On May 8, 1945, World War II ended in Europe for America. On May 9, a separate treaty was signed between the Germans and Russia.
Today, the U.S. does little to mark these events, but in Russia and to Russian immigrants, Victory Day remains a meaningful holiday.
In Milwaukee, many older members of the Russian community remember and celebrate that day. One, the late Valentin Levin, wrote of his experiences as a 12-year-old during the siege of Leningrad.
His widow, Karina Levin, remains proud of her husband, who died in 2010 at age 80. She is trying to have his writings published, including his memoir and the poetry he wrote later in life.
Levin came to Milwaukee with his wife and in-laws in 1993. He had been a ship construction engineer in Russia and he had not written anything creative there. After he came here, he began to write, although only in Russian.
He wrote articles about the humorous aspects of being a new Russian immigrant that were published in a local Russian language publication. He also wrote plays for a Russian amateur theater at the River Park apartment complex, taking part as an actor.
His wife said he did all this despite being in ill health, which, according to her, was a result of his being in Leningrad during the four-year siege, when food and medicine was almost non-existent.
A few months after his death, a memorial concert took place at Riverside Apartments where the Levins had lived, and where Katrina still lives. The program included musical settings of some of his poems, she said.
He also read a Holocaust memorial poem at the community’s Yom HaShoah memorial in 2004.
However, it is her husband’s memoirs of his childhood during the siege and his impressions of that historic time that Karina wants published now. She, with the help of a friend, translated his memoirs into English.
They constitute about 14 pages and tell of starvation and near starvation, nightly bombardments that destroyed homes and even cannibalism.
Valentin wrote of seeing corpses in the streets. “On one occasion I saw the bodies of the dead students of the trade school being dragged on a piece of plywood. They were placed as pieces of firewood, some lying along the plywood and some across,” he wrote.
His father was a veterinarian in the Russian Army, and thereby was able to bring his family horse meat and some other supplies. Ultimately, his parents, his little sister and himself were able to escape the city after his father had gotten permission to take them out.
Karina, who had studied languages at the university in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, has translated most of his writings. The Levin’s son Reuven, who now lives in Israel, had Valentin’s poems and writings edited and published them in a soft covered book in Russian.
The Russian State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Blockade of Leningrad has a copy of his memoirs, and Katrina has a letter from the museum stating, “Our deep gratitude for the memoirs and they will be in constant custody in the collections of the museum.”
Karina now lives alone in their apartment, and her 103-year-old mother, whom she takes care of, lives next door. Her son, daughter and five grandchildren all live in Israel.
Arlene Becker Zarmi is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 40 publications nationwide. She was also the producer and host of a travel TV show for Viacom, and is a Jewish genre and portrait artist.
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