On the black market, a gold watch can only be exchanged for 750 grams of rice. An eighty percent new motorcycle is capable of changing the ration for a meal at most.

"I feel disgusted, these people are more terrible than the Germans." Jophnia said she had traded her mother's jewelry for potatoes on the black market, and that a gold ring could be exchanged for five potatoes. With the exception of some government and military officials, the people who sell on the black market are basically thieves and robbers. People are reluctant to do business with the latter, and they often rob the weak of what is valuable.

That winter, Jophnia had no idea of going to the black market, she had nothing to exchange for food, and she was worried that she would be eaten on the black market.

She wrote in her diary: "The hands and feet were already frozen, the situation seemed to be getting worse and worse, the people waiting for bread on the street from early morning to late at night, many people fell headlong and died in the queue, no one paid attention to these people who had just died, everyone moved slowly and kept their eyes on the bread." ”

Along with the deaths came all kinds of robberies, murders, and murders.

At first, it was stealing the clothes of the dead, and then it was cutting meat. Ruophnia told Sun Hui that this kind of thing was no secret at that time, and that every night there would be the sound of metal rubbing against bones on the street. In the daytime, corpses with bare bones will appear on the side of the road.

Hunger deprives people of any dignity. Once, a female colleague called her to her home, she said. Everyone in my colleague's family died. "My colleague asked me to write an article, and I felt wrong while writing, and when I looked back, I saw my colleague holding a knife behind my back. A female colleague cut off my head with a knife, but she didn't have much strength because she was hungry, and I wasn't seriously injured, so I ran out. ”

Jophnia fainted on the street and woke up in the hospital for two weeks. "Then the police came and asked me, do you know that your colleague wants to eat you?"

"The role of the police is not very big." She said that there were fewer of these terrible phenomena on the streets, but they were still happening in the houses. One of her neighbors was a male teacher with black-rimmed glasses, who often volunteered to repair electrical appliances before the war. But that year, he killed his wife and brought the meat to his daughter. "I can hear the child crying through the door, I don't eat the mother."

Leningrad turned into a city of death, a morgue. There were dead people everywhere in basements, hospitals, and on the streets.

After Jophnia came out of the hospital, she worked as a postman at the post office. On January 12, 43, the Soviets attacked the Germans from the south and north, and seven days later joined forces with the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, lifting the 17-month total German blockade of Leningrad.

Jophnia remembers that despite the lifting of the total lockdown, there was still not enough food to eat. When she delivered letters, the door was often open, and the people in the house died. "That kind of scene makes you feel bad." But there will be some happy things that will give her the courage to live, Jophnia said.

"The person who receives the letter occasionally sends me a gift, like a chocolate box with potato skins inside."

Zophnia always believed that the box of potato skins she received in December '43 brought her good luck. "I always meet people who like to share their food, and everyone eats less, and everyone doesn't die."

In her spare time, Ravonia would discuss the defense of Leningrad with young people. The old man believed that it was God who awakened humanity so that Leningrad was able to survive. Young people, on the other hand, try to explain the final victory from a military and political point of view, and the two opinions are often not in agreement.

"One of my most memorable moments was when I burned my diary after the total victory. There are so many things in it that I don't want to recall, and the Holodomor is an incomparably difficult test of anyone's humanity. ”

It was dusk, and Ruophnia, who was in a wheelchair, was muttering to Sun Hui while drawing a cross on her chest with her hand.

"I had to burn it, I didn't want people to know what I was doing. I once stole bread from a colleague and she died, but I survived. ”

After listening to Sun Hui's story, the faces of the four girls were a little pale.

"I remember reading a book that said that the people in the city were very high-quality...... When the bread falls to the ground, it will be picked up, dusted off and put back in its place, no matter how hungry you are, you won't eat it......" Ye Chuchu said with some embarrassment, "So that's not the case......"

"There may have been such incidents, but it also shows the severity of the famine in the city at that time." Sun Hui said, "It's not a problem for us to eat and drink now, at least the tank will be replenished automatically every night, but if we enter the city, we will be reorganized by others, and if we leave this tank, I am afraid that we will starve." The defenders of the city had only a little more food than the civilians, but they were just as hungry. ”

"yes, I think it's the safest in this tank." Xiao Tiantian said.

"Then Brother Sun, you said before that we are going to join the Soviet Red Army......" Du Lili looked at Sun Hui with some doubts.

"Yes, I said that we were going to join the Soviet Red Army, but what I meant was that with the protection of the Soviet army, we could avoid the situation of being killed by the Germans alone, instead of letting them command us." Sun Hui said to her, "We have to master the scale of this." ”

"Understood." Xiao Tiantian stuck out her tongue naughtily and nodded.

"The next thing we have to do is to do our best to survive, in the face of battle, we must not back down, everyone has behaved very well in the past two days, and we must persevere." Ye Chuchu looked at the girls and said, "Although the tank can provide enough food every day, it is too simple, we not only have to live here, but also have a quality of life, the first thing is to eat well, Brother Sun also said just now, Leningrad can't be counted on." We can destroy more enemies and get supplies from them, so we must fight bravely when we encounter them. ”

"But, Sister Chu Chu, if you continue to fight like this, when will you become a head?" Du Lili said, her eyebrows were full of sorrow, "All this is still a game, right?" Can't we quit if we don't play? ”

"I said it, this is not a game," Ye Chuchu's voice became heavy, "Maybe it's a game for those 'audience', but for us, it's a challenge of life and death, we can only work hard to keep ourselves alive, as for how long we can live, I can't say, in fact, life is a war, it's just that our current environment is too cruel, and we need to work extra hard to struggle." ”

She looked at her partner and said word by word: "I only know that even if we fight hard here, we may not be able to survive, but if we don't fight hard, it is impossible to live." ”