LiberationJoyful
· Day 1024 of 1418
Odessa is free
Odessa
- days of occupation
- 907
- days of occupation
On 10 April 1944 Odessa was liberated. Throughout the occupation, partisans had operated in the city’s catacombs, the tunnels beneath its streets. They came out to greet the liberators.
During the occupation the city was run by the Romanian authorities, Germany's allies. Partisans hid in the catacombs, hundreds of kilometres of underground galleries where stone for building the city had once been quarried. They lived there, cooked and printed leaflets.
As it retreated the enemy planned to blow up the port and the city centre, but the underground fighters and partisans stopped it.
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