"Come on," he said to Sasha, who was shivering uncontrollably. "One more day."

Across the narrow, cratered street, the ruins of a department store loomed like a rotting tooth. Shadowy figures in field-gray moved through the second-floor windows. This was the "Rat’s War." There were no sweeping charges here, only room-to-room struggles where men fought with sharpened spades and jagged pieces of glass.

Nikolai shook his head. The pipes had been dry for months. They sucked on ice chips to keep their tongues from swelling. He reached into his quilted jacket and pulled out a hard, black crust of bread—his entire ration for the day. He broke it in half and handed a piece to the woman. She took it without a word and vanished back into the dark.

The strategic encirclement of the German 6th Army by Soviet forces during Operation Uranus .