For the Year of Belarusian Women, the Zonal State Archives in Rechitsa presents a document about Valentina Lutsenko, a nurse who served in the Great Patriotic War

Valentina Mikhailovna Lutsenko (1923-2016) was born in the town of Priluki in the Chernihiv region. During the first years of the Great Patriotic War, she served as a nurse on ambulance trains, at the front, and, after the division’s defeat, in a partisan detachment. During this difficult period, when the wounded were constantly arriving in large numbers, Valentina and other doctors and nurses saved their lives, often neglecting sleep and rest. Furthermore, during her time with the partisans, she was repeatedly sent on reconnaissance missions to occupied villages. After the detachment joined the Red Army, Valentina was assigned to a regiment, which led her along the roads of Belarus and Lithuania to Königsberg, where she celebrated the victorious May of 1945. After the war, she lived in Rechitsa with her frontline soldier husband, Grigory Lutsenko, where she continued to work as a nurse—at the city hospital and children’s clinic. Valentina Lutsenko died in 2016.

Valentina Mikhailovna’s life and military career are detailed in her four-page autobiography, which she donated to the Rechitsa State Archives for permanent storage in 2015 (F. 858, Op. 1, D. 1, L. 2-5). In this document, the veteran shares her memories and experiences of the war: how she gained her first experience treating soldiers on a medical train, how she cut up her own clothes to bandage wounds during a heavy bombing, how she went on reconnaissance with a partisan detachment and miraculously escaped the Nazis, and so on.

1. Photograph of V.M. Lutsenko. May 9, 2005. ZGARech. F. 858, Op. 1. D. 8. L. 2

2-5. Autobiographical memoirs of V.M. Lutsenko. July 7, 2015. ZGAREch. F. 858. Op. 1. D. 1. L. 2-5