You won't find his poems in school textbooks. Who is he? The man who made history.


My comrade, in death agony
Do not invite your friends in vain.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.
Don't cry, don't moan, you're not small
You're not hurt, you're just dead.
Let me take off your boots as a keepsake.
We have yet to advance.

These poems were written by 19-year-old tank lieutenant Jonah Degen in December 1944. They will never be included in school anthologies about that great war. For a very simple reason - they are true, but this truth is different, terrible and incredibly inconvenient for those who write on their machines: “1941-1945. If necessary, we will repeat.
Jonah, after the 9th grade, went as a counselor to a pioneer camp in Ukraine in the last peaceful June days of 41 years. There he found the war. The military registration and enlistment office refused to call because of infancy. Then it seemed to him that in a few weeks the war would end in Berlin, and he would not have time to go to the front. Together with a group of the same young men (some of them were his classmates), having escaped from the evacuation train, they were able to get to the front and ended up in the location of 130 rifle division. The guys made sure that they were enrolled in one platoon.

So in July 41, Jonah was at war.

The ninth grade ended only yesterday.
Will I ever finish the tenth?
Holidays are a happy time.
And suddenly - a trench, a carbine, grenades,
And above the river a burnt house to the ground,
The roommate is forever lost.
I'm confused helplessly in everything
That cannot be measured by school standards.

In a month, only two of their platoon (31 people) will remain. And then - the environment, wandering through the forests, injury, hospital. He left the hospital only in January 42. And again he demands to send him to the front, but he still has a year and a half to 18 - military age.
Jonah was sent to the rear to the south, to the Caucasus, where he learned to work on a tractor on a state farm. But the war itself came there in the summer of 42, and Degen was taken as a volunteer at the age of 17, he was again at the front, this time in a reconnaissance platoon. In October - a wound and again severe. The bullet entered the shoulder, passed through the chest, abdomen and exited through the thigh. The scouts pulled him unconscious from behind the front line.
On December 31, 1942, he was discharged from the hospital and, as a former tractor driver, was sent to study at a tank school. At the beginning of 44, he graduated from college with honors, and in the spring, junior lieutenant Iona Degen, on a brand new T-34, was again at the front.
Thus began his 8 months of tank epic. And it is not just words. Eight months at the front, dozens of battles, tank duels - all this is many times greater than what fate measured out to many thousands of other tankers who died in that war. For Lieutenant Degen, the commander of a tank company, everything will end in January 1945 in East Prussia.
How did he fight? On conscience. Although the T-34 was one of best tanks World War II, but by the year 44 it was still outdated. And these tanks burned often, but Jonah was lucky for the time being, he was even called the lucky one.

You won't go crazy at the front,
Not learning to forget right away.
We raked out of wrecked tanks
Anything that can be buried in a grave.
The brigade commander rested his chin on his tunic.
I hid my tears. Enough. Stop doing that.
And in the evening the driver taught me
How to properly dance padespan.

Random raid on the enemy's rear.
Only a platoon decided the fate of the battle.
But the orders will not go to us.
Thank you, at least nothing less than oblivion.
For our random crazy fight
Recognize the brilliant commander.
But the main thing is that we survived with you.
And the truth is what? After all, that is how it is done.

September 1944

When your comrades perish one by one, a different attitude to life and death appears. And in December 1944, he will write that very famous poem in his life, which will be called one of best poems O :

..don't cry, don't moan, you're not small,
you're not hurt, you're just dead.
let me take off your felt boots as a keepsake.
we still have to come.

He did not know that fate measured out quite a bit. Only a month. And after many years, his name will be carved on a granite monument on a mass grave. In the list of the best Soviet tank aces at number fifty you will read - Iona Lazarevich Degen. guard lieutenant, 16 victories (including 1 "Tiger", 8 "Panthers"), twice presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

On January 21, 1945, his T-34 was shot down, and the crew, who managed to jump out of the burning tank, were shot by the Germans and thrown with grenades.
He was still alive when he was taken to the hospital. Seven bullet wounds, four shrapnel wounds, broken legs, an open fracture of the jaw. Sepsis set in and at the time it was a death sentence. He was saved by the head physician, who demanded that he be given a terribly scarce penicillin intravenously. It seemed to be a waste of precious medicine, but God had other plans for him - Jonah survived!
Then there was rehabilitation, lifelong disability - and all this at the age of 19 ...
And then a long and very difficult life in which our hero-tanker was able to reach new incredible heights. While still in the hospital, he decided to become a doctor. In 1951 he graduated from the Medical Institute with honors. Became an orthopedic surgeon. In 1959, he was the first in the world to carry out the replantation of the upper limb (he sewed a severed arm to a tractor driver).
He will have both a candidate and a doctorate, a long way to recognition. This little fearless lame Jew was already very uncomfortable, never shy about telling the truth, always ready to punch a presumptuous boor in the face, regardless of rank and position.
In 1977, Iona Lazarevich will leave for Israel. And there he will be in demand as a doctor, will receive honor and respect, but he will never renounce his homeland.

He lives to this day. In 2015, he turned 90 years old, but his character has not changed at all.
In 2012, he, like the rest of the veterans in the Russian embassy, ​​was presented with the next anniversary awards by the military attache to the sounds of solemn music. After the ceremony was over, our ruffy hero read these poems of his.

Habitually molasses spilled speech.
In the mouth set on edge from the words of unctuous.
Royally on our hunched shoulders
Added a load of anniversary medals.
Solemnly, so sugary-sweetly,
Moisture trickles down her cheeks from her eyes.
And why do you think they need our glory?
Why ... they need our former courage?
Silently time is wise and weary
Hardly scars wounds, but no trouble.
On a jacket in the metal collection
Another medal for Victory Day.
And there was a time, rejoiced at the load
And overcoming the pain of loss bitterly,
Shouted "I serve Soviet Union!»,
When they screwed the order to the tunic.
Now everything is smooth as the surface of the abyss.
Equal within current morality
And those who whore in the distant headquarters,
And those who were in the tanks burned alive.
The time of heroes or the time of scoundrels - we ourselves always choose how to live.

There are people who make history. And these are not politicians at all, but people like Iona Lazarevich Degen.
How much do we know about them?

Eight years ago, a delegation of the Russian Committee of Veterans of the Great Patriotic War, headed by Committee Chairman General of the Army Govorov, flew to Israel to attend the Congress of World War II veterans.

Every morning started the same way: Govorov, his assistant and I came to the beach. We were already waiting there. At first they looked around respectfully, then the most daring approached Govorov. "Comrade Marshal! he began in a trembling voice. - Under your leadership, I fought ... ".

Govorov immediately explained that his father was the marshal, and he himself started as a junior lieutenant. “So I say that under the leadership of your dad,” the veteran continued as if nothing had happened. And he was already rushed by others ...

We were shown the house of war invalids. A gray-haired doctor with unusually bright, lively eyes acted as a guide, he limped noticeably, leaning on a heavy metal stick, but nevertheless he moved very quickly. We were so delighted with what we saw (one court for the armless is worth something!), that I decided to give our guide the last book of my poems as a parting gift. He thanked me and said somewhat embarrassedly: “I also write, you may have heard one of my poems. If you'll allow me, I'll read it to you, it's short.

Ion Degen (that was the name of the professor) cleared his throat, and I heard:

My comrade,
in death agony
don't call your friends in vain.
Let me warm you up
palm i
over smoking blood
yours.
Don't cry, don't moan
you are not small
you're not hurt, you're just
killed.
Let me take a picture
boots from you
we still have to come
to be.

Did I know these verses?

Yes, I knew them by heart from the day I first heard them! And it was at the end of the war. They said that they were found in the bag of a tanker who was killed near Stalingrad.

He was born in Mogilev-Podolsky. In the summer of 1941, carts with refugees stretched across Mogilev, followed by our retreating troops. Degen joined parts of the infantry division.

The fighting was already going on in the foothills of the Caucasus. At the Beslan station, it turned out that there was an abandoned factory and there was a lot of molasses on it. Degen and his subordinate Lazutkin went to the factory. When returning back, some woman offered to exchange molasses for local wine. They agreed, but at that time, accompanied by a submachine gunner, a man in a semi-military coat and chrome boots approached them. "Speculating?" Degen hit a civilian, he fell, his coat flew open and the astonished soldiers saw the Order of Lenin, a deputy badge ...

They were surrounded by machine gunners, escorted to the basement of a special department. He spent two days in the basement of Degen. Sometimes someone was taken out into the yard, then volleys were heard. On the third day the guys were released. "Where's my medal for bravery?" Degen asked. “What the hell is a medal! To get you out of there, I had to reach the commander!

In June 1944, he was appointed company commander in the Second Guards Tank Breakthrough Brigade.

In October 1944, fighting began in Lithuania, Poland, Prussia ...

There is a list of so-called tank aces, Degen is the sixteenth in it. In six months of continuous fighting, he knocked out and destroyed fifteen tanks on his T-34.

In the winter of 1945, near Eidkunen (now Nesterov), his tank was hit and caught fire. Degen and the shooter, Private Makarov, tried to get out, while Degen was wounded again in the head, chest, and legs. He and Makarov crawled to the cemetery and hid there in some kind of crypt, waiting for the Germans to leave. In the meantime, everyone who was in the tank was buried in one mass grave. Including Jonah himself, his shoulder straps were found at the bottom in a bloody mess.

Many years later, Professor Degen, with his wife and son, visited his grave. The military commissar assured that he should not worry, his grave is in excellent condition ...

I met Victory Day in the hospital. Then there was a month and a half vacation, examinations for a matriculation certificate, then he was assigned to the regiment of the armored forces reserve (tankers called him the MKB - motorcycle crutch battalion), where he waited for demobilization.

For the first time in his life, Degen was in Moscow and used every free day to learn, to see, although it was not easy on crutches. Once, leaving the Tretyakov Gallery, he read: “The Office for the Protection of Copyrights” and remembered: his front-line comrade of the guard, Lieutenant Komarnitsky, who was killed in 1944, set the poem “In a clearing near the school, tanks stopped for a halt” to music. The song became popular and was performed by the Eddie Rosner Orchestra.

He decided to come in. He was warmly welcomed by the management. The conversation turned to poetry: "Read." All employees ran to listen to Degen. And two days later he was summoned by the political officer. “Tomorrow, take my Willis and be at the Central House of Writers by 2 pm, the writers will listen to you.”

About thirty people were waiting for him in the big room. He recognized one immediately, it was Konstantin Simonov, he saw the others for the first time. “Begin,” Simonov suggested. As he read, the situation thickened, he immediately felt it. Only one writer with a burnt face folded his palms each time, as if applauding. (Later Degen found out that it was the former tanker Orlov.) Finally, Simonov interrupted Degen: “Shame on you: a front-line soldier, an order bearer - and so you slander our valiant army! It’s just some kind of Kiplingism, no, it’s too early for you to go to the Literary Institute.”

When he left the CDL, he decided firmly: his feet would never be in this institution.

He entered the Chernivtsi Medical Institute. And when he finished, the "doctors' case" broke out. Neither a red diploma nor the fact that he, as a war invalid, was generally exempted from distribution helped. “There is no place for you in Ukraine!” they told him firmly. He decided to seek protection in Moscow, in the Central Committee of the CPSU - he is a communist, the Central Committee will sort it out. Days passed, he spent the night at the station, no one wanted to deal with him in the reception room of the Central Committee.

The case helped. The KGB officer from the guard recognized Degen as a colleague from the 2nd tank brigade. "Don't worry, I'll arrange a reception for you..."

The reception was short: "Go to Kyiv, there will be a place for you." Indeed, in Kyiv, the Ministry of Health told him that he was appointed to the Institute of Orthopedics. And he just dreamed about it. But when a month later he came for a paycheck, it turned out that he was not even in the order for enrollment. “Make an appointment with the director,” said the secretary. Degen burst into the office. Orders, stripes for wounds. “I am a front-line soldier, and you are mocking me!”

A fat man in an embroidered shirt sitting in an armchair grinned: “But I don’t have any vacancies and are not expected. But these orders, I heard, you can buy at the bazaar in Tashkent.” What followed a minute later is not difficult to predict: I have already written about Degen's character. The blood flooded the “self-style”. But, despite the director's cries, this case did not have any consequences.

Degen left the institute and entered the 13th hospital, where he worked for 21 years.

In 1960, an article appeared in the journal Surgery about the unique operation of the surgeon Degen. He sewed the right forearm to locksmith Uytsekhovsky. He managed to put his hand under the cutter lathe. The operation of this kind was the first in the Union.

In 1960, Degen defended his Ph.D. thesis, in 1973 - his doctorate, since 1977 - he has been in Israel.

But what about his textbook poem? In 1961, one of Degen's friends suggested that he send poems to Youth. Degen refused, then a friend did it himself. Soon the answer came from the magazine: the author needs to work hard, read Pushkin, Mayakovsky ... And 17 years later, Yevgeny Yevtushenko published "My Comrade in Deathly Agony ..." in Ogonyok. He provided the publication with a preface: "A poem by an unnamed author, transmitted by Mikhail Lukonin, who considers it one of the best written about the war." In Tel Aviv, the magazine was handed over to Jonah by his colleague.

A year later, Yevtushenko spoke in Chernivtsi, read "My comrade ...", again saying that the author was unknown. Dr. Nemirovsky, a classmate of Ion, approached him: "It's not like that, Evgeny Aleksandrovich, the author is known." Almost simultaneously, a note appeared in Questions of Literature, in which V. Baevsky wrote about the author Degen. Deputy Editor-in-Chief Lazar Lazarev left for Israel. Almost 50 years after the poem was written, it has been translated into all European languages, and there are countless references to it on the Internet. Ion published in Russia, Ukraine and Israel two books of poetry and eight books of prose.

But he never became a member of any writers' union and never tried. He knows how to keep his word - professor, doctor of sciences, holder of four Soviet and three military Polish orders, tank ace Ion Degen.

My comrade, in death agony

Do not invite your friends in vain.

Let me warm my palms

Above your smoking blood.

Don't cry, don't moan, my little one.

You're not hurt, you're just dead.

Let me take off your boots.

We have yet to advance.

These penetrating lines were written in 1944 by 19-year-old tanker Ion Degen. In July 1941, after the 9th grade, he voluntarily went to the front. Red Army soldier. Scout. Cadet. Tank commander. Tank platoon leader. Tank squad leader. Three times wounded. As a result of the last injury severe disability. Degen was shot in the head. While he was getting out of the tank, seven bullets whipped his arms, and when he fell, four fragments broke his legs. He understood that if the Germans found him now, they would burn him alive. And he decided to shoot himself, but the terrible pain did not even allow him to remove the parabellum from the safety lock. He lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital.

He was awarded orders - the Red Banner, "Patriotic War" 1st degree, two - "Patriotic War" 2nd degree, the medal "For Courage", Polish orders, medals. Tenth in the list of Soviet tank aces !!!

In the summer of 1945, when he was barely hobbled on crutches, he was unexpectedly invited to the House of Writers to read poetry along with other front-line poets. Konstantin Simonov, who was then at the height of his fame, presided. There were Mikhail Dudin, Sergei Orlov, also a tanker... Degen did not remember the others by name. When he read "My comrade, in death agony ...", everyone seemed to freeze. And then it started. Ion Degen recalls: “They didn’t just bark and grit. Rubbed into dust. How could a communist, an officer become such an apologist for cowardice, looting, could slander the valiant Red Army? Some kind of Kipling. And further. And further".

After the war, an orthopedic doctor. In 1977 he left for Israel, where he worked as a doctor for another twenty years. Now he is retired, he is 83 years old.

You won't go crazy at the front,

Not learning to forget right away.

We raked out of wrecked tanks

Anything that can be buried in a grave.

The brigade commander rested his chin on his tunic.

I hid my tears. Enough. Stop doing that.

And in the evening the driver taught me

How to properly dance padespan.

Random raid on the enemy's rear.

Just input decided the fate of the battle.

But the orders will not go to us.

Thank you, at least nothing less than oblivion.

For our random crazy fight

Recognize the brilliant commander.

But the main thing is that we survived with you.

And the truth is what? After all, that is how it is done.

September 1944

Gaping in thick frontal armor

Hole. A blank went through the armor.

We are used to everything in the war.

And yet near the frozen tank

I pray fate

when ordered to fight

When the rocket takes off, matchmaker's death,

Do not see even in thoughts above yourself

From this hole of whipping fear.

November 1944

Sources of information: Wikipedia, Evgeny Yevtushenko


In Bryansk, we had two nameless stanzas in use, striking with their merciless truth about everyday life in the trenches, about the acute feeling of every minute fatal risk, inseparable from the concept of military duty. Let's listen to these harsh lines spilled out of a long-suffering but courageous soul:

My comrade, in death agony
Do not call friends in vain,
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.

Don't cry, don't moan, you're not small
You're not hurt, you're just dead.
Let me take off your boots as a keepsake,
I still have to come.

This octagon could at first shock, even seem cynical. But to people who were always in the zone of fire, these lines were clear. There was an irresistible truth in them.

Naturally, the publication of such poems was then out of the question. This was understood by their author, who by no means sought to make his name public. But, perhaps, and against his will, composed by him went, as they say, in a circle. Samizdat also existed during the war.

For the first time these lines saw the light many years later. Vasily Grossman brought them in his novel "Life and Fate", whose tragic fate is well known.

The book itself was also a moment of formidable truth. The first edition of the novel appeared in the West. But the author of the octist was still unknown, for Grossman, of course, did not know him when writing the book either. And Vasily Semenovich heard odious lines on the Stalingrad front. This means that they were known there, as well as in other parts of the great battle.

In 1988, Yevtushenko published in Ogonyok, with a sequel, a poetic anthology compiled by him, The Muse of the 20th Century. In one of the issues, he published a wandering front-line masterpiece, saying that, according to rumors, the legendary lines were found in the tablet of a lieutenant who fell in battle. The name of the author was still a mystery. The compiler of the anthology expressed the opinion that these poems are brilliant. A year later, at the beginning of "perestroika", Grossman's novel was finally published in his homeland. The unnamed poems saw the light of day for the third time, gaining many new readers.

And suddenly everything became clear. In the journal Stolitsa, a well-known critic and literary critic, a participant in the war, L. Lazarev, published a short essay entitled: “This only happens in life.” We will use excerpts from this publication: “Many years ago, Viktor Nekrasov invited me to Kyiv to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Victory Day. A large company of front-line soldiers, whose soul was Nekrasov, gathered on May 9 in the bureau " literary newspaper". The company is quite motley, not only writers and journalists, but also a documentary filmmaker, a doctor, an architect ... young surgeon, whose name was either not told to me, or I forgot. However, soon from him - he recognized himself - a letter came and his memories of Nekrasov. Oddly enough, my little book reached Israel, where he left in 1977.

At the same time, the journal "Questions of Literature", where I work, published an article by the Smolensk literary critic V. Baevsky; he established who the author of one famous, long years a military poem that existed in the literary environment: “My comrade, in mortal agony ...”

So it turned out that the Kiev surgeon with whom I celebrated Victory Day in the company of Nekrasov and the author of the legendary poem are one and the same person. His name is Ion Lazarevich Degen. How can you not say here that life is a bad screenwriter, it creates the most unexpected, completely implausible associations.

Degen, a sixteen-year-old teenager, volunteered for the front, became a tanker, was seriously wounded more than once, and burned in a tank. During the war he began to write poetry. But after the victory, being a twenty-year-old invalid, he preferred medicine to poetry. Apparently, the skill and dedication of the doctors who saved his life influenced the choice further fate. In addition, his attempts to publish what he wrote at the front ended in constant failure. The editors accused him of "slandering" and "deheroizing".

Degen is a humble person. He does not consider himself a genius at all. Furthermore, did not return to literature for a long time. Now, in his declining years, he began to write short stories and memoirs. But the main occupation is a traumatologist-orthopedist. Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor. At one time he was vice-president of the Israeli Council of Veterans of the Patriotic War.

Now he can rightfully find his name not only in a medical encyclopedia, but also in any poetic anthology.

Now we are in friendly correspondence with him.

Previous about the same.

The poems of this poet are not published in school textbooks, few people know them, just like about him. Iona Degen, soviet soldier who described the most terrible war like no other. And because of this, his work simply did not dare to be widely publicized. Why? To do this, read the following lines:

My comrade, in death agony
Do not invite your friends in vain.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.

Don't cry, don't moan, you're not small
You're not hurt, you're just dead.
Let me take off your boots as a keepsake.
We have yet to advance.

Jonah Degen was one of those who were broken and reforged at once by that great war. He was only in 9th grade when summer holidays in Ukraine overnight turned into a struggle for survival, and the pioneer camp became a battlefield. Then it still seemed that the war - a fun and gambling battle, would last quite a bit and you must definitely catch it. Together with classmates, Degen escaped from the evacuation train and wormed his way into the ranks of the 130th Infantry Division. A month later, they all died, and the surviving poet had the following lines:

The ninth grade ended only yesterday.
Will I ever finish the tenth?
Holidays are a happy time.
And suddenly - a trench, a carbine, grenades,

And above the river a burnt house to the ground,
The roommate is forever lost.
I'm confused helplessly in everything
That cannot be measured by school standards.

Exit from the encirclement, injury, hospital. The recovered Jonah was still under 18, so instead of the front he was sent to the Caucasus, working as a tractor driver. However, the war also came there, which turned into new battles for the soldier and another, very serious wound. Having miraculously survived, he again rushes to the front, but the authorities make a different decision.

As an experienced tractor driver and fighter, Degen was sent to study at a tank school, from where he gets straight to the front on a brand new 34-ke. And then there will be something that will go down in legend - 8 grueling months of becoming a hero. Degen's crew was not just the best, his tank was bypassed by misfortune, although they constantly climbed into the thick of it. An endless series of battles, tank duels, incredible tension. It happened to burn and lose comrades, but gradually Jonah gained a reputation as a lucky man, whom they looked up to and who they wanted to go into battle for.

You won't go crazy at the front,
Not learning to forget right away.
We raked out of wrecked tanks
Anything that can be buried in a grave.

The brigade commander rested his chin on his tunic.
I hid my tears. Enough. Stop doing that.
And in the evening the driver taught me
How to properly dance padespan.

Summer 1944

Random raid on the enemy's rear.
Only a platoon decided the fate of the battle.
But the orders will not go to us.
Thank you, at least nothing less than oblivion.

For our random crazy fight
Recognize the brilliant commander.
But the main thing is that we survived with you.
And the truth is what? After all, that is how it is done.

September 1944

Constant pressure, imminent death, the death of comrades - all this has a bad effect on the human psyche, but gives food for creativity. Degen wrote what would later be unofficially called the best verse about war:

... Do not cry, do not moan, you are not small,
you're not hurt, you're just dead.
let me take off your felt boots as a keepsake.
we still have to come.

Click the button below to continue...

His name is on a large granite monument over the mass grave, he can also be found in the documents: 55th in the list of tank aces of the USSR, Iona Lazarevich Degen. Guard lieutenant, 16 victories (including 1 "Tiger", 8 "Panthers"), twice presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, awarded the Order of the Red Banner. On January 21, 1945, his tank was knocked out, and the crew was shot point-blank. Degen himself received 7 bullet wounds, several wounds from shrapnel, a broken jaw and, on top of that, sepsis. To save him, the doctor committed an official crime and injected the mortally wounded tanker with the most deficient penicillin. And Jonah survived, but received a disability. And he was only 19 years old.

After the war, Iona Degen decided to become a doctor by all means and achieved considerable success in his field. He graduated from the medical institute, began to operate, and in 1959, for the first time in the world, he performed a unique operation - he successfully sewed back a severed arm. Jewish roots prevented Degen from building a career, but he defended both his doctoral and candidate's degrees. The quarrelsome, straightforward invalid did not develop relations with the authorities, so in 1977 Degen moved to Israel, where he continues to work as a doctor.

Iona Degen never renounced his homeland and did not forget either her or those with whom he had to share the hardships of the war. When, in 2012, the Russian military attache in Israel handed out anniversary awards to veterans, Degen read the new terms to all those gathered:

Habitually molasses spilled speech.
In the mouth set on edge from the words of unctuous.
Royally on our hunched shoulders
Added a load of anniversary medals.

Solemnly, so sugary-sweetly,
Moisture trickles down her cheeks from her eyes.
And why do you think they need our glory?
Why ... they need our former courage?

Silently time is wise and weary
Hardly scars wounds, but no trouble.
On a jacket in the metal collection
Another medal for Victory Day.

And there was a time, rejoiced at the load
And overcoming the pain of loss bitterly,
Shouted "I serve the Soviet Union!"
When they screwed the order to the tunic.

Now everything is smooth as the surface of the abyss.
Equal within current morality
And those who whore in the distant headquarters,
And those who were in the tanks burned alive.

The time of heroes or the time of scoundrels - we ourselves always choose how to live.

He passed away on April 27, 2017. Iona Degen went down in history as the person who created it. With weapons in hand in the war, with a surgeon's scalpel after it, with a weighty word and a tough stance, always and everywhere.