A Woman in Berlin

So… Saturday, 28 April 1945… the front at the Landwehrkanal. As I write this, it’s Tuesday, 1 May. The rockets are singing overhead, the oily drone of Russian aeroplanes. Long rows of Stalin Organs are stacked in the school across the street; the Russians call them by the tender name Katyusha – little Kate – the title of a popular song among the soldiers. When they are fired they howl like wolves. They don’t look like much – upright balusters, made of thin tubes. But they howl and shriek and wail so loud they nearly break our eardrums as we stand in line for water not far away. And they spew bundles of fiery streaks.

They were howling overhead this morning when I stood in line for water. The sky was full of bloody clouds. Smoke and steam rising over the centre of town. The lack of water brings us out of our holes. People come creeping from all sides, miserable, dirty civilians, women with grey faces, mostly old – the young ones are kept hidden. Men with stubbly beards and white armbands to show they’ve surrendered stand and watch the soldiers fill bucket after bucket for their horses. Naturally the military always has priority. Still, there’s never any quarrel. Quite the contrary: one time the handle broke while a civilian was using it, and a Russian nailed it right back together.

They’re camped out in the garden plots, under the flowering trees. Howitzers mounted in the flowerbeds. Russians sleeping outside the sheds. Others give water to their horses which are stabled inside the sheds. We’re amazed to see so many women soldiers, with field tunics, skirts, berets and insignia. They’re regular infantry, no doubt about it. Most are very young – small, tough, their hair combed back smooth. They wash their things in tubs. Shirts and blouses dancing together on hastily strung clotheslines. And overhead the organs howl away, a wall of thick black smoke cutting off the sky.

This morning was like yesterday. On my way home I ran into Herr Golz, loyal Nazi to the end. Now he’s adapted. He spotted a Russian with bright rows of decorations on his breast, all wrapped in cellophane, and asked, ‘Ribbons?’ (It’s the same word in Russian and German, as he informed me, not realizing how much Russian I understand.) He gave me a little notebook, a German—Russian dictionary for soldiers, assuring me he could get hold of some more. I’ve looked it over; it has a lot of very useful words like ‘bacon’, ‘flour’, ‘salt’. Some other important words are missing, however, like ‘fear’ and ‘basement’. Also the word for ‘dead’, which I never used on my travels, but which I find myself reaching for quite often in recent conversations. Instead I substitute the word ‘kaput’ – which works well for a lot of other things too. The dictionary also contains a number of expressions for which I have no use at all now, despite my best intentions, such as ‘Hands up!’ and ‘Halt!’ At most we might hear those words being used on us.

Getting back to Saturday evening, 28 April. Around 8 p.m. Petka and his entourage left – official business of some sort. Petka mumbled something about coming-back-soon, in a low voice so the sub lieutenant wouldn’t hear. Then he crushed my fingers again and tried to look me in the eye.

Incidentally, the officer’s stars seem to have strangely little effect on the enlisted men. I was disappointed. No one felt any need to restrain their happy mood because of Anatol’s rank, and he himself simply sat alongside the others very peacefully and laughed and carried on with them, filling up their glasses and sharing his pot of liquor. I’m worried about my taboo. Apparently the strict Prussian order of ranks we’re so used to doesn’t apply here. The ones with stars don’t come from any special class; they’re by no means superior to the others in background or education. Nor do they have any special code of honour – especially when it comes to women. Western traditions of chivalry and gallantry never made it to Russia. As far as I know they never had any jousting tournaments, no minnesingers or troubadours, no train-carrying pages. So why should they be expected to be chivalrous? They’re all peasants including Anatol. Of course, my Russian isn’t good enough for me to tell from a given man’s speech and vocabulary what his education or profession is. And I’ve scarcely been able to speak with any of them about literature and art. But I have the feeling that, deep inside, all these simple, undiscriminating men feel insecure in front of me, despite their blustering. They’re children of the people.