This is John Batchelor, conversation with my colleague, Svetlana Lakova, the historian, on V.E. Day,

the 8th of May in Europe, V.E. Day, the 9th of May in Moscow, because of the hour.

Recalling her grandmother, Svetlana, what Svetlana did in the war. She was a student and then the war, and then Stalingrad.

And what did she do before and after the Battle of Stalingrad? How did she achieve? With the bricks

needed to rebuild the tractor factory of Stalingrad, the tractor factory that was, in fact, the tractors built

by Ford turned into the T-34 tank that won the war, well, certainly won the Battle of Kursk,

and marched all the way to Berlin, mentioning that the grandfather drove a T-34 tank all the way to Berlin.

Here's Svetlana's story of her grandmother Svetlana and the bricks of the tractor factory of Stalingrad.

Much more of this tonight.

Yes, so she was a young student, so women were participating on the domestic front.

And she worked for what was called the Stalingradtrakhter factory.

But in fact, tractor factory was in fact a tank factory where they produced the T-34s and it was a secret factory because they didn't

want the Germans to know where the T-34s are produced. So after the Battle of Stalingrad,

her job along with the female sort of building battalion as it would be called in those days,

was to re-re basically put back together the walls of the factory. And she beat the record by the number of bricks that she managed

by bare hands to put together to rebuild the Stalingrad tractor, which was actually the tank

T-34 factory.