set in, Leningrad’s citizens began to suffer. They experienced the full effects of the lack of food and fuel supplies. Thousands died daily. The empty municipal cemetery was used to dispose of their bodies. On February 15 1942, 8,452 bodies were delivered here. On February 19, 5,569 bodies arrived. February 20 saw 10,043 bodies delivered. By the following winter, the Red Army had managed to open a small land corridor to the city. The mortality rate never reached the same heights again. The siege was not lifted until January 27 1944. The total civilian and military death count reached over 1.5 million. In 1944, the Piskarevskoe Cemetery was also used to bury military personnel. They died in the lifting of the siege and subsequent hostilities in the area. The total buried in the mass graves number around half a million people. Most of their names remain unknown.
From 1945 to 1960, architects Alexander Vasiliev and Evgeniy Levinson landscaped the cemetery. It became a grand memorial for the fallen. Its centerpiece is a broad alley lined with flowerbeds. It leads from the gates to a massive bronze sculpture. The sculpture is of the Motherland. She is depicted as a grieving woman holding a wreath. Behind the monument, a wall of granite slabs is adorned with bas-reliefs. Lines of verse are by Leningrad poet Olga Bergholz. Her radio broadcasts during the siege had made her a symbol of the city’s resilience. The last lines read “Nobody is forgotten; nothing is forgotten.”
At the entrance to the cemetery, an eternal flame was lit. The fire was brought from the torch of the Eternal Flame at the Field of Mars. Housed in two pavilions, there is a small museum. It is dedicated to the Siege of Leningrad. Of particular note are pages from the diary of Tanya Savichevaya. She was a Leningrad schoolgirl who witnessed and recorded the deaths of her family.
The Bratscoe Grazhdanskoe Zahoronenie Pogibshih v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine 1941-1945 stands. It stands as a testament to the strength and resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable hardship. May we never forget the lessons of the past. May we strive for a future where such tragedies never occur again.