Just when they thought they were safe, they were attacked by explosive shells

Apparently the difference between a shell and a bomb, is that one is shot from a platform (ground or ship, etc) and the other is dropped from the air or, in some cases left to be exploded by a timer. I don’t really need to know the exact differences to understand the damage either can cause. Damage which was experienced first hand by my maternal grandparents during the Russian Civil War.

“My husband took me by the hand and made me run with him across the garden. As we arrived in the open, a shell came flying over our heads. It flew with a sort of whistling sound and exploded with a terrific bang. I involuntarily bent down as if I had been aimed at. The next moment I felt ashamed of myself. My husband was smiling down at me. And when two more came, one after the other, before we reached our ‘trench’ I did my best to keep my head up and look very brave.”

So wrote my grandmother, Olga Woronoff, in her memoir Upheaval, describing the moment my grandparents were caught in the middle of a targeted attack on Evpatoria. As much as I can ascertain, the attack took place in January 1918. On leaving my grandmother’s cousin’s place, they saw in the distance what my grandfather surmised were battleships which had been based in Sebastopol.

It must have been a terrifying experience and, according to my grandmother, lasted around three quarters of an hour. When they finally decided it was safe to come out of their hiding place in the cellars, they found a large piece of what had been a six-inch shell. It was one of many pieces of exploded shells they found in the garden around the sanatorium where they were staying.

Almost right after the last shell had fallen, the sanatorium was raided by Bolshevik soldiers and sailors, but you can read that part of their story for yourself in the 2^nd edition of Upheaval, where you can also read the tragic tale of her cousin.

So many of the experiences my grandparents lived through remind me of the current world situation. Knowing their story has, I believe, made me much more empathetic to the people who are constantly under attack in one form or the other. Unfortunately the experiences of war which my grandmother related in her memoir, are still relevant today. Memoirs like Upheaval, make these experiences much more personal, as do all the accounts left by anyone affected by war. This is why I think family history is so important, each individual story adds layers to historical events, layers which we might otherwise not be aware of.