BACKGROUND: The 577th Rifle Regiment, 205th Division, in which my grandfather, junior sergeant, mortar squad leader, Peter Zosimov, fought during the Battle of Stalingrad, died almost completely... From the memoirs of my grandfather: "We, as much as we could, held our positions, hit the Nazi tanks, went into attack, but the enemies, though with great difficulty, managed to surround us. The fight continued. In the next attack, something hit my leg hard, I took a few steps and fell down from a sharp pain. When I woke up, I tried to understand what had happened to me and why I could not hear the shootings. My leg was whining increadibly, I could not move it. I tried to look around a bit and saw a tank slowly approaching in my direction. The muzzle of the tank was lowered as much as possible and turned from side to side, apparently looking for the survivors. Several German soldiers were walking next to the tank and shot the survivors. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst. It was very painful, but my body was so tight that I probably could not move even if I wanted to. It seems that the fascists took me for dead and passed by. But the worst thing was that the tank on its way with its caterpillars pressed the dead soldiers. It has passed very near to me. I do not know how much time has passed: an hour, two, maybe more. Two soldiers approached me... Our soldiers leaned over me, one quietly told someone: "Alive! Get here!” I was put either on a cape or overcoat and quickly dragged on the ground, my leg seemed to come off... At the hospital I was told that the bone on my leg above my knee was punctured and broken. Later I learned that very few guys survived in that battle, sixty people. They were the ones who managed to escape from the surroundings by storm. Only a few of the wounded survived, they were rescued by those military orderlies who dragged me from the battlefield, practically, under the enemy's nose.” My grandfather was no longer taken to the combat front, as his left leg had become several centimeters shorter, but he was one of the first at the labor front!!