Civilian life in occupied Soviet Union in photos & documents

[Larrister]

Villagers gathered around a barn door.

[Larrister]

Two girls.

[Larrister]

German soldiers at village well.

[Larrister]

One more for now.

Mother and her children.

[henryk]

Interesting to see how many adults were barefoot.
Any idea how many photos were taken by individual soldiers, and how many by official Army or newspaper photographers?

[Annelie]

Interesting to see how many adults were barefoot

People were poor. In the summer its easy to go barefoot, so I suppose they saved their shoes for when
they "had" to wear shoes.

[Larrister]

Russians in rural areas were very poor, a lot did not have adequate housing, clothing and food.
The majority of the people in my photos did not wear shoes. Probably kept for winter months and special occasions.

Here's a photo of women and girls off to do the harvest. Even while doing this task they were bare footed.

Larry

[Larrister]

The two men in this photo are wearing coats made of skins. The coat of the man at left has a sleeve that is about to fall off.
The woman at right is probably wearing her husband's coat.
Unfortunately whilst the album has many great photos it has only a few captions.

Larry

[Svetlana Karlin]

Interesting to see how many adults were barefoot.
Any idea how many photos were taken by individual soldiers, and how many by official Army or newspaper photographers?

It seems that a lot of Bundesarchiv photos were taken by Propaganda-Kompanie photographers. http://commons.wiki.bks-tv.ru/wiki/Cate ... otographer lists German photographers, whose works were contributed by Bundesarchiv to Wikipedia. PK denotes a Propaganda-Kompanie photographer. Hermann Hoeffke who took the Kharkov photos is not in the list, but he worked for Propaganda-Kompanie too.

Annelie and Larrister,

You're absolutely right: a lot of rural people were too poor to afford extra footwear. In large cities people were better off and typically wore shoes/boots all year round. A pair of good boots was a valuable asset for a peasant.

A couple of interesting documents from State Archive of Nikolaev (Mykolaiv) province http://www.archives.gov.ua/Sections/194 ... /index.php. Residents submitted those declarations of the damage from German occupants after the Soviet liberation in 1944. Both of them list boots!

217-I-ra14-P-1894-1-38-106.jpg

Translation:
To Collective Farm ("kolkhoz") [unreadable name of the kolkhoz]
Bashtanskiy District

Declaration from Larchenko H. M. that during the period of German occupation was lost:
1. Cow
2. Young cow
3. 14 hens
4. 7 geese
5. 2 sheep
6. Sheepskin coat 1000 (Roubles - Linkar)
7. Duvet 500 (Roubles - Linkar)
8. Boots 1000 (Roubles - Linkar)
9. 2 bedsheets
Cash - 400 Rbl
Witness [signature unreadable]
On the margins added: Grain 3 [the letter unclear]

217-I-ra14-P-1894-1-39-13-13zv.jpg

Translation:
To Commission at the kolkhoz named after Voroshilov, village N-Gorozhano, N-Sergievskoy Rural Council, Bashtanskiy District, Nikolaev province for compensation of damage from German-Fascist occupants from Grablenka Vasilya Mikolaevicha

Declaration
During the time of the occupation of the village N-Gorozhano by the German Army my household suffered the following damage:
1. Two Cows, 39,000 Rbl
2. Men's suit, 2,000 Rbl
3. Six shirts, two men's and four women's 1,500 Rbl
4. Five scarves and 6 meters of fabric 2,800 Rbl
5. Men's boots 2,000 Rbl
Total 47,300
Witnesses: Yakimenko Ganna, Trukhanova Nadya

This set of damage declarations also contains claims lodged by residents of Kherson, a major city, and their lists are much longer: furniture, household items, utensils, jewelry, state bonds, etc. A lady from Kherson stated that her deceased husband's salary used to be 900 Rbl/month, but gave no information on his profession/employer.

Another document (from the same source) relevant to the claims above - a receipt about the property requisitioned by the German Army, which was issued during the occupation period.

Receipt.jpg

Translation:
Receipt N 20
A document on the receipt by the German Army has been received from the village Burilovo:
20 liters of milk
3 kg of butter
4 kg of lard
100 eggs
20 kg of carrots
50 kg of potatoes
5 chicken
The documents have been sent to Pervomayskaya Prefecture
Village Elder [signature unreadable]
Requisitioner [signature unreadable]
February 25, 1942

[Larrister]

Hi Linkar

Very interesting documents.
Were villagers actually compensated for their losses to the Wehrmacht?
The Germans would have taken what they wanted from villages without compensation.
The use of German occupation currency (assuming there was one in occupied Russia) would have been of no use to the rural peoples who lived so far from cities.

Here's a couple of photos showing makeshift dwellings.
Displaced people, refugees or people whose homes have been destroyed.

Note the meagre amount of personal possessions.

[Larrister]

next...

[Svetlana Karlin]

Hi Linkar

Very interesting documents.
Were villagers actually compensated for their losses to the Wehrmacht?
The Germans would have taken what they wanted from villages without compensation.
The use of German occupation currency (assuming there was one in occupied Russia) would have been of no use to the rural peoples who lived so far from cities.

Here's a couple of photos showing makeshift dwellings.
Displaced people, refugees or people whose homes have been destroyed.

Note the meagre amount of personal possessions.

Hi Larry,

I've been searching online for information whether there was a compensation system, but found nothing. In the past, I came across sporadic comments about material assistance for residents of war-ravaged areas. Unfortunately, I can't recall much on the topic, and I don't even remember the sources. Wish I paid more attention then!

Your photo album with the pictures of civilians is fabulous. To complement your photos of makeshift housing, here are a couple of links to pictures on a Russian archive website. The images are copyrighted and can't be posted on other sites without the owner's written permission.

http://victory.rusarchives.ru/index.php ... to_id=1439 These women actually live in a cellar. In rural and small-town Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine it was common to make deep underground cellars in backyards. In winter they provided roomy storage for staples like potatoes and vegetables, which was cool but protected from freezing. In summer they served as a cold storage for foodstuffs. Sometimes people packed them with cut ice in early spring. The ice would be covered with straw, so it wouldn't melt quickly. The ice could last as long as late summer.

http://victory.rusarchives.ru/index.php ... to_id=1442 A woman inside a dugout shelter.

[Larrister]

Hi Linkar

Thanks for the links to the photos. Unfortunately even though I have 1000's of photos in my collection (many taken in Russia) I haven't the time to do any proper research.

It is good that someone such as yourself has started a thread like this.
Do you know whether villages and their inhabitants were persecuted by the Russian authorities as collaborators for billiting
Wehrmacht troops.
I know that no-one had much choice in the matter but a lot of photos show villagers and German troops living quite happily together.

Some more photos from the album.

Laughing boys mixing food in a bowl.

[Larrister]

Russian girl with German soldiers.

[Larrister]

Russian girl.