in Vasya's apartment which was filled with books. Savicheva recorded his death under the letter в, mixing up some of her grammar, with the words, "Uncle Vasya died on April 13th at 2 o'clock in the morning, 1942." The death of her eldest uncle Lesha followed in May at the age of 71 from malnutrition. He too had tried to enlist in the military but was refused, being too old. Despite his age he remained active in the civilian effort in Leningrad. Savicheva recorded his death on the facing page of the letter Л and left off the word 'died'. "Uncle Lesha May 10th, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, 1942" Finally her mother died on the morning of May 13, 1942. Mariya Ignatievna Savicheva was born in 1889 and worked as a seamstress, which she continued during the civilian war effort by sewing soldiers' uniforms. Mariya had loved music and encouraged all her children to play in a family ensemble. Savicheva recorded her death under the letter М, again making grammatical errors and missing the word 'died', "Mama on May 13th at 7:30 in the morning, 1942." Following the death of her mother it seems Savicheva lost hope and under three more letters: С, У and О she filled three more pages with the words, "The Savichevs are dead." "Everyone is dead." "Only Tanya is left." After her rescue After the death of her mother, Savicheva stayed with a neighbour the next night and then, although severely weakened, took the family's personal belongings to the house of her aunt Evdokiya (Dusya). Her aunt, hoping Savicheva might receive urgent medical care, then transferred custody of Savicheva to public orphanage number 48 in the Smolny area of St. Petersburg. In August 1942, Tanya was one of the 140 children who were rescued from Leningrad and brought to the village of Krasny Bor. Anastasiya Karpova, a teacher in the Krasny Bor orphanage, wrote to Tanya's brother Mikhail, who happened to be outside of Leningrad in 1941: "Tanya is now alive, but she doesn't look healthy. A doctor, who visited her recently, says she is very ill. She needs rest, special care, nutrition, better climate and, most of all, tender motherly care." In May 1944, Tanya was sent to a hospital in Shatki, where she died a month later, on 1 July, of intestinal tuberculosis. Nina Savicheva and Mikhail Savichev returned to Leningrad