User:Thekirilenko/The feat of my family during the Great Patriotic War

Victory Day, how far away it was from us…

The entire Soviet nation stood up for protection of their Homeland. Young and old men had become defenders and stood against their common enemy courageously.

The Great Patriotic War had not spared my bloodline. My great-grandparents were participants of War at the frontline and behind enemy lines.

My great-grandfather, Kirilenko Dmitry Alekseevich, lieutenant, commander of a rifle platoon of the 1339 rifle regiment, was missing in action in February 1943.

Before the War he served in the Temryuk NKVD. My great-grandfather was described as trustworthy, conscientious and dedicated to the Motherland by his administration. From the beginning of the War he was drafted to the front in a rifle regiment.

Being an honest and lionhearted man, he volunteered for the defense of Malaya Zemlya. When a military barge sailed to Malaya Zemlya, enemy’s planes flew into it, firing at it with heavy fire. The barge was sunk.

Lieutenant Kirilenko was supposed to be on that barge, but he was not found among the other dead soldiers.

And only in 1947 my great-grandmother received a notification that her husband was missing in action in February 1943. In memory of my great-grandfather, there are his letters from the front, which he wrote to his family in between hostilities. In peacetime, my grandfather, Anatoly Dmitrievich Kirilenko, was looking for his father in Malaya Zemlya and in the city of Novorossiysk, but never found him.

Dmitry Alekseevich Kirilenko did not return from military operation and our family still has no information about his disappearance and death.

My great-grandmother, Spivak Melania Ivanovna gave birth to six children. Having small kids in her arms, she also did not stand aside military actions during the Great Patriotic War in Kuban. Behind enemy lines, she helped the partisans: baked bread, washed the soldiers' clothes, and then secretly took them to the forest. Great-grandmother for her gallantry and bravery during the war years was awarded a government award, as well as the medal "Heroine Mother". She died in old age already in peacetime.

I am proud of the valor and courage of my great-grandfathers and great-grandmother. Blessed memory of them!