Tatyana Nikolayevna Savicheva (), commonly referred to as Tanya Savicheva (23 January 1930 – 1 July 1944), was a Russian child diarist who endured the siege of Leningrad during World War II. During the siege, Savicheva recorded the successive deaths of each member of her family in her diary, with her final entry indicating her belief to be the sole living family member. Although Savicheva was rescued and transferred to a hospital, she succumbed to intestinal tuberculosis in July 1944 at age 14. Savicheva's image and the pages from her diary became symbolic of the human cost of the siege of Leningrad, and she is remembered in St. Petersburg with a memorial complex on the Green Belt of Glory along the Road of Life. Her diary was used during the Nuremberg Trials as evidence of the Nazis’ crimes. Early life Savicheva was born on 23 January 1930, the youngest child in the family of a baker father, Nikolay Rodionovich Savichev, and a seamstress mother, Mariya Ignatievna Savicheva. Her father died when Tanya was six, leaving his widow with five children: three girls — Tanya, Zhenya (Yevgenia) and Nina — and two boys — Mikhail and Leka (Leonid). Mikhail had left Leningrad before war broke out. Whilst in German-occupied territory at Kingisepp Mikhail had joined the partisans. Mikhail's story was not known to the rest of his family who presumed him to be dead. The family planned to spend the summer of 1941 in the countryside, but the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June disrupted their plans. All, except Mikhail (Misha), who had already left, decided to stay in Leningrad. Each of them worked to support the army: Mariya Ignatievna sewed uniforms, Leka worked as a plane operator in the Admiralty, Zhenya worked at the munitions factory, Nina helped in the construction of city defences and worked at the munitions factory with her sister, and her uncles Vasya and Lesha served in the anti-aircraft defence. Tanya, then 11 years old, dug trenches and put out firebombs. One day Nina went to work and never came back; she was sent to Lake Ladoga and then urgently evacuated. The family was unaware of this and presumed she had died. Origins of the diary Tanya had kept a real diary in previous months. This diary had been a large, thick notebook in which she recorded her day-to-day life, but the family