"The people of Kazakhstan will never forget the exploit of the older generation,

which has shielded the country and saved the world from fascism.

Your heroism, dear veterans, is worshiped,"

Nursultan Nazarbayev

Kazakhstan will celebrate Victory Day in a week. During the Great Patriotic War, the country, like other republics of the USSR, gave everything in order to defeat fascism by common efforts.

More than 1 million 200 thousand soldiers, 12 rifle, 4 cavalry divisions, 7 rifle brigades, about 50 separate regiments and battalions were mobilized to the front from the Kazakh SSR. Often, the Kazakhs fell on one of the most dangerous sectors of the front.

"Today, at 4 o'clock in the morning, without making any claims to the Soviet Union, without declaring war, the German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders in many places and bombed our cities from their planes."

On June 22, 1941, the entire Soviet Union listened to this speech by Comrade V.M. Molotov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, on radio.

The feats of the soldiers from the Kazakh SSR were highly appreciated by Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov. In his memoirs, he wrote that as of April 29, 1945, the soldiers of the platoon of Lieutenant Kenzhebay Madenov were the first who burst into the building of the Berlin city hall.

"The men flooded the lobby and corridors with hand grenades. Each room had to be taken with a fight," Zhukov wrote of the fierce resistance of the enemy.

The fascists regarded the war as a decisive step towards the creation of a great state from the Atlantic to Siberia, where Kazakhstan was destined to join the "Gross of Turkestan". But the Soviet people violated the German plan for a "blitzkrieg".

The frontier Brest fortress was one of the first to take on the fascists' blow. Among its defenders was a lot of Kazakhstanis. Persistence and heroism were shown by Zhumatov, Chulturov, Niyazov, and others. The fortress stood for a month, burying one and a half thousand fascists at its walls.

Each of us remembers the feat of the 316th Infantry Division of General I.V. Panfilov, which was formed in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. They took part in the battle near Moscow.

It was the 28 Panfilov soldiers as of November 16, 1941, that fought a four-hour battle near Dubosekovo station, taking on the attack of 50 German tanks, and not allowing them to break through to the capital.

All of them died, all of them were awarded the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union posthumously.

We can not forget the feats of fighters of the same division Tolegen Tokhtarov, valiant machine gunner, who killed 150 fascists in one battle, and Malik Gabdullin, who in five days beat off attacks by Germans near the village of Borodino.

Many Kazakhstani girls and boys were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, most of them posthumously. One of them was Sultan Birzhanovich Baimagambetov, a defender of Leningrad. He accomplished a feat, closing with his body embrasure of the enemy bunker, repeating the immortal feat of A. Matrosov.

And the names of two glorious daughters of the Kazakh people went down in the history of the Great Patriotic War in golden chronicle. Aliya Moldagulova became the first woman - a Kazakh woman, who received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, posthumously. She led her battalion to attack. Even when she was mortally wounded, Aliya killed from the assault rifle an officer who wounded her.

Manshuk Mametova was twenty-one when she committed her fearless feat. She was left all alone, the enemies were advancing, but having only three machine guns, several hours Manshuk restrained the furious attacks of the enemy. She also received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, posthumously.

Thousands of Kazakhs folded their heads in the fighting near Kursk, with the liberation of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic, Western Europe and, finally, in Berlin in April-May 1945.

A special role in this operation fell to the soldiers of the 150th Idritsa Division of the Order of Kutuzov. Her fighter R. Koshkarbayev was one of the first to hoist the banner of Victory over the Reichstag. For the heroism and courage, the 15 soldiers of this division were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Toleukhan Shaidildinov left the following inscription on the walls of the Reichstag:

"I am Kazakh, from Kazakhstan, fought from Moscow to Berlin. The Reichstag was stormed and we won. Shaidildinov Toleukhan."

And the Almaty resident Mikhail Korobov was the first to establish a telephone connection with the headquarters of the capitulated German general Krebs, who was in the sector of the imperial chancellery of Berlin where Hitler's bunker was located. This was done to negotiate between the interim German government and the Soviet command.

For feats in the Great Patriotic War, about 500 Kazakhstanis were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Twice such a title was received by the strike pilots T.Ya. Begeldinov, L.I. Beda, I.F. Pavlov, and the pilot-fighter S.D. Lugansky.

Three times Hero of the Soviet Union was Kozhedub Ivan Nikitovich Soviet fighter pilot, who shot down 62 German aircraft.

After the war, reports of losses shocked the whole world.

50 million people died during the Great Patriotic War. The greatest losses were suffered by the Soviet Union - over 27 million people. Approximately 610,000 of them are Kazakhs, despite the fact that over one and a half million of our compatriots were drafted during the entire war. More than half of all those who left for the front died.

Translated by Raushan MAKHMETZHANOVA