Letters from the North. War at the Arctic Circle, 1941 – 1944

Letters from the North

War at the Arctic Circle, 1941 – 1944

Yakov Shafirovich

Translator Evgeny Shafirovich

Compiler Evgeny Shafirovich

© Yakov Shafirovich, 2025

© Evgeny Shafirovich, translation, 2025

© Evgeny Shafirovich, compiler, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0065-6375-9

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Foreword to the English Edition

This book is a collection of letters sent by my father to his mother and other relatives during World War II. He was drafted into the Red Army on May 24, 1941, about one month before his 19th birthday and the German invasion of the Soviet Union. He was a well-read guy and a member of a drama club in his hometown Noginsk, near Moscow. It should be noted that despite the arrest of his father as a “Polish spy” in 1938, at that time he certainly was a “true believer,” according to Sharansky’s classification of people living under a totalitarian regime. During the war, he was on the Karelian front. Until June 1944, he was at the Arctic Circle, near Kandalaksha, where they defended the railroad that connected Murmansk, a strategic port on the Barents Sea, to the rest of the country. Although the German and Finnish troops failed to reach their goals and the general situation there could be described as “all quiet on the Western Front,” he was wounded twice. In June 1944 he was transferred to the south, specifically to the southern bank of the Svir River near Lake Ladoga, where a large-scale offensive against the Finnish troops just began. There he was soon wounded the third time and, after a long recovery, discharged from the military. He came back home on November 28, 1944. Soon after, he began to work as an assistant electrician and to study electrical engineering while working full time. Then he worked as an electrical engineer until retirement. He died on May 2, 1995, a few days before the 50th anniversary of the end of war in Europe.

I think his letters are rather interesting because, as he noted a few times, he wrote everything he thought. All available letters are published without any omissions. American English was used in the translation, except for the dates. Many thanks to Luba Shafirovich for her help with translating to English.

Evgeny ShafirovichEl Paso, Texas

Foreword to the Russian Edition

This book presents letters written by my father Yakov Volfovich Shafirovich in the period from May 1941 to November 1944. Most letters were addressed to his mother Olga Nikolaevna Shafirovich and her sister Nadezhda (Nadya) Nikolaevna Soboleva, who both lived in the city of Noginsk, Moscow Region, at house No. 96 on Rogozhskaya Street.1 They stored these letters. In the last years of his life (he died on 2 May 1995), my father sorted them out and put them in large notebooks, obviously for better preservation. In 2018, I read and scanned the letters, after which I decided that they might be of interest to other people as well. Despite his young age (18—22 years old), Yakov wrote, it seems to me, quite well, and the reader will find there many interesting details about the life of people under the extreme conditions of the front and the Arctic Circle. At the same time, as he noted himself, he wrote everything he thought, without embellishment. Also interesting are his reflections on the “Hamlet’s question” that arose periodically – to agree to be trained for becoming an officer and thereby reduce the likelihood of death, at least for the duration of his training, or to disagree but to have the opportunity to become an engineer after the war (if not killed).

To make it easier to understand the letters, it is necessary to give a little information about the family in which my father grew up. Olga Nikolaevna was born in 1887 in the family of Nikolai Ivanovich Sobolev and Anna Grigorievna Soboleva. They lived in the city of Bogorodsk (renamed Noginsk in 1930), in a house opposite the Epiphany Cathedral on Tsarskaya (now Rabochaya) Street. Her first husband’s name was Sergei Balashov, and she had two children from him – Olga (Lyalya) and Sergei. During the war, Olga Nikolaevna sewed soldiers’ uniforms on a Singer sewing machine, which still exists (I did my homework using the top of this sewing machine as a desk when I was in elementary school).

Volf Lazarevich Shafirovich was born in 1885 in the town of Volpa, Grodno province. In 1915, because of the war, he was evacuated to Bogorodsk, where he worked as an accountant in a chemical workshop, and in 1920 he married Olga Nikolaevna. Yakov was born on 26 June 1922 in Bogorodsk. Since 1936, Volf worked in the supply department at Akrikhin plant. In 1938, he was “taken away” as people said that time. I knew from my father that Volf was arrested on the 18th of March, the day of the Paris Commune (thanks to which I remember both the day of his arrest and the day of that Commune). He was accused of spying for Poland and shot on 13 August 1938 in Butovo.2 Relatives were informed that Volf received ten years without the right to correspond. He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1958.

Despite these circumstances, Yakov was brought up in the spirit of Marxist-Leninist ideology and was an active Komsomol member, and during the war he joined the Party. Later on, his worldview changed. I remember he told me that while dealing with the letters he read them and was surprised at his naivety.

It should also be noted for understanding some of the letters that Yakov was engaged in a drama club at the Noginsk House of Pioneers.3 The letters often mention the head of the drama club Aleksandr (Sasha) Korneev and the club members Nikolai Brazhkin, Marta Terekhova, Evgeny (Zhenya) Khapulin, Anatoly (Nolik) Khrennikov, and Maria (Manya) Shtibel, as well as Yakov’s school friend Vasily (Vasya) Galkin.

To prepare the book, I purchased Braina software, which converts speech into text (and “knows” more than 100 languages), and dictated all these letters in front of the computer. After dictation, it was only necessary to correct the mistakes made by the program. Many were quite funny. For example, instead of the word “упорно” (uporno), which means “stubborn” in English, the program wrote “y*****” (apparently, it contains a ban on “bad” words).

For the convenience of the reader, the book is divided into chapters. In addition, several letters from other people to Olga Nikolaevna and Yakov are presented in the appendix.

All letters in this book are published with the spelling and punctuation of the authors. This includes the authors’ mistakes and words written according to the then existing rules. I tried to avoid making any changes and, when Braina followed modern rules, I restored the original text. The only exception I’ve made is for dates. Letters often used Roman and Arabic numerals to indicate months – I usually wrote words instead. In addition, the dates of letters are everywhere at the beginning of the letter, regardless of where they were written. In some letters, the dates were missing, but all letters are in chronological order, established by postage stamps and by the content of the letters.

After the first publication, the texts of six letters from Yakov were added to the book. One of them was found in one of twenty envelopes kept separate from the letters, and five are in the Museum of the Noginsk Electric Grid. In addition, several notes and photographs have been added, and typos made during the preparation of the printed text of the letters have been corrected.

The author of the book thanks Vladimir Ivanovich Kozlov, Vladimir Yakovlevich Shafirovich, and Lyubov Evgenievna Shafirovich for their help and advice.

Evgeny Shafirovich

Part 1: Hello, North (May – August 1941)

We are going to build something. Hermits. Wheels knock. Murmansk. Oh, and they flew from the embankment. NKVD camp and Polish officers. The 22nd of June. Retreat and planes. Kandalaksha. No, forge the front here.

1.

27 May 19414

Hello, my mother Olga Nikolaevna, my aunt Nadezhda Nikolaevna, my sister Olga Sergeevna and her hubby and children, my brother Sergei Sergeevich and so on and so forth. I bow to you to the ground with my shaved head.5

I am writing at 6 am in Tula between getting up and breakfast. We haven’t been given any uniforms yet.

We will not stay in Tula. Our battalion, which is 20 times larger than the Noginsk team, is called a construction battalion, and today we will go to build something.

In the company, I am the only one from Noginsk. The other guys from Noginsk are all in another company, except for Katz, who ended up in the third one. While we were doing nothing it was terribly boring and sad. Everyone looked back, which made them look into the future, but it is unknown. Yesterday, at a closed Komsomol meeting, a committee was elected, which we call here the presidium of the company’s Komsomol organization. I was elected to be its member, and then the presidium chose me as the secretary of the company’s Komsomol organization. So now I have things to think about. To tell the truth – I am somewhat at a loss – I do not know where to start.

We get up at 5. We go to bed at 11. We eat 3 times a day. The food is good. So, I don’t know what to do with what I have in my suitcase. We sleep while not undressing on the bunk.

Our company will work on construction as concrete workers, bricklayers, and reinforcement workers.

When we arrive at the place, I will write the address.

Recently, Nadya watched a movie with a ticket that I bought for her.6 Now, apparently our service will be similar to the one shown there.

Then bye. Kisses to all. Say hello to Vasya, Horseradish, Braga, Myrta7 and other guys.

Do not show this letter to anyone except for the people to whom it is intended (see the beginning of the letter).

Regards, <signature>

2.

Hello Mom and others!

I am in Moscow in a freight car on the circle road. There are 42 of us in the car, so don’t spit or step foot. They feed us with dried bread – you won’t bite. By the way, I have two teeth hurting, which really interferes with army life. We run at the stops for buns and other food like water. We are worried because of the uncertainty of our future path.

We reached Tula safely, i.e., me, while the rest got drunk and stopped the train with a brake,8 about which, however, I learned only in Tula (I slept on the way). We were 800 people gathered. All are good fellows as if on selection: for whom the parents are sitting, who himself was sitting; in general, wicked bros. They placed us first on the floor side by side and then transferred us to an equally uncomfortable room, namely, they put us (also side by side) onto the bunks. The only difference is that the floor is easier to sweep than bunks… Hilarious!

When I found out that we were among, as Zhenya Kh.9 says, hermits, and that they would send us to construction, I immediately recalled the film “Prisoners”. I was in such a mood… oh-oh. In addition, I am the only one from Noginsk in the company – you won’t talk to anyone, you won’t even exchange a word. All the time I notice and control all my moods – that time I felt melancholy or some other devilry that pulled me to lie in the corner and cry. It was in this mood when I wrote my first letter. My tears were flowing, and I wrote such things that I tore it the next day, for which I am now infinitely happy. My “recovery” began with the election of me as the secretary of the company’s Komsomol organization: I got something to do. Now I live by daily routine, taking care of food, sleep, but the need for reading, theater, cinema is still almost non-existent. So, I haven’t recovered yet!

They wanted to appoint me as a platoon commander (there are 56 people in it). I would be their boss, for disobedience of which they will be arrested. I referred to the workload (the secretary) and safely got rid of this post. I want to experience ordinary Red Army life, and besides, it is calmer, and there is more time for club work.

They wake us up at 5 am. I wake up at the first command and get up like a robot (we are sleeping without undressing). Precisely like a robot: without thinking, without feeling, except for a great desire to sleep and severe cold (in such cases, I experience it at any temperature). Yesterday I went to the assigned work for the first time (scheduled, of course). I cleaned and washed the boiler of the field kitchen, dragged water into it (30 buckets), poured and boiled water. This all happened from 2 am. I must say that I calmly endure all the hardships. And I even get satisfaction from work.

Now I looked through what I wrote. It’s strange. I am writing in a joyful mood (after the decline), but it turns out that we have just the same hard labor here: bunks and work assignments and so on. This is how it turns out in the letter – it’s not my fault – and it’s not so bad here with us. I look closely at the guys, so in comparison with many of them, I’m just great. I have achieved the main thing in the army – I do not grumble at the commanders at any order, and this is a lot. Here, for an attempt to criticize the commander, they arrest you. What else? They took us to the bathhouse there, imagine, we… washed ourselves.

For good service and work, people will be transferred from our construction battalion to normal combat units. I hope to get through and think that the way through the secretary of the Komsomol organization is rather straightforward.

You will receive the next letter from the destination if we get there in less than a month; if a month or something like that, then, of course, I’ll write on the way.

Say hello to everyone I mentioned in the first letter; it’s boring to list everyone. Don’t show my letters to anyone, I don’t like it. To Nadya, Lyalya, that’s enough, I beg you. Then bye! Thanks for the spoon.

Prepare [illegible] a small map of the European part of the USSR.

Where are we going? If to the east or north – it’s rubbish. I will gladly accept all other directions.

Red Army’s greetings, Yashka.

I have written to Sasha. I will write to the rest when I get there.

3.

3 June 1941

Hello Mom!

I inform you that I have already sent two letters: one from Tula, one from Moscow – on the way.

In this – the third letter, I am already tired of sending greetings to “my relatives”, so convey them yourself on my behalf to Nadya and Lyalya and others.

On the 29th of May, at 11 am, we were loaded onto a train, and we moved on. We were in a boxcar on two-story bunks of 42 souls – in general, like herring in a barrel.10 During the journey, they fed us dried black bread (you can’t bite), fish – dried fish or herring (you can’t swallow), sugar (you can’t bite through), and boiling water (not enough). Well, we were not at a loss, we put dried bread into a bag (mine) and into a corner, sugar and boiling water into the stomach, with fish, of course, and at every station there were raids on station buffets. I even managed to run to the market in one place, bought buns and half a liter of milk there, which I had the honor to eat.

All the way, we were engaged in the study of our path. Arriving in Moscow, we stopped on the circle road, not the railway station, so again we could not find out anything. At night we set off along the circle road and finally learned from railroad workers that we were on the Oktyabrskaya road. But here again questions arose: to the North or to the West (Lithuania, etc.)? Looking ahead, I will say that before reaching 110 km to Leningrad, we turned to Murmansk. While we were driving along Oktyabrskaya, there were a lot of stations, the stations were interesting, but when we turned off, there were no stations, no villages.

We go to the Murmansk direction and think: where will they take us: to Murmansk or Vyborg?

On both sides of the path, endless forests stretch – first a timber forest, and then a small forest, in which young trees, as soon as they grow up, fall. This is because of continuous swamps. When the guys in Tula laughed: “We will build in a swamp”, I laughed – nonsense. Only now I realized what kind of swamps it was.

So, the wheels are knocking, and in total they knocked for 5 days, I stand or sit and look at the door at the endless woods and endlessly stretching water on both sides of the road. Then a third companion of the northern landscape – a stone – was added to the forest and water. There are a lot of stones. Stones of various sizes, from pebbles to rocks. But the rock is just big, it somehow doesn’t affect you by its huge size, but there are stones here, looking at which you open your eyes. Imagine – there is a house with a mezzanine, and next to it is a stone that is one and a half times larger. When we arrived at the Medvezhya Gora11 station, we were told that further the companion of the North – snow – would be added to the forest, water, stones and the already solid cold. As I heard this, my inner veins began to shake. The fact is that at night I cannot sleep for more than two hours in a row – I wake up from a terrible cold, run, go to bed again. More than once I recalled how you, very hesitantly, offered to put on a winter coat.

And then the snow appeared, and with it the blowing wind. We probably would have left our bones, but our superiors figured out to give us overcoats. As I put my overcoat on my coat, I felt like a von baron.12 From the moment of getting the overcoat, I began to look at the world more cheerfully.

Before reaching 240 km to Murmansk, the steam locomotive was replaced by an electric one, and our huge train rushed forward to Murmansk at a speed of 50—60 km/h. Seeing such technology here, we immediately cheered up and decided that we would not be lost.

On the 2nd of June, at 3 pm, we, in full combat form – with suitcases, unwashed mugs, burst at full steam, or rather, at all electric currents, into the northernmost point of the Soviet Union – the ice-free port of Murmansk. This Murmansk is located among the mountains, on the shore of Kola Bay. There is snow on the mountains, although they are not high.

We unloaded, went to the shore, and began to wait in vain.

Again, the eternal question appeared: “Where to be?”

They gave us concentrated food, my favorite peas. We lit fires and made soup from it. I tried to take the soup as thick as possible and ate it with great appetite.

Well, here a story happened. An echelon from Gorky had still arrived before us, so its chiefs, the idiots, gave them the opportunity to get drunk. They all got drunk, stopped listening to any command and scattered into the city. In the city, they committed 20 robberies and struck their commander with a suitcase to his head. They sent us, as an organized public (in Tula, we were drilled) and as the ones dressed in overcoats, to stop this gang. Oh, and they flew from us from the embankment – it was a pleasure to watch. In the city, NKVD13 posted posts, several people were arrested. They will be shot for looting. The commander of that battalion was also imprisoned. He will get 10 years – at least.

At 11 pm we were sent to the NKVD camp. We walked 6 km and stopped. We began to burn fires, warm themselves, and so on. Of course, we did not sleep at night. And we stopped because we were led to the camp where they live, who do you think? – Polish officers. They were taken in Poland, they are here in their uniforms, with epaulets, they built a camp for themselves, lived in it, now they were moved somewhere, and we were in their place. So, we were waiting for their convoy of 6 thousand people to pass along the road. I happened to see three – they were probably sick – they were in a vehicle. Then we set off. We came to the camp and fell on the bunks. We slept until 4 pm today.

I got up, my arms ached, my back too. After all, we moved for 6 days, we slept a little, we also did not eat properly – mostly without water, we did not wash our faces.

With a great effort of will, I forced myself to wash with ice water. Then I shaved with the same water. Now I feel better. All that remained was an abnormal state due to sleep disorder. Today we do anything we want; tomorrow we will go to the bathhouse, get our uniform, and go to our place of residence.

I spoke with the deputy commander of our battalion for political affairs (a very cultured and decent person). He told me that, based on the information he received at the headquarters of the Army, we will travel by steamer for kilometers… two less than four kilometers from us to Manya Loseva’s place of residence.14 We will live on the mainland, on the shore, not on an island. A town has been built there: barracks, a club, etc. A bed system – everyone has a bed and a bedside table. We will work for 8 hours, have drill and political training for 2 hours. We will live on self-financing – we will receive a salary minus 5 rubles 25 copecks for meals daily. Those who are highly qualified, for example, [illegible] locksmith, are said to be able to earn up to 600 rubles a month. We will comply with a special governmental assignment. We need to build something like an underground structure behind Obukhovo by November. After completing this assignment, we will go home, and we will be credited as two years of service.

All this is inaccurate.

I feel OK. I look at the difficulties philosophically – it is very useful for entering into life.

Then bye. My writing desire has dwindled. I wrote all that goes to the head. I didn’t reread it. Many awkward sentences – it’s OK. I didn’t embellish anything – my heart doesn’t want. I write everything that I feel at the moment. I know that you will not let tears fall (sorry).

Well, there are a lot of prisoners here.

Then bye. Hello to everybody. Next letter will be from the place.

I kiss you hard. Yasha

There is no night here – it’s day all the time. It doesn’t get dark at all. Very strange.

4.

8 July 1941

Hello Mom!

I don’t know if you received my letter written on the second day of the war; however, I don’t know if you received the previous ones either, but the fact is that this letter might not have arrived due to martial law.

I can imagine your concern for me because you knew that I was near the border.15 I must say that after the 22nd of June, nothing has changed in our life: we have not seen newspapers from Murmansk, there is no population there. We were informed about the war at a meeting, we hatched our eyes, began to work 12 hours instead of 8, and otherwise everything was the same as before. But now we very often interrupt work and run into the bushes, do not think anything bad, from planes, and they often fly here. Sometimes they flew so low that the fascist signs were clearly visible. I must say that we behaved not like we should have in war: we ran into the bushes without haste, laid down on our sides, on a dry place, leaned out. The Germans decided to teach us a lesson.

You know from the newspapers that on the 29th of June the Germans launched an offensive “on all fronts from the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Finland”. We had a chance to experience it on our shoulders. I will not describe the details, I will only say that we did not eat anything for 5 days, but only walked 50 km a day, over water and mountains – up, down. In addition, we were often bombed. It will seem strange to you, but it turns out that the bombing is not the worst thing. When you are lying and bombs are falling not far from you, this is okay. But when the Germans see people, they start shooting with machine guns when the plane dropped the bomb and goes out of its dive. That’s when bullets fall on you from above, when fragments fly from the stone behind which covered your head, then the heart pours out with cold sweat, and the body is pressed deeper into the ground. I have survived four such bombings – shootings. One shelling lasted for half an hour. After the shelling, because of the nervous tension, I really want to sleep, I feel deep fatigue. Yes, we have gone through unexpectedly a lot during these days. Even the commander, who was on six fronts, said that he would not forget the 29th. Yes, don’t forget that we were unarmed!!! And there were paratroopers. Now reinforcements have come to the front, and the Germans have been driven away. Oh, and they beat them! Looks like they do not want to fight, their planes – about ten, seeing our three, flee away, the soldiers, as a rule, cannot withstand a bayonet fight – they run. Our soldiers are in a fighting mood, and in connection with the partial successes of the Germans, they are terribly frenzied. Our soldiers do not capture Germans or Finns – they slaughter them.