Figure 1.--We have found this image on many Rusian website, but sisplayed more for poetic or emotionl reasons with out explanation or details. We believe the children are being trucked out of Lenningrad to safety on the Ice Road accross Lake Lagoda, probably in December 1941. The expressions on the childrens' faces, separated from their mothers, is haunting. Neither they are their mothers knew where the children were heading. They wre, however, the lucky ones. Mos of these children would survive the War. There was no real plan to evacuate the city's children until the German had cut the rail and road links. One factor was that the city offiials were concetned about being labeled defeatists and inviting arrest by the NKVD.

A Second Evacuation was smaller and conducted over Lake Lagoda, but got more children out (September 1941-April 1942). It was smaller because it did not involve the evacuation of industrial machinery and was able to make full use of the rail system. There was no plan in place for protecting children when the Germans invaded (June 1941). This was not a major concern of Stalin. His thinking was that the Soviet Union would do the invding which is what occurred during the first 2 years of the War. When the Germans attacked, the focus was on getting war factoris moved to the East. And Stalin seems to have believed the Red Army would fight better if their families were in the cities. As the seige of Lennigrad shaped up, there was an effort to get children out of the city, at least as much as possible on the trucks delivering supplies across Lake Lagoda. This was done both by boats and the Ice Road after the Lake froze over. The primary objective was to sustain the defence of the city. To do so, the Red Army had to organize a route for supplying Leningrad. The route organized was crossing the southern part of Lake Ladoga and the corridor of land beteen the city and the Lake. which the Lenningrad defenders maintained comtrol over. Watercraft crossed the Lake during the warmer months. And then after a supply interuption as the weather changed, trucks could be driven over the thick ice which formed in winter. The route thus become known as the Ice Road or lso the Road of Life (Дорога жизни). The route was protected by Ladoga Flotilla during the summer. And the Leningrad PVO Corps and route security troops during the winter months. Vital food and military supplies were thus transported to the village of Osinovets on the western shore of the Lake. A small suburban railway connected Osinovets to Lenningrad. It as used to transported supplies the 45 km to Lenningrad and to transport the evacuees to Osinovets. [Reid, p. 201.] This time with the consequences all to clear, evacuations of civilians were organized. The ice became thick enough for the ice road to begin to operate (November 20). There were all kinds of dangers aling the road. Trucks could become stuck in the snow and drifts. German bombardment also damaged the ice cover. Despite the dangers, Lenningraders coul not have held out and continued to resist the Germns with out the Ice Road. As heavy equipment could not be transported by truck, the evacuation mostly got civilians out--some 0.7 million Leningraders. Trucks carried supplies into Leningrad with supplies, but not enough to meet the needs of an entire city. Cities like Lenningrad were supplied by rail. Thousands of residents, mostly children and the elderly, were evacuated across the lake, but many more remained in the city. The Lenningrad authorities as Winter set in reduced the daily bread ration for civilians to 125 grams--and this included sawdust as an ingredient. This amounted to only one thick slice. Starvation begn with the wunter weather (December). It proved to be one of the coldest winter in decades. Temperatures fell -40°F. People worked through the winter in makeshift armament factories, including buildings without roofs because of the bombardment. They continued to produce weapons that kept the Germans outside the city. Many in the population, however, succumbed to starvation, the bitter cold, and the relentless German artillery and air attacks.

Created: 4:54 AM 2/1/2015
Last updated: 4:54 AM 2/1/2015