Curled up beside me on the ground
When death was but an inch away?
"Have you forgotten, in the days
When things were blackest, she was there,
And when you came to save my life,
She helped you as you pulled me clear.
"And when - perhaps you did not see -
I raised my grateful glass to you
To celebrate my near escape -
Beside us there - I saw her too."
(Konstantin Simonov 1942)
Photo Collection Russian Women in the Great Patriotic War
