What do you think?
Rate this book
Я из огненной деревни
Из общего количества 9200 белорусских деревень, сожженных гитлеровцами за годы Великой Отечественной войны, 4885 было уничтожено карателями. Полностью, со всеми жителями, убито 627 деревень, с частью населения - 4258. В этой книге - рассказы о деревнях, которые были убиты, и о партизанской армии, спасавшей людей от истребления. В книге использованы фотоматериалы времен Великой Отечественной войны - из Государственного центрального белорусского архива кинофотодокументов, из фондов Белорусского музея истории Великой Отечественной войны.
Это бесконечно страшная хроника стирания с лица земли белорусских деревень вместе с их жителями. Отрядами фашистских карателей. Расстреливали и заживо сжигали всех - от младенцев до стариков. Особенную боль вызывает смерть огромного количества детей. "Сколько раз умирает мать, когда на её глазах умирают дети?" Каждое слово пропитано кровью и болью тех, кто чудом выжил и готов рассказать о нечеловечески адских событиях спустя тридцать лет (дата интервью - начало 70х). Очень сложно почувствовать хоть один процент того ужаса, который выпал на долю обычным деревенским людям в Белоруссии во Вторую Мировую войну. Но это надо знать.
Это бесконечно страшная хроника стирания с лица земли белорусских деревень вместе с их жителями. Отрядами фашистских карателей. Расстреливали и заживо сжигали всех - от младенцев до стариков. Особенную боль вызывает смерть огромного количества детей. "Сколько раз умирает мать, когда на её глазах умирают дети?" Каждое слово пропитано кровью и болью тех, кто чудом выжил и готов рассказать о нечеловечески адских событиях спустя тридцать лет (дата интервью - начало 70х). Очень сложно почувствовать хоть один процент того ужаса, который выпал на долю обычным деревенским людям в Белоруссии во Вторую Мировую войну. Но это надо знать.
525 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1979
10 people are currently reading
695 people want to read
About the author
Alieś Adamovič
21 books36 followersAlieś Adamovič (Ales Adamovich) (1927-1994) was a Belarusian author, literary critic, and screenwriter. During World War Two he fought as a partisan, an experience which inspired his influential novel Chatyn. After the war he went on to receive this PhD in philology from the Belarusian State University and also took graduate courses in directing and screenwriting at the prestigious Moscow film school VKSR.
Adamovič was a professor and a member of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. He was an active teacher and political figure. As a result of refusing to testify against his colleagues and to sign letters condemning political dissidents, he was barred from teaching at Moscow State University. However, he was a member of many public and professional unions. In 1989 he was one of the first writers to join the Belarusian PEN Center, and in 1994 the Center instituted the Alieś Adamovič Literary Prize.
Alieś Adamovič's writing is still widely read and the importance of his legacy to Belarusian history and culture cannot be overstated. His fiction and non-fiction make a profound case against the necessity of war, and are a testament to the kind of knowledge and wisdom so needed by humankind today.
Adamovič was a professor and a member of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. He was an active teacher and political figure. As a result of refusing to testify against his colleagues and to sign letters condemning political dissidents, he was barred from teaching at Moscow State University. However, he was a member of many public and professional unions. In 1989 he was one of the first writers to join the Belarusian PEN Center, and in 1994 the Center instituted the Alieś Adamovič Literary Prize.
Alieś Adamovič's writing is still widely read and the importance of his legacy to Belarusian history and culture cannot be overstated. His fiction and non-fiction make a profound case against the necessity of war, and are a testament to the kind of knowledge and wisdom so needed by humankind today.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Currently reading
November 20, 2017Pulled this one from the library out of curiosity when I saw that Svetlana Alexievich had acknowledged it as an influence in The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II. Like Alexievich's book, this is an oral history, this one documenting the Khatyns – the Belarusian towns and villages razed along with their inhabitants by the Nazis – so-named after the infamous Khatyn massacre. The interviews are all first-hand accounts from survivors. This English translation was published by a Moscow-based publisher and is a bit rough so far, though not unreadably so. There are also many photos putting faces to the tragedies.
September 21, 2020
A voice recorder that saves memories...
The history of the Soviet, as well as modern Belarusian writing has been forever defined by the horrors of war, and “Out of the Fire” is no exception. A pleiad of three Belarusian writers, all of whom were old enough not only to be first-hand witnesses of the brutality of the WWII, but also to take part in it as members of partisan squads and other resistance movements, undertook a humanitarian project of utmost importance. With a background in documentary fiction and journalism, they were not set to fictionalise war or write their own memoirs; instead, they embarked on a journey all across Belarus, collecting raw evidence of the horrors that their land had outlasted.
The beastly human-like creatures burned those villages to ashes, turned the houses to rubble and wiped thousands of inhabitants off the face of the earth. A certain evil force of disinformation and propaganda succeeded in convincing people of the whole nation that those villagers were enemies, thus turning the soldiers into senseless savages, capable of killing entire families, including women and children, looting, torturing, and experiencing sadistic satisfaction from whatever they did. The victims of their war crimes had been silenced forever, but those who survived would have their say. This evidence is here, in black and white, supported by pictures and told in a multitude of voices —the voices of those who had a narrow escape, who would never fully recover, physically or emotionally. As hard as it may be to believe in this, at the time of its collection this evidence was fresh, having happened merely 30 years before it was immortalised by young Belarusian authors.
They never interrupt their interviewees, and they pay proper respect to the readers and the victims by not asking any rhetorical questions — the reader, having learned what these people of different ages and speaking a variety of Slavic languages have to say, must think themselves — how did it become possible that such evil had risen to power? One cannot recommend reading this novel, because the dry storytelling is bound to be haunting its reader till their last day; but at the same time one can’t not recommend it, because the very least thing all of us can do is listen to this long, excruciatingly emotional, unbearably painful, and beautifully poetic symphony of testimonies of the survivors and thus venerate the unjustly murdered ones — those who perished for committing one crime only — having been born on Belarusian land.
Adamovich, Bryl and Kolesnik are faithful to the country which begat them. Every word of theirs is replete with love to the land which suffered, to the folk which suffered. The land will persist, however much its eternal beauty might be plagued by the biological organisms (it’s hard to call them human beings) who had brought apocalypse to its children. The folk will always remember of the deed of their ancestors — and this memory will remain ingrained into the Belarusian character. The writers are passionate about folklore and aware that the only storyteller who has a moral right to talk about 1942-1944 is the nation of Belarus, so they refrain from participation in this intimate act of exposure; their purpose is of a different kind — to be the first listeners, to turn their attentive ear to pain, to relive and pass through themselves what their fellow countrymen felt, and to edit the sad beauty of their talk into a continuous flow of intangible memory.
There is a recurring metaphor in the book — the theme of human memory being similar to a winding road. Kilometres of roads, kilometres of magnetic tape eternalising all the bone-chilling horrors of one of the most unforgiving moments of history of the humanity, the people who miraculously survived damnation on Earth. The people, who had never done anything to be damned, who had never been destined to withstand what they withstood, who had not been meant to see what they saw — these people, through Adamovich’s, Bryl’s and Kolesnik’s heroic effort and thanks to their love and devotion, are sharing their pain and suffering with us, so that, having experienced the tiniest dollop of what they had been through, we would say — this shall never happen again.
The history of the Soviet, as well as modern Belarusian writing has been forever defined by the horrors of war, and “Out of the Fire” is no exception. A pleiad of three Belarusian writers, all of whom were old enough not only to be first-hand witnesses of the brutality of the WWII, but also to take part in it as members of partisan squads and other resistance movements, undertook a humanitarian project of utmost importance. With a background in documentary fiction and journalism, they were not set to fictionalise war or write their own memoirs; instead, they embarked on a journey all across Belarus, collecting raw evidence of the horrors that their land had outlasted.
The beastly human-like creatures burned those villages to ashes, turned the houses to rubble and wiped thousands of inhabitants off the face of the earth. A certain evil force of disinformation and propaganda succeeded in convincing people of the whole nation that those villagers were enemies, thus turning the soldiers into senseless savages, capable of killing entire families, including women and children, looting, torturing, and experiencing sadistic satisfaction from whatever they did. The victims of their war crimes had been silenced forever, but those who survived would have their say. This evidence is here, in black and white, supported by pictures and told in a multitude of voices —the voices of those who had a narrow escape, who would never fully recover, physically or emotionally. As hard as it may be to believe in this, at the time of its collection this evidence was fresh, having happened merely 30 years before it was immortalised by young Belarusian authors.
They never interrupt their interviewees, and they pay proper respect to the readers and the victims by not asking any rhetorical questions — the reader, having learned what these people of different ages and speaking a variety of Slavic languages have to say, must think themselves — how did it become possible that such evil had risen to power? One cannot recommend reading this novel, because the dry storytelling is bound to be haunting its reader till their last day; but at the same time one can’t not recommend it, because the very least thing all of us can do is listen to this long, excruciatingly emotional, unbearably painful, and beautifully poetic symphony of testimonies of the survivors and thus venerate the unjustly murdered ones — those who perished for committing one crime only — having been born on Belarusian land.
Adamovich, Bryl and Kolesnik are faithful to the country which begat them. Every word of theirs is replete with love to the land which suffered, to the folk which suffered. The land will persist, however much its eternal beauty might be plagued by the biological organisms (it’s hard to call them human beings) who had brought apocalypse to its children. The folk will always remember of the deed of their ancestors — and this memory will remain ingrained into the Belarusian character. The writers are passionate about folklore and aware that the only storyteller who has a moral right to talk about 1942-1944 is the nation of Belarus, so they refrain from participation in this intimate act of exposure; their purpose is of a different kind — to be the first listeners, to turn their attentive ear to pain, to relive and pass through themselves what their fellow countrymen felt, and to edit the sad beauty of their talk into a continuous flow of intangible memory.
There is a recurring metaphor in the book — the theme of human memory being similar to a winding road. Kilometres of roads, kilometres of magnetic tape eternalising all the bone-chilling horrors of one of the most unforgiving moments of history of the humanity, the people who miraculously survived damnation on Earth. The people, who had never done anything to be damned, who had never been destined to withstand what they withstood, who had not been meant to see what they saw — these people, through Adamovich’s, Bryl’s and Kolesnik’s heroic effort and thanks to their love and devotion, are sharing their pain and suffering with us, so that, having experienced the tiniest dollop of what they had been through, we would say — this shall never happen again.
September 10, 2024
Сложно оценивать подобное произведение. Это не столько книга, сколько документ, архивные записи и с одной стороны бесполезно искать в нем недостатки, с другой стороны выходит, что и в принципе нельзя это делать, а то кощунство какое-то.
На протяжении всей книги истории очевидцев о том, как фашисты сжигали живьем и убивали жителей беларусских деревень, в том числе детей, даже самых маленьких. Уму не постижимо как такое могло случиться. Это зверства на самом примитивном уровне каменного века, когда стоял только вопрос выживания племени и о какой-либо морали речи вообще не шло. Но сейчас-то совсем другое время и тогда тоже было другое время. Я не знаю, что было в головах у фашистов, которые решили, что сжигать детей, колоть младенцев штыками, разбивать им головы — это нормально.
Те, кто выжил, им невероятно повезло. Таких, наверное, было менее 1%. Кого-то фашисты не увидели, кого-то завалило трупами, другому повезло, что не попали в жизненно важные органы и так и выжили. Были и те, кто не стал ждать, пока их казнят, а бежали. Почти все, кто пытался бежать были убиты, но в некоторых не попали, не успели, не удалось и они выжили.
Поразило с каким хлоднокровием выполнялась задача. Каждый раз людей собирали под разными предлогами (в основном собрание и проверка документов) и потом сжигали в том же здании, куда и собрали. Много было и полицаев из местных, которые решили сотрудничать с немцами, но их век тоже был не долог. Надеюсь, подобное никогда нигде не повторится, это просто конец света.
Между рассказами свидетелей, автор добавляет свои слова и рассуждения. И если к моральному аспекту у меня вопросов нет, то советская пропаганда слух немного режет. Если убрать выражения про убийства людей, то во многом фашисты похожи на коммунистов, и в книге говорят про немцев то, что вполне можно было бы сказать про советскую власть. Но как обычно, это другое. У них это зло, а у нас тоже самое, но это другое — это благо.
На протяжении всей книги истории очевидцев о том, как фашисты сжигали живьем и убивали жителей беларусских деревень, в том числе детей, даже самых маленьких. Уму не постижимо как такое могло случиться. Это зверства на самом примитивном уровне каменного века, когда стоял только вопрос выживания племени и о какой-либо морали речи вообще не шло. Но сейчас-то совсем другое время и тогда тоже было другое время. Я не знаю, что было в головах у фашистов, которые решили, что сжигать детей, колоть младенцев штыками, разбивать им головы — это нормально.
Те, кто выжил, им невероятно повезло. Таких, наверное, было менее 1%. Кого-то фашисты не увидели, кого-то завалило трупами, другому повезло, что не попали в жизненно важные органы и так и выжили. Были и те, кто не стал ждать, пока их казнят, а бежали. Почти все, кто пытался бежать были убиты, но в некоторых не попали, не успели, не удалось и они выжили.
Поразило с каким хлоднокровием выполнялась задача. Каждый раз людей собирали под разными предлогами (в основном собрание и проверка документов) и потом сжигали в том же здании, куда и собрали. Много было и полицаев из местных, которые решили сотрудничать с немцами, но их век тоже был не долог. Надеюсь, подобное никогда нигде не повторится, это просто конец света.
Между рассказами свидетелей, автор добавляет свои слова и рассуждения. И если к моральному аспекту у меня вопросов нет, то советская пропаганда слух немного режет. Если убрать выражения про убийства людей, то во многом фашисты похожи на коммунистов, и в книге говорят про немцев то, что вполне можно было бы сказать про советскую власть. Но как обычно, это другое. У них это зло, а у нас тоже самое, но это другое — это благо.
August 3, 2020
Просто невыносимо тяжело читать.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews