St.Petersburg Times, Russia
Sept 24 2004
Seeking Women in Wartime Photos
By Irina Titova
STAFF WRITER
A German man is hoping publication of wartime photographs of three
young Russian women associated with St. Petersburg may help explain
how they came into the possession of his late father-in-law.
Eckhard Bernecker, 68, of Hanover, found the photographs among the
belongings of Friedrich Wilhelm Uebel, who was killed in action in
World War II. The fate of the women is unknown.
“We found a picture which poses a riddle,” Bernecker said of one
photograph.
“The picture is worthless to us,” he wrote in a letter to The St.
Petersburg Times. “But I know that during the war a lot of keepsakes
(such as photos) were destroyed. So it could be that ‘Zinochka’ or
‘Panya’ in St. Petersburg [or their descendants] will be grateful for
the photo.”
The woman in the first picture is identified as Panya, which is
likely to be a diminutive of Praskoviya, Osipova. On the back of the
photograph appears a dedication to a friend called Zinochka, a
diminutive of Zinaida.
“To Zinochka, for you to remember me by, Panya Osipova. It is better
to think of me at least sometimes than not at all. Leningrad. Sept.
28, 1941,” Panya’s Cyrillic text reads.
St. Petersburg was known as Leningrad at the time.
The date is just after Hitler’s armies launched a murderous attack on
Stalin’s Soviet Union. The Germans surrounded the city and besieged
it for almost 900 days.
At the bottom of the reverse side there are the German words
“Gruzinerin,” which means “Georgian,” and a word that is difficult to
decipher but looks like “Manuck.”
Another photograph shows a woman in a military uniform. Her name is
hard to decipher, but appears to be either “Tamarochka,” a diminutive
of Tamara, or some other female name that starts with the letter “T.”
The second woman also dedicated her picture to Zinaida.
“To Zinochka from T … If you have time for memories of the past,
remember me, too. 21 Å. Ç. Leningrad Nov. 16, 1941,” the dedication
says.
The code 21 Å. Ç. may be the number of the woman’s military unit.
At the bottom is written the German word, “Armenierin,” or
“Armenian.”
Three young women appear in a third photograph. On the back of that
photograph only the date May 2, 1940 is written. It can be assumed
that one of the women is Zinaida.
Bernecker said he had no idea how Uebel got the pictures. His
father-in-law never fought in northwest Russia or the Baltic States
during the war. He served on the southern front – in the Caucasus and
beside the Azov Sea.
It might be that Zinaida lived or fought in this area too. Bernecker
said Uebel, who served as an armored infantryman (in German:
Panzer-Grenadier), had not left any explanation about the pictures
before he was killed aged 32 on March 16, 1945, in
Neuwied-am-Rhine-River in west Germany.
Uebel’s widow, Lisbeth, now 91, remembers her husband being sent to
fight in the Soviet Union in late summer of 1941.
She said he remained there as a lance corporal in the “orderly room”
for many months until he was wounded in the back. After treatment at
a hospital in Germany he was sent to fight the Allies who were
advancing from the west.
The widow also remembers that Uebel was in Rostov-on-Don “at the foot
of the Caucasian mountains,” and later in Taganrog on the Azov Sea.
Lisbeth Uebel recalls that when her husband had leave at home he
would collect tools for his Russian landlord and fashion magazines
with sewing patters for the landlord’s wife.
Bernecker thinks Uebel brought the pictures of the Russian women home
with him on one of these trips.
Uebel had three children, one of whom, Charlotte, who was eight when
her father died, later became Bernecker’s wife. He said Uebel’s
family had a very difficult struggle to survive in post-war Germany.
It was only with the help of their grandparents that the family
avoided dying of starvation.
Bernecker said his family wants to give the pictures back to people
who are interested in them – be it Zinaida, who likely owned the
pictures before Uebel, or the women pictured in the photos.
Anyone with information about the women in the photographs is asked
to contact The St. Petersburg Times either by writing to us at
telephoning us on (812) 325-6080. Ask for Irina Titova.