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War period

This is where the pre-war history of our school ends and a new period begins - the military one. Unfortunately, there is very little information about him, specifically with regard to our 241 schools. But we have no right to miss this period of time.

    The siege of Leningrad is one of the most tragic and, at the same time, heroic pages in the history of the Great Patriotic War. Lasted 872 days, from September 8, 1941  to January 27, 1944. The blockade ring was broken on January 18, 1943.

And one has only to remember those war years
As the soul is immediately fettered by a terrible cold.
Orphan cities shattered and devastated
Oh, trace of the War. And pain, and eternal darkness, and hunger.
 
My Leningrad: you were double bound by the blockade
Hateful horde of fascist hordes.
You survived the fire and endured all the torments of hell - hunger, nightmare
And he kept the memory of the fallen forever - forever!     
 
And again morning ... how to live?
How to melt a potbelly stove, what should we drink?
Oh, Lord, I pray for a crumb of bread ...
What will happen next?
How can I live with my school children until the evening? ..
 
No, I didn't cry. Where did the tears go?
After all, feelings with hunger are completely naked.
Only thunderstorms are raging in my soul
Rattling explosions - fragments of War.
 
I believe you will return to our school.
You will carry love to children in your chest.
And in the tests of bitterness of severe losses,
I know ... and I hope you will understand ...
 
Oh Lord, how cold and damp.
We die under two mattresses on school desks.
Let a lighter hit the house - a mine.
Perhaps they would have stopped suffering then.
 
  But we are strong both in spirit and in consciousness,
And we direct our will to live.
And having tempered yourself with a harsh and blockade test,
We will move all our strength to the greatest Victory !!!

Reading these lines, one involuntarily “gets covered with goosebumps” and cannot understand why these hungry tired people had so much inhuman endurance, heroism and fortitude!
    On June 22, 1941, four graduates came out of the school.
    From the memoirs of former students of our school, there is information that in 1941 a hospital was located in the school building. But there are no documents confirming this in the archives.
    From the memoirs of a student of school No. 241 Zinaida Izrailevna Markova: “In November 1941, the students of our school began to study in the premises of the Oktyabrsky District Executive Committee on Mayorov Street (a hospital was already located in the school building). The class was prefabricated, and at first everyone was from our school. Then the boys began to die, the class began to be replenished with children from other schools. The classroom was very small. There was a small stove. And Nadezhda Leonidovna Shvachko, our historian, was always the first to come, light the stove and sit next to it. "
    The kids, together with their teacher Tatyana Eduardovna Frisch, a biology teacher, were evacuated.
    From the memoirs of students of the blockade school:
“You know, when we came to school (the boys were still alive), the conversation was only about food. One day, Rivman brought a cookbook to class, old and shabby. And so they sat together with Yurka Weibel and read it aloud. Everyone listened and everyone was drooling. But they died first. The teachers forbade this kind of thing and stopped any talk about food. "
  “Someone brought a gramophone and records. Just not to think about food. "
“The school gave yeast soup. It was such happiness! "
“And how happy the teachers were if someone started being naughty. The school was very quiet during breaks. "
“Never, neither before nor after, did I try so hard to learn as I did in that terrible year."
"Let's hit the enemy with our studies!" - was our motto.
"What we were talking about? About where edible grass grows, what is the use of it. Which cereal gives more fat. The truth was cereal was only in dreams. "
    During the war, a significant part of the firefighters went into the army, and the city was extinguished after the bombing of the girls and boys who had recently sat at their desks. They were led by old experienced firefighters and, thanks to them, the city did not burn down, although there was no water or equipment. Let these girls and boys from the times of the war forever remain in the memory of the people! Honor and praise to them!
    Many girls and boys of pre-conscription age from our school worked in Leningrad factories and plants and produced products for the front. Borusevich Svetlana - electrician of the "Radist" plant; Mamontova Irina and Malysheva Nina - workers of the optical-mechanical plant; Maltsurova Lyubov is a steelmaker. They all worked for the army, for the front. Schoolgirls of the tenth grade Valentina Alekseeva, Naimark Zinaida, Ramo Korneli combined the hard work of hospital attendants with their studies at the blockade school, which they graduated with a "Golden Certificate" in the summer of 1942  in a besieged city.
    Undoubtedly, any war is a tragedy for the people. The Great Patriotic War was a national war and the whole country took part in it. She did not pass by our 241 schools either. About four hundred people, pupils of the draft-age school, in the very first days were in the ranks of the Red Army, and most of them joined the Army voluntarily. Among them were: Anatoly Averyanov, Tatyana Bogomaz, Ilya Bondar, Zinaida Budaryeva, Pavel Vitushkin, Valentina Grigorieva, Valery Deyneko, August Kotelnikov, Mikhail Lebedev, Lev Margolin, Boris Novoselok, Anatoly Paller, Subbot Kruzhemikhin, Oleg Robinson Yu. , Konstantin Shekhin, Leonid Shubin, Nikolay Shcherbakov, Alexander Eiges and many others. One of the first to join the ranks of the defenders  Homeland teachers of our school: Kvalividze Shalva Ilyich, who became the commander of the 151st motorized rifle company and died near Staraya Russa; Vasiliev Leonid Vasilievich; Epstein Samuil Shmerkovich and others. Former schoolchildren and teachers, during the war they became privates, sergeants and even generals. They  fought on the Leningrad front and defended their hometown as part of the troops of the Nevskaya operational group - the 67th Army. Among them were: Babkin Nikolay, Domashek Boris, who died at the Sinyavsky heights; sappers Grigoriev  Valentina and Smirnov Gleb, sailor Vladimir Ushakov - participants in the battles on the Nevsky "Pigat"; Pie Lion, wounded on the "Road of Life", Kolker Aron - an artilleryman who liberated the city of Riga; Vitushin Pavel, awarded the Order of the Red Banner for heroism in the liberation of the Baltic States. Many of them wore a medal on their gymnasts.  "For the liberation of Leningrad".
    And what a terrible tragedy broke out on Ladoga on September 17, 1941! In scale, it is not inferior to the sinking of the Titanic. Almost 1000 people died in the waters of the lakes. Among them is a whole course of the Dzerzhinsky School, where graduates of our 241 school were also: Evgeny Moiseev - gold medalist, Semyon Pevzner. On the bank of Ladoga there are gravestones where their names are written. Their bodies rest at the bottom of the harsh Ladoga. This story is known to few people, until a certain time it  kept a secret, which could only be revealed by the few surviving participants in this tragedy. Including a former student of our school, Alexander Evdokimov.
    A graduate of 1942 Alekseeva Valentina became a pilot in Marina Raskova's "Night Witches" regiment, a graduate of the school Pavel Ivanovich Vitushkin went through the whole war, became an officer.
    Unfortunately, we do not have the opportunity to list all those former students and teachers of our school who spared no effort and life itself fought at the front and in the rear for our Victory.

Years will pass, but we will try to preserve the names of the students and teachers of our school - alive and those who will never return! We are proud that we are united with them by the native walls of our school!

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