[northernlights]

It was horrific. The siege of Leningrad (the modern-day St. Petersburg) lasted almost two and one-half years and cost the lives of an estimated 1,000,000 city residents. It began on September 8, 1941 when German troops completed their encirclement of the city. As his blitzkrieg rushed towards Moscow, Hitler made the strategic decision to bypass Leningrad and strangle the city into submission rather than commit valuable resources to attacking it directly.

A victim of the siege
is dragged to a cemetery
Hunger and cold became the city's greatest enemies. By the end of September, the city's oil and coal supplies were exhausted. This meant that the city was without any central heating. As the brutal Russian winter approached, water pipes froze and broke, denying the residents drinking water.

Food supplies were cut. By November, individual rations were lowered to 1/3 of the daily amount needed by an adult. The city's population of dogs, cats, horses, rats and crows disappeared as they became the main course on many dinner tables. Reports of cannibalism began to appear. Thousands died - an estimated 11,000 in November increasing to 53,000 in December. The frozen earth meant their bodies could not be buried. Corpses accumulated in the city's streets, parks and other open areas.

To compound the misery, the Germans incessantly bombarded the city with air and artillery attacks.

The Russian winter had one positive effect. It froze Lake Ladoga to the city's east and created a life-line over which caravans of trucks hauled a meager amount of food and supplies. It also provided an evacuation route for thousands of the city's weak and elderly. The loss of population through death and evacuation decreased the strain on the remaining inhabitants. Food rations were increased and the city's situation stabilized. By January 1944, the Red Army had pushed the German army beyond Leningrad allowing the city to celebrate the end of its siege.

If you would like to study a real hideous time in history, read up the on the siege of Leningrad. At least 1,000,000 residents starved during that siege which is known as the most deaths in one city, in modern history. They were eating sawdust, wallpaper, leather, family pets, and even each other.

The picture is of a little girl who was there during the blockade"Tanya". She recorded her family member's times of death on those little slips of paper. This was a very sadistic way to die for all of these people.

[northernlights]

The bodies at Leningrad piled up by the thousands. There was no where to put them so they stacked them up along the gates along central city cemetery.The grief felt by a person who had to just add their loved one to the pile and walk away must have gut wrenching to the extreme

[northernlights]

From the 900 days...the siege of Leningrad

"No great effort was made to interfere with the grisly trade at the Hay market. As early as November, according to some accounts, meat patties made from human flesh went on sale, although many Leningraders refused to believe that the meat was human. They insisted that the meat was horse meat-or dog, or cat.
"The evidence of butchery of corpses was widespread. Many Leningrad women, pulling a child's sled behind her, bringing the body of a husband or a child to the vicinity of the cemetery was appalled to see fleshy parts had been cut from the corpses which lay around like scattered cord wood"

"In the worst period of the siege" a survivor noted "Leningrad was in the power of the CANNIBALS. God alone knows what terrible scenes went on behind the walls of those apartments".

[Darkest Angel]

Hey Friend :)

Let's hope days this dark never happen again.
Cannibalism. Murder, however, always seems to be in fashion.

[northernlights]

This is actually a rare pic of a small Leningrad meat market. Everything that you can see was being sold by the couple and it probably didn't last long under the extreme, deathly conditions of Leningrad at the time.

[twayblade]

[NoelPuppet]

Northern Lights, the pic you posted was from the Russian famine of 1921, not Leningrad.