Mikhailov, Shortcomings in the Evacuation of Children from Moscow. July 8, 1941
Translated by Kristen Edwards
Authored by the head of the Information Sector of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party, this document points to the chaos of the first days of evacuation, and the tragedies that arose from it.
Original Source: Tsentral’nyi arkhiv obshchestvennykh dvizhenii Moskvy (TsAODM), f. 3, op. 52, d. 68, l. 184-185.
Bronnitsk Raikom Secretary comrade Dashkov has communicated that 1135 children came to the raion from Moscow on the first of July.
The children were brought out of Moscow on barges, which were not adapted to transport children. The sides of the barge were not fenced off, and the result of this along with poor control over the children was that a nine-year old girl, a second grade student at School #529, fell out of the barge into the water and drowned.
They couldn’t even give the drowning girl any help. Not only were there no life rings on the barge, there weren’t any lifelines. The girl’s corpse was retrieved from the water only after an hour and twenty minutes.
The children arriving in Bronnitsk Raion were sent from the Kirov Raion of Moscow. Secretary Vasiliev of the Kirov Raion Committee of the Communist Party has communicated that he knows all of this, and now the raion prosecutor is carrying out an investigation.
It must be said that Moscow officials did not provide an appropriate level of organization in the evacuation of the children or display concern for their traveling conditions…
For example, children were sent from Sokol’nichesk Raion to Voskresensk Raion, and in letters to their parents, the children write that they traveled by barge in the stuffy darkness. There wasn’t any water in the barge.
Polikarpov, a student, writes this to his mother in a letter from July 3, 1941:
” Mama, we got here with difficulty. We traveled in a boat where they transport flour. There wasn’t any water, but if there had been water, then there would have been a line and they would have given us too little. We slept on the bare floor, and it was very crowded.”
Novochkova writes:
“Mama, we traveled by barge poorly. It was stuffy. Send me home by telegram or by letter. ”
Another girl writes her mother:
” We traveled in the very cellar of the barge. When we felt bad we all wanted to drink. They gave us water, but there was just a little bit, only 3-4 gulps, and the water was putrid so no one drank it. .Mama, come and take us.”
Pivovarova, a student, writes her mother:
” Mama, on the barge it was crowded, and we traveled for two days. Mommy, I am eating well. They feed us ok. Breakfast is a piece of bread with tea. Lunch is cabbage soup, dinner is tea with bread. ”
Comrade Butkevich, the party secretary of the factory “Red Knight” has 78 letters from the children. In all of the letters the children write to their parents that air raid warnings often upset them, and that air raid warnings occur 3-4 times a day.
All of the letters were held and were not delivered to the parents.
Signed by Mikhailov, the head of the information section of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party.
Source: M. M. Gorinov, V. N. Parkhachev, and A. N. Ponomarev, eds. Moskva prifrontovaia, 1941 1942: Arkhivnye dokumenty i materialy. (Moscow: Izdatel stvo ob edineniia Mosgorarkhiv, 2001), p. 161.