One of the medals named after Florence Nightingale is engraved in French: “Madame Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko. May 12, 1971." This “madam” is a simple woman of peasant origin, a medical instructor of a rifle company during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. - in the battles on the Bukrinsky bridgehead, she carried one hundred and sixteen wounded soldiers and officers from the battlefield. She herself transported the seriously wounded across the river to the first first aid station.
This is the same “madame”, a Ukrainian village woman who, at the age of twenty, heroically was among the very first to participate in crossing the Dnieper. The crossing, as you know, was very, very difficult for our troops.
Maria Shcherbachenko was born on February 14, 1922 in the family of a poor peasant from the Nezhdanovka farm, Volchansky district, in the Kharkov region. In the famine of 1933, the girl lost her parents and older brother. With her two remaining brothers, Ivan and Andrei, Masha went to work on a collective farm. She looked after livestock, weeded beets, and even got a position as an assistant accountant.
At the beginning of 1942, Maria and her peers were sent to dig trenches along the front line along the Seversky Donets. Subsequently, the famous nurse recalled: “We really worked with shovels! My hands are full of blisters. The backs did not straighten. And we, girls, were swaying from the wind. When the Germans bombed, the earth reared up! It’s good that there were trenches nearby: you climb in there, clench your fist - the sky seems like a sheepskin. And yet, ours did not hold the line, they retreated... I had seen enough of all sorts of bad things and firmly decided that I would go to the front. Anyone. I went to the military registration and enlistment office, and - lucky! I ended up serving in a rifle regiment, in short, in the infantry.”
Maria joined the army on a Komsomol ticket on March 4, 1943. When she was offered to serve as a medical instructor, she expressed her readiness and determination, although she did not have a medical education. I had to master sanitation directly in battle: “After all, I never thought about medicine. Moreover, she was very afraid of blood: if she saw a chicken being slaughtered or a wild boar being stabbed, she would run a mile away. But the war turned out to be much worse... I vaguely remember the first battle near Sumy, but I remember the first wounded man for the rest of my life. It seemed as if the earth itself was groaning from the explosions of shells and mines. How much does a person need in such an iron blizzard? Just a few grams of lead... She took refuge in a shallow trench. I saw a fighter fall about three hundred meters away. I crawl up: a through wound above the knee. With trembling hands, I barely opened the individual package and let’s bandage it. The bandage gets twisted and I almost cry. Somehow, after bandaging it, she dragged the “patient” to a safe place. “Excuse me if something is wrong,” I say to the soldier, “but this is my first day at the front.” “It’s okay, sister, don’t be embarrassed... She bandaged me perfectly. And this is also my first time on the front line...” he groaned. After ten days on the front line, I was presented with the medal "For Courage". Then there were other awards. However, this one is the most expensive. Like the first-born of a young mother..."
“In the autumn of 1943 we reached the Dnieper. It’s hard to describe how we felt when we saw its waters. Here he is, dear Slavutich. The soldiers rushed to the river: some drank, some washed away days of dust and soot from their faces,” said Maria Zakharovna.
The Wehrmacht command hoped that the Dnieper, as a high-water river with a high right bank, would become a reliable defensive line. The Nazis called this defensive line the “Eastern Wall”.
To build fortifications on the right bank of the Dnieper, the Nazis expelled the local population, transferred special construction and other military units from Western Europe and from the northern section of the Soviet-German front, replenishing them with fresh divisions from Northern Italy. Soviet troops reached the Dnieper along a 750-kilometer front from Kyiv to Zaporozhye. This was the culmination of the battle for Ukraine. On the night of September 21, 1943, the crossing of the Dnieper began, which entailed many tragic events, which became a time of mass heroism of Soviet soldiers, since the advanced units crossed the river on the move, using improvised means, without waiting for the approach of the main forces and the arrival of pontoons.
During September-October 1943, Soviet troops fought fierce battles to retain and expand bridgeheads on the right bank of the Dnieper. The heavy attack on Kyiv from the Bukrinsky bridgehead was led by the commander of the Voronezh Front (from October 20, 1943 - 1st Ukrainian Front) General N.F. Vatutin.
The rainy night of September 24, 1943 became fateful for Maria Shcherbachenko. The nurse was destined to become one of the first thirteen soldiers who crossed the Dnieper near the village of Greben, in the Kiev region. On two fishing boats they crossed the Dnieper under enemy fire. Having climbed up a steep slope, we took up defensive positions and began to fight. At dawn, 17 more soldiers from the same company arrived. The soldiers heroically defended themselves, repelling fascist attacks. Maria Shcherbachenko, the only woman in this “fiery patch,” tirelessly bandaged the wounded, gave them water, carried them to shelters, and evacuated them to the rear. Finally reinforcements arrived and the enemy defenses were broken through. In the division newspaper, the brave nurse wrote, addressing all the soldiers: “I call on you to fight bravely and boldly. May love for our native land, holy hatred of the damned enemy always lead you forward, until complete victory over fascism.”
Remembering the dedication of the young nurse, I would like to quote the lines of the poem “Sister” by front-line poet Viktor Gusev:
...If you looked at her, you would say: a girl!This one for the front? What are you talking about? He will run away.And here she is in battle, and the bullets are rushing loudly,And the air rattles from the explosions.Tired, covered in blood, in a torn overcoat,She crawls through the battle, through the black howl of lead.Fire and death rush over her,Fear for her bursts into our hearts...Into the hearts of fighters who are used to fighting bravely. All thirteen soldiers who were the first to cross to the right bank and hold the bridgehead, despite the fierce resistance of the enemy, were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 23, 1943.
“A month after the battles near Bukrin, the regiment commander, congratulating me on the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, asked where I was from and who my parents were. I answered that my mother and father died before the war, and were originally from the Kharkov region. After a short silence, he said: “I will be your father, and the political officer will be your mother. And don’t forget: your cradle is the eight hundred and thirty-fifth regiment.”
Maria dreamed of reaching Berlin with her regiment, but on May 22, 1944, she was recalled from the front to the third anti-fascist youth rally in Moscow, then was sent to study in Ashgabat, where the medical school evacuated from Kharkov was located.
There Mary met Victory: “What a joy it was! I was glad that my older brother Andrei returned from the front. (At the beginning of the war, his wife received a notice that he was missing.) And she cried for her younger brother Ivank: he died at the age of nineteen in Belarus.”
After the war, Maria Zakharovna entered law school, after which she began working in a legal consultation in Kharkov. After some time, she married a military man and gave birth to two daughters. Together with her husband she conducted educational work in schools. For many years she continued to receive letters from both fellow soldiers and strangers.
“I had an unforgettable meeting,” wrote M. Shcherbachenko. - It all started with a publication in Ogonyok. The material was published, and soon I received congratulations on the holiday of March 8th. Signature: Kozachenko. So this is my battalion commander - Alexey Konstantinovich, Hero of the Soviet Union, whose battalion repelled twenty-three counterattacks on the outskirts of Kyiv in one day. We started corresponding, then invited him and his family to Kyiv. We hugged and cried and remembered our dear Mukachevo order-bearing regiment. They sang songs - Ukrainian and front-line ones. Now my battalion commander is no longer alive... And a little later I received a letter from Azerbaijan. A man I didn’t know wrote that his father liberated Kyiv and invited me to visit. Let's go. We greeted you like family. They took us everywhere!..”
Among Maria Shcherbachenko's awards are the Order of Lenin, the highest award of the USSR, which, according to regulations, was awarded along with the Hero's Star; Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree; cross of Alexander Nevsky; medal of the English Madonna of Medicine; Florence Nightingale medal; the title of honorary citizen of Kyiv, the title of Hero of Ukraine.
Maria Zakharovna lives today in Kyiv.
Nowadays, unfortunately, in commissioned “works” on history, much is distorted, presented from positions that trample on the sacrificial role of older generations in the Great Patriotic War, betraying their memory.
Therefore, combat veterans not only warm our hearts with human warmth and enlighten our memories, but also, being eyewitnesses, do not allow our native history to be slandered, they remain witnesses to the great victorious past of our great Fatherland.
http://odnarodyna.com.ua/node/12093
Crossing of the Dnieper
One of the medals named after Florence Nightingale is engraved in French: “Madame Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko. May 12, 1971." This “madam” is a simple woman of peasant origin, a medical instructor of a rifle company during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. - in the battles on the Bukrinsky bridgehead, she carried one hundred and sixteen wounded soldiers and officers from the battlefield. She herself transported the seriously wounded across the river to the first first aid station.
This is the same “madame”, a Ukrainian village woman who, at the age of twenty, heroically was among the very first to participate in crossing the Dnieper. The crossing, as you know, was very, very difficult for our troops.
Maria Shcherbachenko was born on February 14, 1922 in the family of a poor peasant from the Nezhdanovka farm, Volchansky district, in the Kharkov region. In the famine of 1933, the girl lost her parents and older brother. With her two remaining brothers, Ivan and Andrei, Masha went to work on a collective farm. She looked after livestock, weeded beets, and even got a position as an assistant accountant.
At the beginning of 1942, Maria and her peers were sent to dig trenches along the front line along the Seversky Donets. Subsequently, the famous nurse recalled: “We really worked with shovels! My hands are full of blisters. The backs did not straighten. And we, girls, were swaying from the wind. When the Germans bombed, the earth reared up! It’s good that there were trenches nearby: you climb in there, clench your fist - the sky seems like a sheepskin. And yet, ours did not hold the line, they retreated... I had seen enough of all sorts of bad things and firmly decided that I would go to the front. Anyone. I went to the military registration and enlistment office, and - lucky! I ended up serving in a rifle regiment, in short, in the infantry.”
Maria joined the army on a Komsomol ticket on March 4, 1943. When she was offered to serve as a medical instructor, she expressed her readiness and determination, although she did not have a medical education. I had to master sanitation directly in battle: “After all, I never thought about medicine. Moreover, she was very afraid of blood: if she saw a chicken being slaughtered or a wild boar being stabbed, she would run a mile away. But the war turned out to be much worse... I vaguely remember the first battle near Sumy, but I remember the first wounded man for the rest of my life. It seemed as if the earth itself was groaning from the explosions of shells and mines. How much does a person need in such an iron blizzard? Just a few grams of lead... She took refuge in a shallow trench. I saw a fighter fall about three hundred meters away. I crawl up: a through wound above the knee. With trembling hands, I barely opened the individual package and let’s bandage it. The bandage gets twisted and I almost cry. Somehow, after bandaging it, she dragged the “patient” to a safe place. “Excuse me if something is wrong,” I say to the soldier, “but this is my first day at the front.” “It’s okay, sister, don’t be embarrassed... She bandaged me perfectly. And this is also my first time on the front line...” he groaned. After ten days on the front line, I was presented with the medal "For Courage". Then there were other awards. However, this one is the most expensive. Like the first-born of a young mother..."
“In the autumn of 1943 we reached the Dnieper. It’s hard to describe how we felt when we saw its waters. Here he is, dear Slavutich. The soldiers rushed to the river: some drank, some washed away days of dust and soot from their faces,” said Maria Zakharovna.
The Wehrmacht command hoped that the Dnieper, as a high-water river with a high right bank, would become a reliable defensive line. The Nazis called this defensive line the “Eastern Wall”.
To build fortifications on the right bank of the Dnieper, the Nazis expelled the local population, transferred special construction and other military units from Western Europe and from the northern section of the Soviet-German front, replenishing them with fresh divisions from Northern Italy. Soviet troops reached the Dnieper along a 750-kilometer front from Kyiv to Zaporozhye. This was the culmination of the battle for Ukraine. On the night of September 21, 1943, the crossing of the Dnieper began, which entailed many tragic events, which became a time of mass heroism of Soviet soldiers, since the advanced units crossed the river on the move, using improvised means, without waiting for the approach of the main forces and the arrival of pontoons.
During September-October 1943, Soviet troops fought fierce battles to retain and expand bridgeheads on the right bank of the Dnieper. The heavy attack on Kyiv from the Bukrinsky bridgehead was led by the commander of the Voronezh Front (from October 20, 1943 - 1st Ukrainian Front) General N.F. Vatutin.
The rainy night of September 24, 1943 became fateful for Maria Shcherbachenko. The nurse was destined to become one of the first thirteen soldiers who crossed the Dnieper near the village of Greben, in the Kiev region. On two fishing boats they crossed the Dnieper under enemy fire. Having climbed up a steep slope, we took up defensive positions and began to fight. At dawn, 17 more soldiers from the same company arrived. The soldiers heroically defended themselves, repelling fascist attacks. Maria Shcherbachenko, the only woman in this “fiery patch,” tirelessly bandaged the wounded, gave them water, carried them to shelters, and evacuated them to the rear. Finally reinforcements arrived and the enemy defenses were broken through. In the division newspaper, the brave nurse wrote, addressing all the soldiers: “I call on you to fight bravely and boldly. May love for our native land, holy hatred of the damned enemy always lead you forward, until complete victory over fascism.”
Remembering the dedication of the young nurse, I would like to quote the lines of the poem “Sister” by front-line poet Viktor Gusev:
...If you looked at her, you would say: a girl!
This one for the front? What are you talking about? He will run away.
And here she is in battle, and the bullets are rushing loudly,
And the air rattles from the explosions.
Tired, covered in blood, in a torn overcoat,
She crawls through the battle, through the black howl of lead.
Fire and death rush over her,
Fear for her bursts into our hearts...
Into the hearts of fighters who are used to fighting bravely.
All thirteen soldiers who were the first to cross to the right bank and hold the bridgehead, despite the fierce resistance of the enemy, were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 23, 1943.
“A month after the battles near Bukrin, the regiment commander, congratulating me on the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, asked where I was from and who my parents were. I answered that my mother and father died before the war, and were originally from the Kharkov region. After a short silence, he said: “I will be your father, and the political officer will be your mother. And don’t forget: your cradle is the eight hundred and thirty-fifth regiment.”
Maria dreamed of reaching Berlin with her regiment, but on May 22, 1944, she was recalled from the front to the third anti-fascist youth rally in Moscow, then was sent to study in Ashgabat, where the medical school evacuated from Kharkov was located.
There Mary met Victory: “What a joy it was! I was glad that my older brother Andrei returned from the front. (At the beginning of the war, his wife received a notice that he was missing.) And she cried for her younger brother Ivank: he died at the age of nineteen in Belarus.”
After the war, Maria Zakharovna entered law school, after which she began working in a legal consultation in Kharkov. After some time, she married a military man and gave birth to two daughters. Together with her husband she conducted educational work in schools. For many years she continued to receive letters from both fellow soldiers and strangers.
“I had an unforgettable meeting,” wrote M. Shcherbachenko. – It all started with a publication in Ogonyok. The material was published, and soon I received congratulations on the holiday of March 8th. Signature: Kozachenko. So this is my battalion commander - Alexey Konstantinovich, Hero of the Soviet Union, whose battalion repelled twenty-three counterattacks on the outskirts of Kyiv in one day. We started corresponding, then invited him and his family to Kyiv. We hugged and cried and remembered our dear Mukachevo order-bearing regiment. They sang songs – Ukrainian and front-line ones. Now my battalion commander is no longer alive... And a little later I received a letter from Azerbaijan. A man I didn’t know wrote that his father liberated Kyiv and invited me to visit. Let's go. We greeted you like family. They took us everywhere!..”
Among Maria Shcherbachenko's awards is the Order of Lenin, the highest award of the USSR, according to regulations, awarded along with the Hero's Star; Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree; cross of Alexander Nevsky; medal of the English Madonna of Medicine; Florence Nightingale medal; the title of honorary citizen of Kyiv, the title of Hero of Ukraine.
Maria Zakharovna lives today in Kyiv.
Nowadays, unfortunately, in commissioned “works” much is distorted, presented from positions that trample on the sacrificial role of older generations in the Great Patriotic War, betraying their memory. Therefore, combat veterans not only warm our hearts with human warmth and enlighten our memories, but also, being eyewitnesses, do not allow our native history to be slandered, they remain witnesses to the great victorious past of our great Fatherland.
USSR835th Infantry Regiment of the 237th Infantry Division (40th Army, Voronezh Front)
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Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko(born February 14, 1922, village of Efremovka, Kharkov province, Ukrainian SSR, USSR) - participant in the Great Patriotic War, company corpsman of the 835th rifle regiment of the 237th rifle division (40th Army, Voronezh Front), Hero of the Soviet Union (October 23, 1943), reserve guard sergeant major.
Biography
After the war, Sergeant Major Maria Shcherbachenko was demobilized. She graduated from Tashkent Law School, after which she worked as a lawyer.
By order of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine No. 188 of June 22, 2000, Maria Zakharovna was enrolled as an honorary soldier of the 407th Central Military Hospital of the Northern Operational Command.
Awards and titles
See also
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Literature
- // Heroes of the Soviet Union: A Brief Biographical Dictionary / Prev. ed. collegium I. N. Shkadov. - M.: Military Publishing House, 1988. - T. 2 /Lyubov - Yashchuk/. - P. 814. - 863 p. - 100,000 copies. - ISBN 5-203-00536-2.
- Dvoretskaya V.// Heroines: essays about women - Heroes of the Soviet Union / ed.-comp. L. F. Toropov; preface E. Kononenko. - Vol. 2. - M.: Politizdat, 1969. - 463 p.
- Sakaida H. Heroines of the Soviet Union. Osprey Pub. Oxford. 2003.
- Heroes of the Soviet Union are Uzbek citizens. Tashkent, 1984.
- Heroines. M., 1969, issue. 2.
- Kuzmin M.K. Doctors-Heroes of the Soviet Union. M., 1970.
- Feats in the name of the Fatherland. - 2nd ed., - Kharkov: Prapor, 1985.
Notes
Links
. Website "Heroes of the Country". (Accessed July 3, 2013)
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An excerpt characterizing Shcherbachenko, Maria Zakharovna
Pierre was silent and thoughtful throughout this dinner. He looked at the count as if not understanding at this address.“Yes, yes, to war,” he said, “no!” What a warrior I am! But everything is so strange, so strange! Yes, I don’t understand it myself. I don’t know, I’m so far from military tastes, but in modern times no one can answer for themselves.
After dinner, the count sat quietly in a chair and with a serious face asked Sonya, famous for her reading skills, to read.
– “To our mother-throne capital, Moscow.
The enemy entered Russia with great forces. He is coming to ruin our dear fatherland,” Sonya diligently read in her thin voice. The Count, closing his eyes, listened, sighing impulsively in some places.
Natasha sat stretched out, searchingly and directly looking first at her father, then at Pierre.
Pierre felt her gaze on him and tried not to look back. The Countess shook her head disapprovingly and angrily against every solemn expression of the manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the dangers threatening her son would not end soon. Shinshin, folding his mouth into a mocking smile, was obviously preparing to mock the first thing presented for ridicule: Sonya’s reading, what the count would say, even the appeal itself, if no better excuse presented itself.
Having read about the dangers threatening Russia, about the hopes placed by the sovereign on Moscow, and especially on the famous nobility, Sonya, with a trembling voice that came mainly from the attention with which they listened to her, read the last words: “We will not hesitate to stand among our people.” in this capital and in other places of our state for consultation and guidance of all our militias, both now blocking the paths of the enemy, and again organized to defeat him, wherever he appears. May the destruction into which he imagines throwing us turn upon his head, and may Europe, liberated from slavery, exalt the name of Russia!”
- That's it! - the count cried, opening his wet eyes and stopping several times from sniffling, as if a bottle of strong vinegar salt was being brought to his nose. “Just tell me, sir, we will sacrifice everything and regret nothing.”
Shinshin had not yet had time to tell the joke he had prepared for the count’s patriotism, when Natasha jumped up from her seat and ran up to her father.
- What a charm, this dad! - she said, kissing him, and she again looked at Pierre with that unconscious coquetry that returned to her along with her animation.
- So patriotic! - said Shinshin.
“Not a patriot at all, but just...” Natasha answered offendedly. - Everything is funny to you, but this is not a joke at all...
- What jokes! - repeated the count. - Just say the word, we’ll all go... We’re not some kind of Germans...
“Did you notice,” said Pierre, “that it said: “for a meeting.”
- Well, whatever it is for...
At this time, Petya, to whom no one was paying attention, approached his father and, all red, in a breaking voice, sometimes rough, sometimes thin, said:
“Well, now, daddy, I will decisively say - and mummy too, whatever you want - I will decisively say that you will let me into military service, because I can’t ... that’s all ...
The Countess raised her eyes to the sky in horror, clasped her hands and angrily turned to her husband.
- So I agreed! - she said.
But the count immediately recovered from his excitement.
“Well, well,” he said. - Here’s another warrior! Stop the nonsense: you need to study.
- This is not nonsense, daddy. Fedya Obolensky is younger than me and is also coming, and most importantly, I still can’t learn anything now that ... - Petya stopped, blushed until he sweated and said: - when the fatherland is in danger.
- Complete, complete, nonsense...
- But you yourself said that we would sacrifice everything.
“Petya, I’m telling you, shut up,” the count shouted, looking back at his wife, who, turning pale, looked with fixed eyes at her youngest son.
- And I’m telling you. So Pyotr Kirillovich will say...
“I’m telling you, it’s nonsense, the milk hasn’t dried yet, but he wants to go into military service!” Well, well, I’m telling you,” and the count, taking the papers with him, probably to read them again in the office before resting, left the room.
- Pyotr Kirillovich, well, let’s go have a smoke...
Pierre was confused and indecisive. Natasha's unusually bright and animated eyes, constantly turning to him more than affectionately, brought him into this state.
- No, I think I’ll go home...
- It’s like going home, but you wanted to spend the evening with us... And then you rarely came. And this one of mine...” the count said good-naturedly, pointing at Natasha, “is only cheerful when you’re around...”
“Yes, I forgot... I definitely need to go home... Things to do...” Pierre said hastily.
“Well, goodbye,” said the count, completely leaving the room.
- Why are you leaving? Why are you upset? Why?..” Natasha asked Pierre, looking defiantly into his eyes.
“Because I love you! - he wanted to say, but he didn’t say it, he blushed until he cried and lowered his eyes.
- Because it’s better for me to visit you less often... Because... no, I just have business.
- Why? no, tell me,” Natasha began decisively and suddenly fell silent. They both looked at each other in fear and confusion. He tried to grin, but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently kissed her hand and left.
Pierre decided not to visit the Rostovs with himself anymore.
Petya, after receiving a decisive refusal, went to his room and there, locking himself away from everyone, wept bitterly. They did everything as if they had not noticed anything, when he came to tea, silent and gloomy, with tear-stained eyes.
The next day the sovereign arrived. Several of the Rostov courtyards asked to go and see the Tsar. That morning Petya took a long time to get dressed, comb his hair and arrange his collars like the big ones. He frowned in front of the mirror, made gestures, shrugged his shoulders and, finally, without telling anyone, put on his cap and left the house from the back porch, trying not to be noticed. Petya decided to go straight to the place where the sovereign was and directly explain to some chamberlain (it seemed to Petya that the sovereign was always surrounded by chamberlains) that he, Count Rostov, despite his youth, wanted to serve the fatherland, that youth could not be an obstacle for devotion and that he is ready... Petya, while he was getting ready, prepared many wonderful words that he would say to the chamberlain.
Finally reinforcements arrived and the enemy defenses were broken through. In the division newspaper, the brave nurse wrote, addressing all the soldiers: “I call on you to fight bravely and boldly. May love for our native land, holy hatred of the damned enemy always lead you forward, until complete victory over fascism.” Remembering the dedication of the young nurse, I would like to quote the lines of the poem “Sister” by front-line poet Viktor Gusev: ...If you looked at her, you would say: a girl! This one for the front? What are you talking about? He will run away. And here she is in battle, and the bullets rush loudly, and the air rattles from the explosions. Tired, covered in blood, in a torn overcoat, She crawls through the battle, through the black howl of lead. Fire and death rush over her, Fear for her bursts into the hearts... Into the hearts of fighters accustomed to fighting bravely. All thirteen soldiers who were the first to cross to the right bank and hold the bridgehead, despite the fierce resistance of the enemy, were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 23, 1943. “A month after the battles near Bukrin, the regiment commander, congratulating me on the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, asked where I was from and who my parents were. I answered that my mother and father died before the war, and were originally from the Kharkov region. After a short silence, he said: “I will be your father, and the political officer will be your mother. And don’t forget: your cradle is the eight hundred and thirty-fifth regiment.” Maria dreamed of reaching Berlin with her regiment, but on May 22, 1944, she was recalled from the front to the third anti-fascist youth rally in Moscow, then was sent to study in Ashgabat, where the medical school evacuated from Kharkov was located. There Mary met Victory: “What a joy it was! I was glad that my older brother Andrei returned from the front. (At the beginning of the war, his wife received a notice that he was missing.) And she cried for her younger brother Ivank: he died at the age of nineteen in Belarus.” After the war, Maria Zakharovna entered law school, after which she began working in a legal consultation in Kharkov. After some time, she married a military man and gave birth to two daughters. Together with her husband she conducted educational work in schools. For many years she continued to receive letters from both fellow soldiers and strangers. “I had an unforgettable meeting,” wrote M. Shcherbachenko. – It all started with a publication in Ogonyok. The material was published, and soon I received congratulations on the holiday of March 8th. Signature: Kozachenko. So this is my battalion commander - Alexey Konstantinovich, Hero of the Soviet Union, whose battalion repelled twenty-three counterattacks on the outskirts of Kyiv in one day. We started corresponding, then invited him and his family to Kyiv. We hugged and cried and remembered our dear Mukachevo order-bearing regiment. They sang songs – Ukrainian and front-line ones. Now my battalion commander is no longer alive... And a little later I received a letter from Azerbaijan. A man I didn’t know wrote that his father liberated Kyiv and invited me to visit. Let's go. We greeted you like family. They took me everywhere!..” Among Maria Shcherbachenko’s awards is the Order of Lenin, the highest award of the USSR, according to regulations, awarded along with the Hero’s Star; Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree; cross of Alexander Nevsky; medal of the English Madonna of Medicine; Florence Nightingale medal; the title of honorary citizen of Kyiv, the title of Hero of Ukraine. Nowadays, unfortunately, in commissioned “works” on history, much is distorted, presented from positions that trample on the sacrificial role of older generations in the Great Patriotic War, betraying their memory. Therefore, combat veterans not only warm our hearts with human warmth and enlighten our memories, but also, being eyewitnesses, do not allow our native history to be slandered, they remain witnesses to the great victorious past of our great Fatherland.
Fierce battles on the Kursk Bulge were left behind. The 835th Infantry Regiment, together with other units, defeated the fascist invaders in Ukraine, near Sumy. Then a young slender girl, medical instructor Maria Shcherbachenko, came to one of the companies.
The regiment experienced a great shortage of medical instructors, and everyone was happy about the arrival of a new person. Maria took the “training course” for her new specialty right there, at the forefront, under the guidance of an experienced medical instructor.
First of all, the old soldier decided to carefully find out whether Maria regretted being on the front line, whether she would be afraid in battle. After all, she’s still a girl, and it’s hard.
“It’s not easy for you either,” she answered, “you’re not afraid, and I won’t be afraid either.”
“I’m a different matter,” noted the seasoned soldier. “I’ve been smelling gunpowder for more than two years now.” I've seen enough of the fascist evil spirits.
- I’ve seen enough too.
And Maria said that she was in territory temporarily occupied by the enemy in the Kharkov region and experienced all the horrors of fascist rule. As soon as the Red Army liberated her homeland, the girl immediately went to the front.
This is how front-line life began for Maria Shcherbachenko. The girl turned out to be a diligent student and quickly got used to the combat situation. Everyone liked her, and they simply called her Mariyka.
Soon Maria had to really smell the gunpowder. The regiment began fighting for the large settlement of Grebenovka, on the outskirts of Sumy. Having stuffed her medical bag tightly with dressings, the girl found herself in the thick of the attackers. Mines and shells were exploding all around, machine guns and machine guns were crackling. Then enemy planes flew in. Heavy explosions shook the air; the earth seemed to groan and sigh heartily.
And no matter how brave Maria was, in the first minutes of the battle fear squeezed her heart. The head seemed to press itself to the ground. But, in spite of everything, the girl crawled and crawled forward, mentally reminding herself: “Don’t forget where you are and why you are.” My heart was pounding with excitement.
Maria stood up a little and looked around. Through the roar of the battle, she heard a man moaning somewhere nearby. And in fact, a soldier wounded in the leg lay near a small embankment. The girl rushed to help. Blood was oozing from the wound. Forgetting about the danger, Maria knelt down and began to bandage her leg.
“You can’t do this, honey,” the wounded man groaned. - Do you hear the whistling overhead? Take care of yourself.
The medical instructor sank to the ground and quickly bandaged her leg. The soldier felt better. Thanking her, he crawled for cover. Maria wanted to help him, but he said:
- No need! Look after the others, and I'll try to crawl myself...
Maria felt warmth and joy in her soul from the knowledge that she had helped the fighter, that people needed her here on the battlefield.
And forward again. People standing up to their full height flashed before my eyes. A shell exploded very close. The soldier fell to the ground as if knocked down. Shcherbachenko rushed to him. His face became deathly pale. Dark blood stains appeared in many places on the uniform.
There is not a minute to lose: the wound is very dangerous. Maria hastily bandaged the wounds, carefully laid the soldier on the raincoat and dragged him to the shelter where the ambulance cart was waiting...
And the battle continued. There were more and more wounded. Now Maria worked, forgetting about fear and losing track of time. The girl felt mortally tired, but did not lag behind her comrades.
When Soviet tanks attacked in the area where the company was advancing, the Nazis increased their fire. Maria lay down behind a small mound, watching the battlefield. One tank stopped and started smoking. And then a groan was heard. The girl quickly crawled towards the tank. But before she had time to help the wounded tanker, a mine exploded very nearby. Maria was thrown to the side by the blast wave, she hit something hard and lost consciousness for a minute. Having woken up, Shcherbachenko again rushed to the tanker, bandaged him and dragged him to a safe place.
This was the ninth seriously wounded man whom Maria pulled out from the battlefield, and bandaged many of the soldiers and commanders. Again the thought came to her that she was doing a noble deed, saving people from death, which means it was not in vain that she went to the front. And again my soul felt good.
The village of Grebenovka was liberated. The regiment continued the advance. The brave medical instructor Maria Shcherbachenko also went west with the company.
The fighting did not subside day or night.
Near the village of Kapustyanki in Ukraine, the regiment encountered particularly strong enemy resistance. Heavy tanks launched a counterattack, artillery bristled with strong fire, and planes buzzed in the sky. There was a fierce battle all day long. Maria did not know a moment's peace; she barely had time to bandage the wounded and carry them out of the battlefield.
It so happened that the battalion in which the company where Maria served was located was surrounded. Night has fallen.
Under cover of darkness, Soviet soldiers made their way to their own. But every now and then shouts were heard:
- Rus, halt! Rus, give up!
Together with her comrades, Maria Shcherbachenko managed to escape the encirclement. At dawn our Katyushas started talking. Then the tanks and infantry launched a rapid offensive. Soviet attack aircraft and bombers appeared in the sky. Having received reinforcements, the company in which Maria was also went on the attack. The girl did not lag behind the attackers. Having bandaged the wounded man, she left a piece of bandage or cotton wool on the bush so that the ambulance cart could quickly find the wounded man, while she hurried forward and forward to help other wounded.
So the days passed, combative and tense. Step by step, liberating their native land from the fascist invaders, the company fought its way to the west.
Behind, hundreds of kilometers away, was the village of Nezhdanovka, Volchansky district, in the Kharkov region, where Maria Shcherbachenko was born and raised. She often remembered her native places. She went to school there. The family was large. Maria was not yet nine years old when she suffered great grief - her parents died. The girl was left with two older brothers - Ivan and Andrey.
My school years flew by quickly. An independent working life began. Maria worked on a collective farm and did not disdain any kind of work: she looked after livestock, weeded beets, and did other work...
And here she is at the front. She was already accustomed to the harsh environment and endured all the hardships and deprivations of front-line life. She worked a lot, diligently. She behaved bravely and courageously in battles. The command awarded her the medal "For Courage".
At the front, a big event happened in the life of Maria Shcherbachenko. The party organization accepted her, as a glorious patriot, into the ranks of the Communist Party. In the face of her comrades in arms, Maria swore that she would not spare either her strength or her life for the complete defeat of the hated invaders. And she was true to her word.
When the division approached the Dnieper, the company commander, Senior Lieutenant Nadzhakhov, said to Maria:
- Tonight we will cross the Dnieper. You are a girl, it will be difficult for you. Maybe you'll stay here on the left bank?
- I want to go with everyone! - Maria stated decisively.
The night turned out to be cloudy, rainy and cold. The wind drove large waves along the river. At midnight, two fishing boats set sail from the left bank. In the distance the right bank was black, there was an enemy.
The gusts of wind were getting stronger and stronger. Suddenly one of the boats ran aground. Maria was the first to jump into the cold water, followed by everyone else. Raising their weapons above their heads, the soldiers silently moved towards the shore.
Somewhere to the right and left, machine guns occasionally clattered, and in the distance the dull fireflies of rockets flashed. But it was still relatively calm here. This suspicious silence lay like a heavy stone on everyone’s heart: either the enemy really did not notice those crossing, or decided to let them closer to the shore in order to drown them in the river.
But Maria and her comrades were lucky. Thirteen brave men, including a medical instructor, safely landed on the right bank and began to dig in. Soon seventeen more fighters crossed from the left bank.
In the morning we took a good look around: we caught on to a tiny piece of land. On the right, at the edge of the forest, there are the Germans, on the next high-rise there is a firing point, in front there is also an enemy. But the bridgehead had to be expanded at all costs.
They decided to oust the Germans from the heights. The attack was unexpected for the enemy. Our soldiers were supported by artillery, and the Nazis were driven out of the trenches. Then the fascists, who came to their senses, rained furious fire on a handful of Soviet daredevils. During the day, the Nazis attacked eight times. Enemy planes hovered over the small bridgehead.
Maria dug herself a trench in the shell crater and crawled out from there to help the wounded. The armor-piercing officer, the favorite of the entire company, Fedya Lakhtikov, received a serious wound. Maria carefully bandaged the wound and hid him in a safe place. Shrapnel from a shell broke both of Lieutenant Kokarev’s legs. The girl had to crawl for a long time to the wounded lieutenant.
The enemy attacks continued. Our soldiers were waiting for reinforcements from the left bank, but they still didn’t come. The Nazis continuously fired artillery fire along the river in the place where our units were supposed to cross. Enemy planes were constantly hovering over the Dnieper.
The situation at the high-rise became more complicated. Ammunition was running out. Almost every warrior was wounded. The medical instructor's bag was running out of bandaging material.
Only a day later our units managed to cross from the left bank to the right and provide support to the brave souls. Maria put a lot of work and care into transporting the seriously wounded across the river. At the same time, a fiery appeal from a brave girl from the right bank appeared in the division newspaper. Maria wrote to all the soldiers of the division: “I call you to fight the enemy bravely and boldly. Let love for our native land, holy hatred for the damned enemy lead us forward until complete victory over fascism!”
For many days there were stubborn battles in this area to expand the bridgehead. The guns were not silent day or night, and planes were hovering in the air. And all these days the brave girl, medical instructor Maria Shcherbachenko, did not leave the battlefield. In the battles on the Dnieper, she carried one hundred and twenty seriously wounded soldiers and commanders out from under enemy fire.
And the Motherland highly appreciated her feat of arms: on October 23, 1943, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, a group of Soviet soldiers, including Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Heroines. Vol. 2. (Essays about women - Heroes of the Soviet Union). M., Politizdat, 1969.
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