A low moan rose from the rubble behind them. It wasn't a soldier. A woman, her face smeared with soot, emerged from a hidden cellar hole. She held a dented tin cup. "Water?" she asked, her eyes hollow and glassy.

Many descriptions of the psychological toll on soldiers and civilians are captured in Vasily Grossman’s epic novels .

A term used by German soldiers to describe the brutal, close-quarters urban combat where every room and cellar had to be fought for.