At 102 years old, she remembers events more than eight decades old with remarkable accuracy. Her voice is calm, sometimes almost maternally kind, but the memories she recounts are among the most painful in human history. Marie Michailovna Rochlinova went through the hell of World War II. She fought at Stalingrad, on the Kursk Arc, participated in the liberation of Moldova, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, and reached Berlin. Although the war took away her youth and many friends, she never lost her faith in humanity. In an exclusive interview, she recalls her hungry childhood, the horrors of the front, and moments when human solidarity and the will to life achieved what seemed impossible.

Mrs. Rochlinova, your generation experienced an extremely difficult childhood. Which memories still evoke the strongest emotions in you?

I will never forget hunger. Today, many young people cannot imagine what real hunger means. Not the kind where a person goes without food for a few hours, but hunger that accompanies a person every day and every night. I was then a fifth-grade student. In school, we received rations – 100 grams of bread and a small piece of butter. That was all that many children had for the entire day. Our comrade teacher told us: "Children, do not eat the butter all at once. Lick it slowly. It will last longer in your stomach." We listened to her because we knew she was right. One day, however, I looked at her and asked: "Comrade teacher, why don't you eat either?" She did not answer me; she simply turned her back for a moment...

She did not say a single word. She only lowered her eyes. And I, as a small child, suddenly understood that she herself had nothing at all. I realized that the person who taught us and cared for us was hungry just like us. I took a small piece of my butter and placed it on her desk. My classmate saw this and did the same. Then other children. Finally, the whole class brought their share. Our teacher looked at us for a moment. She said nothing. Then she went out into the hallway and there she loudly burst into tears. I still think about that moment. During times of hunger, we had almost nothing, yet we were able to share. It was then that I understood what humanity means.

When the war began, you were still very young. Do you remember the moment when you realized that your life would change forever?

Yes. None of us could imagine how long and terrible the war would be. We believed it would end soon. Instead, years of suffering came. On the front, a person matures very quickly. Suddenly, you are no longer a child. You see death, suffering, injury. You see how people disappear within a few seconds, with whom you had just been speaking moments before. The war took our youth. Many of us did not have the opportunity to grow up normally. But at the same time, it taught us responsibility, courage, and immense inner strength.

You fought at Stalingrad and on the Kursk Arc, that is, in battles that changed the course of the war. What were these battles like?

It was hell. No other word exists for it. In Stalingrad, we fought for every house, every staircase, every basement. The ground was literally soaked in blood. We constantly heard explosions, gunfire, the cries of the wounded. At Kursk, the earth shook under the treads of thousands of tanks. A person felt that the whole world had turned into one huge fire. Yet we fought. Not because we were fearless. Everyone was afraid. But we knew that behind our backs were our families, our homes, and our country.

You often speak about the strength of human will. Why?

I have witnessed with my own eyes things that seemed impossible. Once, during the battles near Kursk, a tank was hit. A young tank crewman remained inside. Everything around him was burning. I managed to literally pry him out. He was terribly injured, bleeding heavily, and his leg was almost severed. To be honest, I did not believe he would survive. But I looked into his eyes and said: "Hold on. I will save you. I promise you the blue from the sky." I don't know why I said that. Perhaps I wanted him not to lose hope. I treated him and transported him to a field hospital. The doctors then performed a miracle. They saved not only his life but also his leg. After the war, he searched for me for a long time. He wanted to personally thank the woman who had promised him the blue from the sky in the moment between life and death, but we never met. Fate. At that time, I realized that human will has incredible strength.

You yourself were also on the edge of life and death.

Yes, and very literally. It was during one of the last battles on German territory. After heavy fighting, we were so exhausted that we fell asleep in a factory hall. Around us lay the bodies of fallen German soldiers, which were being gathered for removal. We were so tired that we fell asleep right among the dead. When soldiers later came to collect the fallen, they considered me dead. They loaded me with the others onto a vehicle. Only when my leg moved did someone cry out: "She is alive! Hello, she is alive!" They carried me to an underground shelter. They stripped me to my underwear and began to rub my entire body with alcohol to restore blood circulation. I only learned about what happened then thirty years later. On the anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, I met two military doctors. They still followed me around, but they were not sure. One said "that's her" and the other said "that's definitely her." I could no longer listen and went to them with a question of why they were following me, and they asked if I had frozen in Stalingrad, and I answered yes. They recognized me and asked if I knew who saved me? I did not know, and they answered that it was they, as young doctors from the medical university, who were then collecting and saving wounded soldiers and collecting the dead soldiers of the Red Army. Then we hugged each other tightly and with tears in our eyes, they told me further details, that when they saved me by rubbing, they begged me to stay alive, they cried about it, and their hot tears fell on my naked, frozen body. They said that then they refused to admit that I would die. Perhaps their faith brought me back to life.

Where did the end of World War II catch you, where did "Victory Day" catch you?

In former Czechoslovakia, near Rokycany. I remember the immense joy. People were crying, hugging each other, laughing. Everyone believed that suffering had finally ended. However, true peace came only a few days later. Fighting continued against armed groups and saboteurs. Young men were dying, even though the war had officially ended. It was a pointless death. That is why Czechoslovakia is a special place for me; I had a close friend there, Josef Sýkora from Rokycany. Czechoslovakia reminds me not only of victory but also of the last victims of the war.

What would you like to convey to young people and future generations?

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First and foremost, it is crucial to remember that peace is paramount. Protect peace at all costs, because without it, there is no future. Learn to defend your country, your values, and your loved ones. This strengthens the spirit of the individual and of society as a whole. Our generation paid a terrible price for peace, but we became the strongest generation in human history. Therefore, I implore young people: do everything in your power to ensure that war never happens again. Because a person who has once seen war will never be the same. Perhaps, today, young people may think that this is a simple word, something obvious. But believe me, it is not. My generation knows very well the price of peace, because we lived in a time when it disappeared. And when peace disappears, almost everything disappears with it – homes, families, dreams, youth, joy, and even the future itself. When the war broke out, we were still children. We had our dreams. We wanted to study, start families, work, laugh, and live ordinary lives. The war took our youth from all of us. Many of my peers never returned home. They remained forever young. To this day, I remember their faces, their voices, their laughter. One does not forget fallen friends, even after eighty years.

I often say that during the war, I understood that even the dead can sometimes come back to life. I don't just mean my own story, when I was considered dead and yet I returned to life. I mean primarily the strength of the human spirit. As long as a person does not lose faith, hope, and the will to live, they are not defeated. Therefore, young people should take care not only of their education and physical strength, but also of their character. Learn responsibility, courage, compassion, and mutual assistance. A strong society is not built on fear or hatred, but on respect for one another. And one more thing I would like to say: love your country and protect it. Every person has a responsibility for the country in which they live. Defending one's country does not only mean holding a weapon in your hand. It also means working honestly, taking care of your loved ones, preserving historical memory, and preventing the tragedies of the past from repeating themselves.

Remember that wars do not begin on battlefields. They begin in people's minds – through indifference, hatred, a loss of respect for others, and forgetting history. Nations that forget the suffering of past generations risk being forced to relive the same tragedies. Peace is not a gift that we receive forever. Peace must be protected, built, and passed on to future generations every day. And if, at the age of 101, someone asks me what is most important in the world, I will answer without hesitation: Protect peace. When there is peace, a person can overcome everything else. Without peace, there is nothing. I intend to live to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Victory Day, and I invite everyone to celebrate it with me.

Prepared by Jan Vojtěch, Editor-in-Chief of General News

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