When the war started most of the people in her village never went to any war and they had illusion, thinking they would win fast and go home. It didn't happen. All the young men, many women left, leaving old people and children working sometimes 20 hours a day.
One time my grandmother went with her mother on city train station and was shocked how many people were going to the army, or in opposite direction, to north, Siberia, were factories were relocated from occupied territories. She saw thousands of people on the small train station who were running around, pushing, singing, crying; mothers, fathers hugging son, daughters, medical trains full of people. Everything was spinning and it was only the beginning.
Back in the village all the war the old people would say that tomorrow the war will end, all four years they promised it. And everyone believed, worked hard to help the army, from each house someone was at the war. After, in every city, special monuments were build as memory of that time, and always someone leaves flowers and just stays quietly.
