08-05-2025
Survivor of the Siege of Leningrad: 'I am a pacifist'
Survivor of the Siege of Leningrad: 'I am a pacifist'
Fanny Braun, 97, has been a lifelong pacifist since surviving the Leningrad blockade (Nikita BORISSOV) (Nikita BORISSOV/AFP/AFP)
Surviving the hunger and devastation of the Nazi siege of Leningrad during World War II has made 97-year-old Russian Fanny Braun a lifelong pacifist.
Braun was forced to eat scraps of leaves as a teenager, saw relatives die of hunger -- before losing her own mother from complications caused by starvation after the siege. Her father was killed in combat.
Now decades later, like other Russian World War II survivors, she is forced to relive her trauma by watching the news of the conflict in Ukraine.
Three years into its Ukraine campaign, the Kremlin is preparing to celebrate on Friday the 80th anniversary of the victory over the Nazis -- but in the shadow of war.
ADVERTISEMENT
Peace efforts by the United States to end fighting in Ukraine have so far not yielded results despite intensifying talks.
Braun watches the news from Ukraine with tears in her eyes.
"I am a pacifist. I am against all wars in general, especially pointless wars," she told AFP in her home outside Moscow.
The conflict has reawakened traumas she spent her life battling.
Braun stopped short of criticising the Kremlin, which launched the offensive in February 2022.
"Why are Ukrainians killing Russians? Why are Russians killing Ukrainians? We should live in peace," she said.
- 'Dirty leaves' for soup -
The Siege of Leningrad -- the Soviet-era name of Saint Petersburg -- began in September 1941 and lasted 872 days.
It was the longest siege in modern history until the encirclement of Sarajevo in the 1990s.
ADVERTISEMENT
Between 600,000 and 1.5 million people died in Leningrad -- most from hunger.
Braun recalled queueing all night with her sister in the hope of getting bread. Even if they did, they would get a mere 125 grams (4.5 ounces) each.
The family was forced to look for scraps of cabbage in the suburbs of the city.
"After the cabbages had been taken from their beds, we would collect these horrible, dirty remnants of the leaves and whatever was left on the ground. And then we'd pickle it all and make some kind of soup," she recalled.
She lived with her mother, her two aunts and cousins, while the men of the family were fighting at the front.
The famine in the city started in November 1941.
"Our neighbour was the first to die," she recalled.
Then her baby cousin died.
"She had no chance to survive, her mother had no more milk."
ADVERTISEMENT
But, as a 14-year-old, Braun did not see things "as tragically" as the adults and also remembered her teenage thrills.
"One day, in November 1941, we ran under fire towards a culture club on the Moika River," she reminisced, saying they went to see an operetta known as "The Gipsy Princess" by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman.
"It was amazing."
- Evacuation -
Still, like a whole generation in Europe, the war cut short her youth.
There was no food, electricity or water and the first winter of the siege was particularly bitter in a city known for its severe cold.
And as she recalled how her family burned wood to keep warm, she remembered another grim moment.
"When there was nothing to eat and nothing to buy, my aunt decided to poison us with carbon monoxide so that we would all die at once."
ADVERTISEMENT
She added: "It was harder to die slowly (of hunger). In the end she didn't go through with it."
Almost a million people were evacuated from Leningrad between 1941 and 1943 through the giant Ladoga Lake, which came under regular German fire.
For many, what was meant to be a "road of life" turned into a "road of death".
Braun's family was finally evacuated in June 1942.
But many evacuees later died as a consequence of the severe hunger they had suffered. One of those was Braun's mother.
The Siege of Leningrad ended on January 27, 1944.
While the city had suffered vast destruction, it was never captured -- turning it into a symbol of Soviet resistance.
bur/jj/jhb
