For seven months the people lived in the woods. They ate berries and huddled against the trees for shelter. Hundreds died of starvation. Thousands of others lived, bags of skin and bones and anger.
Last week the peasants trekked back to what was left of their homes and fields in the recaptured regions east of Rzhev. On their backs they carried children too weak to walk or hold up their heads. A soldier, giving bread to a weeping, toothless, grey-haired woman, asked: "What's wrong, Babushka [Grandmother]?" The fields were tangled with tall, unmown yellow grass; meadows were snarled with burdock and...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
