Children during the Great Patriotic War remained children — although they bore burdens beyond their years: lack of food and clothing, helping adults with household chores.
Older children looked after younger siblings, many worked in factories, and stood guard on roofs, extinguishing incendiary bombs. Elementary school children helped mothers and older sisters in hospitals: reading books to the wounded, gathering in groups and arranging concerts for the sick.
And yet they still had free time, during which, like all children, they played. In those difficult times, everything was in short supply, especially toys. They played with what they had acquired before the war, and many things were made by mothers or older children for the younger ones.
These were large dolls made from improvised materials — everything was used: buttons, threads, fabric scraps, spools. They made homemade cars, folded paper boats and airplanes. In spring, when streams flowed through the streets, they arranged whole battles with paper boats.
They played outdoors a lot. Boys, of course, played war, carving automatons and rifles out of wood — and this was the main game for both boys and girls. They invented many active games: cans, pebbles. They found entertainment in the simplest things — lids, corks, tin cans.
My mother, father, and grandmother remembered wartime as a period of absolute love for children. Every adult cared about every child. When they went down to the bomb shelter during an attack, adults played with children, told fairy tales, read books — to distract and calm them.
Even wounded soldiers who returned home without arms and legs carved wooden toys for children. Everyone strived to pass on a piece of their kindness to a child.
It was normal to take a child who had lost their parents into the family. Many raised several such children after the war — and this was considered commonplace.
People tried with all their might to protect children, distract them from the terrible, and give them as many warm childhood memories as possible.
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