What I've Learned

Tanya Savicheva kept two diaries. The first one she burned in a stove. The second one, she didn't.

The second diary has only seven entries. The first entry reads, "Zhenya died on 28th Dec. at 12:30 a.m. 1941."

Tanya was 10 years old when she wrote that. She lived in Leningrad, Russia, which today is known by its older name, Saint Petersburg. Zhenya was Tanya's sister.

In September of 1941, the Nazi army surrounded Leningrad, bombed the living daylights out of it, and cut it off from outside help for 872 days. That's two years and four months.

By the end of the siege, a million and a half people were dead, most from starvation.

Tanya's second entry in her diary reads, "Grandma died on 25th Jan., 3 p.m. 1942."

Six entries announce, each in a simple declarative sentence, the death of a relative.

Her seventh entry reads, "The Savichevs have died. Everyone has died. Only Tanya is left."

She was 12 when she wrote that.

When the blockade was over, Tanya Savicheva was taken, along with 139 other children, to a village where they were nourished and nursed. All of the group recovered, except Tanya. She hung on for two years, but weakened by long privation and suffering, she died in 1944.

Before the siege, her sister, Nina, went to work one day and didn't come back. She was working on the defenses of the city and was suddenly sent to Lake Ladoga and from there, evacuated. The family never knew what happened to her. There was a bombardment on the day she disappeared, so they assumed she was dead.

Nina returned after the war and found Tanya's diary. The booklet had originally been Nina's and had been given as a memento to Tanya by their mother after Nina's disappearance.

Tanya had had another diary, a thick notebook in which she had written her childhood dreams and ambitions and all things important to her. During the siege, she burned that diary in the family stove when there was nothing else left to burn. She refused to burn Nina's booklet.

That booklet, which became Tanya's second diary with its seven short entries, is now displayed at the Museum of Leningrad History.

As I write this, my thermostat is set at a comfortable level and I am enjoying a peanut butter/honey sandwich and a glass of milk, for which I feel hugely thankful.