Mass Grave in Peschanka

The mass grave in Peschanka is a war burial of the defenders of Stalingrad on the northern outskirts of the settlement of Peschanka in the Sovetsky District of Volgograd, right at the entrance from the direction of Gorkovsky. This WWII memorial with its 1983 obelisk is a historical monument of regional significance in Volgograd Oblast and is protected by the state.

History

The inner defensive line of Stalingrad ran along the edges of Peschanka. Fighting here began in the first days of September 1942, and the settlement remained under occupation for almost five months. Soviet troops liberated Peschanka on 22 January 1943, during the final battles of the Battle of Stalingrad.

The mass grave on the northern outskirts holds privates, sergeants and officers of the 36th Guards, 29th, 204th and 157th Rifle Divisions and other units of the 64th and 62nd Armies. The exact number of the dead buried here is unknown; according to the war grave register card of 2014, the names of 121 people have been established.

The memorial

The first gravestone was put up in 1958 as a sculpture of a Soviet soldier. In 1983 it was replaced by the present monument, an obelisk with a bas-relief of a soldier in a helmet. It was designed by the sculptor M. A. Goncharov of the regional specialised scientific restoration workshop.

Another mass grave of the defenders of Stalingrad lies in the centre of the settlement. On the slopes of the gullies and ravines around Peschanka you can still see the pits of dugouts that German troops built to spend the winter in.

Heroes of the fighting for Peschanka

The sniper Maxim Passar, one of the most effective snipers of the Battle of Stalingrad, was killed in the fighting at Peschanka on 22 January 1943. Born on 30 August 1923 in the village of Nizhny Katar in the Far Eastern Krai, he killed 237 enemy soldiers and officers during the war. According to a widely told story, the German command put a bounty of 100,000 Reichsmarks on his head. Passar received his first Order of the Red Banner in October 1942 and the second posthumously in April 1943 for the battle at Peschanka. In 2010 he was posthumously made a Hero of the Russian Federation. Since 1956 a street in the Sovetsky District of Volgograd has borne his name.

On 25 January 1943, near Peschanka, the liaison Maxim Fefilov distinguished himself: after the commander was killed, he led the company and carried the attack through. According to accounts, more than 100 German soldiers and officers were killed in this battle and more than 200 were taken prisoner.

Good to know

The mass graves and the monument to the victims of the Battle of Stalingrad in the settlement are looked after by the pupils and teachers of School No. 114 and the local residents' self-government (TOS). Every year a delegation from Austria also takes part in caring for the memorials.

Peschanka is part of the Sovetsky District of Volgograd; the memorial stands by the road at the entrance to the settlement from the direction of Gorkovsky.