During World War I, the following text could be found in the pages of various publications in our city:
But I’m not sure the women of our beloved city needed to be asked for help more than once during 1914–1918. At that time, the women of Kharkiv were already doing quite a lot on their own. Today, we’ll be talking specifically about their involvement in various aspects of life in wartime Kharkiv.
With the outbreak of war in 1914—just as in 2014—many women became volunteers. It all began with the so-called “Wagon Drive” held on the streets of our city, where people collected supplies for the soldiers.
As the fighting intensified, the army’s needs grew. Women belonging to various organizations in Kharkiv took the initiative to collect and handcraft items for the soldiers—such as the much-needed respirators. Women from various ethnic and religious communities joined this important effort. For example, women from the Jewish community made gifts for the soldiers. And the Muslim Women’s Committee for Aid to the Wounded sewed underwear for them.
However, it wasn’t just the soldiers on the front lines and in military hospitals who needed help and support. After all, the lives of the families of soldiers called to war from cities and provinces were, unfortunately, quite difficult during World War I. To support them, special centers were set up in Kharkiv in August 1914 where soldiers’ wives could receive financial assistance. Special soup kitchens were also established for the children, some of which were set up through private initiatives. Alas, this proved insufficient. By the fall of 1915, newspapers were reporting on the situation facing the families of Kharkiv soldiers:
“A Soldier’s Wife in the Village.
We have a rough idea of what life is like for the wives of reservists in the city. Life is hard. True, the families of soldiers in the city are under the care of a charitable organization, and yet, how burdensome this care often is—how many hardships a soldier’s wife must sometimes endure before she receives her ration. And how many grievances and insults await her at home when she brings those few kopecks home and is unable to plug the enormous holes in her strained household budget. We are all familiar, for example, with cases of soldiers’ wives being evicted from their apartments and the like.
But if the life of a soldier’s wife in the city is hard, one can only imagine what life is like for a woman without a husband in the village, under the care of the rural authorities…”
However, the women of Kharkiv truly did everything they could, and I believe things would have been much worse if the “Working Women’s Society” and its active member, Fanny Nikolaevna Shenfogel, had not been providing assistance to soldiers’ families in our city. In Kharkiv during World War I, her name became, without exaggeration, legendary among the residents. Now, unfortunately, very few people remember Fanny Shenfogel. So I’d like to take a moment to talk a little about what she did for our city during the war years.
So, Fanny was born in 1880 in Kyiv to the family of Davydov, a wealthy Kyiv sugar manufacturer. She received her education in distant Siberia. After graduating from high school, she lived in Belgium for a while, then married an engineer and moved to our city. In Kharkiv, the Shenfogel couple had a son and a daughter. However, when the war began, Fanny Nikolaevna completely set aside her family life and devoted herself entirely to serving those in need. The young woman began to take an active part in organizing field hospitals for the wounded and in the work of city welfare boards to provide assistance to soldiers’ families. At the Balashovsky Railway Station, which in the summer and fall of 1915 was overflowing with refugees arriving in Kharkiv in an endless stream, Fanny helped receive people every day. In charge of organizing nurseries, shelters, and an isolation ward, Fanny personally bathed the arriving children and drove them to hospitals herself, managing to bring love, care, and order wherever she went.
Those who were fortunate enough to work with her and know her personally recalled:
…I saw before me a person who was active, persistent, and energetic—someone who would stop at nothing, not even obstacles or difficulties, to achieve his goal and fulfill the social obligations he had voluntarily taken on. How necessary, how valuable such people are in our demanding, complex times. Very often, and in great abundance, I had to listen to conversations about refugees in ladies’ society.
— Just think how terrible it is! Children who have lost their parents. Who are they, where are they from?
These were very long conversations in which the words “horrible” and “horrible” were repeated so often, accompanied by sighs, head-shaking, regret, and sympathy. And how few of these sympathetic, sighing, head-shaking women actually took up a meaningful and necessary cause, set to work, and rallied under the banner of the hardworking, loving, and faithful women of the home front. It turned out that some were already working, others had already grown weary, a third group was occupied with something else, and a fourth had simply grown accustomed to it all; as a result, the number of women actually working could be counted on one hand, while those sighing and shaking their heads numbered in the hundreds. To be honest, this, too, is one of life’s sad truths. Fanny Nikolaevna did not sigh; she did not utter the word “horrible” with particular emphasis; nor did she engage in long conversations—she simply had no time for that—but, having grasped the suffering inherent in grief, she went about her work, working until she forgot herself and her own family, often working from morning until night. And when people spoke to her about this grief, about the work, about the refugees, there were again no idle lamentations, but rather the words of a proactive, active person: “This has been done; we’re sorting this out; we’re taking care of that.” This is the kind of understanding of grief, of the events being experienced, and the attitude toward them that is needed: “We’ve done it. We’re doing it.” And most importantly, Fanny Nikolaevna didn’t need to be urged on. She sought out tasks herself, found work on her own, devoted herself to it entirely, and, whenever possible, inspired others to join her. And all of this was done simply, humanely, without the usual calculations and considerations of “who is older,” “who is more important,” “who should be in charge, whom to obey,” “whose wife is she,” and so on. She was the embodiment of a most admirable woman of the home front, one who deserves a deep bow.
In early November 1915, Fanny—who, as usual, had been working tirelessly—contracted typhus, fell ill, and on the 17th, at the age of 35, died suddenly. The news of her death came as a shock to both the members of the city’s executive commission for the welfare of reservists’ families and ordinary residents. All of Kharkiv mourned her.
During the funeral, a huge crowd followed the casket, which was literally buried in flowers. Many of those who delivered eulogies that day spoke of how the best way to honor the deceased would be to follow her example of serving the cause of helping soldiers’ families and refugees. And indeed, the life and work of the tireless Fanny Nikolaevna Shenfogel went on to inspire and motivate many more women in our city to take action.
Well, I think that the now-forgotten name of this selfless woman, who died so young, deserves a place among those who are considered or referred to as the great women of Kharkiv.
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