The destiny of the man who has written these memoirs is unwinding itself not unlike a super-strong spring.
Our countryman, Sigismund Anatolievich Diczbalis, was born in Petrograd in 1922. Here he finished high school. In the summer of 1941, being a loyal son of his City and his Motherland, without any hesitation, on the first day of the war he went as a volunteer to the front to defend all that was so dear to him.
His following life story contains enough material for a dozen adventure novels and film scenarios. But most important - in his destiny one can see the flames of history, the flames of very hard and nasty times for our Russia and the whole world!
We are not able to be his judges!
We cannot extol the author and his behavior. But the logical reason for publishing his book, in our opinion, is that in it THE REAL LIFE of the REAL PERSON - The PERSONALITY, is brought to you, the Reader, without any enhancement or moral readings.
In this life, you may agree or disagree, is a part of our common Russian History - a PART OF OUR PAIN.
For nearly half the century, the words "VLASOV-man", "CRIMINAL" and "TRAITOR", were synonymous. Not many have tried to check if this is correct. Most of us are "taking what has been given". Well, considering the past circumstances, no one is going to blame us for this......
It could be said that the author is (or was) a "Vlasov-man". But in names and "labels" are often hidden evil intentions. Those labels are inclined to make you forget that behind them are living people with unique lives. Therefore we publish the memoirs without any intention to produce a verdict of guilty or not guilty, or even to "value" somehow the "Vlasov- movement". We just do not count ourselves to have the right to define anything of the sort.
Before us - the memoirs of a man. who lived a fierce life in which sufferings, deadly chances, even death itself, were the" daily norm".
This life absorbed in itself the cruel tornado of events which "shook" our Motherland and the whole world, not for one year only!
The path of this life did not go by detours, to the side of the happenings, but went right through the hell of World War II!!.
Was the way chosen by him a rightful one (or was his way destined) - this judgment is not for us. This will be judged by God himself. And this would be the only rightful judgment!
In front of us - an amazing destiny. In it - many episodes, every one of which would be enough for a whole story.
But amazing is also this fact- the loyal love of human heart towards his country, his city, even to his classmates. Nothing was forgotten.....
And how this man was attracted to his Motherland, where to the very last moment before Perestroika he would have been dealt with most severely.
Nearly half a century - away from everything native to him.....
This long, long absence could be already felt even in phraseology of the author of the memoirs. We made the decision to keep those acquired in his absence, deviations from to-day's speech, for the sake of saving this very valuable, living character of the language used in this book.
Concerning the contents - we feel that it is also about Russia. And in spite of the author living in a very opposite part of our world - it is Russia's destiny, in which, in its own manner, is reflected also the destiny of our Motherland.
WINTER 1922
18 January
Falling snow-flakes cover yesterday's slippery ice with a thin layer of dry snow. A tall, well-built man in military uniform, and a finely-boned young woman carefully walk along the street, happily chatting. She wears a felt jacket, the tiny buttons and buttonholes straining and failing to meet halfway down, are a sign of her condition. The man tenderly supports his companion by the elbow, ready to prevent a possible fall. After a visit to the doctor who confirmed that everything is fine, and that very soon they would be a family of three, they are returning home.
The young woman who had just completed her Diploma of Pediatrics, is cheerfully telling her husband that with her knowledge the child will grow strong and healthy. And, at this very moment, she slips on a patch of ice!
Wildly attempting to save her from falling, the husband loses his balance and awkwardly lands on top of his expectant wife. He hurriedly gets to his feet but she begins to whimper and begs him not to lift her, feeling that the event expected in a couple of weeks is about to happen now.
Hailing a passing sledge he places his wife on it and quickly brings her to the hospital, the same one they had left just a few minutes before. Delivering her to the care of doctors who are somewhat anxious about her after hearing what has happened, he begins to fill in a patient's admittance form:
"Patient: Yanina Nikolaevna Diczbalis, born 1900, married one and a half years. Brought to hospital by Anatoly Sigismundovich Diczbalis, her husband. Both registered at address: Leningrad, Kasanskaya 6/44."
Her case history is already in the hospital records.
*****
He sent a short message to his mother-in-law, then sitting on a bench with head lowered in his hands, he awaited mournful news. Through his head passed memories of the last few years when, being a battalion commander, he defended the young Soviet power from all who disagreed with it and put themselves in its way. With fighting over he, being wounded, spent some time in hospital where he became acquainted with a young female medical student who made the inspection rounds with the hospital doctors.
His high forehead and blue eyes attracted her and their intelligent chats brought them towards a compatibility of characters. Engagement. Wedding. With medical degree attained, Yanina became the wife of the Lithuanian officer.
At the beginning of their marriage they had no time for parenthood, they had to finish what had been left unfinished. Besides, Yanina's mother, Valeria Antonovna, could not tolerate Anatoly: "Why do we need a Lithuanian in our family?" she objected to her daughter. But the marriage was registered. Somehow he managed to convince his mother-in-law that he loved her daughter and would make her a good husband. He was fifteen years older than his wife. After a while, in spite of frightful times, the idea of having a child grew on them. And in a couple of weeks their dreams should be resulting in a happy event.
And now this happened!
In his hopeless musing Anatoly did not notice the approach of his mother-in-law. She touched his bowed head, announcing with a feeling of strong disappointment: - "Eto hooligan malchishka!" - (It's a hooligan boy!)
This "hooligan", absolutely undamaged by his father's weight, and premature birth, and everything else, was named in honour of his paternal grandfather, Sigismund.
*****
This Sigismund, or as mother called him, "Sigmus", coming to old age, suddenly got the idea to put his memoirs on to paper (as do many old men with an interesting past.) His war memoirs were published under the pseudonym of "A. Dubov". His adventures in faraway Australia where his destiny brought him, were laid open in a 46-page letter to his schoolmates in St. Petersburg who encouraged him to write something about his childhood and school years, then put all three together in one book.
And now, half with his own remembering and half with help from his schoolmates during meetings in 1992 and 1993, when he visited his Motherland, he has put together a few lines which make it possible to create a "portrait" of a simple human being, but one with interesting turns in his destiny.
********
"Hooligan boy"- these words I had to hear many, many times from my grandmother, and this foreword which you have just read has been made possible by the stories of those fateful days told me many, many times by my grandmother.
About my first six months of life I remember very little!
Happenings at the end of June 1922 were kept secret from me for a long time and now I am managing to put together the bits and pieces I have discovered at different times and in different circumstances. So, for /exactness of detail, I cannot give any real guarantee.
A letter from a solicitor in Lithuania arrived suddenly. My grandfather had gone to better pastures, leaving to his children quite a substantial inheritance. It was necessary that his son be present for the lawful distribution of the estate. My father, obtaining leave of absence from his unit, arrived at a border post and ..... disappeared!
Letters arrived from Lithuania one after the other: why is my father not coming and why is he detaining the settlement of the will?
All inquiries addressed to the border post received standard answers: "So and so went over the border then and then. Present whereabouts unknown."
And so the young wife and mother was left in a bewildering situation.
Either her husband had abandoned her and her son, or he had been "disposed of" at the border, without notification to his family. Or he had been arrested and was sitting somewhere as a traitor of Soviet power, which he had always so loyally defended.
Of course, this matter was discussed many, many times between my mother and grandmother, but if I was present, the talk was in French which I could not understand.
I had always discounted the last consideration (his arrest). My mother, till the day of her death in 1935, honestly filled in many official forms, answering the question of her husband's whereabouts- as "Unknown" - and no one bothered her about this. This means he was not under arrest.
First consideration (abandonment of his family): also not a sound reason - because if an officer was deserting from his unit it would not be unnoticed in high places and mother would be questioned as an accomplice.
Second -"disposed of" through misunderstanding and authorities not admitting it- this is my conclusion based on supposition only.
So, whatever the case, I have not seen my father since then. How my mother managed to exist without remarrying it is hard to say. The infant and the child sees life in rainbow colours independent of what goes on around him. Well, one must also consider that childhood memories are wilting.
First subconscious glimmers of different, unconnected images in different places of Russia and in very different situations are coming to my mind as in a kaleidoscope.
Here one must explain that my mother at this time, according to orders from high-positioned people, was excluded from medical practice and she found herself, according to "their" will, in a sort of managing position in the offices of "Kirovskaya" or "Octyabrskaya" railway. It seems to me that at a certain time the whole family was living in a railway wagon, half of which was converted into an office. The wagon was disconnected on different stations and mother checked the productivity of local management which came to her at her "office".
*********
Now, I am sitting on a window-sill in a basement flat (I don't know why but I think this was in the city of Saratov on the Volga) and repeat without tiredness: "I want home, I want home, I want home .............." I suspect I was living with friends - my grandmother was sick with some sort of contagious disease.
******
Or, I am running along the station platform with local kids between stalls selling all things imaginable - sweets, exotic dried fruits. I suppose it was somewhere behind Alma-Ata (in the southern part of Russia).
******
Often my grandmother took me to faraway villages for holidays during summertime. One such trip nearly cost me my life. Somewhere in the south-east I caught tropical malaria and seemed to be nearing my end. My temperature was becoming outside the body's endurance, but afterwards I was shaking as I was sitting naked on a piece of ice. However, there was no doctor in the vicinity and my poor grandmother already was losing all her hope of bringing me back to mother alive. Then, as from nowhere arrived a very old Babushka who passed to my grandmother a bundle of young lilac leaves with instructions to make a strong brew, then disappeared with the words: "The boy is dying anyhow. Let him drink this brew, perhaps he will pull through."
Today I still remember the unpalatable taste of this brew. But the boy did pull through.
*****
At a different time I was a guest of friends of our family - I don't remember which.
It was awfully hot during the nights. I and their little son slept on the floor in the same room as his parents. And here, instinctively, the two little fellows became aware of something going on which they should not know much about. The moon shone directly through the window filling the room with a silver light. Pretending to be asleep, we followed every movement of the grown-ups, and by moonlight for the first time I could see an absolutely nude woman's body. Such matters are unforgettable - why?
*****
Not all the time did my mother travel through faraway places of the Soviet Union. I remember some days when she sat through the night at home trying to cope with accumulated reports. I helped too! In front of my eyes - a table covered with some sort of receipt books. In my hands a rubber stamp, in front of me a stamp pad, and I am working my way through the leaves of the books till my arm tells me it's time to stop. And, calculating in the head how many books are still left, I look at my mother bent over the heap in front of her - and they are large books.
*****
I am also able to remember how, in winter, Mama often took me for a ride on the sledges. Once after returning home I noticed that, placing me under care of my grandmother, Mama was about to go back with her friends whom we had just left. I began to throw a tantrum, "I want to go with you". My mother explained to me that it was already too late and time to go to bed, and before sleeping I should read "White Fang " by Jack London. Getting angry, to offend her I exclaimed that not only this book but no other book would be read by me from this moment (and at this time, being pre-school age, with mother's help I had learned to read so well that afterwards I was able to enter school in second class). Then Mama, already nearly behind the door, said to me: "Doing this you will only hurt yourself!" - and went away, leaving me with my grandmother and my philosophical thinking overrunning me. The whole matter ended in such a way that, not wanting to "hurt" myself, I read the book till the end and till now well remember that evening.
*****
It is easy to understand why another moment engraved itself deeply on my memory: It was either New Year or my mother's birthday which are very close together. The guests were sipping home-made cherry liqueur, a very large vessel of which was prepared soon after the cherries ripened, and we - the children of guests and I - were running around a large table covered with delicacies which could not be imagined on normal days. Trying to stand out and miscalculating on the turn, I ran into the corner of the table, knocking out several front teeth, luckily milk teeth. It is not necessary to explain that I spoilt the evening for everyone.
*****
Once, someplace, I was catching crayfish. The water was perfectly clear. Every detail of the underwater landscape was as visible as the palm of my hand. One had, of course, to move slowly against the current and carefully observe or investigate every large stone underwater. Then, nearly always from the shadowy side, the tail of the crayfish was sticking out. And, if the depth of the water did not exceed the length of one's arm, one could grab it by the neck and, avoiding its imposing claws, pull it from under the stone and placing it in a net go and look for another one.
*****
My first realization of the meaning of the word "death" came before school days. I was, again with grandmother, in some district where there were heavy fights with the White Army during the Revolution times. Remembering ... a deep ravine where in company of village boys I was busying myself with that which was strictly forbidden. We were "excavating", looking for ammunition, empty machine gun belts, bayonets and other relics from the war times.
Once I with the boys, and a girl who had somehow joined us, came together to the edge of the ravine for some sort of competition. Who could distinguish himself most with the longest jet of contents from the bladder? Competitors were lined up and, on a command, fired a broadside. To our amazement the squatting girl was clearly the winner. Not believing his eyes, one of the youths came very close to the edge of this ravine to look under her skirt to see if there was any tricky business. Under his weight the edge gave way and he began to slide down, grabbing hold of anything that came in his grasp. Whooom!!! There was a sound of sudden explosion. None of us on top could remember afterwards how we managed to come to the village and report it to grown-ups. Only the next day I went outside from the cabin where we were living, and still shaking from the happening, entered with grandmother the house of the family of the youth killed by the exploding shell. A small open coffin stood in the middle of the room. I could see the blue face of the poor dead boy as I filed past with only a short delay to swallow the offered spoon of sweet rice and raisins, as was the custom of those days. I went on the street still seeing the mutilated face of the boy.
*****
Not all my adventures ended with such gloom.
Somehow I found myself under the care of grandmother's relations in a place called Gatton. I'm not sure whether I stayed there long, or if because I misbehaved so often the time there seemed like an eternity. There I cut with a knife an antique leather divan, there I pulled the hairs of an old babushka who was confined to a chair by paralysis, there I knocked the heads of every gnome in the garden, and there I was bitten by a dog - an enormous bull dog with a deadly grip. All this I would like to forget. Shame on me for such behaviour nearly sixty-five years ago.
So passed my pre-school days, and the vacations of my first school years.
Now, entering in my memory is a blank spot, to fill in which I asked help of my schoolmates, sending them SOS signal for assistance to fill in my memory gap.
******
And what I am about to tell you now, happened seldom indeed!
I had been sent to a shop for some insignificant item. No small change was available and I was trusted with a whole ten rouble note. I am not aware of the exchange rate for the rouble in those days, but, I assure you, it was a small fortune.
I left the gate of the house where I was under care of relatives, with the "tenner" held tightly in my fist, but by the time of arrival at the shop door, my fist was empty.
Shaken with what had happened, and after analyzing the situation, I decided to walk back via the same track as on my way to the shop. One must say this was not the straight way! Not unlike a detective searching for a clue, looking under every stone, around the posts and under clumps of grass, I neared the house gate which I had gone through about an hour ago. No tenner! Thinking how I would have to explain the loss of money I felt an urge to make my way there and back once more. The streets were full of people and I realized there was no hope but for a miracle. Making a decision to tell the truth and face the possible penalty I stepped up towards the house. When opening the gate and turning about for a last look, my eyes stopped on something not exactly the colour of the ground. Nearly under my feet, under a blade of grass, lay my tenner! It took me not long to run all the way to the shop again, to buy what I had to and return to listen to a sermon about being not fast enough on my assignment. Wow!!! Another lucky day!!!
*****
In the first years of school I was not exactly outstanding for my good behaviour. Once my lack of discipline went so far that the school invited my mother to come and sit in on the class to observe her son's behaviour. This event impacted on my memory like a photograph. It was a Russian language lesson. We had to give an example of sentences with verbs, adverbs, gerunds, and other "difficulties" which I am even yet not familiar
with. And then? But then, to the perplexity of everybody, including my teacher, I gave no reason for my mother to be ashamed of me. I brought forth such complex, but accurate, examples from children's literature which I had absorbed under mother's tuition at home, that my mother was afterwards telling my grandmother that my teacher admitted to her she was unable to explain what had happened.
To the disappointment of everybody, on the second day I was again inattentive and my mind was roaming all over the place.
******
Mother did punish me, but not physically. Once it happened when she came from work, as usual tired and under stress. As my grandma explained to me afterwards, the whole land in this particular time was under stress - the collectives at factories and government services were being "cleaned out" from imaginary so-called "People's enemies". To stand out as "friends" of the Party, and so to avoid being under suspicion themselves, many otherwise likeable persons were reporting to the Secret Police, often "freshly cooked up" and groundless warnings, against their own fellow workers. Those, in turn, were arrested for check-up and held for months in city jails, sometimes "confessing" under physical and mental pressures to the deeds which they had never heard of themselves before.
During this time, after one of these check-ups, my mother had to listen to grandma complain about my misbehaviour. She called me into the bedroom and asked if I admitted everything that my grandma had complained about. I had to admit it. Taking a belt in her hands she ordered me to pull my pants down and lie on the bed. My fingers could not find the buttons. After finding them they could not undo them. Then when my pants were on the floor at last, my entreating look was directed at my mother. "Lie down!!" - sternly sounded her voice.
I crawled on to the bed and, putting my head on the pillow to avoid a feeling of shame and insult, was readying myself for a belting, something I had never experienced till now. So went several long seconds; after still more I pulled my head out from the pillows - mother was not in the room. I stayed on the bed, awaiting the coming punishment, then I dressed myself and entered the sitting room which was also office and dining room combined. Mother was looking at me with her kind, big eyes and said something like, "I want to save your dignity, don't bring me again towards execution of such punishment."
This had a powerful influence on me. Until the time of her death and afterwards I always remembered this degrading ceremony of taking my pants down.
My grandmother was not so sentimental. Remembering well how during my homework I was memorising poetry, and every time when I would forget a word or a phrase, a kitchen towel with a knot tied on the end, in the hands of my grandma, was lowered on my back with quite substantial kinetic energy! But it could not be called "child abuse". My grandma loved me also, but in her own way.
*****
Once, in spite of my mother's kindness, I did earn a slap on the face from her, although it was more of a tap than a slap, on my left cheek which burns in my memory until now.
Mother and I walked along the street and I began to sing in an undertone a vulgar song. Mother stopped me and asked, "Who taught you this song?" Getting the feeling that not everything was right and not wishing to divulge whom I had learnt it from, I claimed, "I wrote it myself." (And I was only eight years old at the time.) At this very moment, my mother gave me this slap, or tap, on the face, adding, "I forgive you everything; but lies, never!"
These words became a semaphore in my life, until I came to my own conclusion that one can lie, but only when necessary to save one's own skin and when no one else could be harmed by the lie.
*****
My last recollection of my mother, told just as I remember it, not at all pleasant, but this did happen.
She became sick, but nobody explained her illness to me. The exact cause of her illness was kept secret from me, a 13-year old. She was having operations, she was being sent to the Crimea for recuperation, our two rooms were filled with pots of prickly pear, the juice of which was supposed to help her recovery. Everything went past me like something normal. "Well, she is sick now, but after sickness she will get better," went through my head because I was ignorant of the seriousness of her complaint.
And then, she became bedridden. So began visits of doctors, and nursing sisters. She was receiving injections and other medical care which indicated that it must be serious.
She began to groan, but so quietly that I still did not quite comprehend the gravity of the situation. Till my grandma called me into my mother's room and told me that Mama would like to talk to me.
I approached her bed. Mama lay almost lifeless, and looked at me with her large eyes from a gaunt face.
"Hold me, son", asked she.
Lowering myself on my knees, I gently placed my hands under her and followed every movement of mother's lips so as to catch the dying sound of the words spoken with the last of her strength.
"Sigmus," she drew out the sound of my pet name, trying to finish what she wished to say to me, "Walk along your life's path so that you can return in your own footsteps without shame."
Taking a breath for a second or two and collecting her last strength, she added, "If you are in doubt about what to do - think of what I would approve."
She breathed in and out with difficulty. An enormous clot of coagulated blood slipped out from her body .... and she died.
Does it seem strange or not, but now when I am over seventy I still recall mother's last words, when I am unsure. And this helps me a lot.
My mother died on the 22nd June 1935, being 35 years old.
As in a fog I remember a cemetery, a fenced burial place with two graves; possibly one was her father's and the other her stepfather`s, but I am not sure. A priest, waving an incense-burner, and about twenty people accompanied mother on her last journey. About a day later, from people in her workplace I received a voucher for a month in the Crimea for recuperation. I remember how I had to follow the sanatorium's physical fitness regime, walking up and down hills, going to bed after lunch and early in the evening, and eating tropical fruits and grapes till I couldn't take any more.
Everything else, till the beginning of 1938, I remember with difficulty and only through a haze.
*****
About my school times I also remember very little.
In 1934 the whole Soviet Union was shaken to its foundations by the announcement of the murder of a member of the Politburo, S.M. Kirov.
A gray morning. We were lined up in a school corridor, but instead of morning gymnastics, there followed a terrible announcement which proved fatal for many honest and patriotically attuned citizens. They disappeared in the following wave of denunciations, deportations and executions. One innocent victim was ripped out from our school class, Nora Valzet. She refused to sign a false accusation against her parents and was deported.
For some time in our flat two more families were living: a solicitor with his wife, and a professor of German Language, Maria Krich, with her husband and brother. But then, her husband, a professor of linguistics, had been arrested and deported somewhere, and her brother, a doctor of chemistry, also disappeared without trace. Nightly, everybody was listening to footsteps on our marble stairs, especially when there were three of them. But it did not affect me much, neither mother nor grandmother explained to me the reason for such frightening behaviour. I believe that I was plainly protected from a clear understanding of what was happening. Only now I really understand what was going on.
Maria Krich I became "acquainted with", whilst only three years old. She, childless, adored me. Between our rooms there were grand doors which were never locked and which I used for free excursions through her premises Her husband and brother both collected postage stamps. There was a priceless collection in several thick albums which Maria showed to me many times. Once, choosing a day when she was not home, I brought the biggest and thickest album to my room, and showed it to my mother. "Hey, Mum, what a luck! Here are lots of beautiful postage stamps, and they have so many of them no one will notice these are missing," - this was my excuse when mother tried to explain to me that such a deed could be accepted as stealing and not as rightful distribution of accumulated "goodies" (according to Communist philosophy).
When Maria Krich returned home, Mum forced me to take the album back and hand it over to its rightful owner, with the words, "Please forgive me, I am a thief." I remember very well how difficult it was to utter those words. From that day I did not take anything that didn't belong to me - except for necessary food from Germans and provisions, coffee and ice cream from Americans, during the lean years.
*****
One of my random memories is of my visit with my grandmother to the south-east part of Russia where we spent some time on a reserve in Alma-Ata which had been turned into an experimental orchard. Apple trees, apples trees, and again apple trees. In the company of other boys my age I walked from one sort of apple tree to another. The ground was covered as with a carpet by fallen fruit. Disregarding the life experience of Newton, we were sitting under the trees, gutsing ourselves full with the juicy fruit. We were no longer hungry and were biting only the most attractive parts tinted in different shades as if to tempt one to take one more bite. The sky was covered from view because long, low branches formed a canopy over us, and we ran between the trees as if in a Paradise garden.
******
Well, enough about my childhood. It is time to go to the span of my life called adolescence.
Now, at my age, it is difficult to understand this important period of time. It is really priceless in spite of one's life experiences, should there be happiness or suffering. This time is unforgettable for anyone who, when young, had not to worry about the time still left to him - years, months or even days.
Adolescence! This is a time when one can overcome any burden, when one can forgive anything, balance everything, with help of hope, daydreams and a wish to be like all those whom the community puts on a pedestal. For each of us it is different when this time starts and when it finishes. Mine began about six months after the death of my mother, after I came back from the sanatorium. Grandma began to feel not so good, and I stayed on my own more and more without any control. How did my school years go? Sorry, I have little recollection except for low academic grades and low discipline. Separate episodes which are embedded in the memory do not give me any reason to be proud.
Once, when feeling awful, I was going up the wide. beautiful marble stairs at school and, not managing to reach the next level, vomited, bringing terrible complaints from the cleaning woman who scolded me for being drunk at such a young age. The truth was - I had been to the school doctor for permission to go home, I was shaking, I was cold and my temperature had gone up. How I got home- it was not far away - I do not know, but I was in bed with an attack of the same malaria I had caught in my childhood.
Seldom was I sick. I loved sports lessons and, with the help of other sporting activity, had brought my body into a strong condition. I was skiing and skating. In a sporting club, KIM, I attended sessions of acrobatics, boxing, ju-jitsu and fencing. I was doing all this for one reason, to be home as little as possible.
My being home so seldom very much annoyed my grandma whose health deteriorated more and more. She had a stroke and our neighbour, Maria Krich, organised day care for her by bringing to the flat a village woman who stayed in a little room made for her by clearing away books and so. I remember how very often I was visiting this strong, healthy young girl with a hope to touch her strong arm, leg or even breast. Further than "touching" I did not go. But many nights I was dreaming of many promising images.
Well, yes, this was my adolescence.
In spite of attending the school without skipping any of the lessons, I could not see the reason for it.
What are those hours of algebra, physics and literature for? - went through my head. Counting the miserable kopeken, I managed to save for smokes by reducing my money for school lunches to the absolute minimum. I could do this without any high mathematical formulae. In my opinion there was no need for recommendations and lessons on how and what to choose in books - at home for my use was a large collection of all kinds of literature and I read at night, being far ahead of my school schedule.
But sport! Oh, this was another matter. The gymnastic lessons were my favourite hours. I could handle the vertical and parallel bars better than anyone, except my only rival, Goscha Uvarov, (May God rest his soul!).
He was more aesthetic in his movements, even his walk was kind of springy, he was lifting all his weight on the tips of his toes. But where sheer strength was concerned, there were no equals to me. Quite often, to draw the attraction of some pretty girl onlooker, I would come to the Swedish wall and without showing any effort press a " flag", under the accompaniment of "Ooh" and "Aah" of my admirers.
Now, I am sorry! Perhaps it would have been better if I had "pressed" logarithms and formulae on chemistry and physics lessons. As it happened, I am the only one from the whole class who did not get a high educational diploma! But it is too late to shed tears about that now.
As a "hobby", on my way to and from school, I was practising jumping on and off passing street cars, till once, in front of my eyes, another hooligan like me lost one leg, cut off by the cars wheels. This very positively reflected on me - I never have done this again. Unforgettable were also our "peremenas", that is, recess between lessons. We played "Lapta" - hitting a small soft ball with a bat - sort of a Russian kind of cricket. Our class room was on a ground floor - we were jumping out through the windows and with utmost hazard tried to out-hit another team till the school bell called us back to the classroom. Sweaty and tired we were just managing to come to our senses during the first half of the lesson.
Before her death, my mother tried to "put me in a proper way of behaviour". One day she brought me for fatherly advice to one of our family friends and left me in a private office of the head of the family.
Was it a political figure or a scientist-academic, I do not remember. I stood in a large room, with walls covered with books, and behind a large office table covered with green cloth, sat a man with a pleasant, but still no- nonsense face who looked upon me with his dark eyes under thick eyebrows. After a few minutes of conversation with me, he got up, neared me and patting me with his hand, announced that I seemed to be strong in health and spirit and that I must try to overcome the unsociable deviations in my character to become an equal member of my school`s community.
Those words did cheer me up to such an extent, that on my way home I challenged a group of street kids to a game of sliding down a polished post. I won, coming down like a stone, but I paid for it with a dislocated ankle, and my poor mother had to carry me the rest of the way home.
I am sorry to say this now, but for my grandma I had very little time.
Becoming an orphan I had to look after my own matters. Who supplied me with canteen money in the beginning and if I were entitled to any pension, I have no idea. But in 9th and 10th school years I did work to earn some pocket money for an occasional visit to the cinema, theatre or play.
For this I used my free night time. In Leningrad harbour and railway stations there was always a shortage of casual labour to load and unload all sorts of goods on their way to Germany. After a whole night shifting large cases with butter, meat, fruit and other food, with a fistful of hard earned roubles, I would make it to the school somehow, a couple of minutes before lessons started. To avoid being detected by the caretaker at main entrance, I would make my way through a window, with foresight opened for me by one of my class, and..... falling sound asleep for most of the lessons, I was covered for by my class mates.
Being strong through heavy work and having picked up some arrogance from my fellow workers at the harbour, I felt insulted when on my way home with a couple of my friends from school, we were stopped with a demand for some bribe to be permitted to go past their house by a group of local "schpana"(hooligans). After some of them flew like the boxes of butter I used to throw about during my night work, and some couldn't even get up from the pavement, our school was freed from any "duty" for passing rights.
This gave me an idea and the confidence to "regulate" my own place of abode, the house No. 6 on Plechanowa street, which was also plagued by "schpana". This was done in a week or so, but in a more civilised manner.
I did not use brute force. I approached leaders of the youth band and offered to teach them and anyone else a few things I learned myself while attending Jiu-jitzu and other unarmed combat courses at the sporting club "KIM" (which means - Communist International of Youth).
Of course I had to prove that I did know what I was talking about. This was done on condition there would be no group revenge if I should come out of an individual fight as a winner. We did shake hands and one after another unlucky experimenters were lying on the ground except one who wanted to fight with a knife against me. This one, I am sorry (but proud) to admit had to go to a hospital with dislocated wrist and strained elbow.
This was it! I became a fellow to be admired and to be respected according to the local customs of those days.
But here was a snag! Our group was often exposed to fights with a neighbouring group of somewhat older and stronger "brotherhood" from Kasan square at the end of our street. And so it came once to a serious fight with "invaders", right in the court-yard of our house.
Fists, stones and sticks were doing their duty and I, using all I had in me, tried to quiet both sides to prevent too bloody an encounter and so to avoid any serious damage to members of each group.
The recollection of the "battle" is put in front of you, my reader, in such exact detail thanks to the memory of a now about 82 years old lady, by name Eugenia Trubatch, my old friend and trainer of those days. I met her in St.Petersburg, by accident, on my trip to Russia in 1992 and 1993.
I am calling her "my second mother", thanks to her care of me and devotion to my kind of aimless destiny in the years 1939-1940.
The fighters were stopped from carrying on by a very loud and commanding voice - " S T O P , COME APART!!!" This was Eugenia. She trained rowing teams for sporting clubs on the river "Neva" and her voice was indeed loud and commanding.
Fighters did stop, but one, short but strong and somewhat cheeky, who was busy bashing anyone disregardless of their side, posed to Eugenia an arrogant question: "And what is your business? What do you want here?" The statuesque 26 year old woman stepped right in the middle of the fighters and explained to them that, if they wished to challenge each other, there was a better way to do so. Telling them about rowing bases and inviting all to come and to look around, she left with the fight died down.
After a few days at the address on the river Neva given by Eugenia, there appeared a few young fellows looking around at racing boats of highest standards previously unknown to them. Eugenia put them to a test: making them clean all incoming boats from oily stains and other accumulated dirt stains. At the end of the day, only one of the visitors, perspiring and holding his back, kept drying and cleaning an unending fleet of all sort of racing contraptions. This was your humble story teller.
So started my career as a rowing champion of the whole city of Leningrad and its district, with over 3 million people in it. Experienced trainer, Eugenia chose as most suitable for my body shape and strength, a rowing vessel called "Torpedo". It is a kind of canoe for one, in which turning its head a little to right or left means immediate capsizing, if no precautions are taken to counterbalance the keelless, slippery thing.
In a couple of weeks I managed not only to move the contraption around from early morning till dark, but was doing it in such a lively way that Eugenia took a chance and entered my name as a competitor for a distance of 1000 metres in the Youth section. Well, thought she, maybe a bit too early, but it would be good experience for the next year.
And so, the "freshly-cooked" rower, with about two weeks of sitting in the Torpedo, went to the starting line and humbly observed the "old" boys, ones who competed already the whole season before.
To my descriptions of the following episodes, as a proof of truth, I am able to put before the reader the official records of those days from the Russian Sporting Association, dated 1993. Those were given to me after being requested by Eugenia Trubatch to help me with recollection of the following competition descriptions.
Let us continue!.
Starting pistol went up. Six Torpedoes crossed the starting line and began to fight for each metre of a distance. I was last, nearly capsizing when my fellow competitor actually hit the side of my Torpedo with his paddle.
As soon as the first tumult settled and I noticed that I was able to keep up with the mob, a thought, unbelievable before, began to enter my mind: "and why not try to come a little forward?" Pulling on my paddle stronger and stronger, at the last 250 metres I found myself abreast of the first rowers. Ah, nothing could be lost, let us try, entered my mind and I started to notice that with every pull I was winning some distance. The others answered with the same tempo and strength, but I finished first in a time of 5 minutes 52,5 seconds. Second place clocked 6:09,3
At the base my trainer patted me on the shoulder, unable to understand what had actually happened. Perhaps, thought she, the others did not want to waste their energy in half finals and would show their best in the finals in two days time.
30th July, 1939. Finals of Premiership of Leningrad, Youth Class.
Already an "experienced" participant I took my place on a "fourth water" (those are imaginary lines to prevent chaos and bungling at the regattas) with a fresh intention not to be the last at the finish. There were six of us. I remember as if this was just yesterday: I "hooked" myself on to the leaders and overtook them at the finish for all of fifteen seconds.
I won the Premiership in a time of 5:15,0.
This stupefied everyone. How, with only a few weeks of training a new competitor could show such time? (Let me warn you, reader, it was in 1939! Today's times correspond to the new type of boats and are much shorter).
In a month's time another win followed. On the 17th and 18th of August I won competition in class "Men" on a distance of 1500 metres - in time of 7:36,7 (against strong wind!). And so on till season closing for 1939.
Welcome the season of 1940!
Month June- opening of the season. Distance - 1500 metres. Men -experienced rowers, representing best sporting clubs of the city.
And suddenly, some young boy, no one knew much about, wins outright!?
Well, now I was being told: You just wait till the month of August! It would be the premiership of the whole Leningrad District - The Men - First. Category and Masters of Sport! This is where the men stand out from the boys!
And I must admit that this competition nearly took away my winning laurels. I won with the help of some mental pressure: hate, pride or desperation, I do not know.
Yes, as all normal young fellows I had a girlfriend who, before every regatta, kissed me openly with a request to bring her kiss to the finish line in first place. Well, maybe this is the reason I exerted myself at every race?
But this time things went wrong (my fault) and I not only did not carry a loving kiss on me, but I noticed my ex-love sitting in the rows of seats at the finish line, happily chatting with a young officer in border guards uniform. This made me absolutely mad!
It happened that our club "KIM" could not find a second number for a double Torpedo and my trainer asked me to fill the gap and just try to be "present" without tiring myself, just to avoid penalty for the club.
My partner was a strong well-built fellow named Parnass. We took the lead and won the race in 6:59,2 minutes.
.
The trouble was - as soon as we returned to our base, I had to change place for a single Torpedo and row towards the starting line like mad so as not to be too late. Tired, I arrived only to hear the starting pistol and to commence again rowing like mad just to be able to keep up with the mob at all. In this moment I remembered how one of the leaders (he knew the tradition with the kiss) teased me in the last seconds before starting - "Well, we shall see how you come 'home' unkissed." This injected adrenalin in me and I began to grab the water with my paddle, specially made with extra wide blades. Pull after pull my efforts were cutting water as if it were my enemy and the distance between me and the leader was beginning to diminish. But this was a well trained and experienced Master of Sport, "the" Savin, from a club named "Pischtcevik". He knew that everything was at stake!
I had left to me the last hope - to tire him with my close presence! And I "sat" on him till the last one hundred metres. Then I put everything I had left in to my paddling and.....won the race. I won only by half a second, but I won!
All other not-so-important regattas of the season were won by me also. This I can prove by the certificates in my hands - the documents from the St.Petersburg Sporting Association. Thanks to my trainer Eugenia for this and also for supplying me on the days of competitions with sandwiches of all kind. Without those, on my humble budget, I would never have won much. She told me afterwards that when I was coming to the base after regattas, she was praying that I did not collapse- so white did I look in spite of my sunburnt skin. Well, not always did I live as I do today!.
To underline my efforts of those days on the regatta "front" I must say once more that in two years of competitions, I never was even second. Always FIRST!.
**********
Well, of course, not all the time was spent on water. I had to worry about how to earn some means to live and also to learn something.
With some help from my class girlfriends I managed to pull my socks up before examinations and so to "arrive" at the end of the last school year of 1939.
Remembering the night after final exams.
An orphan, I was also unaware of any distant relation. No one came to the last school night to see me giving an exhibition on parallel and vertical bars and no one was present at my side to hear that I managed somehow to attain the high school certificate and was ready to start on my future`s unexplored pathways.
After the official part came to its end we, the graduates, began celebrations.
My class mates suddenly converted themselves into nicely dressed young men and young girls, putting on made for the occasion clothes they had brought with them. Only I had nothing better to wear beside my silk sports pullover and old pants with large patches on my knees and behind. I could not ask any girl to dance with me as I was! Not too far from the school lived my mate Volodya M. He was my size and his parents were able to supply him with decent clothes. I went to his place. Standing already in front of his door with my finger on a door bell I suddenly was overtaken by a feeling of shame for begging somebody's rags. Well, thought I, I am not so good at dancing anyhow, better to wait for our planned night walk along the city streets with farewell songs and parting promises. And so I went back to the school in my old pants.
No one, unless he had such experience, could describe the atmosphere surrounding a group of young people who had spent ten years together and suddenly each was having to choose his own way to continue life`s run.
We had with us our class teacher-master and while holding each other by the hand and blocking the whole width of street, sang and chatted till we came on to the Neva River quay. There, under the impression of the mighty river, which not unlike the life itself could be of unlimited pleasure to one or undescribed horror and source of destruction to the others, we stopped, and split into small groups going in different directions. Everyone had his plans.
I also had mine.
Entering an establishment which converted rough young people into so called "Sea Wolves" I hoped to obtain a certificate and permit for skipperring overseas vessels. But after some time, answering the ever present question in Soviet forms - "whereabouts of your father?" - with an honest answer- "I do not know" - I came to understand that the OVERSEAS voyages for me would be "off limits". I closed my nautical books and, with the help of my "second mother" Eugenia, tried my luck in a Sports Institute named "LESGAFT".
But this distinguished Institute could not provide me with full satisfaction. Firstly: it had quite a political tendency to provide NKVD with human resources; second: I could not run fast enough the compulsory 100 metres distance. While having enormous endurance, my muscles could not contract themselves fast enough to put behind me the short distance in the required time. I used to come to the finish line while other students were having a "smoko" already. This was not for me!
Someone suggested to me to try the LMZ (Leningrad Motorbike Factory).
They took me as a learner on probation and after a while I settled down to everyone's satisfaction. This was something with a lot of action- not only interesting work - to test motorbikes before delivery to the Army and elsewhere, but also sort of living the three shifts in a factory waiting for spare parts delivery, installation and testing. All just for fulfilling the monthly schedule-plan. We slept on benches under the same sheepskin jackets as we used to wear in the motorbike-saddles during winter months, We ate some sandwiches with hot tea and were on call at any time of day or night - as soon as there was a motorbike to be tested. My work mates were most understanding and each helped me at the beginning till I achieved a standard of competency and started to help them on occasions in turn.
In case some small part had to be replaced during the field test outside the factory, we stocked a few necessary items in our pockets just for such an emergency. However, this was strictly forbidden!
I do not know if my mates stole a lot to construct their own motorbikes. I was still "too new" for such enlightenment, but myself, I did not take a single washer or nut for this purpose.
And so it happened that once, while going through the factory exit on one of my working trips, I got searched and the searchers discovered in one of my saddlebags a few small things like washers and a rubber hose. The fat and arrogant woman, the guard on duty, started to denounce me as if I were a criminal of an underworld. Not taking this lightly, I answered with some sharp replies and so angered her that she called an escort and dispatched me to the police criminal branch in the middle of the city. My escort delivered me there and, passing me to a guard, left me alone to face the consequences.
After some time a friendly looking sergeant approached me and afer reading a paper which was sent with my escort, told me that he must do a search at my place of abode. We started walking towards the home where I lived. On entering the place (this was a five-storey grand old building with my room in a flat on the top floor), the sergeant asked me whom I wished to have as a witness. "No one, please!!!" I begged him, "I do not wish anyone to know about the incident to avoid the consequent rumours." . The fellow was most understanding and entered my room as if he were a friend. He went through every corner and box and any other possible hiding place, not finding anything. He knew my story already, as well as from my telling him as it all happened, and after writing a short note and giving it to me in a sealed envelope, told me to go back to the factory and not to worry about it any more. Well, one must be lucky some time - I managed to avoid a criminal status which could trouble all my life in future.
It seemed that my life could not be better. I was young. My work was interesting. This fat woman-guard I never happened to meet or see again. The leader of the factory's Young Communist Organisation was putting me as an example to others in the way I worked and in my loyalty to the factory. I was permitted (as a sign of trust and incentive) to take a motorbike on Sundays and to combine long distance testing and some pleasure in being free and alone outside the city. So it came to my girlfriend of those days, Valya, being able to be with me on my roaming over the countryside on weekends. We did visit her Granny in a place called Siverscaya. Those trips contained some "rest pauses" during which I came to experience and to understand what a woman`s tenderness and love is.
Of course, I had also some "intellectual" passing of time. In my room, for an extra "income", lived a student of Leningrad University, Burnos by name. He also had girlfriends. Often we spent nights all four sitting in front of a Dutch stove and looking at the flames in winter time, discussing
some points of this or that book.
So things were going till the summer of 1941.
Already for a couple of weeks I had worked with the L8 given to me by the factory for cross-country races for a distance of 100 km, not far from Leningrad. Everything was checked, especially the clutch and brakes. A special reserve of insulation for carburettors to go through the rivers on the way to the finish was not forgotten Everything promised interesting competition, which I had little hope of winning. I went in it only for experience, so strong were my fellow-competitors.
22 JUNE 1941.
We started in turns to avoid possible crashes on a narrow race track. Now and then I overtook some competitors and, making four rounds of 20 km each, I entered the last one, the fifth, when it would be necessaary to squeeze out every ounce of strength, from the bike and the rider.
Suddenly, a flag signal to stop the race! I stopped not knowing what was going on, in front of a group of people who had been a long way ahead of me. What's happened, why such a sudden stop?
At this moment it was explained that early in the morning our Motherland had experienced a cunning and unexpected attack from Hitler's Germany. "Urgent! Back to the factory! For further information!" came the orders.
Being back in Leningrad and returning our motorbikes, two of us went straight to the military committee to report ourselves as volunteers to defend the Motherland. Registering our names, we were told to come tomorrow to complete the forms and for direction to our prospective units.
I don't remember how I slept that night, but early in the morning I waited in the foyer of the military committee quarters, boiling with hatred for the treachery of the Fascist army.
We went through quick registration, we were sent for a compulsory sauna and haircut, with a promise to return our personal things including Komsomol card and family photos on exit from the sauna. But, at the other end I and another fellow from our factory, as specialist motorbike riders, were taken out practically with the soap still on, in a hurry put into uniform, and each was ordered to choose a motorbike from those requisitioned from the population. They were standing nearby. Two officers from communications units were awaiting our choice, and as soon as we started the motors, we received orders to hurry towards their postings,
with the officers riding pillion. Their destination was Finland!
I am unable to remember if it was 21st or 27th Division, but late in the night, picking up petrol along the road, we arrived at the destination. I was taken by the HQ Commander and my factory mate went to another officer.
Without any spell, not counting a small bite of bread with water, I began to carry my chief over the hilly roads of Finland for three days without stop except for petrol filling. No one took any notice that I even could not give a salute while meeting officers. Everyone was in a hurry as if doing their best to make up for lost time in execution of their assignments.
My main worry was how to have returned to me my Komsomol card and the wristwatch which I had got from my mother's father whilst my mother was still alive. I had been promised that enquiries would be made, but at this time there were more important things to worry about. I guessed the time according to the sun. The Komsorg (leader of a Komsomol - Communist Youth) was assuring me that my card would be in my hands as soon as he requested it from the military unit where we were enlisted and sent to the sauna. But now was the time to think about making a declaration, stating one's intention of becoming candidate for a communist party membership. "Such as you must give an example to others," I heard his instruction.
I rode my bike along the Finland roads from one lake towards the other, went in reconnaissance and was delivering everything from orders to units with communications still not ironed out, to a packet with first aid for the observation post on top of a hill which was under fire from Finnish snipers.
Some times I had to ride my bike towards the rear line. I allowed myself to stop for a couple of hours rest in places where a people's militia was digging deep anti-tank trenches across the roads. Poor girls and women, students from high and technical schools, from colleges and from university institutions, were digging the trenches, carrying concrete blocks and contraptions welded from railway lines which would be dug into the bottom of the trenches, supposedly to stop the enemy tanks. And I was asking how easy it would be for a tank to just bypass the trenches through the fields. One could not receive a rest with those pathetic people who had torn clothes, no shoes, and who were tired to the bone, hungry and cold themselves. I would give them all the bits and pieces from my motorbike bag which were supposed to be my iron rations.
And so once my chief called out for me and handed me an envelope, addressed to a headquarters of a division on the Leningrad front - which one I can't remember, because I never reached my destination. But more about this later. I had to accompany a truck with a packet wrapped in a waterproof canvas and tied up with ropes. We had to drive to Leningrad and my driver and I were allowed to spend a night in the city on the Neva river.
It took us several days for our road was destroyed by bombing, and we couldn't get petrol. In one place we were nearly forced by a pistol waving officer to bring up building material for a bunker. Closer to evening our driver stopped the truck at the entrance to No. 6 Plechanova street, I parted with him till early in the morning, and went up the stairs to flat 44. The flat was dark and cold - it was already autumn. I met my neighbours, named Messer. From them I got to know that my grandmother had already died, and was buried. Maria, the girl who had looked after her, was digging trenches somewhere and Maria Krich herself had been arrested and had disappeared without trace.
Going on to the street, with my rifle dragging behind me, I went into the yard of the next-door house and knocked at the flat where my classmate, Zoya Timofeeva, was living. She was a beautiful girl with a very quiet character who, according to a Russian song, "All boys were in love with". I called her into my flat, made her black tea with the help of the Messers, doling out to them my fish conserve, military "dog biscuits" and sugar from my road provisions. The night was spent talking to them, and afterwards to Zoya alone. Early in the morning, hearing the beep of the truck downstairs, Zoya and I parted, agreeing that we meet at the Front. Without tears, without complaining, without any heavy breathing, only being annoyed and swearing against the enemy that attacked us. We were sure that we would win. I must say that the Messer couple did not participate in this patriotic sentiment. They went at midnight, leaving Zoya and me to prolong our absolutely platonic meeting.
The truck with camouflaged lights went ahead on the way to our destination. Again going through many checks and controls, we covered about 200 km which put us under frightfully intensive bombing not far from the city of Novgorod.
Houses and cottages were in flames, supply columns with destroyed wagons and bombed-out trucks were blocking our way. Alongside the road were lying corpses of dead horses. Severe raids were continuing, and parking our vehicles under branches of weeping willow, the driver and I went to different sides of the road. He went into an iron pipe half-metre in diameter, and I had nowhere to go but to plonk myself down beside a large wooden house. I was lying on my back and watching the bombers with the hated swastika on their sides as they dropped their bombs on us.
It is possible to predict the direction of a falling bomb according to the angle and height and, if you can calculate the approximate place where it will land, you can roll out of the way and hope for the best! But this, of course, is my personal theory and not according to military books. The following happening, as I lay there, disproved it. The black monster from the air was coming directly at me. I was looking into the snout of a Stuka but, instead of rolling out of the way, my breathing stopped and I just lay there..
An awful explosion! The earth moved under me, my ears started to ring. The next bombs were falling behind the house beside which I was lying, and slowly opening my eyes I could see that I lay under a large piece of steel which was stuck in the wall of the house. The puttees on both my shins were cut and partly burnt. A piece of bomb had ricocheted from a large plough which was standing on the other side and just missing cutting my legs off, whizzed past and became stuck in the wall. Taking the puttees off I discovered that only skin, but not bones, was cut from my shins. Well, again, I was lucky.
The Stukas went off and I went to look for the driver and truck. The pipe was empty. Further along the road I could hear a groaning. Ah, he could be wounded! Coming closer I found a not-so-young soldier who was lying across the ditch. With the intention to help I bent over but the sight of his back so torn open so shocked me that I could not decide what to do next. How could I bandage him if I had only one bandage in my pocket, and my clothing was too dirty and unhygienic to make strips out of. One must also consider that he had no skin on his back and his ribs were missing. He was not even moaning. Air was just being pushed out of a hole in his lungs. I continued to look for the driver. Finding him by our truck, we returned together towards the wounded man, but he was not wounded, he was already dead. The driver looked in his pockets for documents, but not finding anything, we lay his body in the ditch, and covering the poor fellow with earth, stuck in it a forked branch and hung his cap on it. Along the bombed-out road, with a pain in our hearts, being sorry for this poor man, we went ahead. Thanks to Fate our truck had not been damaged and we could continue on our way.
The happenings in this part of my book are only a small part of the great disaster which struck the world in the period from 1939 till 1945, inclusive.
World War II, the plot of Hitler, which began, amongst other cunning moves, with the conclusion of a Treaty with the USSR, turned to be an unexpected ( by the ordinary Russian folk) eruption of everything that brings sufferings, death and annihilation of humanity which happened to be in the way of the dreaded military and political chariots.
On 22nd June 1941, around 3am, the Russian people experienced a most unexpected chock,- the german Luftwaffe bombed the sleepy Russian townships and the german tanks and infantry begun to burn, destroy and occupy Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian territories.
The unexpected thrust brought out unexpected reactions from the population of the USSR. Some garrisons did fight till the last bullet, some, finding themselves encircled, fought out through the german lines or surrendered after losing their officers and leadership to the hurricane-like fire power of much better equipped german military units.
The civil population, in many cases thinking that Germans were bringing the chance to get rid of the hated communist regime and its leaders like Stalin and the rest, did meet the Germans with white flags and the old Russian custom- bread and salt on a platter. Of course there were many thousands who did leave behind their families, loved ones and secure jobs, and reported themselves as volunteers with the intention to defend their Motherland.
The illusion of Hitler bringing the deliverance from Stalinism had gone. Thousands of Russian prisoners of war starved to death in german camps (Stalin refused to join the membership of the international Red Cross Organisation, stating that there are no prisoners of war from the Russian side, but only "Enemies of the People" who did not shoot themselves with their last bullet instead of surrendering to the foe).
Untold numbers of young Russians were forced to go and work in german factories, being treated like a lower class of humans.
After all this, plus the generous help from the American people and another allies, only then the Russian people could see that there was no other way, but to stay put in the trenches and hope to survive. It is always better to die at home!
Many books are written about the Russian Freedom Movement and its Russian Freedom Army. In my story there is no attempt to start all over again with detailed description of the historical matters. My story has only one intention, - to explain to the Russian people (and to the other people, of course), how from a naive loyal subject, with help from the experience of older fellow-soldiers, one became the convinced enemy of the social structure under which one grew up.
Did I manage to achieve this or not, that is to be judged by You, the READER.
Dear Reader,
What you are about to read will not contain intentional moralising or any other attempt to influence you in any direction. You are offered a summary of events in the author's life, without embellishment, addition or distortion, truthfully presented, and described from details which it was possible to keep alive in the memory for over 50 years.
The author asks only one thing of you - after reading this text, please answer the question put to you in the title of this story.
Please forgive any inexactness in names and places portrayed. Those may be permitted to keep incognito participants who may still be alive.
LENINGRAD FRONT, SEPTEMBER 1941 ...........
Our truck was standing in thin forest together with vehicles of a medical battalion to which we had attached ourselves the previous night. We were parked under a tall pine tree not far from the road.
Through the rising fog we could discern shivering figures coming out of tents with towels in their hands and disappearing behind the fence roughly built of young pine trees which surrounded the field toilets and washing amenities. On waking the driver I crawled out of the cabin and started to stretch my legs, stiff from the cold. Noticing that our truck would be easily visible from the air I began to camouflage it using discarded pine branches.
Within a quarter of an hour only a very sharp eye could notice the vehicle, which had served us as sleeping quarters and storage of our field provisions. Those consisted of only two cases of sweetened condensed milk picked up on the road near Novgorod when we passed through the day before during the bombing. Two tins had been opened right away with bayonets and we stilled our hunger by sucking out the gooey contents, thanking
Fate for such good fortune. However, repeating this procedure in a couple of hours, we wished that we had come upon a couple of loaves of bread instead.
That morning our now fully opened eyes jealously accompanied a medical Sister passing our truck with her ration of rusk. At this moment I heard my driver address her in not exactly military fashion, "Hi, Lovely, what about something sweet for breakfast?" In response to the angry glance thrown in his direction he hurriedly added, "Truly! We have condensed milk here but no bread. Could we make a swap?"
As a result of this verbal exchange, we were soon chewing rusks, which we swapped for two tins we were glad to be rid of. Oh! If only we had known! Why did we offer her this milk!? More than 47 years later, it is still painful for me to remember this transaction.
The milk must have appealed to her or to her friends, because about midday, she came to our truck again with her hands full not only with rusk but also such unheard of things as fresh-baked bread and two dried fish. The driver, who was responsible for our supplies, was away in battalion HQ, but would be back any minute, so I invited the Sister to climb into the cabin with me and wait for him. At this very moment there was an air raid warning. With a clear conscience, knowing that our truck was well camouflaged, we sat and continued our friendly chat, when suddenly, one after another, Stukas began their screaming dive. The earth began to shake from explosions. By instinct, each of us jumped from the cabin with the intention of seeking cover under the truck chassis. Explosions sounded from all sides and with my heart in my mouth, I felt our truck shudder from a hit. Wow! I thought, that was close, and while the sound of the Stukas receded, I lifted my head. Around was absolute quiet. Preparing for the coming of a second sweep, I jumped out around the truck, checking on our camouflage.
Oh my God! In front of my eyes was the Sister, I cannot remember her name now, sort of pinned by a long splinter of a bomb, right into the truck tyre. Without realising what I was doing, I grabbed the fragment with my hands trying to free the body of this poor girl who met her end in such a horrible way, but I succeeded only in burning the palms of my hands. Turning around, I noticed several faces congealed in horror at this awful sight. In a kind of trance, with a feeling of helplessness, I walked away from the scene, which remains with me to this day.
Our truck having been damaged, we were left with nothing but to seek out our Unit on foot. This was made difficult because our "marching orders" were combined - truck, driver and despatch messenger as one entity. Orders were issued by HQ 21st or 27th (cannot remember) Division, on the Finnish front to transfer Division documents to Leningrad front. To repair the truck was impossible because it was not a military unit, but requisitioned from civilian usage. The medical battalion where we had spent the night did not even have spare parts to repair their own damaged vehicles.
The weather held. Our forthcoming march to the front to meet up with our Division appeared to be straightforward. But this was not to be! The driver from the battalion field kitchen was wounded, and my driver was ordered to take over. I had to begin my journey on my own.
The front line at this time could not be marked with any exactness on a map because it changed not by days but sometimes by hours. This was the beginning of autumn 1941. The defence line was full of gaps created by the advancing German army or by mass surrendering of our units. These did not consist of young men, but men already experienced in the horror of Stalin's regime, both in the army and in civilian life. Those reservists were herded into the first hurriedly formed units at the beginning of the war.
In two days from now, I, a volunteer, patriot, and loyal to the party and people, was to experience this very movement of surrendering in expectation of fighting against Stalinisim with the help of the German army. This would be for me a painful reality which I was able to understand only in 1943-44.
I was unable to find my unit HQ and so I attached myself to an infantry company, already late in the night, with the intention of making any necessary reports in the morning about the fate of truck, driver and myself. Also I had to deliver an envelope which had almost fallen apart from sweat in my shirt pocket. Tired and hungry, I slept like a dead man in the corner of a fox-hole covered and lined with straw.
At dawn, shivering from the morning freshness and settled fog, I became aware of intense whispering. Before I was really awake and had opened my eyes, I felt my rifle, as usual squeezed between my knees whilst sleeping, began to move. Quite a friendly voice urged, "Hey, fella! What's wrong with you? Did you come to the front line to sleep? Wake up!"
In the trench it was still half dark, but I remember clearly the kind and sympathetic face of the detail leader, bent over me. He explained to me that the platoon's observers reported that German soldiers were moving towards our position. Taking into consideration that the unit holding this position agreed to defect to the German side, after receiving promises via German leaflets that they would be given the opportunity to fight against communism, he gave me the chance either to join them or go my own way.
We had not time to discuss political subjects. On my attempt to grab my rifle I was given a short but indisputable order - "Let's go! You might begin shooting and that would bring German fire upon us."
It didn't come into my head to thank this person for his honest deed regarding my fate. I boiled with hate and anger at being insulted by traitors to Red Army honour and duty, whilst quietly listening as he addressed me.
I had a look and noticed in the distance advancing Germans. To get out of the foxhole was not as difficult as to crawl towards the bushes which would provide cover. Pressing myself to the cold earth under cover of lingering fog patches, I crawled away, disregarding dew, scratches, and fallen trees which had to be skirted to avoid being seen. The moment I came to the first cluster of bushes and could turn my head, the first line of German soldiers reached and took over the position I had just left. Coming out, with hands in the air, the soldiers I had just spent the night with, were formed into three columns, and under guard were marched towards the rear. The delay permitted me to crawl towards the next dense cover which enabled me, with bounds, to reach the forest. I was able to quell my hunger with a few berries and contemplate my situation.
At that time, one could hear of the surrender of the Red Army units only from friends who were eye-witnesses, or via friends in HQ. In the majority of cases of units surrendering to the Germans voluntarily, the facts were only hinted at and God help him who was caught red-handed or was informed on. For my part, being not only dishonoured by the confiscation of my weapon, but also witnessing this disgraceful, from my point of view, surrender, my dilemma was, should I report what had happened? To whom should I report? What would follow after my truthful story? A lot of doubts passed through my mind regarding my safety if I were to report the experience.
Fate took this decision out of my hands!
Fear of being caught by the Germans, and my hunger forced me to seek out friends. But where? In front was shooting; to the left one could hear the howitzers, and advancing Germans could at any time appear next to me. I began to move deeper and deeper into the forest. I had no compass or watch and only with the help of the sun could establish east and west. Choosing east was probably less dangerous. I walked, picking occasional berries, still ashamed of my dishonour, and being totally indignant at the happenings in the trenches. Bushes, roots, stumps and fallen trees made walking difficult. On top of everything I lost my direction due to grey skies. As dusk neared, I luckily came upon a side road with a despatch rider on a bicycle riding towards me. With fright in his eyes, he answered my question "Where am I?". "We are being encircled but HQ of the regiment is placed in the next village, in the school house. If you hurry, you will very likely catch them there."
In spite of my tiredness, I began to step as fast as I could, and in about half an hour came to a village which met me in silence, except for the sound of a motor-bike far away. Exactly as the despatch rider had explained - "Fourth house right". In front of me was the school, in the windows of which I noticed the lights of flickering candles and pocket torches.
In bushes of currant berries stood a motor bike. Before knocking at the door and entering, I took a quick look in the window. Thanks to the light thrown by the candle I clearly saw silhouettes of figures in helmets and raincoats, the uniform of German motor bike recon- naissance troops. I put two and two together and worked out that I had come to the school, already occupied by Germans, so I jumped into the berry bushes. It became clear later that someone was observing me all this time because at that very moment I heard the German command "Halt!", a short burst of automatic rifle fire, and when almost through the bushes, the explosion of a hand grenade.
I came to my senses under the roof of some sort of shed which was being used as a place for collecting wounded soldiers - rather, officers, who were of some interest to German HQ. But why were they interested in me? Well, I had to thank Fate for the worn out envelope in the pocket of my military shirt. As soon as the guard noticed that I was conscious, he came to me and began asking me in a mixture of Russian and German -"Ivan! Du nicht schlafen? Du sprechen Deutch?" Lying next to me and under the same ground-sheet, a captain of engineers, pretending that he was translating to me the questions of the guard, told me that the Germans had checked my condition for several days in a row and several times per day. "What kind of ace are you?" he asked. A bucket of water was put in front of me with the explanation that this was for drinking and washing. I was terribly weak but strength began to return. After washing myself and returning the bucket, I was given two pieces of soldiers' black bread. This also helped me to stay on my feet. The left side of my face was swollen and embedded with particles of sand and earth, powder and leaves, some of which were stuck between my neck and collar.... this is why I know that the bushes of the currant berries saved me from the bullets.
After a couple of hours, an elegantly dressed non-combatant officer approached me and asked me in good Russian how I felt. "Hungry and cold!" I answered. With this, he invited me to follow him. We entered the village ex-club building, and I was invited to sit on the bench and was given a mug of hot tea and a few slices of bread.
The bread was swallowed at once, no one looked at me, but my hot tea in an enamelled mug was transferred drop by drop into my empty stomach as it were a life elixir. The last drops had to be swallowed in a hurry, as the same officer opened the door and beckoned me with his finger. Entering the room used as an office with several tables, typewriters, field phones and a heap of papers on tables and on the floor, I found myself in front of a young officer - a captain. Beside stood the translator already known to me politely asking , "Where did you get those documents?", while showing me the worn out envelope I had carried around since departure from the Finnish front. In those days my duty, beside reconnaissance, was to carry on my small motor cycle, up and down Finnish hills, the Division Commander who was built like a mountain. Under his weight my clutch did not last long. It was an old motorbike and the cluch incorporated a lot of cork which simply burned out. After begging many field kitchen cooks for any available corks, I collected enough to repair the clutch discs and reported to the Commander that his vehicle was ready on request.
This appealed to my Chief so that from this moment he was always telling everyone that if the whole army would be as enterprising as his dispatch rider, the Germans would be already beaten.
And so, when the time came for transfer of our division to the Leningrad front, I was singled out and sent with the truck of documents to the H.Q in Leningrad. He personally gave me an envelope with a request to deliver it by hand to the new field Regiment H.Q. at the Leningrad front.
Not seeing in my deed any dishonorable action, I calmly sort of remembered, "Ah, the envelope! I got it from my front line mate with a request to hand it to the Regimental H.Q. in the same village where I was taken prisoner. " Ich glaube das er luegt" (I think he tells lies), I heard the translator telling the Captain who interrogated me.
I understood that things were going against me and started to speak to the Captain in my best school German. This was the result of suffering for a whole ten years in high school plus the unending efforts of our neighbour, the professor of German. Being of German extraction herself and loving her mother language, she tried to inject the same love into me and constantly spoke to me in German. How gratheful I am now to you, dear Mrs. Krich! With your efforts to teach me German you saved my life; not knowing this, you yourself perished during the Leningrad Blockade. But this is another story. Let us return to the interrogation.
Disregarding my being so bold, the Captain listened to my story with attention. Talking slowly, choosing the most suitable words, mixing truthful facts like relocation from the Finland front, which already was no more a secret, with fiction, I got myself out of the situation. I presented a story of a soldier, lost during the move to this front with his mate who carried a message from his division. Through him I had come into possession of the envelope after he had been wounded. However, the question about the meaning of the code in which the message was presented, I answered truthfully, " The code I do not know." Talking to me for a few minutes more, the Captain let the translator know that he had lost interest in me. I was taken out of the warm back into the old shed with wounded officers from our retreating army.
This shack, in comparison with the forthcomming situation into which I was about to descend, was like a hotel with conveniences. With Lady Luck patronising me, I managed to get hold of an old tin and fill it with the remnants of left over German soup with potatoes and some bread crusts. This was God sent, as the next four days my stomach received nothing but a little rain water from the puddles, if I could find them. After a short walk with a talkative guard, I entered a crowd of Russian prisoners of war from this combat sector. Under the open sky, under drizzling rain, without any food or water, prisoners were treading from foot to foot just to warm up somehow. I could not see and could not have any friends or mates amongst them, and so I did not enter into any discussions, but only listened to their chatter. The majority were or just pretended to be worshippers of the German Army. "Well, one must understand that the Germans were not prepared to accommodate such large numbers of prisoners", reassured us somewhat. " No need to worry, just wait a day or two more and we shall have better conditions, food, drink and offers to join a detachment for fighting against Communists". The others really believed that we would be sent to gather in the crops left in the fields. Still others were convincing the ones who would listen that our task would be to restore the lands which suffered from the war, rebuild the burnt houses, and prepare for the returning evacuees as the war was nearly over.
This hopeful talk come from the prisoners of peasant extraction. The more intelligent layer, evident through ripped off ensign badges, stood quietly, and on their faces could be seen doubt, alarm and distrust towards neighbours from the left and from the right. Each one had his own reasons.
We were checked over several times. Germans sought out the officers, Jews, Communists. We had to surrender any documents, that were left, and were driven into a large shed without any chances to perform ones natural functions. Next morning, formed into three columns, hungry, wet and frozen, we started our march towards the west. Some with hope, some with doubt and some just with indifference, still unable to understand how this had all come about.
It is the third day already as we all, under guard of several patrolmen, screaming and swearing in German, walk away from the front into occupied Russian lands. Already on the first day of the march my attempt to take a chance and to run away, nearly had a bad ending. Again my command of German language helped to avoid a certain unpleasant action of the guard. When I pretended to be too ill to walk and collapsed on the roadside, hoping to be left behind, he pointed his rifle at me, loaded it, looked me in the eyes, and without much emotion said, " Mit gehn, oder kaput!".
One does not wish to remember the conditions in which several hundred people , who became prisoners of war by intention, by naivety or by fate, as happened to me, still managed to force march several hundred kilometers without any food. We managed to arrive at some village only with the help of a few swallows of muddy water from rare puddles, risking to be shot for it as an attempt to escape.
Some 500-600 metres distant from the village stood a newly built cabin, the guard quarters. Right in front one could see a large area of land, its perimeter lined by rolls of barbed wire. Inside, walking, standing or lying on the ground under an open sky, was a mass of several thousand human beings, who had no likeness to my fellow soldiers with whom I had been only a week ago.
Again, in a formation strange to us - three columns - we had to put up with an audit call. The fellows with dark curly hair and small hump on the noses, had to answer a question "Bist du Jude?"
One of those, being questioned, exploded right in the face of the German lieutenant, such an outburst of Russian profanities that those next to him nearly lost their breath. On his face was an unintelligible smile and the German could not comprehend what this was all about and demanded a translation. The guard, who nearly dispatched me to better lands during my ill attempt to get lost, remembered that I spoke to him in German and called me out. "Was hat er gesagt?" asked the lieutenant. I repeated the question to the fellow, standing with proud expression on his face, maybe Georgian or maybe a Jew. Still smiling he answered, " Translate as you wish". This was said with complete disregard to his fate.
My translation would not earn me good marks in German. I explained to the officer that the fellow was most insulted by his doubt in his Russian nationality and now regrets his vocal outburst. The lieutenant continued with his roll-call.
From that day on I was called on to translate from time to time, which contributed a great deal to my survival. With heavy presentiment we passed through the camp's barbed wire gates.
The mass of hungry, wet people, losing their human appearance, surrounded us with hundreds of questions. " Got a smoke?", "Where are you from?", " Who is from 21st?", "Any one from Leningrad?". This was in the late afternoon and there was nothing else to do but to get our bearings in regard to finding a place to lie down, or at least to sit under existing cover in the hope of avoiding the beginning drizzle, and the cold of the approaching night.
Inside the fences were two opensided sheds. Two-thirds of the men already had taken all available space under roofs, so the rest, and we newcomers, had to organize ourselves into groups of three or four. Sitting on one of the available groundsheets and covering ourselves with another one or two, if available, we made it through the night in half asleep, half awake state. Early next morning we were up moving about to bring our numb extremities into readiness for the oncoming day which had little promise. Everyone, it seemed to me, had on his mind a thought - when do we get something to eat.
At about 11 am, our self appointed supervisors arranged all of us in three columns again. Mercilessly blowing cold wind and clear sky didn`t help us to forget hunger cramps. From "oldtimers" we knew that some likeness to soup and bread were to be our issue at noon time. And so it happened, three horsedrawn wagons entered our space loaded with loaves of bread. Passing along the lines, sitting on the wagon, a prisoner threw a loaf to everyone standing in the first line, who, under watchful eyes of those standing in second and third, doled out the loaf in three pieces as equally divided as possible. One from those three hungry human beings, turned about and with his eyes closed, told the other, holding at random the bread pieces, " This one for you" or "This one for me" or " It is for him". As a result of such doling out, the one who happened to get a piece seemingly smaller than others, could blame only his fate and no one else. However, such "intensive" feeding lasted only a few days. With every day more and more prisoners arrived in our camp and a loaf of bread had to be divided first among four of us and later six starved - skin and bone - figures. Also the bread itself began to look like a mixture of cut straw and oilcake.
Somedays there was no bread at all.
In addition, every day two large cisterns arrived with some muddy fluid which was poured into large drums. Those were filled with nondescript liquid containing the remnants of German field kitchens diluted with hot water to such an extent, that it was impossible to establish the origin of the contents, neither by tasting nor by smelling.
During the pouring, several guards with weapons kept the mob of hungry men at a distance, but as soon as the cisterns and escorts passed back through the gate , the starved beings overran the drums with the intention to scoop out something for their empty stomachs. Hard to describe what was going on at those moments. Only an eyewitness of the spectacle, providing he did not take part in it, can remember the details of the performance by human beings who had lost all traces of decency, honor and reason because of the foul smelling hot muddy beverage. Only he will never forget the sight of knocked over drums, groans of scoulded humans and the bodies trampled into the mud and left behind after the senseless mob dispersed empty handed.
So it continued till I had the luck to get out from the enclosure, in comparison with which Dantes Inferno would not be many points behind. What happened to the dying starved people in the camp, I know only from hearsay. From several thousand prisoners only a small number managed to stay alive. Those were the freshly arrived or those who, as I, had a destiny to die some other time and place.
My ability to translate made it possible for me not to take part in those human brawls for the right to live. Once or twice per week, the guard at the gates would send a message via prisoners to bring me to the gates. On arrival I would be delegated to seek out one or two people not only able to move, but also having qualifications as shoemaker or watch maker or jeweller. The very first selected specialist on arrival at the place which required his profession, could not comprehend what was wanted from him and so I had to be brought to join him and to translate. The Germans wanted the tailor to sew a dress for the Father Christmas. On the table was spread red cloth. The "tailor" selected by me, with large scissors, was not at all sure what to cut out of it. (He admitted to me that his job as civilian was cutting and sewing the tents for recreation purposes). Taking notice that my "tailor" is just alive, I explained to the would be employers that he is so hungry, he cannot hold the scissors. A piece of bread and glass of water would bring him some recovery and he would finish the job. To my surprise, instead of swearing or a kick in the behind, in a few minutes we saw in front of us bread with butter spread normally, sort of tinned fish, two pieces of sausage and...coffee. Yes! and he and I got to taste hot sweet "ersatz" coffee. I made an effort to convince the "tailor" to eat slowly so as not to get sick and not to make an impression that we were animals. The Father Christmas dress was nearly finished when the time came to be returned to the camp. The German soldiers from the noncombatant units quartered in the village were happy with our efforts and told us to be back tomorrow at the gates without being late. The "tailor" did not want to part with me in case we got lost, and as we both had our groundsheets, we wrapped ourselves in them, and with full stomachs slept till about midnight. About this time we were wakened by the pain inside. The colic was blowing us up like an airballon. We did not know what to do to avoid internal " explosion". But, somehow, we managed to stay alive and be at the gates at the prearranged time. Again in the evening we were brought back, and in our possession were such luxuries as a large piece of cooked meat, and a large glass jar of ragout. So we lived those two days! I parted with the "tailor" and let him have the meat, but not being able to conceal, just for me, the jar of ragout amongst people dying from hunger, I parted with my jar, doling out the contents as inconspicuously as possible to my companions by fate.
Not every time I managed to get out as a "knife sharpener" or "watch maker" etc., but very often some food was inside me before I confessed that I had not the speciality as required . Well, a chat in German dispelled the anger of the German lords and I had in me another week or so of calories .
November 1941. Cold, but still bearable if you are not starved to the end of your resistance. With the German army around Leningrad, the frame of mind of the reserves is good - they would not be needed to go to the front. The demand for "specialists" is not as great as before... and we are dying out slowly but surely.
Once, possibly as a result of an accident during transport, Germans brought into the camp a truck of a half rotten mixture of meat, frozen vegetables and something else. All this was thrown out of the truck in the middle of our camp square and the hungry people, not unlike the ants, cleaned the heap of stuff so that the next day no one could guess it had been there.
Dysentery!
Camp toilets - long, wide trenches with logs thrown across could not accommodate all in need. People squatting for hours along logs looked like target ducks at a village fair, under fire. Over here, over there, losing balance through weakness, unfortunates fell into the trench from which one could escape only with help of others who themselves risking their own lives, still went down to try to pull them out. Sometimes in the night one could hear inhuman cries of the poor fellows, slowly quieting after half frozen muck sucked still living souls under its surface. In a couple of days, the Germans ordered simple ladders to be sloped into the trenches, but accidents of a similar nature continued.
Not everyone, self-sacrificingly, helped the desperate.
Once that I know of, this hole was used for a specific purpose. Amongst us was an informer who for a crust of bread would report to the Germans the presence of ex-officers, political officers, and Jews. Once he was caught red-handed, when he brought a German guard and pointed to a young fellow who was taken from the camp and never returned to us. We asked him why and for what he had done this. After finding the right moment, he was pushed into this very hole. To cover up his cries for help, for a whole half-hour we sang "Katysha" and other songs, to the mystification of the German guards.
Things began to disintegrate, every day was getting colder. Numbers dying from hunger were growing. Daily an old horse and sledges entered our camp, and a German soldier with weapon beckoned any four prisoners, ordering them to load on all dead bodies of those who perished during the night. Sometimes one could see an arm or leg of one of the bodies still trying to move, but alas, the sledges were already outside the wire fence and on their way to a large hole the German bulldozers prepared just before winter snow began to fall. The bodies went into it and the prisoners returned to the camp. The snow covered the dead and still living.
Although, my strength was ebbing away. I remember the clear crisp day. Leaning against a post supporting the shed roof, I felt, together with cold, a feeling of hopelessness creeping into me. Looking into the clear sky I remembered my childhood and the image of my Mother, so inseparable from it. As a drowning being, gripping a passing straw in desperation, I said, as if talking to a living person, " Well, Mother, get me out of this scrape, please".
Resisting the desire to lie down and sleep, which would be my downfall in this cold weather, I, not knowing for what reason, started to walk towards the camp gates. " Ah, gut! Ich brauche dich ",- Good! I need you, - the voice of the duty- guard met me at the gates. He delegated me to sort out twenty "very strong" men.
How I managed to collect and to bring them to the gates, I do not know, but after some time twenty human shadows and myself too, were loaded with all their possessions (like spoons, tins and ground sheets), on to a waiting truck. We did not know where we were being taken, and after about three hours driving were offloaded in front of a small, newly built camp also surrounded by a high wire fence. Inside we could see a walled building with outbuilding for a kitchen and amenities. In front of those stood a German officer - " Sonderfuehrer"; behind him, an intelligent, still young looking, fellow - our would-be spokesman in charge. Beside him was a big strong mountain of a man, a marine, judging by the tatters of uniform he wore, and a short, red poker-faced individual who turned out to be the camp's cook. This was "the management" of our camp. Here a group of prisoners already lived, whose duty it was to supply with firewood the H.Q. of the Eighteenth German Army, placed in an ex sanatorium not far from a place called "Siverskaya".
Next to the kitchen stood a long barrack used by some thirty prisoners as their quarters. We were shown the left part of the building and told to arrange our beds. With concrete floor and lots of fresh straw, this was an easy task for us, collapsing from hunger and cold. Someone hurriedly constructed an improvisation of a stove made from old bricks and steel plate on top, and we began, literally, thawing.
A short time afterwards, our "management committee" introduced us to the "do and do not" rules, and the cook invited us to come to the kitchen door and to receive the rations. He declared that we were to receive a loaf of bread for two, but tonight it would be for four, with the rest credited to us for consumption in a day or two. This was a precaution to avoid complications with our empty stomachs. The bread ration was washed down with sweetened liquid resembling tea. It was already dark and we, softened by comparative warmth and fullness, slept in the soft straw as if we had nothing to worry about.
Seven in the morning and we were already sitting around the still warm stove and chewing our rations. Our neighbours in the barrack, being here long before us, already were on the way to work under long drawn out "loooos, loooos" with which convoys spurred them into action.
We were left behind and told to heat the stove, warm up water and in the middle of the barrack - ex pigsty - wash ourselves and try to get rid of numerous lice hidden in our clothes. Well - this
was not unlike resurrection for us. We did not believe in such a turnabout in our fate.
The whole four days on the full ration we spent in the barrack arranging, with help of old timber thrown out for firewood, to find some privacy in our cells. Now, after our first thought to satisfy the hunger gave place to other considerations, we chose our cell mates in accordance with their points of view on the present circumstances and their origins. The people needed moral support of a fellow countryman tuned to their wave length.
The first Monday we were grouped into work parties. Strongest were to work in the forest, (those who were not- in the village servicing the German units quartered in it), and the ones who still needed some recovery were left to keep fires going, cleaning the floor and doing some duties in the kitchen.
My "luck" was to become a wood cutter. Not being tall, but wide in my shoulders, with muscles remaining after intensive sporting pastimes, this all indicated that I was most suitable to take the place of one who must axe below the saw cut, to assure that the cut tree would not slide back and do a lot of damage to the ones who stood around. The fellow prisoner doing the job was recently squashed to death in such circumstances. Two strong Germans operated the motor saw which gave me only a fraction of time to chop out a wedge from the other side and to jump aside as the tree began its fall. The first days I was running out of breath and needed a replacement sometimes, but, getting a bit stronger and learning a few tricks of the trade, I could hold on for the whole shift and, during the times when Germans had a "smoko", help my mates stow the cut logs away. This was not an attempt to stand out, no.. I even declined the cigarette butts offered by the Germans, which equalled in those days the medal for zeal in duty. No! This was just my habit, to do my job properly and with conscience. This habit helped me a lot in future.
One nice day, half dead from tiredness and chill, we were marching past the Sanatorium with all the Eighteenth Army H. Q. in it, when we were stopped and drawn out into one line. The ground was covered with snow, our feet were frozen, but our guard told us that an inspection by the HQ Commandant, a non combatant officer of aristocratic origin, owner of one of the largest German cigarette factories, "The House of Hindenburg", was imminent. In half an hour, a tall and impeccably dressed German in tailored uniform, an example of high ranking officer, came to our line. After our guard, nearly jumping out of his boots, made his report, the officer began to walk slowly along our line looking at the indescribably dressed group of "Russische Untermenschen".
Ending his visual inspection he addressed the guard to point out the best worker in the line. Standing all this time at attention, without a second's delay, the guard cried out looking at me " Ivan! Schritt vor!" The fellow was with us only because of his disfigured face, red and covered by scars, upon which no one could rest his eyes for long. He was rough with us and pestered us with his "loooos" for no reason the whole day at work. With the assistance of his boot and butt-end of his rifle, he did his utmost to squeeze out of us the day's norms to earn the trust of his superiors. And now, running toward me from the end of the line, he again could not resist screaming his beloved "loooos" beckoning to me to step forward. I did.
The Captain, being about three steps away from me, took out of his pocket a silver lined cigarette-box, opened it, took one out for himself and, as an afterthought, took another one and threw it to my feet on the snow.
I stood as before. "Loooos, Ivan!" screamed the guard again. This is for you from the Captain, he explained. I did not move.
Absolute quiet descended. Along the line ran the whisper - pick up! or they shoot you like a dog! The cigarette continued to lie on the snow, and at the same time I got the shakes from anger and humiliation. Becoming aware that any second now one of my mates standing beside me would bend and pick up the blasted cigarette, I made a half step forward and squashed the thing into the snow. Standing on it I just looked into the Captain's eyes and was waiting for the conclusion of the event. Why I did so, I am not really clear up to now. This was not bravado, nor even a calculated move to restore my honour. I think this was the result of anger boiling in me at the insult.
The conclusion came in a most unexpected way.
The Captain closed the cigarette box, made a step forwards and handed it to me. I saluted as militarily as I could by standing still and said "Thank you!" The Captain turned slowly about and not even looking at us or the guard, walked away.
The guard, said something like " Oh, Russian, you are so lucky! Thank your God!" and after drawing us into three columns, led us away towards the barrack.
This night not many of the prisoners slept. All were discussing the happening, while smoking the Captain's cigarettes.
In a few days we were issued with boots that were intact, jackets and the rest of German uniforms, old and repaired, but clean and warm. The wearing of German uniforms, in spite of the absence of insignia, was not everybody's cup of tea. It bothered our conscience and made us look like traitors dressed in enemy colours while our own people were dying in Leningrad Blockade or fighting the Germans on other fronts. I waited till only sweaters were left and no jacket would fit my shoulders and took an extra sweater to keep me warm. This was naive, but the feeling of venality or mercenariness, did not bother me while lacking a jacket. At the same time, with oncoming spring time, among one's friends began the discussions about how to arrange a getaway from here.
In winter 1940 and until the first day of war, I worked in the Leningrad Motor cycle Factory, which built motorbikes for the Army. My job was to test the machines during long trips for their durability. At the weekends, as part of the job, I could get a machine and go at my pleasure, testing it while mixing, so to say, duty and pleasure. Together with my girlfriend of those days, who had a grandmother living in the vicinity of the place where the German HQ. now stood, I often visited the place to have a cup of tea with the grandmother. Hoping that the old lady would remember me and be of some help with my escape ideas via contact with local partisans, I started to act. Firstly, through our spokesman I asked the Sonderfuehrer to help with leave of absence for three days during Russian Easter to visit the village. With a leave pass in my hand, after sleeping all night with my trousers under the mattress, and boots polished, I went to look for granny, hoping she was alright and in her senses. I found her alive and well, and confessed to her what I was, why I was in German uniform and what I wanted from her. Together with her, in a hut, lived a little girl, related or an orphan, whom she sent to someone as a silent answer to my request. Soon two people of the same village arrived, and I had to repeat everything I had told her. I felt we had very little trust in each other, but they accompanied me to the forest at the edge of the village, where no one could see us. I was blindfolded and kept walking with them for a good half-hour or more, until with the help of my hearing I understood that I was being taken over by other people who continued to lead me somewhere. We walked about two hours without stopping. I heard the call of a guard and his whispering with my escort, voices of several people, and had the feeling of being pushed into a dugout. I took my blindfold off but could see nothing but a narrow slit of light at the door. When it was dark I was shifted to a different dugout in which, behind a table with a kerosene lamp, sat in half shadow, a fellow about fifty years old. Without any introduction, after a short pause, questions were thrown at me. "What do you want?" Feeling that this matter could have a bad end for me, in condensed words I told him my story, and asked for permission to stay with them or in a different unit, as it was not too far to the front. Answering questions as to what I was doing for the Germans, why they gave me the leave pass, did I speak German and did I have any relations on the other side of the front, I was then taken back to the first dugout. I didn't ask anything and no one talked to me but after I finished with the dish of food given to me, and received some tobacco, dish and candle were taken away and the door bolted. I do recall that they brought me water and let me out for my natural needs about midnight.
The whole next day I spent in the dugout. For my needs a basket was brought in and food twice. Towards evening I enjoyed a bit of fresh air on the way to see the same fellow who interrogated me last night. He offered me to sit down in front of a box with bread, mug of water and a dish with something cooked and still hot. During my eating I was told that if I wished to help in the fight against fascists etc., the best thing to do was to go back to my camp and await orders from the partisans. The code word would be -"STARSHOY", meaning one who is in charge of a section of a unit. How and where this would happen I would know later. We shook hands and in a few moments, with two fellows, and again blindfolded, I was walking back to the village. On the edge of the forest my escort gave me over to a young woman who brought me to the granny's
house.
We arrived in the company of two German patrolmen who joined us as soon as we were in the vicinity of the village. Coming close to us they noticed that my uniform did not answer the rules of German military law. I showed my three day leave pass signed by the Captain himself, and the girl had her own local certificate and was well known, judging by the soldiers addressing her by first name. Not having any suspicions both patrolmen walked together with us, teasing me and her with all sort of double meaning suggestions as to what we could have been doing in the forest. I remember as, with a first sight of the patrolmen, my escort whispered in a hurry to put my hand around her and before I carried out her suggestion, she herself was wrapped around my waist looking at me, purring all sorts of gentle words as if we were in love. I must tell the truth, those ten to fifteen minutes, during which I felt her young and yielding body so close to my own, that, in spite of her thick jacket, I began to feel something I had not felt since the beginning of the war.
There was no chance to prolong this lovely feeling; as soon as the door of granny's house opened, my escort and both patrolmen, walked away into the dark street. Sleeping over all that happened during the last two days, I thanked the grandmother for her assistance and substantial breakfast, and walked away towards the camp. For a couple of nights afterwards, I expected that any moment a message from "Starshoy" would arrive somehow, but nothing happened for days and weeks, and I forgot the incident.
On my return to the camp, our "Sonderfuehrer" told me that "Herr Hauptman", the Captain, was very pleased that I had returned without being late, meaning that they didn't expect me to return at all, and that my case was a test case. From this day, it was possible to get a leave pass into the village without difficulty. As a reward for my " punctuality", the Captain ordered my transfer to a better job. I started working as an assistant to a mechanic at a diesel installation which provided the HQ in the sanatorium building with electricity.
The large diesel motor and the same size generator occupied some 150 square metres. My duty consisted of caring for the oil containers, wiping the splashed fuel, filling up the diesel and to watching the indicators of the metering devices.
Well, what better can one wish? It was warm and there were lots of leftovers from the parcels the servicing personnel received. One could hold out till the end of the war.
But it was not to be.
A civil mechanic, here already before the war, two young corporals and a non-combatant older lieutenant, were in charge of the installation. As soon as they knew that I spoke German and my origin was the blockaded Leningrad, I had to answer many different questions on the history, beauty and climate of my dear city.
Once, with painful feelings, answering questions about the large figures placed on the roof of the Winter Palace, I truthfully told them that I did not know whom those represented. "Do not worry", sarcastically remarked one of the youngsters, " we will be soon in the city and will look at the figures ourselves".
Something overcame me and in the moment of hatred towards the enemies I warned him that this would not happen; as soon as he was close enough to those figures, they would crash on top of him.
Walking out of the machine hall, I sat on the stone outside and waited for the expected passing forest commando with whom I always returned to the camp. Only the next morning, my colleague, the civil mechanic, told me how the older lieutenant persuaded the young patriots not to report me to a higher authority. Neither looked at me that day and soon I was transferred to another job.
W O R K I N G F O R "S T A R S H O Y "...........
On the ground floor of the ex sanatorium, at that time the AOK 18, was a large boiler, which provided the whole building with steam and hot water. It served also as an incinerator for all scrap paper from the number of offices in the building.
In the winter, numerous outside duty guards dropped in to warm up for a minute or two, but normally, this inferno was empty except for an old stoker, who, in accordance with his words, was born here. The furnace had to be filled with metre- long logs and those, being still fresh cut, had to be constantly turned around to keep the fire burning. Such a job was becoming unbearable for the older veteran. This was a place where my strong muscles, being enhanced on left overs from the soldier's ration at the diesel station, would find good use for the coming months. The fire was always strong and the heat from the horn made us look as if we had just spent many hours under tropical sun without cover. No wonder that the Germans, who were bringing paper documents to be destroyed by burning, always ordered us to do the burning off. Most trouble was with the Morse-bands. Those twisted and flew off in front of the horn; one had to bend close to the nearly licking flames and try to throw the small bits in to the flame again. After execution of those jobs we nearly always were rewarded with a cigarette or a sandwich from the corporals or lieutenants whom we saved the hot and dirty work.
Those small compensations, in spite of being inglorious, were needed to keep our strength at the level needed for this job and we executed our duties without much meditation.
One day, grabbing the next handful of the paper, I felt something in the shape of a pistol in my fingers. What to do!? Throw it into the fire or try to conceal? But how? The German, standing with his side to me still did not take his eyes off. I decided to hand the pistol to him as if such items did not interest me at all. This manoeuvre assured me a whole pack of cigarettes and more trust in me in the future. This was very handy, indeed, especially as the "pistol" turned out to be just a cigarette lighter.
There were two roads, one going to the village, another into the forest. The forest road lead to the wood-supply places and was used by our woodcutters. On the way home the group always left its tools in one of the earthen dugouts with a wooden roof, standing about a hundred meters from the sanatorium building. In one of the early summer days, the forest group received an order to clean the dugout of petrol drums, saws, axes etc., and several builders put a window and proper door inside, together with a small wood stove. I was delegated to keep fire in it and dry the dugout from the accumulated wet. Inside were a table, bench and a bed. The guard whom I asked who is to live here, told me with his finger to his lips, that it would be " a big Russian General". The next day my colleague -the fireman behaved strangely. He was asking me if I loved the Germans, if I was thinking of running away etc. Then, after making up his mind, there followed a direct question - "Remember the "Starshoy?"". I nearly had to sit down, so unexpected was the question. But before I considered my answer, there followed a request-order. He told me that a recently taken prisoner, General of Second Army which was surrounded and nearly destroyed by hunger and Wolchov swamps, named Andrey Wlassov, would be staying in the dugout for a while. He gave me a tiny, tightly rolled tube of paper, much smaller than a cigarette, and told me that I must make sure the General got it. I shivered like an conspirator. This tube of paper was hidden under the bark of one of the short cut logs and I waited until I saw the group of a tall, skinny man escorted by two German guards, beginning to move towards the dugout. Grabbing the readied bundle of firewood, I hurried to get there first. The door was locked, and I, shifting from foot to foot, was already waiting for the guards and prisoner.
The distance of 50m seemed to me like a whole kilometre, so slowly the time passed. What to do so as to be certain that "HE" would find the hidden tube!?
Arriving at the dugout and seeing me with the bundle of firewood on my shoulders, the guards ordered me to drop the bundle and disappear. They knew me very well but apparently there was an order to permit contact with neither civilians nor other prisoners. I took a chance. Directing my eyes to the guards but my words to the General, I spoke volubly in Russian.... "Please check the firewood - there's a message inside".
What? What? the guards screamed at me. I, pretending I had mixed up my languages, explained to them in German I am not sure whether this size of firewood would fit the stove inside. This saved the situation. "Well, it's all right. Get out" screamed the guard again. To repeat the order was not necessary - I simply dissolved into air. Whether the General read this message, and what it contained I have no idea. My stoker friend told me he also was ignorant of its contents. He was handed this on his way to work.
Night-shift duty on the boiler was carried out by Germans.
Having discovered that my work mate was connected with the same partisans as the "Starshoy", and knew about my attempt to join them, I permitted myself to be more open in my chats with him and we both "clicked". We talked about many things. One of our ideas was to blow up the boiler, but the decision was made not to, as this would not win the war, but would only attract severe punishment on the local populace and many people would be shot while being innocent of the sabotage. The "Starshoy" was unknown to the stoker. Everything was going along a chain in which every link was responsible for his or her section only. This made the safety of the main unit more secure. No one could cause lot of damage if under stress during interrogation. One thing was certain, the Soviet intelligence preferred to work without drama and risk.
A lovely pine forest, actually park, surrounded the HQ18 building. The tall pine trees formed perfect camouflage for a row of cute wooden houses previously housing medical staff of the Sanatorium. Now, those created some sort of non war atmosphere for the top officers amongst commanding staff of AOK18 including Gen. Lindemann himself on his visits. The civil servants were carefully selected from the village. One of the outstanding personalities, a woman, young and well endowed, always with a smile on her pretty face, was taking care of the Captain`s and few other high ranking officers' houses. Us, the prisoners, she just ignored as if we did not exist. Her manner of dress was reflecting the gifts of German origin, she spoke good school-German and coquetted with the officers so unconscionably that we, the prisoners, called her a "German whore". We had no witnesses to such conduct and not even hearsay. I suppose now it was just a feeling of human jealousy towards the pretty woman who to us was so unobtainable. When I asked my mate stoker for his opinion, his evasive answer suggested that she was not as bad as we imagined. My acquaintance with, we shall call her Maria, came unexpectedly soon after the episode with the message for the imprisoned General Wlassov. It happened during the first days of the autumn of 1942.
M A R I A 'S P A R T.........
The cabin-houses with the AOK-18 officers needed to be heated and from the Captain came his order to provide each cabin with firewood. Exchanging glances with my wornout and tired mate, I took the task on. Daily, a couple of hours before going home, began the delivery of cut and split firewood. Our camp-envy met me on the porch of every home and pointed towards the places where the bundle of wood had to be put down. My head sort of turned round every time when, because of my awkwardness, I would find myself too close to her, emitting health, enchantment and attraction. Some two-three days after beginning the deliveries, Maria beckoned me to come inside one of the cabins, in which the Germans had built a proper fireplace with room on both sides for the firewood. Taking my bundle off my shoulder and beginning to store the wood, I felt Maria`s hand and shoulder touching me. "Oh, no! As if she has not enough from her German admirers!?" went through my head. I looked up to the woman, but instead of a promising- caresses image, I met a look of steel belonging to the knowing- her- duty person. "Remember the 'Starshoy'? Yes?! Well, listen!" In exact expressions, without losing a moment, she explained to me what was needed. She also added, "No need to be afraid of the stoker, he is 'ours'", and if I were be unfortunate and got caught, to tell a story that I was exchanging my loot for cigarettes, from a German meeting me some time on my way to the camp. (I must explain that by now a kitchen helper and I were permitted to walk to the camp alone as our hours were irregular.) Except for such information I was to swallow my tongue.
My task seemed to be easy: during burning the paper rubbish, to salvage as many as possible of the Morse bands. Those dashes and points could provide vital information towards breaking the daily changes of code used by the AOK-18. There is a saying - " Now told, now done!", but to follow it is another matter. Well, how would one, in front of a soldier who brought the basket with paper and is not taking his eyes of it while the contents are being burnt, take out and hide long twisted paper bands with the dots and dashes? How? The chance of being caught and suspected of espionage was not a chance, but undisputable odds against one.
And in spite of all this, nearly every day I managed to collect and to pass to Maria during wood delivery a quantity of the Morse tape. In the baskets one could find empty cigarette packets or chocolate boxes. In those I pushed the paper bands, broke the hanging pieces off and managed to shove them into, made specially for this at home, wide sleeve cuffs of my jacket. The daily results were packed into a bark roll and from both ends camouflaged with wood splinters as fire starters. The bark cylinder, less contents, Maria gave me back as "not suitable". "It would smoke too much."
I had a few close shaves. One time, feeling the cigarette packet with my fingers I discovered that it contained unused ones. What to do? To destroy the cigarettes shovelling the paper bands into the packet or, forget the duty and save the smokes which were prized those days more then bread? A German standing close to me noticed my delay and looked into the basket. Shaking out the contents of the packet I pretended that I was collecting the cigarettes one by one for return to the owner. Checking every one visually the German told me something like - good on you, but have those yourself. Convinced of my honesty, he stepped back and relaxed his watch, this enabled me to fill the next packet with the tape and conceal it in my cuff.
Once, returning an empty container to the corporal who brought it, I noticed a piece of band just hanging a little out of my sleeve. The corporal took the box which just covered up the paper hanging from my left cuff. To attract his eyes I wildly threw my right hand into a salute and said in German - "Please, Sir!". My left arm had time to be pressed to my side at position "attention". Thus the hanging strip was not visible. The corporal began to smile, took a couple of cigarettes out and offered them to me. I took those with my right hand and saluted again with "Thank you, Sir!" The young soldier for sure was thinking that I was a jolly fellow or plain stupid, but the circus enabled me to conceal the evidence of my being something worse. The easiest job of collecting the Morse tape was when a basket was brought by the one to whom I returned the pistol-lighter, which, I am sure, was put in to test me out some time back. This fellow would give me the basket, go to the door and wait till I was finished. His trust meant a lot to me!
T A R T U , E S T O N I A.........
So passed several months. Winter 1942-43 was not far off. The main part of POWs was transferred to Estonia. We began to settle into the town of Tartu and to restore new quarters for AOK-18 HQ.
Before the departure from Siverskaja, Maria assured me that I should go too, and that I would not be alone. Our POWs looked like people by now. The simple but sufficient food, mostly from our land in the vicinity, strengthened us. We also benefited by some change in attitude of local Germans. "Loooos,loooos", still sounded, but without hatred or anger towards us. This, of course, was only local atmosphere, and it did not follow the official line and politics of the National Socialist leaders.
Our group, about 30 in all, worked as painters, builders, plasterers and cabinet-makers. We had someone working as electrician or even plumber. Those two professions in one person commanded respect and a chap, his name was Feodor, which we converted into "Fedja-Engineer", knew this. Quite intelligent, ex artillery commander, or maybe higher, he never spoke about his past. His roots, judging by his cheek bones and slightly oblique eyes, were in far Siberia. Being on a good list with Germans, (he spoke their language very well) he was called in, day or night, depending on the need for his ability to repair anything that fell apart. For this he had permission to go alone into the town and have friends among the Estonians, who often spoke Russian or German. One of his friends was a lady, an old Russian emigrant, in Tartu before the Revolution.
My work at the new place was to assist a young soldier, painter by profession. His father was a miner from the Ruhr district and the chap had a great interest in the history, anthropology and politics of Russia. Standing on trestles with tin of paint between us, we indulged ourselves in long discussions, with our work getting ahead in spite of it. I must confess that my information on a "high" subject was limited to school lessons, but political subjects got my strongest patriotic attention. I talked about Revolution and what good it brought to us, basing all my arguments and proofs on the teachings of Lenin which I had absorbed, being a "Young Communist" for several years already in school. Once, having a discussion on the merits of Communism, I did not notice some one had come into the room behind our backs and was listening to our conversation while leaning onto a door frame. Turning about I noticed the " Fedja-Engineer" and my breathing nearly stopped. He looked at me with his slanted eyes and, after a longish silent pause, quietly said something like, "What you have said is right, but one must be more careful, the walls have ears, sometimes". Having done what he had to do in the house, he went away and we met only a couple of weeks later.
We were accommodated in ex guard barracks of Estonian militia- clean and warm with a possibility to cook for ourselves according to our fancy and availability of such gastronomical wonders as potatoes, animal fat and salt. The barrack air tickled our nostrils every evening after some lucky one managed to obtain these ingredients and cook a meal to replace the very simple ration supplied by Germans. The ones who, because of unfavourable working place were unable to indulge in gastronomy, were often doled out a plate. This made our small community as friendly as possible.
Being on such intensive feeding, one became restless and enterprising. With help of my fellow painter, I managed to get a pair of skis and started intensive training on fresh fallen snow. The intention was, as soon as I felt strong enough to withstand the cold, wind and tiredness and able to run a whole night on a ski, to pack some sugar and lollies swapped for cigarettes with the 'haves', and to run towards East, leaving behind all accumulated possessions. Alas, my plan could not be executed!
"Fedja-Engineer" was trusted by the Germans, no one knew why or for what. He was permitted to come late home or stay all night outside with friends. My mates were careful with him not because he was bad, but because there was some suspicion of something, however unproven. Since he had witnessed my talk and my political bias, we had never exchanged a word. But one day he met me returning from my training with skis on my shoulders. " Preparing for escape?" I was asked. Under his glance I kind of lost my ground, and a short "Yes" was a slip of my tongue . "Wait! The 'Starshoy' is looking for you", half informed, half ordered Feodor. A couple of days later I was invited to a cup of tea at his friend's house. An introduction to a youngish woman, the wife of a local baker, played a large role in my life. For those who have no patience to wait for the development of the situation, here is a short synopsis. Yes, she was young, the baker was much older and I a bit younger, and as a result of such circumstances we quite often met in the empty buildings, summer houses on the edge of a lake, my training ground for intended escape.
Those meetings were a little stressful at the beginning. We carefully chatted about war, Germans, my and her past nearly since our first birthdays, and only after we came to know each other with souls and bodies, her question came as unexpectedly as snow in the middle of summer,
" You haven`t forgotten the 'Starshoy?'" "Who?", pretending that I did not know what she is talking about, I replied. "The one with whom you had a talk in the dugout, while in Siverskaja"
As such details no one knew except myself, I understood that this was not a trap and we began to talk without evasion. About herself she told me only, that what I do not know about I am not responsible for. The orders from my old "friend" were as follows:- I was to join an anti-partisan unit which was operating in the district under the leadership of an old Whiteguard fellow officer, Captain Feofanov and to await orders. In the meantime I was required to obtain a stamp of the supply unit commandant, together with some letterheads, and to hand those to her.
This sounded impossible, but in reality was easy to execute. At this very time three Germans and two POW`s, one of them was I, did some renovations of the supply unit offices. So as not to disturb the personnel during wallpapering, we were doing this during the night time. The team of office workers consisted of those returning from hospitals, but not fit for the front line, cripples with burns, half blind, stuttering and limping soldiers. Those were collected here for a spell and we had a going trade with the fellows getting parcels from home with tobacco, cigarettes, cigars. The goodies were traded for fresh eggs and homemade cookies etc. We were the middlemen. In the night we could see a parcel with a note attached - we could read that the owner wished to exchange for this or that. The goods were obtained in a day or two and delivered to the one who ordered them. No one cheated and we collected "commission". An example of private enterprise!
To find the letters with corresponding stamps on, and a few letterheads, was no problem and those were delivered to my associate.
So far, so good! But how to get into such a perfidious establishment as an anti-partisan unit, a setup consisting, according to my understanding at that time, of Russians, but not adherents to the same belief as mine - the Russians who chose to fight their own people, while being patted on the backs by Germans. Did they do this for a piece of bread or some other insignificant favour? In those days I hated such traitors, and I had to become one of them! What to do? Valia, the baker's wife, was more practical. "You shall do your job and clear off at the right moment, nothing to worry about. The unit has to be penetrated and 'Starshoy' reckons that you are the right man for the task."
With some help from our camp Sonderfuehrer, an old Russian emigre, a letter was written to the Captain with a request to permit and to assist with transfer. The matter was considered for a long time. For about three months I had to put up with all sorts of insinuations from my mates, the POW`s. Behind my back I was blamed for "selling" myself to the fascists. Once it came to a brawl from which, luckily, I got out as a winner, but still a bit shaken. The situation still worsened as someone informed the Germans that my application had nothing to do with being anti-communist, I was just looking for an easy way to run over to partisans or over the front line. Twice I was called for a "friendly" talk with some Germans dressed in civil clothes. The conversation went in German, but with so many typical Russian swearing words used to " break the ice", that I, an expert in such lexicon, was stupefied and felt uncomfortable. I was offered good cigarettes, and with seeming approval my falsifications were listened to. I told them about my parents being shot in 1937. ( Actually, my mother died in 1935 and my father became lost during revolutionary times in 1922). Also stories about my sisters (I had none) taken by force into government care and lost to me since, and of my sincere wish to help Germans in their fight against Communism. ( While, in those times, I was boiling with patriotism towards Stalin and his setup).
We parted, and I already was forgetting my attempt to join the AP unit and instead, started to look for a compass to continue with my plans to escape, when one spring day I was called from the working place direct into Captain's office. His adjutant handed me necessary papers and marching orders and told me to go and to pack up my things as the truck going in the same direction as the whereabouts of the Feofanov AP unit, was to leave soon.
How suspicious was my astonishment, when on arrival at the departure point, I saw another POW waiting with his chattels for the same truck. I knew that he was a clarinet player in a regimental orchestra, which he joined right from one of the orphan children's homes, so plentiful in Russia. His musical talents were known to the Germans, as on festive days our Sonderfuehrer delegated him to play the instrument, obtained some place especially for him, at a village hall named " The House of German Culture".
In a pause, between musical appearances, Grishka (let us call him so) entertained audiences with a very non-musical performance. In front of him was placed an old but strong wooden chair, stool or ammunition box and our maestro, who just a moment ago performed complicated musical works of Schubert and Mozart, demolished the object in front of him with short and exactly directed hits as if were made of matches. Did such exhibitions enhance German Culture or not, hard to say, because after politely applauding Mozart's fortieth symphony, soldiers went literally berserk after seeing the flying splinters, demanding a repeat of the show. Many present thanked Fate that the chap would not be fighting against them at the Front where they had to go some time.
And now, the same Grishka was standing beside me with a look of indifference to anything surrounding him and offering me one of his cigars, earned with music or with chair splitting. While waiting for the transport, in my head a thought was forming -Grishka was sent with me to check and to destroy me at the first suspicion. He will break my neck bones like a carrot and will earn for this a new box of cigars from the Germans.
The truck stopped at a crossing and Germans sitting in the cabin pointed towards the forest road and with giggles told us that we are to head in its direction. " Partisanen Kaput!" were their parting words.
Till then Grishka and I did not exchange a word, each thinking of how to begin. Nothing to lose, I first asked him where he was heading. "I do believe we both have the same destination," answered my travelling companion, "Feofanov`s AP unit." On my following questions as to how it happened that we did not know more about each other, came something similar to the words of my Estonian friend, (I even had no time to say goodbye to her), - "One can not be harmed by what one does not know".
Late in the night, nearly copping a bullet from a fellow standing on guard, we arrived at the perimeter taken by Feofanov people. Not knowing this, in reply to the request in German for a pass-word, we started long explanations as to who we are and where we were going. The guard, not being a gentleman, put us face down and began emitting sounds, not unlike bird calls.
Soon we could hear someone with strong Ukrainian accent, asking the guard what happened. In pure Russian, our tormentor, still pointing his automatic at our flattened bodies, reported that we were two Germans looking for the Captain and must be searched and locked up for the night. Not holding out, I explained to them both our position and noticed that the barrel of his automatic was not pointed at us anymore. Still, we were taken into a shed and locked up. We slept like having no worries.
Awakened by a lot of noise made by a group going somewhere, we knocked on the door and were given coffee, and water to wash ourselves. Someone new, in half- German half- Russian uniform, brought us to a hut standing in the middle of settlement.
After the departure of a large group with a wagon, loaded with machine- guns and mortars, only a few chooks ran around and nothing disturbed the tranquillity of this forest settlement. Still being under influence of the unusual experience of seeing our Russian men, armed to the teeth with modern military equipment, just walking away without a single German as a chaperon, we suddenly heard someone addressing us from behind. "Well, did you manage to find us without trouble?" Turning around we saw a young sergeant in German uniform, but wearing a high hat of a Don-Kossak. He made us at ease and suggested we go inside the hut and report to the Captain our arrival. In a tiny room looking at a district map on a wall, stood a friendly looking middle aged officer. Strongly built, with a silver streak in his accurately styled hair, and wearing Captain's uniform. This was Feofanov himself.
"Sir, two Russian Volunteers arrived at your disposition!" I reported as being the older of us two. Those words till today still bother my conscience, but without such report there was no other solution. Captain, turning around, looked at us, again turned to the map and asked Grishka where he came from and who he was. After hearing an answer and placing his eyes on me: " And you?" I reported according to the regulations that before the war I was a student of an Institute named Lesgaft, leaving unsaid that I already had been a volunteer once. Hearing the name of my Institute, Captain lifted his eyebrow and, emphasising every word, pronounced: "From this Institute come out two kinds of people, the decent ones, and good for nothing but espionage and sabotage fellows. To which group do you belong?"
I just cannot remember what I answered, but I felt not at all secure.
Grishka became Captain's orderly. I was left alone, as if all forgot that I was "burning with a desire to fight partisans, if needed, alone". So Grishka told about me when Captain asked him what he knew about the student from Lesgaft.
In a couple of weeks two Germans arrived at our small village on two motorcycles. One they left with us and on the second returned to the AOK 18 HQ. Knowing from Grishka about my work as test-rider at Leningrad Motor-cycle Factory , Captain suggested I try the bike. This was a single cylinder "Zundap-400" with a shaft. A simple, but enduring machine, which, thanks to its shape and vertical positioning of its cylinder, was as made for the deep wheel tracks of the local dirt roads.
It seemed that my ability to ride the bike appealed to Feofanov and I became his chauffeur, dispatch and reconnaissance rider. The AP unit had no car or truck and the petrol with oil had to be delivered by horse-wagon.
Every morning some old man would deliver fresh milk to the Captain. Once, looking at me during my cleaning the bike, he come close and, looking around that no one may witness, quietly told me of a local blacksmith possessing everything for possible repairs, including a rubber-glue. After short pause he added that for me it would be of great importance to visit the blacksmith today.
The motorbike had a repair kit and after I had hidden a little box with glue, I asked Captain Feofanov for permission to see the blacksmith, the object being to obtain some rubber-glue, as he also repairs bicycles.
The blacksmith's shop was in a large double shed joined with a long roof. On its left side, the village smithy had his "fine work" workshop. Here he repaired sewing machines of the first ever made models, guns, bikes and everything that may need repairs in a household. The right wing of the shed was larger, but every free space was taken by all sorts of land machinery, its wheels and other parts, all of prehistoric times.
Hearing the rhythmic hammering on the anvil, I entered his domain. A strongly built fellow was hitting a wheel band, which was held by the smithy himself. Knowing the saying "Forge the iron as long as it is hot", I waited at the door considering how to start conversation and what to talk about. Nearly all middle aged Estonians spoke some Russian, here was no problem. But why to ask for a rubber-glue if I do not need it? And what was the meaning of the old fellow's words, that the visit today would be of "great importance" ? Could it be a trap being set by Feofanov? The smithy saw me waiting by the door, but did not hurry to talk to me. Only after the work of placing the rim on the wheel was finished, he got up from a stool he sat on and walking past me just said, "Wait!"
Shortly afterwards, through the shed doors that the smithy had gone out, walked in a tall, skinny, youngish fellow wearing glasses and resting one side on a crutch. He came to me and handed me a small bottle with rubber-glue. Not knowing how to take this, I asked how much I owed him, and put my hand into my pocket for cigarettes, those days currency. " This is a present from 'Starshoy'" sounded in my ear and I knew straight away that he meant business.
The "Foureyed", with genuine Moscow pronunciation of "A's" and "O`s", without even introducing himself, laid down to me the orders from my unseen, and unknown to me, "chief".
Every time our group went out for an assignment, I was to report where and along which direction it would go. To my inquiry as to who was to tell me the supposedly secret intentions, he answered with one word only, "Grishka!"
Lucky me to have strong heart and nerves, as someone else would not be able to bear such a surprise.
The information had to be relayed via the old milkman or young kid, the laundry-woman's son. His mother visited the Captain's hut twice per week to pick up his laundry and while she was inside, doing some cleaning also, the boy, about 13-14, admired my motorbike, which I, not having other duties, polished and serviced non-stop. During such activities was the most convenient time to pass the information over.
********
Now, it is time to count over chronologically the happenings tied up to the group's movements, to indulge a little into philosophy, based only on guesses and to make up the balance with a common denominator. Feofanov's AP unit consisted mostly of cut-throat fellows, but in it were also decent people with principles- from a nine year old wagoner's son, joining the unit with his father after partisans killed their wife and mother for some insignificant suspicion, to a 55 years old kasack-officer from Kaminski group, known for its dedicated fight against Bolshevism. This officer always lead the unit on assignments.
The history from the first days of the unit's formation was unknown to me. No one talked about it and I did not ask. However, after the first two months with the unit, I often asked myself: Why, after the partisans knew exactly where the group intended to go and to be, was there never an ambush or at a least a simple exchange of fire? Why did no one ambush me with Captain on the pillion, during our lonely rides to HQ under which command we operated?
I had to ride along non existing tracks and walk towards outlying villages to ask for help with the only weapon for defence a small pistol stuck into my belt. Why, during all my time on the territory of Estonia and Latvia with the unit did I never happen to meet any resistance during my many night walks with many girl-friends. Everyone knew where I came from.
This was an enigma!
HQ orders were executed. Our "storm" units, from five for reconnaissance to 30-40 men to guard a railway line in one locality, acted with all the rules and instructions of combat conditions. We put up observation points while in defensive positions, letting off rockets, and once, shooting a lost horse which did not know the password. But direct combat never occurred.
All those operations (and many of them were executed in the presence of visiting HQ officers) earned our unit approval and our Captain a medal. Such enigmatic avoidance of collisions with partisans (and those were plentiful in the district) forced me to ask Feofanov about it. His answer made me lose interest in solving the puzzle. " This is thanks to you, Sasha. Since you have joined the unit we have been lucky without limits". This was said with such a sarcastic smile that I, till now, still wonder what it was all about.
The last straw was an insult from my associate in "Contra-espionage", my mate "Grishka". His answer to a similar question was, "The ones who know too much, die younger!"
After the war, the end of 1946, Feofanov, getting to know my whereabouts from someone, visited me in the town Erlangen, not far from Nuremberg, and tried to recruit me to work for US Intelligence. Our talk touched our unit and he promised to tell me all about it at the next meeting. I had no intention of getting tangled up with any Intelligence and the "see you again" did not eventuate.
Came the day when Feofanov`s unit had to get up and go, not unlike gipsies, beginning their long journey towards the west. To my inquiry about my duties, the unseen "Starshoy" ordered me to follow the AP group till next contact. This order reached me some two weeks later and took a big load from my conscience, as I knew that I was not alone.
We marched some 700 to 800 km., along country roads or without road at all, via Memel, past Warsaw till the Polish town of Rado.
Amongst many adventures, one, which nearly ended my activity as "Our man with Feofanov", clearly stands out.
Still in the land of Lithuania, being sent ahead to reconnoitre road conditions while our unit, to avoid air attacks, moved only at night, I ran into an anti-tank trench. I do not remember any details. In the evening the unit found me flat on the ground, on the other side of the trench, with a red signal torch still blinking on its nearly flattened battery. My "Zundap" was down inside the trench between the many steel rails dug in to stop tanks crossing. I was loaded on one wagon, the bike on the other. In the morning, at some village, I and the nine year old boy, were left behind to wait till a local smith could straighten the bike's front fork, twisted out of shape during the accident with the trench.
As soon as our unit disappeared out of sight, the smith put down his tools and went away. Returning at dusk he told us that the bike would be ready tomorrow morning and took us both to a hut standing outside the village. After a chat with the woman who lived in it, he left us in her hands. After sharing our meagre food stock with the grandma and a little girl, presumably her grandchild, and accepting her invitation to partake in a pot of fresh cooked potatoes, we attempted to chat and to clarify our whereabouts. The "Babushka" did not enter into conversation and pointed to a white as snow bed in the only room beside her kitchen. The door was shut and we were left alone. My uniform was tattered from the fall, and dried-on dirt made it unappealing. The young fellow was wearing not exactly fresh clothes likewise and we decided not to lie on the sparkling white bed-sheets, but to pull the bed cover down and accommodate ourselves on a thick woollen runner beside the only window. This decision most likely saved our lives or from being badly wounded. Our boots and belts with pistols off, and we, fully dressed otherwise, slept without worries.
Early morning. Still dark. I listened to excited chatter on the other side of the room door. Our "Babushka", talking in Lithuanian, was trying to convince some men with harsh voices of something. I only had time to wake my young friend and to pull my pistol out of its holder. The door began slowly to open and a burst of automatic fire cut the empty bed nearly in half. We could hear the screaming "Babushka", the name "Feofanov! Feofanov!" said by someone, swearing in Lithuanian and the fading away sound of men leaving the hut.
The poor old woman entered the room with a candle but instead of two dead bodies saw both of us, scared to death, but still alive and unwounded. Hurriedly boiling some water and serving us with a buttered crust of bread each, she explained, using a few Russian words, that it would be wise for us to disappear at this very moment. Getting out of the hut, we saw our "Zundap" leaning against the wall. With dislocated collarbone, along the terrible road, only just being able to hold the handle bars, and with my young pillion passenger, I dived into thick fog to seek out our unit.
Not being able to stand the pain, nor hold the motorbike on the slippery clayish ground, I stopped and we pushed our machine towards a farmhouse where a farmer was coupling his horse to a wagon. The chap was likeable and agreed, for some reward, to give us a lift to the next village where, according to him, was a German Army unit. In an hour we could see a settlement and beside it, in the open, several people and two wagons. Four horses lazily picked grass nearby. Coming close, my youngster, not meaning to do this, grabbed me by the sore shoulder saying "My dad, my dad!" This made me suffer from pain but the encounter was happy! The old man had refused to leave his son behind and got permission from Feofanov to wait here till we arrived. After sleeping over, we started to walk towards the supposedly camping Feofanov camp. Yes, to walk, and not to travel in comfort on a wagon. The horses we saw did not belong to us, nor the wagons. We tried to barter with the owners, but they did not take our situation too close to their hearts and looked sometimes outright unfriendly. My shoulder swelled up making me unable to steer the bike and no one would want to learn the sport in a hurry. The "Zundap" was left behind with the intention of coming back in the evening to pick it up. The whole day we followed the local roads pointed out to us, but to no avail, the Feofanov unit of some hundred men just eluded us. We understood that the directions suggested by the locals were not necessarily the right ones, perhaps intentionally misleading. This night was spent in a half burned house with a well full of clear water. In the morning, we managed to find one of the central roads. We stopped a military truck and found out that we were going towards the front
and not following our unit. In the truck were two wounded Germans and we could find a space inside for a safe and fast trip to a town named Memel.
On arrival we began to look for our unit. A town Commandant told us that no one had heard anything about Feofanov and, together with an order for rations, delivered into our hands an order to join one of the German units being formed from loose groups like ours. We said "Jawohl!", collected our rations and took to a road from Memel which, on our calculations, would have been used by our unit.
Germans were moving towards the west! Disorder and confusion, unattended wagons with chattels, this all was so untypical of the nation of Aryans and Wehrmacht itself. One thing was clear, the German army retreated not wishing to find itself encircled. The roads were bombed often. Burnt out trucks and cars, ripped apart horse carcases, left behind wagons, this all suggested to us not to stay in the main current, but to separate and to move parallel. Catching a large draught-horse seemingly disowned, we turned on to the side roads and went westward. Without saddle or bridle, not even a rope, managing our large horse in spite of its lovely character was a task and a half, and we traded it with some cloister monks for sausage, bread and bacon. As an extra bonus for such a good deal the monks handed us a bottle of an exceptionally tasty local product, a type of Benedictine. I do not remember its name, but recollect only that on the label was an image of a stag's head.
Ignoring the time and distances while looking for the unit, we nearly arrived at the coast of Prussia, when people coming towards us informed us that the bridge ahead was mined and barrier guarding soldiers would not let anyone past.
Our small group split up. Three of us intended to circumvent the barrier by foot, but one chap and I fancied to do so in a more honorable way, by water. A sea coast could be seen and the two of us, pulling from under an empty house a small flat bottom boat, put into it the rest of our rations, made paddles, and off we went like Columbus.
An easterly breeze helped us to cover a kilometre or so, with us beginning to regret that we had not joined the navy instead of infantry, so lovely it was. But then, so suddenly, the breeze became a gusty wind and the water surface looked like something we had never seen before. The waves rolled over our dinghy, we got wet and cold and our vessel started to submerge under the weight of collected water. Feeling horror that we would not last long in the cold rough surroundings, we prepared ourselves to "abandon ship". Being born a hero, I made the jump first and.... nearly broke my leg hitting the hard sandy bottom about a metre under the surface. Yes, we had no idea that this large spread of water during low tide is nothing but a puddle and only wind whipping white combs made it look like an ocean.
A few hours and we, stiff from cold and exhausted from pulling our boat with our few things inside, reached the land and made up our minds that a navy career would be unsuitable to us. Squeezing the salt water out of our clothes, standing stark naked in front of each other we began to laugh, so blue and miserable was our image. We had to dry on the move, as night fell and there was no chance to find any warmth.
We moved through the night, as it seemed to us, in a South/West direction. Coming out to a small clearing we saw a blink of light, and my companion called to the figures coming towards us, thinking, I suppose now, that those were the rest of us. In answer he received a long sweeping succession of shots which literally cut him in two. He who was shooting moved his automatic there and back till my mate, having no chance to even let a sound out, collapsed on the earth. Apparently I was far enough to his right and behind some bushes as I went unnoticed.
Four figures in Soviet uniform, probably a reconnaissance group, came and turned the corpse around searching the pockets and his planchette, and finding nothing except a taken apart pistol and a piece of wet bread, continued on their way. This all happened not further than 5-6 meters from me. I stood behind a bush in a helpless situation. My pistol, after being submerged in salt water, also taken down, its parts waiting to be washed out, was useless, and except for this I had nothing for attack or defence. The soldiers spoke in a language of one of the Asian parts of USSR which I could not understand. How they missed me, only the Lord knows. Well, the bushes and darkness helped too.
Recovering from the experience, I understood that I was moving towards the front and, waiting till first light, after covering my dead mate with stones and branches, went aimlessly towards the West again. I met a small group of German Signals who fed me and invited me to come with them, but I preferred to go alone. A few days later I met a farmer whom I helped load his belongings on a large wagon. He said that the Feofanov group had stayed in his village and had left several days ago towards Poland to the town of Radom. One of his farm hands, a Russian girl brought by Germans from Russia in the beginning of the war to help with farm work, had gone with the group and told him where they were going.
Begging and stealing, using truth and falsehood, obtaining food and means of transportation, after crossing half of Poland I caught up with the unit in Radom.
The town where Feofanov made a camp is in the southern part of Poland. According to hearsay, the Germans insisted that the unit should join the front details and be ready for combat, but Feofanov did his utmost to enable his detachment to avoid such fate. Grishka happily took me in and made me eat and wash myself till I looked as before. He was in charge of a ration distribution center. Through Radom passed the main route used by soldiers returning to the front. They moved about with marching orders which entitled them to receive rations in many towns on their way. Radom was one of those. The passing high officers were entertained by Feofanov himself. The rest had to go to a room in the barracks where our unit was, on show of documents to receive, exactly cut to the corresponding weight, a piece of sausage, bread, sugar, tin of sardines and coffee. It happened that Grishka's assistant got caught stealing the food and shortweighting the poor bastards returning from hospitals to defend their leaders. This made a cosy place available for "one of the boys", that is, myself. I reported to the Captain my arrival, during which he looked at me as if returned from the dead, and I had to digest a funny question "How come you are not in the Red Army by now?" Noticing my embarrassment, Captain, with a sad smile on his face, pointed out that for us there is no return. We are damned by soviet rulers, and the way back to normal life in our Motherland was there no more. He knew, said he, that the POW's who managed to escape, were treated with disbelief, contempt and confinement. Now, when the war effort looked more promising, they were not even used as a cannon fodder in the penalty battalions. The returnee of our kind was sent direct to the rear for a tribunal and, if lucky, into concentration camps for 15 years.
Helping Grishka with ration distributions I met a lot of interesting personalities amongst German personnel passing through. A lieutenant, thin and weak after heavy wounding and recovery, dropped in to us for something to keep him going towards the front line again. On his neck hung an Iron Cross, one of the highest decorations in the German Army. We asked him for what he received this. He answered half joking that he stopped with his body a 175mm shell. Being offered a cup of hot soup he stayed with us for a while and chatted amiably about his experiences. Being at the front not far from Stalingrad, he had run into Russian reconnaissance and was taken prisoner. During his short stay (he managed to escape) as a translator of instructions for a new type of personnel mines, he witnessed two Russians, ex POW's, being brought to the engineering unit where he was doing his duty and, after short interrogation, were stripped of the German uniform they were wearing and locked overnight in an open dugout. This was winter time and the next morning their frozen bodies were laid out under a board with the word "Traitors".
He assured us that the German POW's had much better conditions than the occasionally returning ex- Red army soldiers.
Such information seeded uncertainty in already not so clear plans for my future. Contact with the partisans was lost. How to establish it again? To volunteer on the front line and to go over to the Soviets? And after? Being knocked over in impulsive circumstances? Who is going to dig out all the details of your past, while "collaborating" with the Germans who killed, burned, hanged and robbed your very own people?
Get lost in Poland and wait the end of war to try to prove that you were doing your bit to help your people while working for partisans under daily danger of being discovered and shot like a diversionist or spy? How possible to prove a story if I did not even know who the hell is or was, the "Starshoy"?
My conscience towards the Russian people was clear. But am I now as patriotic as before towards the system, as in that fated day 22nd of June 1941, when after hearing about the war, direct from the motocross competition on my own bike, not even saying Goodbye at home, I hurried to the registration centre and declared myself as a volunteer anxious to defend his Motherland?
Such reasoning and deliberation brought me onto a one way road. During the last three years one got to hear so much about Stalin, his clan of rulers by bullet and force, about Bolshevism, Communism and the Revolution itself, that my head was full of contradictions and disbelief of those who were telling you that they were leading all your people towards a happy future.
More and more uncertainty crept into me. How could I manage to prove my loyalty to the Government of USSR of those days? As I never had had a good talk with my mate, Grishka, I came to the decision to either have a chat with him or to clear off and to act, depending on circumstances.
Next morning, cutting bread into right size pieces for the marching rations, I asked Grishka "And what shall we do for our future?" The question was made as just for the sake of a light conversation, but Grishka, who knew much about matters the others had no idea about, took the situation seriously and told me that to play being naive now was not the right time. Our unit was about to join the First Division P.O.A. (the Russian Freedom Army being composed under German supervision not far from Ulm, a town in the south of Bavaria.)
After doling out the rations to waiting Germans, we sat to play chess (for a camouflage) and had a really good chat. He told me how he was delegated to keep his eyes on me (he was in contact with the partisans before me). How I nearly got liquidated being under suspicion of working for two sides. Very often I visited the adjutant of the Captain, Hauptmann, my "friend" after the incident with cigarettes, and delivered to him large ashtrays I was making from used empty shell cases, trading those for bread and smokes.
During our talk, Grishka indicated that Feofanov was not a fascist servant, but only tried to save his and our lives. He did not enlarge on the info, however and I do not know how our Captain managed to provide unregistered inactivity on both sides during our duties as an Anti-Partisan Group. The matter is more complicated by the fact that while left and right from our perimeter explosions and subversions were preventing the
Germans from the execution of their task, on our "front" neither we, nor Germans, nor Partisans were involved in fighting. Who knows, may be Feofanov has written his memoirs too, and those could be read one day!
One can be certain he hated the Communists and Stalin and the whole system of untruth and force in the USSR.
But shall we go back to the life in the unit? While I was "inspecting" the lands of Lithuania and Poland, Feofanov had a visit. Spokesmen of the POA (Russian Freedom Army- RFA) explained the whole setup and activity of General Wlasov and invited the unit to join the First Division undergoing formation in the town Muensingen. The Captain organised a meeting of the unit officers, who in turn went to the men and came back with unanimous approval of the idea.
Autumn '44 began. One rainy morning our rations room was visited by a German wearing uniform without insignia except "SS" symbols on his collar, half covered with a rain coat. He suggested to us to shut our "shop" and to follow him. On our indignation he answered that this was not an arrest, but only an invitation to have a chat with a magistrate to sort out someone's complaint about our ration doling technique. No need to worry, it was only a calumny and we should be back in a half an hour. Walking past several street blocks, we arrived at a house, and, entering a room with few chairs, were asked to wait till called. After a while, Grishka was called first. Some one and a half hours later I was called in. Grishka had gone, presumably via an other door. In front of me sat an officer also minus insignia, dressed in "SS" uniform. He spoke in a soft voice with friendly manner about the weather as if trying out my German. There followed questions on such insignificant matters as - did our Captain wear pyjamas to bed? Did he read in bed? What colour was his letter writing paper? And so on. This confused me and I requested to know what the point of this conversation was. To my surprise, not being offended, he answered that some one had denounced our Captain as being non-loyal towards the Fuehrer and Wehrmacht. His questions became fast and more directed towards important details. Those also were so composed as to put me off the rails and to answer without reasoning. What was he reading? With whom did he hold contact? On what subjects did he talk with us? What was he mostly displeased with? What friends in Radom did he visited and who visited him? Such interrogation lasted for two and a half hours. My face was on fire and my answers were getting shorter and nearly unfriendly. Then, absolutely unexpectedly, without waiting for my answer to his last question, he got up, offered me his hand and said that he thanked me for my answers. " You two saved your Captain's reputation. We trust you!"
Returning to barracks, I waited till Grishka finished his doling out and, locking the door we started to examine the happening. Grishka told me the ins and outs of the matter. The Captain himself enlightened him on this. The decision to join RFA (POA) against the wishes of the Wehrmacht started all this. The Captain's deputy, also a Captain, who came to us after being discharged from a hospital, was fanatically convinced that we, the unit, with all our experience, must go to the front line and help the Germans to combat Communism in the face of the Red Army. As soon as he knew about Feofanov's move to join RFA(POA), he called this cowardice and avoidance of duty to be loyal to the German Reich. He wrote a report on this case and as a result of this, investigations started. The AOK 18 HQ was fully aware of Feofanov's intentions and understood that the forming divisions under General Wlasov, were a last German hope for a miracle that the war may turn , with the help of the very Russian People whom the Germans are fighting, towards some compatible solution. The matter of Feofanov's alleged disloyalty was cleared.
I do not recollect the date, but the day had come for our unit to depart for Ulm. We were loaded on to open railway wagons, our horses and carts standing on those not even having a rail to be fastened to. Next morning our train came under air bombardment, was damaged and we lost several men. We offloaded ourselves right in a field and started to move towards our destination by foot.
About General Wlasov we knew little, All possible hearsays circulated amongst us. "He is definitely sent by the NKWD to collect the POWs and so make them unobtainable for Germans to help with the war efforts." Others were saying, "The Red Cross of Switzerland requested him to collect us and later go over the border to Switzerland and join the US Army." On our way down, Feofanov come to us, the scout group, (we always kept ourselves separately, as "elite") and explained to us that the formation of the RFA (POA) had an aim and a hope to be able to waken the feeling of anti-Stalinism in the Red Army, which would lead towards freeing the Russian people from slavery under its rulers, and ending the war on favourable conditions to Russia as well as to Germany. He mentioned the Prague Manifesto, himself not knowing all the fine points of it, but all the time during his talk repeating as in a trance, "too late, too late".
Well, I will be not much wrong if I say that half of us were going towards the union with Wlasov troops blindfolded.
The town, Muensingen! Not far from the town, - barracks! Lots of trees, stone buildings not yet subjected to the bombing, a mass of our Russian People dressed in German uniform, but with a cockade with POA letters on the cap, also the same letters on the sleeve. Very lively, but with proper organisation. One sensed not only the independence, but also pride in being so free. Our Battalion was directed to take the very last building as our quarters, nearly on the ex shooting range. Empty plank-beds, but clean and plenty light. We began to make the place cosy. The water was some degrees warmer than the air. We received our rations, some warm resemblance of Russian soup, and settled in.
Times of misery began! Rations were insufficient. No one died from hunger, but every time we were leaving the canteen, our stomachs were half empty. Sometimes we had combat training, marching for exercise and discipline, tactical lessons and target shooting. We, "being in action", were mostly left alone. We cleaned our weapons, cleaned the barracks and underwent some "enlightening" under the management of officers, ex Dabendorf students. The Dabendorf school was the place where the first skeleton of the officer's contingent for the RFA (POA) was conceived. Those "political lessons" were straight and open. Requested content of the German propaganda was let in one ear and out the other and on our inquires, answers followed without any ambiguity about the intentions of the Russian Freedom Movement.
It was not our wish to start blood letting between us and the Red Army. Through the prolonging of the moment of our facing each other we could achieve this. Till then, we were hoping, the Red Army would know about us, and the Prague Manifesto will throw the light on the reason for our existence.
Let them know first that we were to fight, not against our own people, but shoulder to shoulder with them against the real enemy of our Union. Let them first learn that we were not traitors or villains, but that we wanted to free our folks from bondage worse then under Mongolo-Tartars, some 500 years ago. "And what about the Germans?" "Ah! Germany, being worn out already from the extended war, would sign a Truce with us and exist as a partner." On the parade ground, such ideas were not exercised. Too many representatives of German High Command were visiting us to check our morals, but in the barracks, during the talks with propagandists of the First Division ROA, the soldiers did not miss any words which gave them hope to be of use to their countrymen. Every one trusted each other.
The duty of the Russian People - to fight against Stalin, for Peace, for the New Russia. "Russia is ours! Past history of Russia is ours! The future of Russia - ours!" Those words gave us the reasons to live, and the idea of the Russian Freedom Movement became more and more acceptable to us.
How little did we know about the changes in the Red Army! Its siege under Stalingrad, the retreating German front and our hopeless situation in the near future!
.......
Those days, everything that the people who put themselves on to the road towards fighting Stalin and Bolshevism had accumulated on their souls, began to pour out as if from a cup overfilled with life experiences. Nearly everyone told to his mates and listened in turn, how and where and why he got to wear the German uniform. In the beginning, I experienced a suspicion towards unbelievable stories. Later, after comparing those and finding a common denominator, I was not only terrified by the facts, but also began to understand myself the details which had stayed in my memory since childhood. I understood why all living in our communal flat in Leningrad held their breath when in the night, on the stairs, one could hear steps. "Would 'they' knock on their door or is it someone else who had to put on his boots and hat and to go away, not returning?" I understood why my Mother and my Granny spoke French when the object was not to be understood by me and be repeated innocently at my school later. I recollected that once, walking along a street together with Mother and her girl friend, the latter told Mother how she spent several days, absolutely naked, with dozens of other people, men and women, also naked, together in a small hot room. They all were under suspicion of possessing and not willing to surrender some gold such as family heirlooms etc. The USSR Government, the Communists, had to collect a bounty from the people to pay for some international debts they accumulated. The people stood shoulder to shoulder till they lost consciousness, or agreed to part with a golden cross from their Grandmother, a few golden spoons they got as a present on their wedding day, or even a wedding ring, just to get out of the inferno. Some, who had nothing to surrender, stood there till their strength left them and they collapsed with a stroke or heart failure. Those were taken out in the evening and replaced with fresh ones.
In this story the facts of the extortion did not affect me. Such facts were hard to understand for a seven year old. The fact of men and women being together naked, this engraved itself into my young brain. And only now, while listening to similar stories and putting two and two together, I understood that I had grown under Mother's wings in absolute naivety. My double-faced existence began to bother me. I heard more and more facts about hunger, transportation into inhuman exile, and deaths during the period of nationalisation of 'Kulak' properties and the small farmers disappearing only because they left behind a bag of seeds for next harvest. My loyalty and belief towards the system of Comsomol and Communism, to put it politely, began to shake.
I think it was in February 1945. In Muensingen were gathering many high Wehrmacht officers. We were drawn up in parade array and saw and heard our leader, General Andrey A. Wlasov, tallest of them all, in an officer's cloak minus epaulettes, wearing large hornrimmed glasses.
Next to him stood Commander of our First Division, Major-General Boonjachenko. Wlasov spoke about our role in this fight against Stalin and Bolshevism, calling it sacred. His discourse plus Russian National Colours, which coincidentally at this moment covered half of the German flag, were filling us with a strange sense. To describe this sense, especially after so many years, is difficult. It was not so much pride as a sense of belonging to something large and strong and justified. It was a sense that not all was lost and we may return home, not like a dog with his tail between his legs, but as the soldiers who helped to free their Motherland from Stalin's usurpation. This we felt during the march past, looking at our Generals standing out in front of the Wehrmacht representatives.
After the parade, in canteen, we got an extra spoon of something and a gingerbread each to distinguish this day, the day of the official handing over of the POA (RFA) to the Generals , who were, after all, POWs as we were.
Yes, from this very day the little that was left of my allegiance to Stalin and his mob, disappeared from the depth of my soul, where, until now, it had some hold. Before me stood a new direct assignment, to dedicate all my strength and energy, and, if need be, my life, to the matter of freeing my country from Soviet Rulers. One thing made my heart heavy, how to do this without blood letting and shooting my people on the other side of the front? This question also bothered others. We cherished a hope that our presence on the front, without Germans, would make a strong impression on the soldiers and they would turn their weapons against political idealists and tormentors. How naive!? But still, it was a last hope .
Under such reflections and considerations, we hardly noticed as the time came to place our First Division in echelons and to leave our assembly grounds. The moment of settlement had arrived!
Already the very beginning of 1945 showed a fast changing situation. The Red Army came to the river Oder and established a bridge on its western bank. The advance towards Berlin was taking shape. The Germans ran out of time for the formation of a strong combat unit of three divisions of the ROA as was planned. For us to meet the Red Army on a wide front for most effective moral impact was plainly impossible.
According to Grishka, who, as before, was Feofanov's batman, the Captain, now not a commanding officer, but a sort of Public Relations man and translator between Division and the Germans on our march to the East, kept saying, "Now already too late, now already too late...". He, not believing in any success in making "moral impressions" on the advancing Red Army with fresh troops from Siberia, reckoned that the only right thing to do was to keep ourselves as close to Swiss borders as possible, and in a moment of truth, just try to go over and disappear in the mountains.
But not Feofanov, not Grishka and I, nor 99% of the men of the Division, could be disloyal to POA and to General Wlasov.
March 1945. We were offloaded at station Liberose. A couple of days before, our column was attacked by an English or by Russian fighter plane. Everyone who possessed anything that could fire opened such intensive shooting that the plane went into low flight and disappeared. We felt like winners! The Division marched North, East and West, but in the end we settled in a forest, not far from the river Oder, and began to dig in.
General Wlasov visited Division, but we, a reconnaissance company, could not see or hear him. Next day Feofanov told us that our Division had been ordered to take the bridge formation, the 33rd Soviet Army established on the west bank of the Oder.
In today's literature one finds many descriptions of the short attack of our combat units at the bridge head by Erlenhoff. But in those fated days no one explained to us why, in a such a swampy place, without any moral preparation of the soldiers of Red Army defending the head, we had to crawl under unbearable artillery cannonade, through the barbed wire entanglement, without air or artillery support promised by the Germans, and to lie, losing our mates under hurricane-like defensive fire from the other side of Oder. Previously, several German attempts to take the bridge head, ended in defeat. I suppose we were thrown in just for the sake of trying to prove that we consumed military rations, already in short supply, not for nothing.
A few days before action began, I and another fellow scout were called to the company HQ. After being issued with binoculars, compasses, large scale maps of the locality and one sniper rifle, we were ordered to go to Division HQ and receive further orders from Major-General Boonjachenko himself. We also had to accompany to the same HQ a wagon with a large case on it to be delivered by 12 noon that day. We drove without any road, direct through a forest over all sorts of obstacles. One of the trailing wheels got broken. We replaced it with a cut down tree and on such a half-sledge half-wagon, arrived at HQ, but some half an hour too late. Major-General already had a meeting going with the scouts from other Division units. After listening to my report, coming at me at no distance, he began to roar and cover me and my mate with all sorts of unkind epithets for our coming too late. Looking up at his huge mass, while standing with my back to the only door in the room, I found a door handle and was ready to jump out of the room as soon as he lifted his hand to hit me. The Major-General noticed this and asked me why I was holding the door handle.
My answer was honest. As soon as he was about to hit me I intended to jump out of this room as no one had hit my face before, not even Germans. Boonjachenko quietened down just as suddenly as he flared up.
We were delegated to lay grid references on all possible points of importance on the other side of the river, the communication lines and pads, places which were dominated by officers, bunkers and vehicles etc. To the question of what to do with a sniper's rifle, followed the answer: "Do not shoot soldiers, only "politrooks!" We had no courage to ask how to distinguish a politofficer from a soldier at a distance of about 400 metres.
Four days of observing the other side passed. We sat in a bunker with narrow slits for looking out, from which we could see only the similar openings in the defence wall on the opposite bank. Our side was a bit higher than theirs and so we just could see some open spaces between river and forest and occasional movement of a single enemy. Yes! The enemy! It is strange, but we felt with our souls and bodies that the people opposite us would not look at us as if we were their brothers in suffering, but at first opportunity would destroy us. Remembering that the order was to obtain information "by any means", my mate and I, one dark night, attempted to swim over the river to see the situation at close range. Two rubber postal bags were used as floats and we had reached nearly the middle of the river when my mate made a noise and started to ask for help. His bag lost its air and started to drag him underwater. Our bustle attracted the attention of the enemy's observation points and automatic fire began to cut the water around us.
From our side someone let off a white rocket and answering fire. How we managed to get to our shore I have no recollection.
Our next attempt to use "any means", was not as dramatic as the first, but also did not bring any results. Under cover of darkness we got into trees growing high on our side and waited till day time. Our bones and muscles were sore as one could not move about without attracting sniper fire from the other side. Worse than that was the swaying branches. In front of binocular lenses (and without them one could see little) the movements created an illusion not unlike that of moving water at a ship's bow and created nausea.
Next day we just sat in our bunker and watched the Oder flowing past till we were called in and sent back to the unit on the same wagon, but with a new wheel, and with the same box to guard on the way.
A short but nasty battle between our men and the bridge defenders took place on 13 April, 1945.
Only a short time after our units took and destroyed the first barbed wire line, they were, literally, forced into the swampy ground beside some old sunken tanks. Seeing that the Soviet ground fire was doing us a lot of damage, Major-General Boonjachenko ordered the collection of the wounded and as soon as we licked our wounds, to move south. So began daily 50-60 km marches till the end of April.
We all knew that our Command, in spite of contrary orders by the Wehrmacht, was taking us away from the places where Germans wanted to direct us to support the weak front line. All of us knew that to get to the very front meant to die from bullets or be taken as a prisoner by Soviets, which was much worse. Some possibility to take a small front line perimeter and to begin to influence the soldiers opposite just did not exist. The question as to how to get in to the zone of action of the advancing USA Army was the main problem those days. What was going on "up top" we did not know, but the trust in Boonjachenko was indisputable. Our soldiers
went after him as after their father. We trusted our commanders, but at the same time sensed being trapped by the circumstances, not unlike wild animals being cornered into netting.
We were marching and marching, only with short pauses to feed the horses and to execute running repairs. Women and children (families of our officers and men, who had followed us separately before) walked beside the road so as not to abuse the horses, till completely worn out. They would be given a short spell on a wagon, to be put down as soon as they recovered a little.
Germans were retreating also. Our march towards Czecho-Slovakian land was not at all aimless. We had a last hope that the US Army, not far from Prague, would consider taking us as their POWs. Our march did not go without small incidents, but in general the discipline was for all to see. I remember Feofanov paying for the horse-fodder. Here was a standing order not to get involved in fights with civil folk, nor indulge in shooting duels with retreating soldiers. To avoid an occasional fight with retreating Germans was impossible as they often took us for the Czech-Partisans who pestered them in the first days of May '45.
One evening we short-counted a wagon. Missing was our unit doctor's family. In the morning, I was instructed to take down a motorbike (transported on a wagon to save the petrol), and to find the missing wagon and people. In case the wagon needed repairs, I was given a pillion
passenger.
We followed the road we were on yesterday. Ahead of us one could hear shooting. We waited for a while and discussed the situation. My off-sider, holding his automatic at the ready as if expecting the Soviets to pop up any minute from around a corner, was insisting that we had gone far enough and there was no reason to take chances. My opinion was that we must check a little further to be able to say at base that there were no traces of the people. Seeing that I had no right to force the fellow to suffer from fright, I pressed the bike's starter and asked him to wait for me till I returned. As he told me later I said this with a sarcastic smile which put him off. As soon as I was moving, a long succession of shots made me veer to avoid them. Luckily I was taking a turn and was out of sight in a second. To turn about and to inquire why he was shooting did not appeal to me at this moment and I continued about an hour till I came to the village where the missing group had been seen last. The air was full of typical combat smell of powder and burning. Riding to the end of the village and not finding anyone around, I started the downhill ride through the village, slowly going in low gear and still hoping to find someone. Around was as quiet as can be only after a battle. To my astonishment, across the road which was free before, lay a fence. Stopping my bike to remove it a little and not being worried how the fence got there, I heard the German "Halt!" and several "SS" troopers with guns and pistols at the ready began to come close. My explanation that I belonged to the POA did not help me. One of them pointed to the little red band on my bike asking what I could say about it.
This was a Czech partisan streamer and it was there just in case I met them. The matter was serious!
Going through a large gate of annex hospital I noticed a huge bomb crater. Two Germans, after a short conversation with an officer, brought me to the edge of it. It was easy to comprehend what awaited me in the next seconds. I remembered my Mother kind of helping me with leaving the death camp in my first days of being prisoner, and a thought flashed into my mind "Mother! Where are you!?"
Well, my life is full of coincidences and so it was this time. Before the Germans could step back some distance from me and let the others fire a broadside, the sandy ground under my feet gave way and I started to roll down the crater and out of it on its lower side, right towards the road where my bike stood. Hopping on it in neutral, I coasted down the hill till I could run off the road into the bushes, pull the wires to form a contact, and happily return to my unit.
The first thing I noticed was the wagon with the doctor's wife on it and himself looking at me as if I were a ghost.
As I was told later, my helper in the search reported openly that he prevented my desertion to the Soviets by shooting me off my bike. The doctor's family caught up with the unit soon after my going out to search for them. They just stopped overnight in a forest as their horse needed attention.
We moved again next morning, towards Prague, supposedly to join the Americans.
More and more often we were met by Czech partisan groups. I had heard that the infantry regiment marching behind was involved in shooting with retreating Germans. Our losses were insignificant, but we had taken as a trophy lots of ammunition and weapons, so needed by us for arming the so called "Ostarbeiters", the people forcefully taken from Russia for work at the German industry centres or German farms, who now joined us.
On the 5th of May '45 we took a rest in a village not far from Prague. The place just teemed with Czechs armed to the teeth with all sorts of weapons thrown out by Germans who got in a scrape. One of the Czechs brought a large anti-aircraft machine gun. The complaint - it does not shoot. Looking at the gun's bridge I noticed that its firing pin was cut or filed down. The Czech took it to a smith and in about half an hour brought it back to me. It looked O.K. and aiming at the sky I let off a series of shots. In the Czech group was a girl, a translator. Seeing and hearing that the machine gun was working she took my head into her hands and gave me a long unforgettable kiss. In those times any kiss would be cherished, the girls were scarce, but to be kissed by a dark haired beautiful young woman, with eyes like a bottomless well and lips like tiny pillows, well, one cannot forget it, especially as I still have the photograph she gave to me and which I keep together with a few mementoes of my life. That very night we got to know that we were marching towards Prague. The Czechs, risen in insurrection in Prague and meeting a strong counter pressure from German "SS" troops, were begging us to come and to give assistance in saving beautiful Gothic Prague.
Our officers gave orders for the disposition of regiments and battalions, and our First Division entered Prague nearly from every side. The battle for the aerodrome took many lives. Isolated deaths were caused by shell explosions through the whole city. We were fighting for every house on the main streets where our soldiers, having nothing to lose, performed many heroic tasks. We knew the Soviet battalions were standing just outside Prague and waiting till the Germans destroyed the feeble attempt by Czech Nationals to free their city and to declare it a Free City to avoid being taken over by Soviets. Our soldiers felt like sons of the City. To distinguish us from the Germans was easy: we wore on our sleeves tricolour bands. White, blue and red were our colours. The city was full of Soviet intelligence men and these applied every trick of the trade to dampen the Czech's jubilation and to tune them on their tales which made us out as traitors of the Fatherland, and common enemy No I. Unexpectedly, the Czech radio began to transmit that we, the Wlasov people, were nothing but scum and traitors of the Soviet Government and Red Army.
We scouts knew that the city was full of Soviet agents. We caught one who told us that the Soviet tanks were ready to break in to the city. Except for the Czechs closely cooperating with us, the main populace turned against us in no time. The radio transmissions directed their efforts towards this. We understood that our hope for the Americans to come to Prague was groundless and that we would have to look after ourselves alone. In the night 6-7th May, we received orders to leave Prague and go towards the American lines. Our Feofanov group of scouts was quartered in a three story house not far from a bridge over the river Vlatava. Early in the morning of 8th of May we were leaving the city which we had freed.
Feofanov explained the situation, advised us not to get in any contact with the Soviet agents scuttling all over the place, suggested the best way to walk out of the city, and, taking with him Grishka and a few men, walked out.
I had to bring down a duty observer placed on the roof. I checked the room for something belonging to us and forgotten. While distributing among my pockets tobacco, bread and two small packets of field rations, my eyes stopped on a tiny metal box in the shape of a Bible with a tiny figurine of Maria inside. Yesterday I had admired the lovely miniature. Through all my war days not once did I permit myself to take something not belonging to me except some food to still hunger and a bicycle (which I only "borrowed" for two days and left behind in Poland as the damn thing fell apart under me). Again this time, I left the miniature where it was and went towards the flat door to go on the roof and call the duty observer . Already with my hand on the door handle I began to experience something I cannot explain, as if something were turning me around and telling me to take the miniature with me. Back in the room I took the little box in my hand to have another look at it and in this very moment, outside on the stairs roared an enormous explosion of an artillery shell, the door got blown inside through the corridor, and the wall facing the stairs crumbled. Still with the miniature in my hand I managed to come to the door opening to look outside. A large hole in the stairs, right at the same place where I would have been if not for my return to look at the miniature, was gaping at me as if telling me, "Oh, boy, are you lucky!"
The tiny Madonna in its little box is still with me today.
Somehow I managed to get onto the roof and call down the fellow on duty. His name was Guttchas Stanislav, a Lithuanian by nationality, but born and brought up in Russia. With an experience of 11 years (out of 15 if not for the war) in Siberian concentration camps, Stanislav, being put into a Penalty Battalion straight from the camp barracks, did not take long to get over the front line and to look for the forming Wlasov Division. We went out from Prague together and became very good friends in future.
As our Captain suggested, we took to a country road, moving in the direction of South-West. After a day's walk there still was no sight of our unit. Walking past a building we heard a shout in English. On a bench, leaning against a wall, sat an American soldier who beckoned us with his finger. Well! Hurrah! We are in the American zone! But our happiness was rather too early. Not paying any attention to our explanations that we were not Germans, but someone else, the soldier was just pointing his finger in the direction we had to go. In the village a few more soldiers on duty met us and took our automatics, but my hand gun which I always carried behind my belt, stayed with me as no one searched us this time. After a short walk we came to a building. Inside sat several Germans. I went in, looked around and wanted to talk to Stan. He was not around!? Not feeling very comfortable in the company of Germans whom we had just forced out of Prague, and my insignia told them who I was, I dug myself into straw and slept till about 3am. Opening my eyes I could see moonlight shining through a wall vent. Getting up to it with help of wall brackets and loose bricks, I pushed myself through and rolled on to an earth heap outside. Quiet and no one around. Guessing in thick fog where to go I marched off.
At first light, tired like a dog from walking in the soupy fog, I sat down and, oblivious to this, fell asleep.
The first sunrays wakened me. I chewed some chocolate and began mental calculations in what direction to go. There was no road, I sat in the bushes.
The sun was visible and I figured out - here is East and here is West. This is the direction to go if I am to avoid meeting the Red Army men. "But why avoid them? Those are my people, the Russians. Amongst them I may find my old mates. They would, for sure, understand that I was not against them, but against the damned regime which had done so much damage. Would they?!" I remembered how, while in the shed last night, two Germans in sympathy with me, quietly warned me that my "POA" insignia had better be removed. They had walked in a forest and caught up with a group of Wlasov men also walking in the same direction ahead of them. Not sure if they should be in such a company they slowed down. And just as well! Soon after, Russian Army scouts held up the Wlasov people. The Germans, having no weapons, had hidden
themselves behind some bushes and witnessed as, after a short interrogation and raps on the snouts, the fellow who pointed non stop at the insignia "POA" ripped it off, and the Wlasov men were shot on the spot and left on the ground.
Well? One may understand the soldier who came with his automatic all the way from Stalingrad into Prague, while being told non stop that we were worse than German dogs, that we were traitors and had sold ourselves and our Motherland for a chance to live. While doing his scout duty and not having time for moral considerations, he shot the "enemy of his people" to free his hands.
Yes, one could understand this, but not cross his way! One must go West!
At the same time another vision flashed through my mind. The second day in Prague. We were still in combat with "SS" troopers holding strongly every building and every street. From the flat window where we slept the night I saw a wagon with the dead from our fighting units. Behind it was a group of Germans just taken prisoner. They held their hands up. Suddenly, from a side street a Czech jumped up and grabbed one of the Germans, demanding that he take his ring off. The German did his best, but the ring would not come off. The Czech, taking from his trousers a heavy knife and half cutting half chopping the finger off, took the ring and threw the chopped piece in the German's face. Well, I thought, any Nation has its "monsters". Those are rare. Well, I was wrong. The next few days showed that the Czechs, as any other Nationals, had their share of sadists and good for nothing people.
Getting up from behind my bushes, I came to an open clearing with a pond in its middle surrounded by reeds. Thirst bothered me and I went to the water. After a few swallows, getting up, I nearly fainted. Through the reeds, pointing at me, were sticking out about ten rifles, and behind those as many Czech partisan faces each with a red band in his hat or around his sleeve. "Ah, those could be friends!" thought I, and trying to smile, said a couple of times "Nazdar, Nazdar", the only Czech words coming to my mind in a hurry. "I am Russian, from Wlasov army", I explained. This may have saved my life, but not averted the rough treatment at the hands of their leader. He searched me, took my pistol in his pocket and my purse with German Marks and the miniature of Madonna, my saviour. After twisting it in his hands and asking me if I was a Catholic (I said "Yes, Yes"), he returned it to me and told me to go ahead under arrest.
After some time we came to a railway station. A good speaking Russian language fellow asked me several questions, called me a Red Army traitor and told me to wait outside to be sent to my people who would know what to do with me.
Outside, on the platform, not believing my own eyes, I saw my lost mate, Stanislav. He, holding his finger to his lips, indicated not to recognise him, but just sit next to him and have a chat. He told me that he bartered some Luftwaffe leather uniform for civilian clothes and while he was changing, the same Czechs called from somewhere the partisans who had arrested him and brought him here. One had to do something! I was getting hot under the collar, but Stan, being older and more sensible I suppose, suggested to pretend being want-wits and to wait for a right moment.
Such a moment came very soon. From nowhere, past the station, went an empty passenger train. It went not to fast and we, just exchanging glances, jumped onto the platforms and in a few minutes, when the train was passing near forest, jumped out and started to run from the rails. We walked till dark, going towards Bavaria in Germany. Sleeping under some log and shivering from cold, during our "warm ups" we discussed the next days movements. We must go along the ridge of local hills chain, so no one would interfere with our intentions to stay free. But what to do for food? To steal, to beg? We had no money! We decided to try some small settlement and to trade our strength, helping with some job, for food to take with us. "Easy to say, hard to do". Several places we could see in the valley were busy with too many people to take our chances. Some had dogs which I think already could sense our presence in the hills and were barking like crazy. But came a day when we had to select between going down and getting something to eat or staying on top and freezing to death from being too weak.
We decided to try our luck at the next farmhouse. About evening. The house was in darkness. The lot fell on Stan to go in and for me to take precautions with a piece of wood in my hands. Stan knocked on the door, then on the window, no one answered. Coming back to me he, somewhat apologetic, said that he had not been a thief and did not intend to become one. If we forced the door or window we would come under the category of thieves and bandits. I understood his feelings and we spent one more cold and hungry night on the ridge. The next day, we came upon a house standing right in the forest on the slope of a hill. Homely smoke rose towards the sky. Outside, a farmer played with his dog. Stan handed to me a few German Marks from some hidden on his body and I, beforehand attracting farmer's attention with my "Nazdar, Nazdar", against the barking of a not really savage dog, began to explain to him our situation, offering in my outstretched hand some payment for something to eat.
As in sympathy, he invited me to follow him to the house door and, calling his wife, asked her to make a parcel of food for his "Brother". He would not take any money. In a few minutes the woman brought to me a parcel with food and a small pot of fresh milk. Being sorry that we had nothing to pour it in, I started drinking from the pot. In this exact moment I felt something like a rifle barrel end pressed into my back and the farmer, so friendly a minute ago, forced me to go into a small outbuilding beside the house.
Not for nothing had I spent evenings before the war learning all kinds of unarmed combat! Wheeling towards him and at the same time throwing my left elbow over the barrel of the gun, I hit him hard with my right fist still holding the milk pot. Simultaneously, Stan, who was sitting in the bushes, roared as if representing several men "Hands up or we shoot!". The woman started to scream, the farmer looked at me holding his rifle, sort of asking for forgiveness. "I thought you were robbers" he told me. Picking up the bundle with the food and taking the cartridges out of the barrel, with one strong hit I wrapped the gun around a standing post, and sticking the German Marks into the bent barrels, threw it on the ground. Stan and I disappeared into the forest.
Again on the top of the range, we decided that with the provisions we had to hand (this was a large piece of ham) we would be able to hold out for several days and in this time we would already be in Bavaria. We had no knives, and we bit off pieces of meat in turn. Water was under every large boulder in this locality, but we had no bread.
Spending the night in a cavern with pine branches for a mattress, we had the luxury of an open fire we lit, when, as if a miracle, in one of the large pockets of his jacket he got from Czechs, Stan found a lighter. Sleep would not come. Turning from one side to the other, recollecting the past, we both considered our future. It was in our hands now, to go back East or to continue to move West, also an uncertain destination.
All hope to get rid of the regime in Russia fell apart. War was over, and no one gave a damn as to what Government was ruling.
Except us and the likes of us. Well, here is one more chance!
Many of us talked and did believe that the friendship between the USA and the USSR would be shortlived. Stan was assuring me that as soon as the time came to divide East Europe, trouble would start and the Americans would need the people who loved their Motherland and hated Stalin's mob. "You must understand, Capitalism and Communism are non-compatible!" were his last words before we fell asleep, being totally unknowing about Europe's and our future.
Soon, with nothing left of our ham, we noticed that we were in Germany. We saw a village with a lot of Americans and Germans on the road. The Americans chewed their Chewing-gum and the Germans, most of them in civil dress, josted around field kitchens, set especially for returnees from Soviet Zone. The local Burgomistress, with some help from the US Army, made sure that those kitchens were not empty.
Our summer stay was in a place called Herzogenaurach. We earned our rations and some pay, working for a Flight Unit of the US Airforce. Stan assisted with the managing of a canteen and I, after meeting an officer who could talk a little Russian, with his help got a job as a trainer in the unit's Sporting Hall. The soldiers and even officers who heard of a Russian performing tricks during his unarmed combat demonstrations, were coming and experiencing being thrown on a mat or just going back with a dislocated shoulder or twisted neck. The funny side of all this, they loved the experience and supplied me with plenty of "Lucky Strike", "Camels" and other treasures of those times.
One nice sunny day, all claiming Russian origin or citizenship were registered and loaded on a truck with all of his or her belongings. Arriving in Nuremberg (of Trial fame) we were put behind some fences of barbed wire. Having been fed and bedded we were told that we were to be transported into the Soviet Zone, home, under the care of our own people. No one argued too much. In the group were only civil people forcefully brought to Germany to work as "slave labour".
No one, except myself! Considering that "One soldier does not make an Army", and still having false documents from a German Burgomaster, kindly given to us as soon as we crossed into the US zone after Prague, I did not make a lot of noise, waiting for developments and a chance to get away. But this time I had miscalculated the Americans. Not knowing about bloody repatriations in other parts of Germany, I was not aware of the American experience in such matters. In the night, several railway wagons were brought into our camp and all of us were loaded in, the doors locked and the train went nonstop over the border between the zones. In the wagon was not a sound. Everyone, not knowing what to expect, just sat and waited. The Russian border guards searched our train from outside and inside. We heard the door lock being opened. A young Red Army soldier got in. "Any weapons?" asked he. "No", we answered. But nevertheless all suitcases had to be opened, bags' contents spilled on the wagon floor. Our young Russian girls attempted to chat to the guard. "Talking to you is not allowed!" was his reply. A chill went along our spines, how it is possible? The visiting propagandists were telling us that "The Motherland is waiting for her sons and daughters!"
In all we had three such searches, and every time, our suitcases were short of one or two of our private belongings. Oh well, my large knife, a gift from Americans for my excellence on the sporting field, could be classified as a weapon, but my tooth paste, shaving mirror and a pair of boxing gloves, also were taken out as dangerous items. However, there was no reason to cry over the loss of nonessentials if one was returning to his homeland.
That far, however, our train did not go. The wagons were taken off the main line and brought to a goods station in the town of Chemnitz. The men and women were herded in one building together. Sleeping on wooden plank-beds, our own belongings served as blankets or bed sheets. From here, in alphabetical order, people went into another building, where, in a cabinet with a very high ceiling, sat three persons, all members of a dreaded "SMERSH" unit (SMERSH means short for "Death to the Spies").
Not many told us about what was being asked and how the cross-examination procedure was conducted. Sometimes, someone did not return from the cabinet, and the groups of fellow countrymen were often split, with part of it going towards one destination, the other part some place else. On the second day in this place, a well dressed Russian man with intelligent features, came to a small group of us and, after asking where we were from and what we were during the war, took my and two other's names and suggested we follow him. On what he based his choices, I do not know, but I became Platoon Commando of a nonexistent platoon of firemen, while the other two, my assistant and liaison man respectively. The camp commandant was our direct link with outside world. He gave permission to buy or requisition the items we needed for building up a unit capable of extinguishing fire if need arose. The translations were my duty. We three began the recruiting of the firemen's platoon from the people passing through the camp gates. The training had to be done every day as the members of our platoon were changing weekly. Many did not return after an examination of their past by "SMERSH". It did not bother me then why no one called me for my "Past" examination?. I was plain busy and not thinking about such trivial matters as my "Past" or my future.
So life continued till, from the firemen platoon, were left only two of us, the liaison man and I. The membership of the "SMERSH" contingent consisted of several officers, one of whom was a woman, several persons in civilian clothes who were coming and going, no one knew where from and to. Besides, an occasional truck load of "returnees", who after being sorted out also were disappearing. We made a few friends with those and were assured of a letter from their destination, but no one had ever written or no letter ever come to our hands.
One of such friendships is unforgettable. A very cute and very pretty girl, the child of free Kuban steppes and rivers, had to stay longer because of sickness. On one of my examinations of the fire safety, I came upon a dark corner with someone lying and shivering as from malaria. The smell was unbearable. Sweating and unable to get up for her needs the young girl, under a dirty rug, made a poor picture.
Some of my fireman duties included the procuring of liquor for the "Top Echelon". This I executed through contact with a town chemist who became my trustee afterwards. With his help I got a bottle of disinfectant and a box of anti-malaria pills. In the evening, asking two women from the camp for help, I arranged that the poor girl was washed, changed into my shirt and underwear and placed on clean straw. After a few pills and a light evening meal she slept till next morning.
Asking where her belongings were, I came to know that someone stole her suitcase while she was in one of her delirious malaria bouts. No worry, the chemist friend helped me with clothes for her too. A few more days on a "home treatment" and my patient looked like she should. Every day and evening we chatted and were gettng more and more attracted to each other. Till, one day, we found our normal feelings of attachment were about to go over their borders and become something more possessive and more intimate.
Once, in the evening, we found ourselves at the limits of our bodily and moral conditions. On the border, when reason is not in charge, but young blood and physical attraction one towards the other, throws a veil on standing moral orders and demands satisfaction for uncontrollable feelings. In one of such moments I noticed the large tears on Valentina's face. To my question why she was crying, her just audible whisper answered me, "Sasha, Dearest one, I love you so much and want to be yours, but how, later at home, could I prove that I did not play with Germans? I starved and endured a lot, but kept my maidenhood to be able to prove that I did not sleep with the Germans for a piece of bread".
"Poor, honorable daughter of a Kuban Kosak! What happened to you on your return to your Motherland? Did your virginity save you from the destiny of your countrymen and women? You were younger than I, perhaps you happen to read those lines? I was so proud of you then and am so proud of you now! Valja had gone, but I was still, in the nearly empty camp, together with those in whose hands was my future.
Sitting one day in a canteen and chewing a piece of bread after meagre lunch, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning around I jumped up and stood to attention. In front of me was a woman officer, the major from "SMERSH", in full uniform and with medals. Till then I had seen her only in the building reserved for examinations of the returnees. She told me that I was to drive her some place and to translate something. We drove a long time, south from Chemnitz, till we arrived at the German hospital for Russian officers suffering from venereal complications. The medical personnel, to my wonderment, consisted of only German doctors and sisters. The Major sent me to ask where was Captain "so and so". After some explanations and deliberation, one of the doctors pointed to a side wing of the hospital, giving at the same time the warning that there were only "Goners" and visits were "off limits".
Those circumstances I reported to the Major who was sitting in the car. After thinking the matter over she demanded that I get permission for her to go and to see this particular officer. The Chief-Doctor himself took us over, explaining through me that he would not suggest going into the room, but to look at the unconscious patients through a glass wall, not unlike ones in maternity wards. We could see four of the decaying beings. Only one of those moved his head towards us, the others were nearly senseless. Our Major, let us call her Zinaida or just Zoja, looked long at a bed near a window. What was going on in her soul, no one knows, but after the Doctor answered her question on possible recovery negatively, she took out a cigarette and said something like, "The son of a bitch deserves this".
On the way home she sat in absolute silence, but just before arriving home, she suddenly asked me "Sasha, take me some place where I could have a drink alone". This plea-order I solved by bringing Zoja to my chemist friend. Again she sat in the car while I explained what was needed. Grasping the situation, the German invited us into his office with writing table cleared of all papers. His wife brought a bottle of some spirit, a glass and a plate. The chemist apologised that the "Zakuska" would be not to the standard of the guest, and put on the table bread and a kind of sausage. "Would you have a drink with me?" said Zoja, and not waiting for my refusal made it understood that a second glass was needed.
So began a close friendship between the Major of "SMERSH" and soldier of the "POA".
She drank like a horse, but stayed sober with help of some meat and sour cabbage. After the second bottle, not noticing that my glass stayed full, she told me that the dying officer was her son in law. Her daughter was mutilated in the war and the son in law, from grief, or from looseness, took to drink and women and caught the sickness in Poland. Not being game to admit this, he covered up his condition till it was too late to help him.
Early next morning we were home, in the camp. Without as much as a look at me Zoja went to her duties and I had to wash the car before delivering it back to the autopark.
On my schedule stood a training exercise for our few firemen. In different corners of our camp I heaped up some old straw and wood sprinkled with kerosene, hid a few smokebombs and made several dummies for would- be rescue actions. Of course, my few men were instructed on the whereabouts of fire hydrants etc. Everyone had been told not to undress for this night to avoid delays (we slept in different places and the "platoon" had to run like mad to the shed with equipment first, before going on the "job"). One had to pretend that the fire alarm was unexpected.
Checking last preparations and about to go to bed, I was called to come to the car-park. There, at the ready, stood the "Opel" and inside sat Zoja. In her hands was a traffic order with a short name on it - Chemnitz.
At some distance from the camp she suggested to me in a form of command to go to the chemist and tell him that she didn't feel right and to overcome this condition she would like to have a drink on her own, without her camp mates. I cannot recollect the topic of our conversation. Everything repeated itself, but the chemist, being so satisfied with the payments for the wine and food, covered his leather sofa with soft bed sheets and pillows.
So went my second encounter with a woman about twenty years older than I. Our secret rendezvous began to be monotonous for me and I was very happy to know from Zoja that our camp would close soon and we were to move into Poland.
Our last meeting with the Major from "SMERSH" brought something totally unexpected for me. Firstly, she disregarded all precautions we used to keep our meetings secret. Secondly, she behaved somewhat desperately in a "Could not care less" fashion. She came one night into the empty house which was my unofficial quarters. I slept in a king size bed with all feathered accessories etc.. Not used to sleeping under such a warm cover, I would throw it on the floor.
One night I felt some one not only covering me with the warm blankets, but also getting into bed and rolling on top of me. Hearing Zoja's whisper and strong Vodka smell, with horror, I realised what was happening. The disclosure of such a meeting would mean a very bad end to the both of us.
However, both under blankets, with a bottle of Vodka between us, we chatted and wetted our mouths when dry and, wearing ourselves out, fell asleep.
Early in the morning, I was wakened up by her hand finely stroking my cheek. She sat, fully dressed, on the edge of the bed, looking with motherly eyes towards me. "Sasha, you must not go home" she said suddenly. To my "Why" she added "You saw too much, you heard too much, you know too much", got up and walked out of the room without even saying Good-bye.
Thank you, Zinaida, disregarding who you were, for this warning.
With her words still sounding an alarm in my head, I went to our Commandant and so innocently asked him about forthcoming departure to Poland. "Where did you get this info from?" he roared at me. "Ah, just rumours, the Germans outside are saying this", I covered up. I went on to suggest to him, that besides the grog he was getting with my contacts, we could get something more useful for his and my future in Russia. The idea appealed to him and in an hour or so, in my hands was a traffic order and a three day pass which would enable me to roam free from farm to farm and collect (under war requisition scheme) things I fancied.
Firstly, I went to the chemist and demanded plain civilian clothes, telling him to look after my half military ones, as I was about to execute an assignment from our base and was returning in three days. In no time I was driving my Opel looking like a German doctor to Germans, and like a spy to my fellow countrymen, who, after checking my papers, would let me through. So it went till the petrol was finished. I had no petrol coupons and had to leave my car and continue on foot. Now I had to use the false papers procured by the chemist for my "assignment". My bag contained a small camera, some bread and sugar. A few photos were hidden in my socks. The rest I left in the camp so as not to attract suspicion. From now on I was a German for Russians and a Russian for Germans. Somehow, with help from German farmers, who fed me just to avoid being robbed and advised me on the best direction to take to bypass the road patrols, I came near the Soviet-American border line. Late one evening I caught up with four Germans also intending to go over the border. In everpresent fog we ran into a Russian patrol and were, after surrendering our papers, put in a house with other wanderers and locked up till next morning when an officer would check our documents.
I started chatting with a very young German boy who told me that he enlisted only in the last days of the war and was being let free because of his youth. He was hoping to reach his aunt living just over the border.
My conscience bothered me, I knew how captious would be the officers' questions in the morning. My false papers would not stand meticulous scrutiny. One must get out of there! But how?
In a toilet I noticed a small window. Measuring it with my forearm I satisfied myself that my shoulders would pass through it. But the window was too high!?
I remembered the boy I talked to.
After a short talk the boy agreed to help me and we went to the toilet together. What the rest of the men thought about us I did not know, nor did I care. The boy supported me with his back and I squeezed myself head first into the window. Being three quarters outside I had to twist myself and, hanging by my hands, get my feet outside. My camera strap got hooked on to something preventing the turn around. I pulled strongly, the strap gave way, my other hand could not hold me any longer and I half fell half slid along the house wall onto a wooden pit cover. My feet met the slight resistance of the rotten boards and started to sink into the pit full with human waste. Falling in up to the armpits, with my arms outstretched, I managed to avoid being fully submerged into the aromatic contents of the hole.
Not too much, but still I had made some noise and the guard outside started coming around from the front where he was sitting till now. In thick fog I could only see his boots moving past the pit, he not expecting anyone to be taking a bath in it so early in the morning. For the sake of aesthetics, permit me, reader, not to describe the next hour. I may say only that I managed to get out and to find some hole filled with water. All my clothes were left on the ground and, only in my underpants, I walked into the unknown.
The farmer leading his horse attentively listened to my smelly horror story and took care of me by providing water, soap and old clothes. To top this all, in my hand was a piece of paper with a sketch showing me how to get to a place on the border, which was very near, where two loose boards in the border fence would enable me to go over into American Sector, without much trouble.
So I thought!
The border was guarded day and night, but only from the Russian side. My piece of paper showed every detail. Here was heaped up hay, here was a ditch leading towards a steep gully, here the pad used by the Russian guards and here were the boards to be pushed aside, and I would be free!
With doubled energy, perhaps to overtake some smell still present, I wormed my way along the ditch and came to the gully. Yes, it was steep, but not insurmountable for a strong sporty fellow as I was. From a stone to a rut to another stone, like a monkey I lowered myself down the slope till I heard steps on the pad. The guard walked slowly not bothering to look above his head where I was frozen in a position not at all suitable for long pauses.
A long pause it had to be. An officer on a bicycle overtook the guard and started a long chat with him. My God! I had lots of time to think over my movements. Already for the third time I was crossing the borders. In a short time I would be cut from my people again. Perhaps it was true that "The wolf is not so dangerous as it is pictured"? But right then I remembered words of Zoja, answering my question about the people who, after going through the checking, just disappeared. She told me that I had better not ask for such information or I could find myself in a place "Where no shepherd would bring his flock".
Well, here was the point of no return. The place was beautiful, the Americans just over on the other side of the gully. But what the Hell with the guard? He was still talking with the officer. My legs were screaming, I was aching all over being in such an uncomfortable position for too long. One small movement, a small stone rolling down, the guard looking up, and I would be gone like a sitting duck. To my luck, the officer not only continued on his way, but also, turning around a bend and remembering something important, called the guard who ran on the double to him, and also disappeared behind some outcrop in the slope. This was the moment! My hands and legs just gave up and I sort of rolled down the slope scratching myself, but finding that I was just looking at the proper boards. Pushing those aside I went through and started to climb the opposite slope. I heard the shots, but again the young, planted pine saplings not only helped me to pull myself up, but also covered me from the aim of the shooting guards. Luckily none of them attempted to go after me into American Zone. On the top I just lay stretched out without any strength to continue my getaway.
Coming to my senses I walked some hundred meters, turned about and looked at the other side. There were my people. Not all adherents of my way of seeing life, but still MY PEOPLE!
Let them be blinded by propaganda, especially after winning the long battle against Fascism. After enduring all sorts of mental and physical tortures, they were still willing to part with their lives to defend Communist ideas, hoping it would bring them all sorts of promised lands and futures. They hate me for one reason, I chose to be free the easy way. I had run away and not become a martyr. But it is only temporary. They must wake up and see that their rulers cheated them out of their rights, their well being and their freedom of choice. While looking at the other side where I would be caught and destroyed like a traitor, like a criminal, like something low and dishonourable, I still had a spasm in my throat.
It was difficult to leave MY PEOPLE.
Who would know, or hope, that over some 47 years such people like myself would be seen in a different light, and the very people who were hunting my like, would be blamed for all the mess and troubles they created just to enjoy the privileges of comfort and plenty at the cost of their subordinates.
Who would hope to live till "Glasnost" arrived?
Were we, united under the White - Blue - Red flag, the very same flag that now waves over our Motherland...were we traitors or patriots?
Dear reader, I am not a plagiarist! But the words of one of the heroes of Pushkin`s poem, "BORIS GODUNOV", describe the following attempt to round up my memories better than all my possible tries. So, permit me to continue, please.
All in all, from my friends or from just acquaintances, from philologists and from ordinary people, the testimonials given about the beginning of my story were all, more or less, synonymous:: "The story is easy to read and quite interesting". Well, there were some rave reviews and also a refusal by one person to take in her hands the accounts into which I put my heart, soul and conscience (She worked after the war with her father who was in charge of the "SMERSH" group in the English zone in Germany).
After reading the previous part - my war memories - everyone who knew me expressed a wish to know my story of settling in Australia. Especially my class-mates from the class "Tenth-I"- the school leavers of year 1939 in Leningrad`s First Exemplary School - October district. Each one of them told me their sometimes horrifying stories. Now I am writing for them about things they may have happened to read or hear only from the books of Jules Verne.
AND SO -
The Year - 1946.
G E R M A N Y (American Occupation Zone)
Thousands and thousands of people - "Displaced Persons". These were the many unwilling to return to their homeland for some reasons, especially to the places under supervision of Soviet Union and U.S.S.R. itself. We were called "D.P.", for short.
Our living conditions, compared to the ones we, as UNTERMENSH CLASS, had in prisoner camps or in work-lagers, were just plain excellent. People of any nationality got a place to live, food and work, if they were willing to do something for some extra pocket money. There were cooks, cleaners, helpers and even some managerial positions if one could speak English and German languages.
But we, the Russians, in the beginning were given special treatment. We felt like a part of the American Units. The soldiers could not do enough for us. We could obtain some goods from their P-Xs, could live in free barracks and choose any job available for an outsider (mostly as drivers and assistants in supply centres). In the beginning of Occupation time, we were soul-friends to the G.I`s - " Well, we did win the war together! The 'old JOE' (Stalin)- is our Friend!"
So it was till the day, when, according to the secret arrangements made between Molotov and Eden in 1944 in Moscow, and the "BIG THREE"
(Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) in Yalta in 1945, all who were born or just lived prior to September 1939 inside boundaries of the Soviet Union, had to be "assisted"(if needed by force) to return under the watchful eye of Soviet powers.
The word "REPATRIATION", in those days, meant "HUNTING" and so much has already been written about the inhuman deeds of all the Powers, that I, who, with the help of Fate, managed to avoid all this, had better not attempt to "dig" into those horrors, not having all the documentation for it. But I must say one thing - many of us Russians had to swallow our pride and, to somehow cover up our past citizenship, began our registration as Poles, Ukrainians or "Stateless".
All we were waiting for was some turn-about in the relations between the Allies. All sorts of Associations and Unions began to form, in the hope that if need arose, our people, loyal to Russia, but not to Communism, would not be lost all over the world. I became a member of the Union of ANDREEV`s FLAG - the flag used in Russia before Revolution.
Once, in 1947, our Union was about to celebrate its first anniversary and had commandeered me to find a suitable hall or other premises available for rent. Roaming through the town of Erlangen (I lived not far from it), and inspecting locally available premises, my attention was caught by a pretty and most sympathetic young girl. The celebration went ahead in some other place, but I continued returning to the restaurant called "GOLDENES HERZ" (Golden Heart), and playing with the guests innumerable Chess games, while keeping my eyes on a waitress- the daughter of the owners.
One of my duties at the American flying squadron based on an aerodrome near a place called Herzogenaurach, was delivery of provisions from a large military warehouse in the city of Nuremberg. Once per week or more often, I drove a six-ton truck to the warehouse and on showing an official order from my chief, my truck was loaded with all items shown on the order. After signing the delivery form, I went home. At this very valuable place of employment were working our Russian lads, but in disguise as 'Poles" or "Ukrainians". For me there were no language problems.
One must point out that the Occupation Troops had everything that their hearts wished, except for fresh eggs. They could not bring those from America. The canteen did serve excellent egg dishes, but those were prepared with the help of dried egg powder and did not appeal to the 'refined' tastes of G.I`s. This fact created my other duty- "fresh egg provider"!
No, I did not lay those myself. But receiving in trust several boxes of chocolates, cigarettes like "Lucky Strike" or "Camels", I went to the farmers around the base and exchanged all this (or nearly all) for the fresh, nearly warm, yellowish looking eggs.
So, once, loading supplies at the warehouse in Nuremberg, I gave to understand that one or two canisters (high, stainless steel cylinders) with exotic ice cream, would not go astray during one of my fresh-egg collecting trips. The humbly expressed suggestion was taken as a cry for help by my Russian mates and I discovered that I got not two, but SIX such containers (each 20 litres) in my truck. Off-loading could bring complications and I started to move home thinking how to get rid of some ice cream before it melted down.
As I mentioned before, the whereabouts of the guest house "Golden Heart" was well known to me. With a cunning plan to attract the attention of the girl I admired so much, I made a decision to dispose of some containers right there and then. Passing via town, and stopping my truck right in the archway in front of the restaurant, I hurriedly dropped off the cold stuff, pressed on the accelerator and went to a farmer to get rid of some more..
In a couple of days I visited the restaurant again. The owner (mother of the girl) wished to know what was to be done with this priceless stuff she had managed to put on the ice in her cellar. I explained that this ,well, this was only a small appreciation for the few pleasant hours I spent in the place playing chess. "Oh, well," said the hostess with some disbelief, "if this is so, we shall put it to good use. In a couple of weeks, we are celebrating our oldest daughter's birthday. Please be our guest." WELL, THIS IS WHAT I WAS WAITING FOR!!!- went through my mind..
In the canteen, where my standing with the chief was good, I ordered from the German-pastry-cook working there an enormous cake of highest quality and beauty. It was delivered a day before the birthday of my dream girl..
Alas, I could not be present at the birthday - I had to take the team of G.I`s to play American Football in the city of Munich.. When, after a few days I visited the place again, my girl looked at me (at least so I imagined) with greater approval. Well, trying the piece of cake left for me, I understood - NO ONE could stay indifferent to the provider of such a beauty!
The few following months of courting were for me most unusual. But every time one voice did incite me to "Let's go! Many others around!", another one did contradict the first- "No, you did make right choice. Stay with it!"
Something I had not experienced before made me to see Trudy (this was her name) again and again.
At last, losing my tolerance to such a situation, but not admitting that I was in love, I made a careful step. During one of the "cuppa tea" visits, as if her answer would not bother me at all, I asked Trudy - " Would you agree to become my 'Housewife'?"
After a couple of minutes, as dispassionately as my question, came her answer - "Yes". This laconic exchange of few words tied me and my future wife stronger than "the Gordian knot". But how to go about obtaining her parents blessing? Would they approve such union?
Here I took a "detour" . Trudy's father played games of chess regularly. During one such game I noticed that his opponent was contemplating a "hidden" move. As the game was not official, I permitted myself to draw his attention towards this move. But to no avail! He was too proud to use outside assistance, executed his own move and.....lost.
Afterwards I received an offer to play against him a friendly game. After "heavy" battle, I won. According to tradition the loser puts a beer on. The drink was brought by his daughter with proud sparkling eyes on account of my win. This gave me some boldness and I, so very unexpectedly, asked for the hand of his daughter. Being a little astonished the old man suggested that maybe I should ask her first.
After my confessing that she had no objections to being my wife, he had nothing left than just to ask for a postponement of his answer.
Now I put a condition: My wife must bring into the marriage as much as I do to be a fully equal partner. Ah. well, with some hope said Trudy's father, this I cannot guarantee not knowing the accumulation of your wealth!
"Father, I have nothing!" were my truthful words.
In spite of parental protests against our condition, and a threat from one of Trudy`s aunts who lived in Switzerland, to cut her out of the will in the event that Trudy was to marry a Russian, our wedding was scheduled for 22nd June 1948 The date 22nd of June has a repetition of most important happenings in my life falling on this day. I lost my Father, I lost my Mother, the War started and now.......I am losing my "independence!"
The worst thing was that two weeks before the wedding the whole of West Germany unexpectedly received the Money Reform. Each living human being in the American, English and French zones of occupation
received FORTY NEW GERMAN MARKS. The rest of their accumulated savings (honest or not) were worthless from this day except the exchange of certain sums of money officially earned and registered in savings accounts.
With all possible means, and with the help of the whole family we managed to purchase the absolute minimum to entertain a few guests. The wedding ceremony was paid for by the father from his 40DM and our wedding rings were a gift from our Best Man - Ernst Stresemann
This young German fellow refused to wear a weapon during his time in the German Army towards the end of the war, but was enlisted as a stretcher-bearer, fearlessly evacuating wounded from the no-man's land during the battle lulls. Being a medical student with good command of English and enormous intelligence (his parents were medics and his uncle had held a high office before Hitler`s government - the family did not accept the Fascist regime), he got a job as a librarian on the same base where I settled. No, there were no long lines of G-I`s waiting for books, they had already lots to do. Bars, P-X`s, billiards, cafes and cinemas, sporting halls and lots of blonde German girls eager to attract soldiers' attention to secure a husband or just to earn a few cartons of cigarettes to provide their children or old parents with something to eat. (This was before money reform; life was difficult!).
So, with lots of free time on his hands, Ernst pursued his studies in the library room. Visiting him once I saw him spread across his table, white and lifeless. He tried to convince me that this was just a lazy spell, but this was the dedicated scholar nearly losing his battle against hunger and exhaustion. He studied day and night while helping his girlfriend, a medical student also, to survive. This very moment I confirmed in my mind the meaning of a Russian saying -"One who is full, does not understand a hungry one" and so, unobtrusively, I began to make sure that my learned friend would not pass out again from hunger. He paid me back by saving my life twenty years later. But about this, in due time.
I benefited culturally from my long chats with Ernst, and once, when talking about my war experiences, mentioned to him the Zundap motorbike I rode while with the Feofanov group. He told me that his family was friendly with one of the directors of the Zundap factory in Nuremberg. As its production was dedicated to military supply, the factory was closed temporarily, but there was no harm in making inquiry if there were enough spare parts left to put one machine together. Yes, there were! We began to look for a way to order one for me.
In those days, good coffee from American supply was valued by the German population more than gold, so this would be the right "currency" to pay with. But how to get the stuff past the guards at the exit where everyone must submit himself or herself