Girl With A Sniper Rifle: An Eastern Front Memoir by Yulia Zhukova

Like most first-hand accounts of the war on the Eastern Front, readers will usually find something worthwhile in a memoir about the Second World War. "Girl with a Sniper Rifle" is no different in that regard. This slim 200 page volume contains about 50 pages dedicated to 'action' on the frontline, about 100 pages of background information from Zhukova's life at home and training at a sniper school, and the final 50 pages tackle her life after her return from the front with a fair amount of space dedicated to her reunion after thirty years with her comrades.

Overall, the story is typical for those familiar with eastern front memoirs. Zhukova was trained as a sniper and joined a rifle division toward the end of the war, participating in actions throughout Prussia and ending the war around Königsberg. She has eight confirmed kills but participated in numerous actions, including defensive fighting when her unit was encircled. So her total count is undoubtedly higher but due to the chaos of war we'll never know the true figure and in this case it's secondary to the story she sets out to tell. In general readers should take these memoirs, as with all others, with a grain of salt. Zhukova destroyed much of her letters, and with them her memories, of the war immediately after it ended and undoubtedly places, events, dates, names, etc., can become difficult to recall, which the author readily admits. Nonetheless, when put in desperate situations where life and death are on the line, those memories will make an impact on combatants and will be difficult if not impossible to forget, including their lasting effects on a person's senses (smells, sights, touch, taste, etc.). As such, while Zhukova might not have experienced years on the frontline, her few months left her with memories and experiences that help us better understand what Red Army forces experienced, survived, and what many Soviet women had to contend with in addition to the enemy during their time at the front.