Siege of Leningrad
Taylor Winter
Background
The Siege of Leningrad was a horrific event that lead to the death of an estimated one million people. The Siege started September 8, 1941 and lasted about two and a half years. Hitler made the decision to strangle the city into submission rather than use their valuable resources on a direct attack. Not only were people dying due to attacks by the troops, but they were also dying of hunger, the cold, and just poor living in general. When people turned to cannibalism, the corpses could not be buried due to the cold winter, so they just accumulated in the streets and any other open areas. An estimated 11,000 died from being victims of cannibalism in November, and that number grew by about 42,000 in the span of about a month being about 53,000 by December.
Hardships
Hunger
In the book "City of Thieves" by David Benioff, he city of Leningrad is under the siege, and not only dealing with the siege, but also hunger. "The boy sold what people called library candy, made from tearing the covers off of books, peeling off the binding glue, boiling it down, and reforming it into bars you could wrap in paper. The stuff tasted like wax, but there was protein in the glue, protein kept you alive, and the city's books were disappearing like the pigeons." (Benioff/Pg 52)
Winter
In the book "City of Thieves" by David Benioff, Lev and his new buddy Kolya get thrown in the crosses and have an opportunity to be set free. While outside they witness the harsh winter in Leningrad. "A girl in a fox fur coat skated on the Neva. In a normal winter you'd see hundreds of girls skating on a weekend afternoon, but this wasn't a normal winter. The ice was solid and had been for weeks, but who had the strength for figure eights?" (Benioff/Pg 32)
Bombardment
In the book "City of Thieves" by David Benioff, the city of Leningrad is under the siege, and bombardment is a big issue that Lev and Kolya face on their journey to find a dozen eggs. "We saw two women in their sixties walking very close together, their shoulders touching, eyes on the sidewalk looking for the patch of ice that could kill them. A man with a glorius walrus mustache carried a white bucket filled with black nails. A boy, no more than twelve, tugged a swled with a length of rope. A small body wrapped in blankets lay on the sled, a bloodless bare foot dragging along the hard-packed snow. Dragon's teeth studded the street, reinforced concrete blocks arrayed in rows to hinder the movement of enemy tanks. A printed sign on the wall read WARNING! THIS SIDE OF THE STREET IS THE MOST DANGEROUS DURING BOMBING." (Benioff/Pg 42)
Journal #1: Hardships or Hunger
In the book "City of Thieves" by David Benioff, Lev starts off his narration of the book by saying "You have never been so hungry; you have never been so cold. When we slept, if we slept, we dreamed of feasts we had carelessly eaten seven months earlier-all that buttered bread, the potato dumplings, the sausages- eaten with disregard, swallowing without tasting, leaving great crumbs on out plates, scraps of fat." (Benioff/Pg 7) Right off the bat Lev starts by telling about one of the many poor aspects of this time mentioned in the book, this one being hunger, and in this particular passage, about how him and other people took that food they once had for granted.
City of St. Petersburg also known as Piter
One way Lev described Leningrad was how they thought their lives were bad at one point (before the Germans arrived), and how that was nothing compared to what they were going to deal with. Before the Germans came, Lev described Leningrad as what appeared to be like any other place, there was nothing really special about it, but it wasn't a terrible place either. Lev then goes on to say how people thought Leningrad was "paradise" compared to what Leningrad turned into once the Germans came. "In June of 1941, before the Germans came, we thought we were poor. But June seemed like paradise by winter." (Benioff/Pg 7)
During the War
Leningrad during the war was a very dark time when the people were fearing for their lives and were being treated like how the Germans felt they were, and had no respect for the people of Leningrad, and most people ended up dying for one reason or another, whether it was because they were killed by the Germans or because they starved to death. This quote (to me) shows how the people were thought of by the Germans and this thought reflected the way the people of Leningrad were being treated. "The Nazis had printed thousands of invitation cards to a grand victory party Hitler intended to throw at the Astoria Hotel after conquering what he had called, in a speech to his torch-bearing storm troopers, "the birthplace of Bolshevism, that city of thieves and maggots." (Benioff/Pg 89)
Post War
After the siege ends, Leningrad celebrates and becomes a happy place again, despite what had happened 3 years before. Lev goes on to say how he continued to live his life as a free man who had grown to be the man he was by the end of the book because of all the things he had gone through during the siege and on his journey to find the dozen eggs. Lev had grown into an actual man, and he shows his new self in the last chapter of the book. "On the night of January 27,1944, more than tree hundred cannons fired an hour-long fusillade of white, blue, and red rockets, the brilliant, glittering tails lighting up all of Leningrad,the Russian colors reflected in the gold dome of Saint Isaac's and the two thousand windows of the winter palace. The siege was over" (Benioff/Pg 255)
Journal #2: Enotional and physical challenges
The story of the sheepdogs told to Lev and Kolya could have had various challenges to be dealt with just because of what the story is about. The story of the sheepdogs was said to be about the dogs who were trained to search for bombs and were blown up. Not only could this be disturbing in a physical sense because these dogs were killed and probably had no idea it was coming, but also emotionally hard to understand because these dogs were used to help others but were killed in the process and that was ok to the people using them. Either way, this story was probably a hard one for Lev and Kolya to listen.
Journal #3: Essential Question
War can cause people to change, or at least say they are not who they say they are, and sometimes its to save themselves from what could happen if they said who they really were. Like in the book, Lev and Kolya are saying they are not who they are so that they do not suffer the punishments they may receive. This is not only a problem for Lev and Kolya, but also other people during this time period who knew they had to lie about who they were in order to survive or be free. Like in the movie "The Pianist" he says he is polish rather than mention he was a jew because he knew that he would probably been killed had he said he was a jew.