SHE DEFENDED HER MOTHERLAND 
By Olga Troshina
Six decades have passed since the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. That war, which lasted four long years – from June 1941 to May 1945 – was the bloodiest in the history of mankind.
In those harsh times those who rose to defend their Motherland included many women, who demonstrated unprecedented courage fighting at the frontlines and stood out against the ordeals life had in store for them.
“In the early days of the war everyone, and residents of Moscow too, were so patriotic,” says a war veteran Anna Kuzmina. “They couldn’t wait to get to the fronts to defend their Motherland.” A well-known Soviet wartime poetess Yulia Drunina wrote about herself: “I stepped from my childhood… to leave for a medical platoon.” Anna Kuzmina’s case was a similar one. She left for the front in July 1941, when she was just sixteen years old. She went straight into the hell of the war, having covered the path from Moscow to Koenigsberg as a medical instructor.
A few years before the war broke out Anna Kuzmina did a training course to be a nurse – she knew that this profession would soon become a must for her. “That was in 1938, and the situation was a critical one,” Anna Kuzmina recalls. “Everyone felt that a war with Hitler was imminent. There were thirty-six of us, girls, all from the same school, who signed up for a nurse training course and finished it eighteen months later.”
And the nursing skills did come in handy. The war against Nazi Germany began for the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. On that tragic day Anna came home from her friend’s place and found her mum in tears. “Anything wrong?” she asked. “Yes”, her mum replied. “The war has started.” Anna’s first reaction was as clear as day. She’ll fight the enemy at the frontlines. She could think of nothing else. In the local registration and enlistment office, where she came together with other girls, Anna was reassured that she would be sent to the front. She only had to wait a little, she was told. So, she waited impatiently, avidly listening to every single news bulletin from the fronts. And the news was disconcerting at first, to say the least. Her heart ached as she listened to it.......
Read the rest of her amazing story here:
ROAD TO VICTORY [THE VOICE OF RUSSIA]