Children at the machines
Home-front factories
- a teenager's shift at the factory
- 10–12 h
- a teenager's shift at the factory
Fathers and older brothers had gone to the front, so teenagers took their places at the machines. Some were so small they worked standing on boxes. Schoolchildren collected scrap metal, knitted mittens for soldiers and worked in the fields. The home-front motto was simple: “Everything for the front, everything for Victory!”
Teenagers' shifts lasted 10–12 hours. After work many fell asleep right there in the workshop, beside the warm machines. Youth brigades competed to make the most parts and often did two or three times the quota.
Children on the home front also worked in the fields: gleaning ears of wheat, weeding, carting grain. Young Pioneers wrote letters to soldiers, gave concerts in hospitals and looked after the wounded.
See it on the map