THEY DEFENDED THEIR

         MOTHERLAND
 

Dear English speaking visitors of this site,

you are reading about the project devoted to the 60-anniversary of the end of the WWII. We are trying to collect and to save for future generations all the memoirs of the war participants from the former USSR countries. You can find  instruction how to do it in the best way at this very site.

If among your relatives or friends there are native from the former USSR countries who participated in the war actions or worked in the rear providing the material base of the Victory, please, inform them about our project, ask them to write down in Russian, English or any other language (using a tape recorder, paper or the computer) their memoirs of the  war and to send them to us.

Inform about it also the veterans - your compatriots - who also took part in the war and had contacts with the Red Army, with its soldiers and officers. Their memoirs of the joint struggle will also be very important for the strengthening friendship between the peoples of CIS and your country.

You will read below the appeal to the veterans from the former USSR countries.

Dear veterans of the Second World War -  former USSR inhabitants, we, organizers of the project THEY DEFENDED THEIR MOTHERLAND, are trying to collect and to save for the future generations your memoirs of the  war, in which you have taken part being still young.

Time, old wounds and the age illnesses are unmerciful  and find new victims among you every day. Alas, all of us are mortal and nothing can be changed. But it is possible to prolong your life in the memory of the next generations.

Almost 60 years back you were involved in the war, the initiators of which were the authors of antihuman ideology. They paid for it. But their victims were millions of our and your compatriots, maybe - your close friends and relatives. In the name of memory about them, in the name of those sufferings, which you had to share and in the honour of the Victory over the fascism,  we ask you to write down your memoirs about your war experience, those terrible years and to send them to us.

Actually neither we, nor you can predict all the benefits and   importance which your memoirs will have for future generations. But we are sure they will be great.

And we precisely know that we live as long as memory of us does. Therefore we ask you to sum up your ideas and to put down your memoirs on paper or records (even better � on  a computer compact disc). 10-20 pages (or more) is a good volume of the material. But smaller records are of great value for us too. And also (if you kept them) the copies of your photos of war years.

Leave the original of memoirs for your relatives and close friends and, please, send a copy to us.

If you can read in Russian, our site www.warmemories.narod.ru  gives  some instructions for memoirs writing. They also can be found on a site of library of the USA Congress (www.loc.gov/vets), which realizes the similar project (one copy of your memoirs can be sent to the both addresses).

We ask children and the grandchildren of the veterans to help them to write down their memoirs, they are important not only for you, but for every Russian - our ancestors fought together during the Second World War.

Our special reference is to those of our compatriots, who appeared to be  in the other camp - in German army. Now, long after the end of the war, we can not consider the circumstances and judge anyone.

If you consider possible to describe the war from the opposite side and to send them to us, we shall be grateful to you for your determination to leave these documents of epoch for future generations.

Write to us

The time does not wait - please hurry