The twenty-third of August, 1942, is a day I will never forget. The unit I was serving in was deployed in Stalingrad, in the market district beyond the river Tsaritsa.

It was around three or four in the afternoon, and I remember that the market was still buzzing with people, and children were bustling around the Prizyv cinema, waiting for the performance to start.

All of a sudden, a voice boomed out of a loud-speaker: "Attention, citizens! Air raid warning!" The people thronging the market and walking along the streets looked up anxiously, but didn’t particularly hurry to get to the shelters, as they were already used to such alarms.

Two or three minutes later, anti-aircraft guns opened up, and five minutes after that thousands of bombs started dropping on the city.

After ten minutes the sun was blocked out; everything was covered in smoke and dust. The ground beneath my feet was shaking. There was a continuous roaring on all sides, and fragments of bombs and broken stone were falling from the sky.

It went on like this until darkness fell. The voice from the loud speaker was still saying: "Citizens, the air raid warning is still in effect!"