Rank: Senior Sergeant. Type of service: Ground forces, Air force (except naval aviation), the Coast Guard, the NKVD troops, the Border Guards. My grandfather, Pavel Prokofievich Gorelkin, went to the front in July 1941, a month later than his other countrymen. The reason was very strong- his daughter Nina was born two weeks before the war started and she was was the sixth child in his family. That'sa why he was given a delay of 1 month. When he went to the front, he was only 33 years old. His wife (my grandmother) - Antonina Alekseevna (maiden name Kolosova) was left in the rear alone with six children: Vladimir, Alexandra, Sergey, Anna, Raisa and Nina. The eldest son Vladimir was 11 years old, the youngest daughter Nina was only 1.5 months old. My grandmother Antonina was 28 at the time. Finally she was left alone with all hardships and terrible years of the war. Grandfather was fighting against the enemy, grandmother survived, raising six children alone. My grandfather went through the whole war, crossed the whole country, he went through the whole Europe.This long way was not just walked through, but people crawled under the whistling bullets and exploding shells, mines and bombs. He left his small inscription in Berlin at the Reichstag, and finished the German war in Hungary in Budapest. Later there was the war with Japan in the far East. He returned home in 1946 at the age of 38 years in a terrible exhaustion: he did not have a single tooth, and his hands were shaking so that he could not even drink a glass of water, because it spilled out. His wife was waiting for him, she was already 33 years old. She also survived and saved all six of kids, none of the children died of hunger, although according to their stories, it often happened that they were so exhausted from hunger that tried not to move or talk, to save energy. It happened once that they were almost dying but a man from a sugar factory helped them and gave a few lumps of sugar, and that was the only way they survived. A few small sweet sugar pieces saved lives of the whole family.Now I remember all these stories and I can imagine not only their feelings but also the taste of that sugar.How did they both get through it? How were they able to survive on their own and save others? How??? Only God knows! After the war, they had two more sons: Viktor and Eugene. We can see all of them in the photo-four brothers and four sisters.Today we all live because my grandfather Pavel Prokofievich and grandmother Antonina Alekseevna survived. In may, we will go again to visit their graves, to paint the grave stones and fence, restore everything and put flowers. Let the eternal memory of them live! we remember all soldiers who liberated our land from the fascists! We'll never forget those who worked for the Victory in the rear of our country! I bow to all of them to the ground! THANK YOU!"