In memory of Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko. Shcherbachenko, Maria Zakharovna Excerpt characterizing Shcherbachenko, Maria Zakharovna

Crossing of the Dnieper

One of the medals named after Florence Nightingale is engraved in French: “Madame Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko. May 12, 1971." This “madam” is a simple woman of peasant origin, a medical instructor of a rifle company during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. - in the battles on the Bukrinsky bridgehead, she carried one hundred and sixteen wounded soldiers and officers from the battlefield. She herself transported the seriously wounded across the river to the first first aid station.

This is the same “madame”, a Ukrainian village woman who, at the age of twenty, heroically was among the very first to participate in crossing the Dnieper. The crossing, as you know, was very, very difficult for our troops.

Maria Shcherbachenko was born on February 14, 1922 in the family of a poor peasant from the Nezhdanovka farm, Volchansky district, in the Kharkov region. In the famine of 1933, the girl lost her parents and older brother. With her two remaining brothers, Ivan and Andrei, Masha went to work on a collective farm. She looked after livestock, weeded beets, and even got a position as an assistant accountant.

At the beginning of 1942, Maria and her peers were sent to dig trenches along the front line along the Seversky Donets. Subsequently, the famous nurse recalled: “We really worked with shovels! My hands are full of blisters. The backs did not straighten. And we, girls, were swaying from the wind. When the Germans bombed, the earth reared up! It’s good that there were trenches nearby: you climb in there, clench your fist - the sky seems like a sheepskin. And yet, ours did not hold the line, they retreated... I had seen enough of all sorts of bad things and firmly decided that I would go to the front. Anyone. I went to the military registration and enlistment office, and - lucky! I ended up serving in a rifle regiment, in short, in the infantry.”

Maria joined the army on a Komsomol ticket on March 4, 1943. When she was offered to serve as a medical instructor, she expressed her readiness and determination, although she did not have a medical education. I had to master sanitation directly in battle: “After all, I never thought about medicine. Moreover, she was very afraid of blood: if she saw a chicken being slaughtered or a wild boar being stabbed, she would run a mile away. But the war turned out to be much worse... I vaguely remember the first battle near Sumy, but I remember the first wounded man for the rest of my life. It seemed as if the earth itself was groaning from the explosions of shells and mines. How much does a person need in such an iron blizzard? Just a few grams of lead... She took refuge in a shallow trench. I saw a fighter fall about three hundred meters away. I crawl up: a through wound above the knee. With trembling hands, I barely opened the individual package and let’s bandage it. The bandage gets twisted and I almost cry. Somehow, after bandaging it, she dragged the “patient” to a safe place. “Excuse me if something is wrong,” I say to the soldier, “but this is my first day at the front.” “It’s okay, sister, don’t be embarrassed... She bandaged me perfectly. And this is also my first time on the front line...” he groaned. After ten days on the front line, I was presented with the medal "For Courage". Then there were other awards. However, this one is the most expensive. Like the first-born of a young mother..."

“In the autumn of 1943 we reached the Dnieper. It’s hard to describe how we felt when we saw its waters. Here he is, dear Slavutich. The soldiers rushed to the river: some drank, some washed away days of dust and soot from their faces,” said Maria Zakharovna.

The Wehrmacht command hoped that the Dnieper, as a high-water river with a high right bank, would become a reliable defensive line. The Nazis called this defensive line the “Eastern Wall”.

To build fortifications on the right bank of the Dnieper, the Nazis expelled the local population, transferred special construction and other military units from Western Europe and from the northern section of the Soviet-German front, replenishing them with fresh divisions from Northern Italy. Soviet troops reached the Dnieper along a 750-kilometer front from Kyiv to Zaporozhye. This was the culmination of the battle for Ukraine. On the night of September 21, 1943, the crossing of the Dnieper began, which entailed many tragic events, which became a time of mass heroism of Soviet soldiers, since the advanced units crossed the river on the move, using improvised means, without waiting for the approach of the main forces and the arrival of pontoons.

During September-October 1943, Soviet troops fought fierce battles to retain and expand bridgeheads on the right bank of the Dnieper. The heavy attack on Kyiv from the Bukrinsky bridgehead was led by the commander of the Voronezh Front (from October 20, 1943 - 1st Ukrainian Front) General N. F. Vatutin.

The rainy night of September 24, 1943 became fateful for Maria Shcherbachenko. The nurse was destined to become one of the first thirteen soldiers who crossed the Dnieper near the village of Greben, in the Kiev region. On two fishing boats they crossed the Dnieper under enemy fire. Having climbed up a steep slope, we took up defensive positions and began to fight. At dawn, 17 more soldiers from the same company arrived. The soldiers heroically defended themselves, repelling fascist attacks. Maria Shcherbachenko, the only woman in this “fiery patch,” tirelessly bandaged the wounded, gave them water, carried them to shelters, and evacuated them to the rear. Finally reinforcements arrived and the enemy defenses were broken through. In the division newspaper, a brave nurse wrote, addressing all soldiers: “I call on you to fight bravely and boldly. May love for our native land, holy hatred of the damned enemy always lead you forward, until complete victory over fascism.”

Remembering the dedication of the young nurse, I would like to quote the lines of the poem “Sister” by front-line poet Viktor Gusev:

...If you looked at her, you would say: a girl!
This one for the front? Yes you! He will run away.
And here she is in battle, and the bullets are rushing loudly,
And the air rattles from the explosions.

Tired, covered in blood, in a torn overcoat,
She crawls through the battle, through the black howl of lead.
Fire and death rush over her,
Fear for her bursts into our hearts...
Into the hearts of fighters who are used to fighting bravely.

All thirteen soldiers who were the first to cross to the right bank and hold the bridgehead, despite the fierce resistance of the enemy, were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 23, 1943.

“A month after the battles near Bukrin, the regiment commander, congratulating me on the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, asked where I was from and who my parents were. I answered that my mother and father died before the war, and were originally from the Kharkov region. After a short silence, he said: “I will be your father, and the political officer will be your mother. And don’t forget: your cradle is the eight hundred and thirty-fifth regiment.”

Maria dreamed of reaching Berlin with her regiment, but on May 22, 1944, she was recalled from the front to the third anti-fascist youth rally in Moscow, then was sent to study in Ashgabat, where the medical school evacuated from Kharkov was located.

There Mary met Victory: “What a joy it was! I was glad that my older brother Andrei returned from the front. (At the beginning of the war, his wife received a notice that he was missing.) And she cried for her younger brother Ivank: he died at the age of nineteen in Belarus.”

After the war, Maria Zakharovna entered law school, after which she began working in a legal consultation in Kharkov. After some time, she married a military man and gave birth to two daughters. Together with her husband she conducted educational work in schools. For many years she continued to receive letters from both fellow soldiers and strangers.

“I had an unforgettable meeting,” wrote M. Shcherbachenko. – It all started with a publication in Ogonyok. The material was published, and soon I received congratulations on the holiday of March 8th. Signature: Kozachenko. So this is my battalion commander - Alexey Konstantinovich, Hero of the Soviet Union, whose battalion repelled twenty-three counterattacks on the outskirts of Kyiv in one day. We started corresponding, then invited him and his family to Kyiv. We hugged and cried and remembered our dear Mukachevo Order-Bearing Regiment. They sang songs – Ukrainian and front-line ones. Now my battalion commander is no longer alive... And a little later I received a letter from Azerbaijan. A man I didn’t know wrote that his father liberated Kyiv and invited me to visit. Let's go. We greeted you like family. They took us everywhere!..”

Among Maria Shcherbachenko's awards is the Order of Lenin, the highest award of the USSR, according to regulations, awarded along with the Hero's Star; Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree; cross of Alexander Nevsky; medal of the English Madonna of Medicine; Florence Nightingale medal; the title of honorary citizen of Kyiv, the title of Hero of Ukraine.

Maria Zakharovna lives today in Kyiv.

Nowadays, unfortunately, in commissioned “works” much is distorted, presented from positions that trample on the sacrificial role of older generations in the Great Patriotic War, betraying their memory. Therefore, combat veterans not only warm our hearts with human warmth and enlighten our memories, but also, being eyewitnesses, do not allow our native history to be slandered, they remain witnesses to the great victorious past of our great Fatherland.

MARESEVA Zinaida Ivanovna (1922 - 1943).

Born in the village of Cherkassky, Volsky district, Saratov region. She graduated from Red Cross courses and went to the front as a sanitary instructor for a rifle company. Participated in the battles for Stalingrad. For saving the wounded on the battlefield, she was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Medal “For Military Merit.” While in the landing party to capture a bridgehead across the Northern Donets, in just two days of bloody battle she provided assistance to 64 wounded, of whom she transported 60 to the left bank. On the night of August 3, 1943, Mareseva transported another wounded man by boat. An enemy mine exploded nearby. Saving the wounded man, the brave Komsomol member covered him with her body and was mortally wounded. 3.I. Mareseva was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

TROYAN Nadezhda Viktorovna.

Born in 1921 in Verkhne-Dvinsk, Vitebsk region (BSSR). The war found her in Minsk. Nadezhda Viktorovna joins the “Storm” partisan detachment. Together with her fighting friends, she helped a group of wounded Soviet prisoners of war escape from fascist captivity. She selflessly bandaged and nursed wounded partisans. For the exemplary performance of a combat mission behind enemy lines and the courage and heroism shown by N.V. Troyan was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Currently, Candidate of Medical Sciences N.V. Troyan heads the Central Research Institute of Health Education of the USSR Ministry of Health and conducts a lot of public work.

LEVCHENKO Irina Nikolaevna.

Born in 1924 in the city of Kadievka, Lugansk region. Komsomolskaya Pravda. A Red Cross sanitary squad volunteered for the front in July 1941. She brought a convoy with 168 wounded soldiers out of encirclement. She was a medical instructor for a tank unit and saved the lives of 28 tank crews in combat operations. Subsequently she became a tank officer. Has 15 government awards. Awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. For saving the wounded on the battlefield and the dedication shown in this case, she was also awarded the Florence Nightingale medal by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Currently a well-known writer and public figure. Communist I.P. Levchenko lives in Moscow.

KRAVETS Lyudmila Stepanovna.

Born in 1923 in the village of Kushugum. Zaporozhye district, Zaporozhye region. Graduated from the College of Nursing. In 1941, she went to the front as a sanitary instructor in a rifle unit. For saving the lives of the wounded, she was awarded three Orders of the Red Star and the medal “For Courage.” The communists of the unit accepted Komsomol member L. S. Kravets as a party member. In the battles on the outskirts of Berlin she was wounded twice, but did not leave the battlefield. At a critical moment in the battle, she inspired the fighters to attack. After being wounded for the third time on the streets of Berlin, she was taken to the hospital. For his courage and heroism, L. S. Kravets was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1945. Now L.S. Kravets lives and works in Zaporozhye.

PUSHINA Feodora Andreevna (1922-1943).

Born in the village of Tukmachi, Yankur-Bodinsky district, Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. She graduated from paramedic school in the city of Izhevsk. In 1942, she was drafted into the army as a paramedic in a medical company. selflessness in helping the wounded was awarded the Order of the Red Star. On November 6, 1943, in the battles for Kyiv, she showed heroism in rescuing the wounded in a hospital set on fire by the Nazis. She died from severe burns and injuries. Posthumously F.A. Putina was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Gnarovskaya Valeria Osipovna (1923-1943).

Born in the village of Modolitsy, Kingisep district, Leningrad region. She graduated from Red Cross courses in 1942 and volunteered for the front. During the offensive battles V.O. Gnarovskaya appeared in the most dangerous areas among the fighters and saved the lives of over 300 wounded. On September 23, 1943, near the Ivanenkovo ​​state farm (Zaporozhye region), two enemy Tiger tanks broke into the location of our troops. A brave Komsomol member, saving seriously wounded soldiers, sacrificing her life, threw herself with a bunch of grenades under a fascist tank and blew it up. Gnarovskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A village and a state farm in the Zaporozhye region are named after her.

PETROVA Galina Konstantinovna (1920-1943).

Born in Nikolaev, Ukrainian SSR. She graduated from nursing courses and worked in a hospital as a sanitary instructor for a Marine battalion, and participated in the amphibious assault to capture a bridgehead on the Kerch Peninsula. For 35 days, she selflessly provided medical assistance to paratroopers under continuous enemy fire. Having received a serious injury, she was taken to the medical battalion, which was located in the school building. During an enemy air raid, one of the bombs hit the building, killing many wounded, including G.K. Petrova. Communist G.K. Petrova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Her name is forever included in the lists of one of the units of the USSR Navy.

TUSNOLOBOVA-MARCHENKO Zinaida Mikhailovna.

Born in 1920 in the city of Polotsk (BSSR). She graduated from Red Cross nursing courses and was appointed sanitary instructor of a rifle company. For saving 40 wounded in the battles for the city of Voronezh, she was awarded the Order of the Red Star. Carried 123 wounded soldiers and officers from the battlefield. In 1943, near Kursk, she was seriously wounded, lay on the battlefield for a long time, and lost a lot of blood. Gangrene began. The doctors saved her life, but 3.M. Tusnolobova-Marchenko lost her arms and legs. Zinaida Mikhailovna did not lose heart, she passionately called on the soldiers to defeat the enemy. Tanks and planes were named after her. In 1957 she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. For her dedication to the battlefield in rescuing the wounded, the International Committee of the Red Cross awarded her the Florence Nightingale Medal. Currently, communist Tusnolobova-Marchenko is a personal pensioner, lives in the city of Polotsk, and actively participates in public life.

SAMSONOVA Zinaida Aleksandrovna (1924-1944).

Born in the village of Bobkovo, Yegoryevsky district, Moscow region. Graduated from medical school. During the Great Patriotic War, she was a sanitary instructor for a rifle battalion and selflessly provided assistance to the wounded at Stalingrad, on Voronezh and other fronts. The fearless Komsomol member was accepted into the Communist Party. In the fall of 1943, she participated in the landing operation to capture a bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper near the village of Sushki, Kanevsky district. For perseverance, courage and bravery 3.A. Samsonova was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A patriot died saving the life of a wounded man at the hands of a fascist sniper in Belarus.

KONSTANTINOVA Ksenia Semenovna (1925-1943).

Born in the village of Sukhaya Lubna, Trubetchinsky district. Lipetsk region. She studied at the paramedic-midwife school. She voluntarily went to the front as a sanitary instructor for a rifle battalion. She showed dedication and fearlessness. On the night of October 1, 1943, Konstantinova provided assistance to the wounded on the battlefield. Suddenly a large group of fascists appeared. They fired from machine guns and began to surround the seriously wounded. The brave communist took on an unequal battle. She was wounded in the head and, having lost consciousness, was captured, where she was subjected to brutal torture. The patriot died." She was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

TSUKANOVA Maria Nikitichna (1923 -1945).

Born in the village of Novonikolaevka, Krutinsky district, Omsk region. She was a member of the Red Cross sanitary squad and volunteered to join a separate battalion of the Marine Corps of the Pacific Fleet. In August 1945, sanitary instructor M.N. Tsukanova participated in the landing to liberate the city of Seishin (now the city of Chongjin, Democratic People's Republic of Korea). In two days, the brave nurse bandaged and carried 52 wounded paratroopers from the battlefield; she did not leave the soldiers even after she herself was seriously wounded. In an unconscious state, Tsukanova was captured. Seeking information about the advancing units, the Japanese samurai brutally tortured the girl. But the courageous patriot did not reveal the secret; she preferred death to betrayal. In 1945, Maria Nikitichna was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. By order of the Minister of Defense, her name was forever included in the lists of the school of sanitary instructors of one of the hospitals of the USSR Navy.

SHCHERBACHENKO Maria Zakharovna.

Born in 1922 in the village of Efremovna, Volchansky district, Kharkov region. Voluntarily joined the active army. With a handful of brave submachine gunners, she participated in the landing to capture a bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper, after which for ten days she provided assistance and carried 112 seriously wounded soldiers and officers from the battlefield. At night, I personally organized their crossing of the Dnieper River to the rear. For heroism, perseverance and dedication in rescuing wounded soldiers, she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After the end of the war, communist M.Z. Shcherbachenko received a legal education. Currently lives in Kyiv.

BAYDA Maria Karpovna.

Born in 1922 in the village of Novy Sivash, Krasnoperekopsky district. Crimean region. During the period of the heroic defense of Sevastopol, sanitary instructor M.K. Baida selflessly provided assistance to wounded soldiers and commanders. Saving the lives of soldiers, she entered into single combat with the Nazis. The entire front knew about her fearlessness and heroism. The soldiers of the unit accepted the glorious daughter of the Soviet people into the party. In 1942, she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In the last days of the defense of the hero city of Sevastopol, she was seriously wounded and shell-shocked, and was captured. In fascist captivity, the patriot carried out orders for an underground organization. Currently, Maria Karpovna lives and works in Sevastopol.

SHKARLETOVA Maria Savelyevna.

Born in 1925 in the village of Kislovka. Kupyansky district. Kharkov region. After attending courses for sanitary instructors, she took part in the liberation of Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland. In 1945, she showed heroism in saving the lives of the wounded, participating in the landing to capture a bridgehead on the western bank of the Vistula River. For her courage, perseverance and heroism on the captured bridgehead and the removal of more than 100 wounded from the battlefield, she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The brave communist ended the war in defeated Berlin. For her dedication to saving the wounded on the battlefield, she was awarded the Florence Nightingale medal by the International Committee of the Red Cross. M.S. Shkarletova graduated from paramedic school and lives and works in the city of Kupyansk.

KASCHEEVA Vera Sergeevna.

Born in 1922 in the village of Petrovka, Troitsky district. Altai region. She graduated from Red Cross nursing courses. The sanitary instructor of the rifle company V.S. Kashcheeva received a baptism of fire at the legendary walls of Stalingrad. In October 1913, among the first 25 paratroopers, she crossed the Dnieper. On the captured bridgehead, while repelling enemy attacks, she was wounded, but did not leave the battlefield until our units arrived. In 1944, the brave sanitary instructor was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Reached Berlin victoriously. Now a communist V.S. Kashcheeva lives and works in the village of Vira, Khabarovsk Territory.

*********************
"Soviet Artist", 1969.

One of the medals named after Florence Nightingale is engraved in French: “Madame Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko. May 12, 1971." This “madam” is a simple woman of peasant origin, a medical instructor of a rifle company during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. - in the battles on the Bukrinsky bridgehead, she carried one hundred and sixteen wounded soldiers and officers from the battlefield. She herself transported the seriously wounded across the river to the first first aid station.

This is the same “madame”, a Ukrainian village woman who, at the age of twenty, heroically was among the very first to participate in crossing the Dnieper. The crossing, as you know, was very, very difficult for our troops.

Maria Shcherbachenko was born on February 14, 1922 in the family of a poor peasant from the Nezhdanovka farm, Volchansky district, in the Kharkov region. In the famine of 1933, the girl lost her parents and older brother. With her two remaining brothers, Ivan and Andrei, Masha went to work on a collective farm. She looked after livestock, weeded beets, and even got a position as an assistant accountant.

At the beginning of 1942, Maria and her peers were sent to dig trenches along the front line along the Seversky Donets. Subsequently, the famous nurse recalled: “We really worked with shovels! My hands are full of blisters. The backs did not straighten. And we, girls, were swaying from the wind. When the Germans bombed, the earth reared up! It’s good that there were trenches nearby: you climb in there, clench your fist - the sky seems like a sheepskin. And yet, ours did not hold the line, they retreated... I had seen enough of all sorts of bad things and firmly decided that I would go to the front. Anyone. I went to the military registration and enlistment office, and - lucky! I ended up serving in a rifle regiment, in short, in the infantry.”

Maria joined the army on a Komsomol ticket on March 4, 1943. When she was offered to serve as a medical instructor, she expressed her readiness and determination, although she did not have a medical education. I had to master sanitation directly in battle: “After all, I never thought about medicine. Moreover, she was very afraid of blood: if she saw a chicken being slaughtered or a wild boar being stabbed, she would run a mile away. But the war turned out to be much worse... I vaguely remember the first battle near Sumy, but I remember the first wounded man for the rest of my life. It seemed as if the earth itself was groaning from the explosions of shells and mines. How much does a person need in such an iron blizzard? Just a few grams of lead... She took refuge in a shallow trench. I saw a fighter fall about three hundred meters away. I crawl up: a through wound above the knee. With trembling hands, I barely opened the individual package and let’s bandage it. The bandage gets twisted and I almost cry. Somehow, after bandaging it, she dragged the “patient” to a safe place. “Excuse me if something is wrong,” I say to the soldier, “but this is my first day at the front.” “It’s okay, sister, don’t be embarrassed... She bandaged me perfectly. And this is also my first time on the front line...” he groaned. After ten days on the front line, I was presented with the medal “For Courage.” Then there were other awards. However, this one is the most expensive. Like the first-born of a young mother..."

“In the autumn of 1943 we reached the Dnieper. It’s hard to describe how we felt when we saw its waters. Here he is, dear Slavutich. The soldiers rushed to the river: some drank, some washed away days of dust and soot from their faces,” said Maria Zakharovna.

The Wehrmacht command hoped that the Dnieper, as a high-water river with a high right bank, would become a reliable defensive line. The Nazis called this defensive line the “Eastern Wall”.

To build fortifications on the right bank of the Dnieper, the Nazis expelled the local population, transferred special construction and other military units from Western Europe and from the northern section of the Soviet-German front, replenishing them with fresh divisions from Northern Italy. Soviet troops reached the Dnieper along a 750-kilometer front from Kyiv to Zaporozhye. This was the culmination of the battle for Ukraine. On the night of September 21, 1943, the crossing of the Dnieper began, which entailed many tragic events, which became a time of mass heroism of Soviet soldiers, since the advanced units crossed the river on the move, using improvised means, without waiting for the approach of the main forces and the arrival of pontoons.

During September-October 1943, Soviet troops fought fierce battles to retain and expand bridgeheads on the right bank of the Dnieper. The heavy attack on Kyiv from the Bukrinsky bridgehead was led by the commander of the Voronezh Front (from October 20, 1943 - 1st Ukrainian Front) General N. F. Vatutin.

The rainy night of September 24, 1943 became fateful for Maria Shcherbachenko. The nurse was destined to become one of the first thirteen soldiers who crossed the Dnieper near the village of Greben, in the Kiev region. On two fishing boats they crossed the Dnieper under enemy fire. Having climbed up a steep slope, we took up defensive positions and began to fight. At dawn, 17 more soldiers from the same company arrived. The soldiers heroically defended themselves, repelling fascist attacks. Maria Shcherbachenko, the only woman in this “fiery patch,” tirelessly bandaged the wounded, gave them water, carried them to shelters, and evacuated them to the rear. Finally reinforcements arrived and the enemy defenses were broken through. In the division newspaper, a brave nurse wrote, addressing all soldiers: “I call on you to fight bravely and boldly. May love for our native land, holy hatred of the damned enemy always lead you forward, until complete victory over fascism.”

Remembering the dedication of the young nurse, I would like to quote the lines of the poem “Sister” by front-line poet Viktor Gusev:

...If you looked at her, you would say: a girl!
This one for the front? Yes you! He will run away.
And here she is in battle, and the bullets are rushing loudly,
And the air rattles from the explosions.

Tired, covered in blood, in a torn overcoat,
She crawls through the battle, through the black howl of lead.
Fire and death rush over her,
Fear for her bursts into our hearts...

Into the hearts of fighters who are used to fighting bravely.

All thirteen soldiers who were the first to cross to the right bank and hold the bridgehead, despite the fierce resistance of the enemy, were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 23, 1943.

“A month after the battles near Bukrin, the regiment commander, congratulating me on the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, asked where I was from and who my parents were. I answered that my mother and father died before the war, and were originally from the Kharkov region. After a short silence, he said: “I will be your father, and the political officer will be your mother. And don’t forget: your cradle is the eight hundred and thirty-fifth regiment."

Maria dreamed of reaching Berlin with her regiment, but on May 22, 1944, she was recalled from the front to the third anti-fascist youth rally in Moscow, then was sent to study in Ashgabat, where the medical school evacuated from Kharkov was located.

There Mary met Victory: “What a joy it was! I was glad that my older brother Andrei returned from the front. (At the beginning of the war, his wife received a notice that he was missing.) And she cried for her younger brother Ivank: he died at the age of nineteen in Belarus.”

After the war, Maria Zakharovna entered law school, after which she began working in a legal consultation in Kharkov. After some time, she married a military man and gave birth to two daughters. Together with her husband she conducted educational work in schools. For many years she continued to receive letters from both fellow soldiers and strangers.

“I had an unforgettable meeting,” wrote M. Shcherbachenko. – And it all started with a publication in Ogonyok. The material was published, and soon I received congratulations on the holiday of March 8th. Signature: Kozachenko. So this is my battalion commander - Alexey Konstantinovich, Hero of the Soviet Union, whose battalion repelled twenty-three counterattacks on the outskirts of Kyiv in one day. We started corresponding, then invited him and his family to Kyiv. We hugged and cried and remembered our dear Mukachevo Order-Bearing Regiment. They sang songs – Ukrainian and front-line ones. Now my battalion commander is no longer alive... And a little later I received a letter from Azerbaijan. A man I didn’t know wrote that his father liberated Kyiv and invited me to visit. Let's go. We greeted you like family. They took us everywhere!..”

Among Maria Shcherbachenko's awards is the Order of Lenin, the highest award of the USSR, according to regulations, awarded along with the Hero's Star; Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree; cross of Alexander Nevsky; medal of the English Madonna of Medicine; Florence Nightingale medal; the title of honorary citizen of Kyiv, the title of Hero of Ukraine.

Fierce battles on the Kursk Bulge were left behind. The 835th Infantry Regiment, together with other units, defeated the fascist invaders in Ukraine, near Sumy. Then a young slender girl, medical instructor Maria Shcherbachenko, came to one of the companies.
The regiment experienced a great shortage of medical instructors, and everyone was glad to see the arrival of a new man. Maria took the “training course” for her new specialty right there, at the forefront, under the guidance of an experienced medical instructor.
First of all, the old soldier decided to carefully find out whether Maria regretted being on the front line, whether she would be afraid in battle. After all, she’s still a girl, and it’s hard.
“It’s not easy for you either,” she answered, “you’re not afraid, and I won’t be afraid either.”
“I’m a different matter,” noted the seasoned soldier. “I’ve been smelling gunpowder for more than two years now.” I've seen enough of the fascist evil spirits.
- I’ve seen enough too.
And Maria said that she was in territory temporarily occupied by the enemy in the Kharkov region and experienced all the horrors of fascist rule. As soon as the Red Army liberated her homeland, the girl immediately went to the front.

This is how front-line life began for Maria Shcherbachenko. The girl turned out to be a diligent student and quickly got used to the combat situation. Everyone liked her, and they simply called her Mariyka.
Soon Maria had to really smell the gunpowder. The regiment began fighting for the large settlement of Grebenovka, on the outskirts of Sumy. Having stuffed her medical bag tightly with dressings, the girl found herself in the thick of the attackers. Mines and shells were exploding all around, machine guns and machine guns were crackling. Then enemy planes flew in. Heavy explosions shook the air; the earth seemed to groan and sigh heartily.
And no matter how brave Maria was, in the first minutes of the battle fear squeezed her heart. The head seemed to press itself to the ground. But, in spite of everything, the girl crawled and crawled forward, mentally reminding herself: “Don’t forget where you are and why you are.” My heart was pounding with excitement.
Maria stood up a little and looked around. Through the roar of the battle, she heard a man moaning somewhere nearby. And in fact, a soldier wounded in the leg lay near a small embankment. The girl rushed to help. Blood was oozing from the wound. Forgetting about the danger, Maria knelt down and began to bandage her leg.
“You can’t do this, honey,” the wounded man groaned. - Do you hear the whistling overhead? Take care of yourself.
The medical instructor sank to the ground and quickly bandaged her leg. The soldier felt better. Thanking her, he crawled for cover. Maria wanted to help him, but he said:
- No need! Look after the others, and I'll try to crawl myself...
Maria felt warmth and joy in her soul from the knowledge that she had helped the fighter, that people needed her here on the battlefield.
And forward again. People standing up to their full height flashed before my eyes. A shell exploded very close. The soldier fell to the ground as if knocked down. Shcherbachenko rushed to him. His face became deathly pale. Dark blood stains appeared in many places on the uniform.
There is not a minute to lose: the wound is very dangerous. Maria hastily bandaged the wounds, carefully laid the soldier on the raincoat and dragged him to the shelter where the ambulance cart was waiting...
And the battle continued. There were more and more wounded. Now Maria worked, forgetting about fear and losing track of time. The girl felt mortally tired, but did not lag behind her comrades.
When Soviet tanks launched an attack in the area where the company was advancing, the Nazis increased their fire. Maria lay down behind a small mound, watching the battlefield. One tank stopped and started smoking. And then a groan was heard. The girl quickly crawled towards the tank. But before she had time to help the wounded tanker, a mine exploded very nearby. Maria was thrown to the side by the blast wave, she hit something hard and lost consciousness for a minute. Having woken up, Shcherbachenko again rushed to the tanker, bandaged him and dragged him to a safe place.
This was the ninth seriously wounded man whom Maria pulled out from the battlefield, and bandaged many of the soldiers and commanders. Again the thought came to her that she was doing a noble deed, saving people from death, which means it was not in vain that she went to the front. And again my soul felt good.
The village of Grebenovka was liberated. The regiment continued the advance. The brave medical instructor Maria Shcherbachenko also went west with the company.
The fighting did not subside day or night.
Near the village of Kapustyanki in Ukraine, the regiment encountered particularly strong enemy resistance. Heavy tanks launched a counterattack, artillery bristled with strong fire, and planes buzzed in the sky. There was a fierce battle all day long. Maria did not know a moment's peace; she barely had time to bandage the wounded and take them out of the battlefield.
It so happened that the battalion in which the company where Maria served was located was surrounded. Night has come.
Under cover of darkness, Soviet soldiers made their way to their own. But every now and then shouts were heard:
- Rus, halt! Rus, give up!
Together with her comrades, Maria Shcherbachenko managed to escape the encirclement. At dawn our Katyushas started talking. Then the tanks and infantry launched a rapid offensive. Soviet attack aircraft and bombers appeared in the sky. Having received reinforcements, the company in which Maria was also went on the attack. The girl did not lag behind the attackers. Having bandaged the wounded man, she left a piece of bandage or cotton wool on the bush so that the ambulance cart could quickly find the wounded man, while she hurried forward and forward to help other wounded.
So the days passed, combative and tense. Step by step, liberating their native land from the fascist invaders, the company fought its way to the west.
Behind, hundreds of kilometers away, was the village of Nezhdanovka, Volchansky district, in the Kharkov region, where Maria Shcherbachenko was born and raised. She often remembered her native places. She went to school there. The family was large. Maria was not yet nine years old when she suffered great grief - her parents died. The girl was left with two older brothers - Ivan and Andrey.
My school years flew by quickly. An independent working life began. Maria worked on a collective farm and did not disdain any kind of work: she looked after livestock, weeded beets, and did other work...
And here she is at the front. She was already accustomed to the harsh environment and endured all the hardships and deprivations of front-line life. She worked a lot, diligently. She behaved bravely and courageously in battles. The command awarded her the medal "For Courage".
At the front, a big event happened in the life of Maria Shcherbachenko. The party organization accepted her, as a glorious patriot, into the ranks of the Communist Party. In the face of her comrades in arms, Maria swore that she would not spare either her strength or her very life for the complete defeat of the hated invaders. And she was true to her word.
When the division approached the Dnieper, the company commander, Senior Lieutenant Nadzhakhov, said to Maria:
- Tonight we will cross the Dnieper. You are a girl, it will be difficult for you. Maybe you'll stay here on the left bank?
- I want to go with everyone! - Maria stated decisively.
The night turned out to be cloudy, rainy and cold. The wind drove large waves along the river. At midnight, two fishing boats set sail from the left bank. The right bank was black in the distance; there was an enemy there.
The gusts of wind were getting stronger and stronger. Suddenly one of the boats ran aground. Maria was the first to jump into the cold water, followed by everyone else. Raising their weapons above their heads, the soldiers silently moved towards the shore.
Somewhere to the right and left, machine guns occasionally clattered, and in the distance the dim fireflies of rockets flashed. But it was still relatively calm here. This suspicious silence lay like a heavy stone on everyone’s heart: either the enemy really did not notice those crossing, or decided to let them closer to the shore in order to drown them in the river.
But Maria and her comrades were lucky. Thirteen brave men, including a medical instructor, safely landed on the right bank and began to dig in. Soon seventeen more fighters crossed from the left bank.
In the morning we took a good look around: we caught on to a tiny piece of land. On the right, at the edge of the forest, are the Germans, on the next high-rise there is a firing point, and in front is also the enemy. But the bridgehead had to be expanded at all costs.
They decided to oust the Germans from the heights. The attack was unexpected for the enemy. Our soldiers were supported by artillery, and the Nazis were driven out of the trenches. Then the fascists, who came to their senses, rained furious fire on a handful of Soviet daredevils. During the day, the Nazis attacked eight times. Enemy planes hovered over the small bridgehead.
Maria dug herself a trench in the shell crater and crawled out from there to help the wounded. The armor-piercing officer, the favorite of the entire company, Fedya Lakhtikov, received a serious wound. Maria carefully bandaged the wound and hid him in a safe place. Shrapnel from a shell broke both of Lieutenant Kokarev’s legs. The girl had to crawl for a long time to the wounded lieutenant.
The enemy attacks continued. Our soldiers were waiting for reinforcements from the left bank, but they still didn’t come. The Nazis continuously fired artillery fire along the river in the place where our units were supposed to cross. Enemy planes were constantly hovering over the Dnieper.
The situation at the high-rise became more complicated. Ammunition was running out. Almost every warrior was wounded. The medical instructor's bag was running out of bandaging material.
Only a day later our units managed to cross from the left bank to the right and provide support to the brave souls. Maria put a lot of work and care into transporting the seriously wounded across the river. At the same time, a fiery appeal from a brave girl from the right bank appeared in the division newspaper. Maria wrote to all the soldiers of the division: “I call you to fight the enemy bravely and boldly. Let love for our native land, holy hatred for the damned enemy lead us forward, until complete victory over fascism!”
For many days there were stubborn battles in this area to expand the bridgehead. The guns were not silent day or night, and planes were hovering in the air. And all these days the brave girl, medical instructor Maria Shcherbachenko, did not leave the battlefield. In the battles on the Dnieper, she carried one hundred and twenty seriously wounded soldiers and commanders out from under enemy fire.
And the Motherland highly appreciated her feat of arms: on October 23, 1943, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, a group of Soviet soldiers, including Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Heroines. Vol. 2. (Essays about women - Heroes of the Soviet Union). M., Politizdat, 1969.

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Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko(February 14, 1922, the village of Efremovka, Kharkov province, Ukrainian SSR, USSR - November 23, 2016, Kiev, Ukraine) - participant in the Great Patriotic War, company orderly of the 835th rifle regiment of the 237th rifle division (40th army, Voronezh Front), Hero of the Soviet Union (October 23, 1943), reserve guard sergeant major.

Biography

Maria Shcherbachenko was born on February 14, 1922 in the Ukrainian village of Efremovka (Kharkov province) into a peasant family. By nationality - Ukrainian. At the age of ten she lost her parents and was therefore raised by her older brother. After finishing 7th grade, I completed accounting courses. She worked as an assistant accountant on a collective farm. During the Great Patriotic War, during the occupation, she lived in her village.

She was drafted into the Red Army in March 1943. After completing the courses for nurses at the Samarkand Medical School, she was sent to the active army in June 1943. Participated in the battles of the Great Patriotic War.

On the night of September 24, 1943, nurse Shcherbachenko, together with her unit, was one of the first to cross the Dnieper River near the village of Greben, located in the Kagarlyk district of the Kyiv region. In 10 days, she carried 112 wounded soldiers from the battlefield and provided them with first aid. Maria Zakharovna personally transported seriously wounded soldiers and officers across the river to the nearest first aid station. In the first days of the fighting, she fought in the ranks of the fighters with a machine gun in her hands.

On October 23, 1943, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Red Army soldier Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

After the war, Sergeant Major Maria Shcherbachenko was demobilized. She graduated from Tashkent Law School, after which she worked as a lawyer.

By order of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine No. 188 of June 22, 2000, Maria Zakharovna was enrolled as an honorary soldier of the 407th Central Military Hospital of the Northern Operational Command.

Lived in Kyiv. She died on November 23, 2016. She was buried at the Lukyanovsky military cemetery in Kyiv.

Awards and titles

• Hero of the Soviet Union (October 23, 1943, medal No. 1073);
• Order of Merit, II degree (March 5, 1997);
• Order of Lenin (October 23, 1943);
• Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree;
• Medal of Honor";
• anniversary and commemorative medals;
• Florence Nightingale Medal (International Committee of the Red Cross, 1973);
• honorary citizen of Kyiv.