Eternal Memory: Reenacting the First Weeks of the WWII

Prior to the 71st anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War, a military-history reenactment called “Beginning of the war. First weeks of 1941 combat operations” was organized in Ufa. Military-patriotic clubs from Ufa and the Urals/Volga region took part in reenacting the first weeks of the war.

The reenactment involved more than 100 people from Ufa, Perm, Samara, Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg, as well as several motorcycles, a pre-war GAZ-M-1 Emka passenger car and armored vehicles. Pyrotechnic displays were also organized.

Photo: Entrenched Red Army soldiers ready to repel the enemy.

Photo: A Soviet soldier.

Under the reenactment scenario, a group of refugees comprising women, children and injured Red Army soldiers moves toward the Soviet trenches. The refugees want to reach Soviet-controlled territory.

The first German attack has been repelled. Red Army soldiers saved the crew of an armored personnel carrier captured by the enemy.

Under the scenario, the Nazis launched another attack, which was supported by motorized infantry and warplanes.

Soviet soldiers fired rifles, revolvers and a machine gun. Photo: A Maxim machine gun.

German soldiers armed with submachine guns try to outflank Soviet positions. In an effort to avoid encirclement, the Soviet commander orders the machine gunner and several other soldiers to remain in the trenches and to support a counterattack toward a local forest.

Photo: Germans shoot Soviet soldiers remaining inside the trenches point blank.

This tragic episode of history ended in Soviet defeat. But this is 1941, the beginning of the war. Several years later, the Red Army forced the Nazis to retreat and subsequently hoisted the Soviet flag atop the German Reichstag in Berlin. Photo: German soldiers celebrate their victory.

An episode of the military-history reenactment called “Beginning of the war. First weeks of 1941 combat operations.”