The Veterans : an amazing living history

On the 10th of July during th visit to the Boarding school of Burlin, we had the pleasure  to meet also 4 veterans of the  2nd world war, all more  than 90 years old. They all from Burlin and got called up at age 17.



The Veterans :  Victor Lantsev,  Mikhail Shepel, Ivan Rublevsky and Pavel Belyi.


Below some details of their life :



Ivan Rublevski

·          He was in the same Artillery unit as Mikhail Shepel.

·          Stayed on in Berlin after the war for 11 years as part of the Soviet occupation forces

·          This was the guy that burned the deutche marks to stay warm and then was paid in them having burnt a fortune !

·          Is adamant that the war was only won because of Stalin and his main general Zhukov.

Pavel Belyi

·          Was in the Infantry as a machine gunner.

·          Ended the war in Berlin.

·          Fought at Stalingrad and swam the river Don when retreating to Stalingrad.



Victor Lantsev

·          Was an Engineer and specialised in mine clearance – he said you only ever made one mistake doing this !

·          When he was called up, the 100 men he was with were issued with just 3 rifles and a few bullets per man.

·          Started his war in July 43 at Prokhorovka in the battle of Kursk which saw the largest class of tanks in the whole war. (After this battle Hitler went on the defensive.  Stalingrad meant Hitler was not going to win the war, Kursk meant he was definitely going to lose it).

·          Got dumped in the water crossing a river under fire and lost his rifle – his officer made him go back in the river and retrieve it.

·          He ended the war in Vienna.

Mikhail Shepel

·          Was in the Artillery.

·          Ended the war in Berlin.

·          Said that if you got wounded you would not receive Soviet medical help unless you arrived at the hospital with a rifle.

·          He lost 2 brothers in war and his Mother wrote to him to beg him to come back alive.

·          Said that if the Germans had not so badly treated the people in the Soviet territories they invaded e.g. Ukraine, then they would not have had so much trouble from the partisans.