Nazi concentration camp captive women bullying. Soviet women prisoners of war in German photos
Lieutenant Volodymyr Gelfand, a young Jew originally from Ukraine, from 1941 until the end of the war kept his notes with unusual sincerity, despite the then-existing ban on keeping diaries in the Soviet army.
His son Vitaly, who allowed me to read the manuscript, found the diary while sorting through his father's papers after his death. The diary was available online, but is now being published in Russia for the first time in book form. Two abridged editions of the diary were published in Germany and Sweden.
The diary tells of the lack of order and discipline in the regular troops: meager rations, lice, routine anti-Semitism and endless theft. As he says, the soldiers even stole the boots of their comrades.
In February 1945 military unit Gelfanda was based near the Oder River, preparing for an attack on Berlin. He recalls how his comrades surrounded and captured a German women's battalion.
“The day before yesterday, a women’s battalion was operating on the left flank. It was utterly defeated, and the captured German cats declared themselves avengers for their husbands who died at the front. I don’t know what they did to them, but it would be necessary to execute the scoundrels mercilessly,” Vladimir Gelfand wrote.
One of Helphand's most revealing stories relates to April 25, when he was already in Berlin. There Gelfand rode a bicycle for the first time in his life. Driving along the banks of the Spree, he saw a group of women dragging their suitcases and bundles somewhere.
In February 1945, the military unit of Gelfand was based near the Oder River, preparing for an attack on Berlin.
"I asked the German women where they live, in broken German, and wondered why they left their home, and they spoke with horror about the grief that the front line workers had caused them on the first night of the Red Army's arrival here," writes the author of the diary. .
“They poked here,” the beautiful German woman explained, lifting up her skirt, “all night, and there were so many of them. I was a girl,” she sighed and cried. “They ruined my youth. I was poked by everyone. There were at least twenty of them, yes, yes, and burst into tears."
“They raped my daughter in my presence,” the poor mother put in, “they can still come and rape my girl again.” From this again everyone was horrified, and bitter sobbing swept from corner to corner of the basement where the owners had brought me. here, - the girl suddenly rushed to me, - you will sleep with me. You can do whatever you want with me, but you are the only one!" writes Gelfand in his diary.
"The hour of revenge has struck!"
German soldiers by that time had stained themselves on Soviet territory with the heinous crimes they committed for nearly four years.
Vladimir Gelfand came across evidence of these crimes as his unit fought its way towards Germany.
“When every day they are killed, every day they are injured, when they pass through the villages destroyed by the Nazis ... Dad has a lot of descriptions where villages were destroyed, down to children, small children of Jewish nationality were destroyed ... Even one-year-olds, two-year-olds ... And this is not for some time, these are years. People walked and saw it. And they walked with one goal - to take revenge and kill, "says the son of Vladimir Gelfand Vitaly.
Vitaly Gelfand discovered this diary after his father's death.
The Wehrmacht, as the ideologists of Nazism assumed, was a well-organized force of the Aryans, who would not stoop to sexual contact with "untermenschs" ("subhumans").
But this ban was ignored, says the historian. high school Economics Oleg Budnitsky.
The German command was so concerned about the spread of venereal diseases among the troops that they organized a network of army brothels in the occupied territories.
Vladimir Gelfand wrote his diary with amazing sincerity at a time when it was deadly
It is difficult to find direct evidence of how German soldiers treated Russian women. Many of the victims simply did not survive.
But at the German-Russian Museum in Berlin, its director Jörg Morre showed me a photograph taken in the Crimea from a German soldier's personal album.
The photo shows the body of a woman, sprawled on the ground.
"It looks like she was killed during or after being raped. Her skirt is pulled up and her hands are covering her face," says the director of the museum.
“This is a shocking photo. We had a debate in the museum about whether such photographs should be exhibited. This is war, this is sexual violence in the Soviet Union under the Germans. We show the war. We don’t talk about the war, we show it,” says Jörg Morre .
When the Red Army entered the "lair of the fascist beast," as the Soviet press called Berlin at the time, the posters encouraged the fury of the soldiers: "Soldier, you are on German soil. The hour of revenge has struck!"
The political department of the 19th Army, advancing on Berlin along the coast of the Baltic Sea, announced that a real Soviet soldier is so full of hatred that the thought of sexual contact with German women would be disgusting to him. But this time, too, the soldiers proved that their ideologists were wrong.
Historian Anthony Beevor, doing research for his book "Berlin: The Fall", published in 2002, found reports of the epidemic in the Russian state archive sexual abuse on the territory of Germany. These reports at the end of 1944 were sent by the NKVD officers to Lavrenty Beria.
“They were given to Stalin,” says Beevor. “You can see from the marks whether they were read or not. They report mass rapes in East Prussia and how German women tried to kill themselves and their children to avoid this fate."
"Inhabitants of the Dungeon"
Another wartime diary kept by the bride of a German soldier tells how some women adapted to this horrific situation in an attempt to survive.
Since April 20, 1945, the woman, whose name has not been named, has left on paper observations that are ruthless in their honesty, insightful and sometimes flavored with the humor of the gallows.
The diary's author describes herself as "a pale blonde, always wearing the same winter coat." She draws vivid pictures of her neighbors' lives in the bomb shelter under their apartment building.
Among her neighbors are "a young man in gray trousers and thick-rimmed glasses, who on closer inspection turns out to be a woman," as well as three elderly sisters, she writes, "all three dressmakers huddled together in one big black pudding."
Watches and bicycles were common trophies in Berlin
While waiting for the approaching units of the Red Army, women joked: “Better a Russian on me than a Yankee on me,” meaning that it’s better to be raped than to die in a carpet bombing by American aircraft.
But when the soldiers entered their basement and tried to drag the women out, they begged the diary's author to use her knowledge of the Russian language to complain to the Soviet command.
On the ruined streets, she manages to find a Soviet officer. He shrugs. Despite Stalin's decree banning violence against civilians, he says, "it still happens."
Nevertheless, the officer goes down with her to the basement and chastises the soldiers. But one of them is beside himself with anger. “What are you talking about? Look what the Germans did to our women!” he shouts. “They took my sister and…” The officer calms him down and leads the soldiers out into the street.
But when the diarist goes out into the corridor to check whether they have left or not, she is seized by waiting soldiers and brutally raped, almost strangling her. Horrified neighbors, or "dungeon dwellers" as she calls them, hide in the basement, locking the door behind them.
“Finally, two iron bolts opened. Everyone stared at me,” she writes. “My stockings are down, my hands are holding the remnants of the belt. I start screaming:“ You pigs! I've been raped here twice in a row, and you leave me lying here like a piece of dirt!"
As a result, the author of the diary comes to the conclusion that she needs to find one "wolf" in order to protect herself from new gang rapes by the "male beast".
She finds an officer from Leningrad with whom she shares a bed. Gradually, the relationship between the aggressor and the victim becomes less violent, more mutual and ambiguous. The German woman and the Soviet officer even discuss literature and the meaning of life.
“There is no way to say that the major is raping me,” she writes. “Why am I doing this? For bacon, sugar, candles, canned meat? major, and the less he wants from me as a man, the more I like him as a person."
Many of her neighbors made similar deals with the winners of defeated Berlin.
Some German women have found a way to adapt to this terrible situation.
When the diary was published in Germany in 1959 under the title "Woman in Berlin", this candid account caused a wave of accusations that he had tarnished the honor of German women. Not surprisingly, the author, anticipating this, demanded that the diary not be published again until her death.
Eisenhower: shoot on the spot
Rape was not only a problem for the Red Army.
Bob Lilly, a historian at Northern Kentucky University, was able to access the archives of US military courts.
His book (Taken by Force) caused so much controversy that at first no American publisher dared to publish it, and the first edition appeared in France.
According to Lilly's rough estimate, about 14,000 rapes were committed by American soldiers in England, France and Germany from 1942 to 1945.
"There were very few cases of rape in England, but as soon as the American soldiers crossed the English Channel, their number increased dramatically," says Lilly.
According to him, rape has become a problem not only of the image, but also of army discipline. "Eisenhower said to shoot soldiers at the scene of the crime and report executions in military newspapers like the Stars and Stripes. Germany was at its peak," he says.
- Were soldiers executed for rape?
- Oh yeah!
- But not in Germany?
- No. Not a single soldier was executed for raping or killing German citizens, Lilly admits.
Today, historians continue to investigate the facts of sexual crimes committed by the Allied forces in Germany.
For many years, the topic of sexual violence by allied forces - American, British, French and Soviet soldiers - in Germany was officially hushed up. Few reported it, and even fewer were willing to listen to it all.
Silence
It is not easy to talk about such things in society in general. In addition, in East Germany it was considered almost blasphemy to criticize Soviet heroes who defeated fascism.
And in West Germany, the guilt felt by the Germans for the crimes of Nazism overshadowed the subject of the suffering of this people.
But in 2008, in Germany, based on the diary of a Berliner, the film "Nameless - One Woman in Berlin" was released with actress Nina Hoss in the title role.
This film was a revelation for the Germans and prompted many women to talk about what happened to them. Among these women is Ingeborg Bullert.
Now 90-year-old Ingeborg lives in Hamburg in an apartment full of photos of cats and books about the theater. In 1945, she was 20. She dreamed of becoming an actress and lived with her mother on a rather fashionable street in Berlin's Charlottenburg district.
"I thought they were going to kill me," says Ingeborg Bullurt
When the Soviet offensive began on the city, she hid in the basement of her house, as did the author of the diary "Woman in Berlin".
“Unexpectedly, tanks appeared on our street, bodies of Russians and German soldiers she recalls. “I remember the terrifying lingering sound of falling Russian bombs. We called them Stalinorgels ("Stalin's organs")".
One day, between bombings, Ingeborg climbed out of the basement and ran upstairs for a rope, which she adapted for a lamp wick.
“Suddenly, I saw two Russians pointing guns at me,” she says. “One of them forced me to undress and raped me. Then they switched places and another raped me. I thought I was going to die, that they would kill me.”
Then Ingeborg did not tell about what happened to her. She kept quiet about it for decades because it would be too hard to talk about it. "My mother used to brag about the fact that her daughter had not been touched," she recalls.
Wave of abortions
But many women in Berlin were raped. Ingeborg recalls that immediately after the war, women between the ages of 15 and 55 were ordered to be tested for venereal diseases.
"To get food cards, you needed a medical certificate, and I remember that all the doctors who issued them had waiting rooms full of women," she recalls.
What was the real scale of the rapes? The most commonly quoted figures are 100,000 women in Berlin and two million throughout Germany. These figures, hotly disputed, were extrapolated from the meager medical records that have survived to this day.
Folders with medical documentsImage copyrightBBC World Service
These medical documents from 1945 miraculously survived
In just one district of Berlin, 995 abortion requests were approved in six months.
At the former military factory, where the state archive is now kept, his employee Martin Luchterhand shows me a stack of blue cardboard folders.
They contain data on abortions from June to October 1945 in Neukölln, one of the 24 districts of Berlin. The fact that they survived intact is a small miracle.
In Germany at the time, abortion was banned under article 218 of the penal code. But Luchterhand says there was a short period of time after the war when women were allowed to terminate their pregnancies. A special situation was connected with the mass rapes in 1945.
Between June 1945 and 1946, 995 abortion requests were approved in this area of Berlin alone. Folders contain over a thousand pages different color and size. One of the girls writes in round, childish handwriting that she was raped at home, in the living room, in front of her parents.
Bread instead of revenge
For some soldiers, as soon as they got drunk, women became the same trophies as watches or bicycles. But others behaved quite differently. In Moscow, I met 92-year-old veteran Yuri Lyashenko, who remembers how, instead of taking revenge, the soldiers handed out bread to the Germans.
Yuri Lyashenko says that soviet soldiers in Berlin behaved differently
“Of course, we couldn’t feed everyone, right? And what we had, we shared with the children. Small children are so intimidated, their eyes are so scary ... I feel sorry for the children," he recalls.
In a jacket hung with orders and medals, Yuri Lyashenko invites me to his small apartment on the top floor of a multi-storey building and treats me to cognac and boiled eggs.
He tells me that he wanted to become an engineer, but was drafted into the army and, like Vladimir Gelfand, went through the entire war to Berlin.
Pouring cognac into glasses, he proposes a toast to the world. Toasts to the world often sound learned, but here one feels that the words come from the heart.
We are talking about the beginning of the war, when he almost had his leg amputated, and how he felt when he saw the red flag over the Reichstag. After a while, I decide to ask him about the rapes.
“I don’t know, our unit didn’t have that… Of course, obviously, such cases depended on the person himself, on the people,” the war veteran says. it is not written, you do not know it."
Look back to the past
We will probably never know the true extent of rape. The materials of the Soviet military tribunals and many other documents remain classified. Recently, the State Duma approved a law "on encroachment on historical memory", according to which anyone who belittles the contribution of the USSR to the victory over fascism can earn a fine and up to five years in prison.
Young historian University of the Humanities in Moscow, Vera Dubina says she didn't know anything about the rapes until she received a scholarship to study in Berlin. After studying in Germany, she wrote a paper on the subject, but was unable to publish it.
“The Russian media reacted very aggressively,” she says. “People only want to know about our glorious victory in the Great Patriotic war and it's getting harder and harder to do serious research."
Soviet field kitchens distributed food to the inhabitants of Berlin
History is often rewritten to suit the conjuncture. That is why eyewitness accounts are so important. The testimonies of those who dared to speak on this topic now, in old age, and the stories of the then young people who wrote down their testimonies about what was happening during the war years.
Vitaly, son of army diary author Vladimir Gelfand, says that many Soviet soldiers showed great heroism during World War II. But that's not the whole story, he says.
“If people don’t want to know the truth, they want to be mistaken and want to talk about how beautiful and noble everything was, this is stupid, this is self-deception,” he recalls. “The whole world understands this, and Russia understands this. And even those who stand behind these laws of distorting the past, they also understand. We cannot move into the future until we deal with the past."
Women medical workers of the Red Army, taken prisoner near Kiev, were collected for transfer to the POW camp, August 1941:
The uniform of many girls is semi-military-semi-civilian, which is typical for the initial stage of the war, when the Red Army had difficulties in providing women's uniforms and uniform shoes of small sizes. On the left - a dull captured artillery lieutenant, maybe a "stage commander".
How many female soldiers of the Red Army ended up in German captivity is unknown. However, the Germans did not recognize women as military personnel and regarded them as partisans. Therefore, according to the German private Bruno Schneider, before sending his company to Russia, their commander, Lieutenant Prince, familiarized the soldiers with the order: “Shoot all women who serve in the Red Army.” Numerous facts testify that this order was applied throughout the war.
In August 1941, on the orders of Emil Knol, commander of the field gendarmerie of the 44th Infantry Division, a prisoner of war - a military doctor - was shot.
In the city of Mglinsk, Bryansk region, in 1941, the Germans captured two girls from the medical unit and shot them.
After the defeat of the Red Army in Crimea in May 1942, in the Mayak fishing village near Kerch, an unknown girl was hiding in the house of a resident of Buryachenko military uniform. On May 28, 1942, the Germans discovered her during a search. The girl resisted the Nazis, shouting: “Shoot, bastards! I am dying for the Soviet people, for Stalin, and you, fiends, will be dog's death! The girl was shot in the yard.
At the end of August 1942, a group of sailors was shot in the village of Krymskaya in the Krasnodar Territory, among them there were several girls in military uniform.
In the village of Starotitarovskaya, Krasnodar Territory, among the executed prisoners of war, the corpse of a girl in a Red Army uniform was found. She had a passport with her in the name of Mikhailova Tatyana Alexandrovna, 1923. She was born in the village of Novo-Romanovka.
In the village of Vorontsovo-Dashkovskoye, Krasnodar Territory, in September 1942, captured military assistants Glubokov and Yachmenev were brutally tortured.
On January 5, 1943, 8 Red Army soldiers were captured near the Severny farm. Among them is a nurse named Lyuba. After prolonged torture and humiliation, all those captured were shot.
Two rather grinning Nazis - a non-commissioned officer and a fanen-junker (candidate officer, on the right) - escort a captured Soviet girl soldier - to captivity ... or to death?
It seems that the "Hans" do not look evil ... Although - who knows? Completely at war ordinary people often they do such transcendent abominations that they would never have done in "another life" ...
The girl is dressed in a full set of field uniforms of the Red Army, model 1935 - male, and in good "commander" boots in size.
A similar photo, probably summer or early autumn 1941. The convoy is a German non-commissioned officer, a female prisoner of war in a commander's cap, but without insignia:
Divisional intelligence translator P. Rafes recalls that in the village of Smagleevka, liberated in 1943, 10 km from Kantemirovka, residents told how in 1941 “a wounded lieutenant girl was dragged naked onto the road, her face, hands were cut, her breasts were cut off ... »
Knowing what awaits them in the event of captivity, female soldiers, as a rule, fought to the last.
Often captured women were raped before they died. Soldier from the 11th tank division Hans Rudhoff testifies that in the winter of 1942 “... Russian nurses lay on the roads. They were shot and thrown on the road. They lay naked... On these dead bodies... obscene inscriptions were written.
In Rostov in July 1942, German motorcyclists broke into the yard, where there were nurses from the hospital. They were going to change into civilian clothes, but did not have time. So, in military uniform, they dragged them into a barn and raped them. However, they were not killed.
Women prisoners of war who ended up in camps were also subjected to violence and abuse. Former prisoner of war K.A. Shenipov said that in the camp in Drogobych there was a beautiful captive girl named Lyuda. “Captain Stroher, the camp commandant, tried to rape her, but she resisted, after which the German soldiers, called by the captain, tied Lyuda to a bunk, and in this position Stroher raped her and then shot her.”
In Stalag 346 in Kremenchug at the beginning of 1942, the German camp doctor Orlyand gathered 50 women doctors, paramedics, nurses, undressed them and “ordered our doctors to examine them from the genitals - if they were sick with venereal diseases. He carried out the inspection himself. I chose 3 young girls from them, took them to my place to “serve”. German soldiers and officers came for women examined by doctors. Few of these women escaped rape.
A female soldier of the Red Army who was captured while trying to get out of the encirclement near Nevel, summer 1941
Judging by their emaciated faces, they had to go through a lot even before being taken prisoner.
Here the "Hans" are clearly mocking and posing - so that they themselves will quickly experience all the "joys" of captivity !! And the unfortunate girl, who, it seems, has already drunk dashingly to the full extent at the front, has no illusions about her prospects in captivity ...
On the left photo (September 1941, again near Kiev -?), on the contrary, the girls (one of whom even managed to keep a watch on her hand in captivity; an unprecedented thing, a watch is the optimal camp currency!) Do not look desperate or exhausted. Captured Red Army soldiers are smiling... Is it a staged photo, or was a relatively humane camp commandant really caught, who ensured a tolerable existence?
The camp guards from among the former prisoners of war and camp policemen were especially cynical about women prisoners of war. They raped captives or, under threat of death, forced them to cohabit with them. In Stalag No. 337, not far from Baranovichi, about 400 female prisoners of war were kept in a specially fenced area with barbed wire. In December 1967, at a meeting of the military tribunal of the Belarusian military district, the former head of the camp guard A.M. Yarosh admitted that his subordinates raped the prisoners of the women's bloc.
The Millerovo POW camp also contained female prisoners. The commandant of the women's barracks was a German from the Volga region. The fate of the girls languishing in this barrack was terrible:
“Police often looked into this barracks. Every day, for half a liter, the commandant gave any girl to choose from for two hours. The policeman could take her to his barracks. They lived two in a room. During these two hours, he could use her as a thing, abuse, mock, do whatever he pleases.
Once, during the evening verification, the chief of police himself came, they gave him a girl for the whole night, a German woman complained to him that these “bastards” were reluctant to go to your policemen. He advised with a grin: “For those who do not want to go, arrange a“ red fireman ”. The girl was stripped naked, crucified, tied with ropes on the floor. Then they took a large red hot pepper, turned it inside out and inserted it into the girl's vagina. Left in this position for half an hour. Shouting was forbidden. Many girls' lips were bitten - they held back the cry, and after such a punishment they could not move for a long time.
The commandant, behind her back they called her a cannibal, enjoyed unlimited rights over the captive girls and came up with other sophisticated mockeries. For example, "self-punishment". There is a special stake, which is made crosswise with a height of 60 centimeters. The girl should strip naked, insert a stake into the anus, hold on to the cross with her hands, and put her legs on a stool and hold on for three minutes. Who could not stand it, had to repeat from the beginning.
We learned about what was happening in the women's camp from the girls themselves, who came out of the barracks to sit for about ten minutes on a bench. Also, the policemen boastfully talked about their exploits and the resourceful German woman.
Female doctors of the Red Army, who were taken prisoner, worked in camp infirmaries in many prisoner of war camps (mainly in transit and transit camps).
There may also be a German field hospital in the front line - in the background you can see part of the body of a car equipped to transport the wounded, and one of the German soldiers in the photo has a bandaged hand.
Infirmary hut of the POW camp in Krasnoarmeysk (probably October 1941):
In the foreground is a non-commissioned officer of the German field gendarmerie with a characteristic badge on his chest.
Women prisoners of war were held in many camps. According to eyewitnesses, they made an extremely miserable impression. In the conditions of camp life, it was especially difficult for them: they, like no one else, suffered from the lack of basic sanitary conditions.
In the fall of 1941, K. Kromiadi, a member of the commission for the distribution of labor, who visited the Sedlice camp, talked with the captured women. One of them, a female military doctor, admitted: “... everything is bearable, except for the lack of linen and water, which does not allow us to change clothes or wash ourselves.”
A group of female health workers taken prisoner in the Kiev pocket in September 1941 was kept in Vladimir-Volynsk - Camp Oflag No. 365 "Nord".
Nurses Olga Lenkovskaya and Taisiya Shubina were captured in October 1941 in the Vyazemsky encirclement. At first, women were kept in a camp in Gzhatsk, then in Vyazma. In March, when the Red Army approached, the Germans transferred the captured women to Smolensk in Dulag No. 126. There were few prisoners in the camp. They were kept in a separate barracks, communication with men was forbidden. From April to July 1942, the Germans released all women with the "condition of a free settlement in Smolensk."
Crimea, summer 1942. Quite young Red Army soldiers, just captured by the Wehrmacht, and among them is the same young soldier girl:
Most likely - not a doctor: her hands are clean, in a recent battle she did not bandage the wounded.
After the fall of Sevastopol in July 1942, about 300 female health workers were taken prisoner: doctors, nurses, nurses. At first they were sent to Slavuta, and in February 1943, having gathered about 600 female prisoners of war in the camp, they were loaded into wagons and taken to the West. Everyone was lined up in Rovno, and another search for Jews began. One of the prisoners, Kazachenko, walked around and showed: "this is a Jew, this is a commissar, this is a partisan." Those who were separated from the general group were shot. The rest were again loaded into wagons, men and women together. The prisoners themselves divided the car into two parts: in one - women, in the other - men. Recovered in a hole in the floor.
On the way, the captured men were dropped off at different stations, and on February 23, 1943, the women were brought to the city of Zoes. Lined up and announced that they would work in military factories. Evgenia Lazarevna Klemm was also in the group of prisoners. Jewish. History teacher at the Odessa Pedagogical Institute, posing as a Serb. She enjoyed special prestige among women prisoners of war. E.L. Klemm on behalf of all German said: "We are prisoners of war and will not work in military factories." In response, they began to beat everyone, and then drove them into a small hall, in which, because of the crowding, it was impossible to sit down or move. It stayed that way for almost a day. And then the rebellious were sent to Ravensbrück. This women's camp was created in 1939. The first prisoners of Ravensbrück were prisoners from Germany, and then from European countries occupied by the Germans. All the prisoners were shaved bald, dressed in striped (blue and gray striped) dresses and unlined jackets. Underwear - shirt and shorts. There were no bras or belts. In October, a pair of old stockings was given out for half a year, but not everyone managed to walk in them until spring. Shoes, as in most concentration camps, are wooden blocks.
The barrack was divided into two parts, connected by a corridor: a day room, in which there were tables, stools and small wall cabinets, and a sleeping room - three-tiered plank beds with a narrow passage between them. For two prisoners, one cotton blanket was issued. In a separate room lived block - senior barracks. There was a washroom in the corridor.
A group of Soviet women prisoners of war arrived at Stalag 370, Simferopol (summer or early autumn 1942):
The prisoners carry all their meager possessions; under the hot Crimean sun, many of them "like a woman" tied their heads with handkerchiefs and took off their heavy boots.
Ibid, Stalag 370, Simferopol:
Prisoners worked mainly in the camp's sewing factories. In Ravensbrück, 80% of all uniforms for the SS troops were made, as well as camp clothing for both men and women.
The first Soviet female prisoners of war - 536 people - arrived at the camp on February 28, 1943. At first, everyone was sent to a bathhouse, and then they were given striped camp clothes with a red triangle with the inscription: "SU" - Sowjet Union.
Even before the arrival of the Soviet women, the SS spread a rumor around the camp that a gang of female murderers would be brought from Russia. Therefore, they were placed in a special block, fenced with barbed wire.
Every day, the prisoners got up at 4 in the morning for verification, sometimes lasting several hours. Then they worked for 12-13 hours in sewing workshops or in the camp infirmary.
Breakfast consisted of ersatz coffee, which the women used mainly to wash their hair, as there was no warm water. For this purpose, coffee was collected and washed in turn.
Women whose hair survived began to use combs, which they themselves made. Frenchwoman Micheline Morel recalls that “Russian girls, using factory machines, cut wooden planks or metal plates and polished them so that they became quite acceptable combs. For a wooden scallop they gave half a portion of bread, for a metal one - a whole portion.
For lunch, the prisoners received half a liter of gruel and 2-3 boiled potatoes. In the evening, for five people, they received a small loaf of bread with an admixture of sawdust and again half a liter of gruel.
The impression that Soviet women made on the prisoners of Ravensbrück is testified in her memoirs by one of the prisoners, S. Müller:
“... on one of the Sundays in April, we became aware that the Soviet prisoners refused to comply with some order, referring to the fact that, according to Geneva Convention Red Cross should treat them like prisoners of war. For the camp authorities, this was unheard of insolence. The whole first half of the day they were forced to march along Lagerstrasse (the main "street" of the camp. - A. Sh.) and deprived of lunch.
But the women from the Red Army bloc (as we called the barracks where they lived) decided to turn this punishment into a demonstration of their strength. I remember someone shouted in our block: “Look, the Red Army is marching!” We ran out of the barracks and rushed to Lagerstrasse. And what did we see?
It was unforgettable! Five hundred Soviet women, ten in a row, keeping alignment, walked, as if in a parade, minting a step. Their steps, like a drum roll, beat rhythmically along the Lagerstrasse. The whole column moved as a single unit. Suddenly, a woman on the right flank of the first row gave the command to sing. She counted out: “One, two, three!” And they sang:
Get up great country
Rise to the death fight...
I had heard them sing this song under their breath in their barracks before. But here it sounded like a call to fight, like faith in a quick victory.
Then they sang about Moscow.
The Nazis were puzzled: the punishment by marching the humiliated prisoners of war turned into a demonstration of their strength and inflexibility ...
It was not possible for the SS to leave Soviet women without lunch. Political prisoners took care of food for them in advance.
Soviet women prisoners of war more than once struck their enemies and fellow campers with their unity and spirit of resistance. Once 12 Soviet girls were included in the list of prisoners destined to be sent to Majdanek, to the gas chambers. When the SS men came to the barracks to take the women away, the comrades refused to hand them over. The SS managed to find them. “The remaining 500 people lined up five people and went to the commandant. The translator was E.L. Klemm. The commandant drove the newcomers into the block, threatening them with execution, and they began a hunger strike.
In February 1944, about 60 women prisoners of war from Ravensbrück were transferred to a concentration camp in the city of Barth at the Heinkel aircraft factory. The girls refused to work there. Then they were lined up in two rows and ordered to strip down to their shirts and remove the wooden blocks. For many hours they stood in the cold, every hour the matron came and offered coffee and a bed to anyone who would agree to go to work. Then the three girls were thrown into a punishment cell. Two of them died of pneumonia.
Constant bullying, hard labor, hunger led to suicide. In February 1945, the defender of Sevastopol, military doctor Zinaida Aridova, threw herself on the wire.
Nevertheless, the prisoners believed in liberation, and this belief sounded in a song composed by an unknown author:
Keep your head up, Russian girls!
Above your head, be bold!
We don't have long to endure.
The nightingale will fly in the spring ...
And open the door for us to freedom,
Takes the striped dress off her shoulders
And heal deep wounds
Wipe the tears from swollen eyes.
Keep your head up, Russian girls!
Be Russian everywhere, everywhere!
Not long to wait, not long -
And we will be on Russian soil.
The former prisoner Germaine Tillon in her memoirs gave a peculiar description of Russian women prisoners of war who ended up in Ravensbrück: “... their solidarity was explained by the fact that they had gone through army school even before being captured. They were young, strong, neat, honest, and also rather rude and uneducated. There were also intellectuals (doctors, teachers) among them - friendly and attentive. In addition, we liked their disobedience, unwillingness to obey the Germans.
Women prisoners of war were also sent to other concentration camps. Prisoner of Auschwitz A. Lebedev recalls that paratroopers Ira Ivannikova, Zhenya Saricheva, Viktorina Nikitina, doctor Nina Kharlamova and nurse Claudia Sokolova were kept in the women's camp.
In January 1944, for refusing to sign an agreement to work in Germany and move into the category of civilian workers, more than 50 female prisoners of war from the camp in Chelm were sent to Majdanek. Among them were doctor Anna Nikiforova, military paramedics Efrosinya Tsepennikova and Tonya Leontyeva, infantry lieutenant Vera Matyutskaya.
Navigator of the air regiment Anna Egorova, whose plane was shot down over Poland, shell-shocked, with a burnt face, was captured and kept in the Kyustrinsky camp.
Despite the death reigning in captivity, despite the fact that any connection between prisoners of war men and women was forbidden, where they worked together, most often in camp infirmaries, sometimes love was born, bestowing new life. As a rule, in such rare cases, the German leadership of the infirmary did not interfere with childbirth. After the birth of a child, the mother-prisoner of war was either transferred to the status civilian, was released from the camp and released at the place of residence of her relatives in the occupied territory, or returned with the child to the camp.
So, from the documents of the Stalag camp infirmary No. 352 in Minsk, it is known that “the nurse Sindeva Alexandra, who arrived at the City Hospital for childbirth on February 23, 1942, left with her child for the Rollbahn prisoner of war camp.”
Probably one of the last photographs of Soviet female servicemen who fell into German captivity, 1943 or 1944:
Both were awarded medals, the girl on the left - "For Courage" (dark edging on the block), the second may have "BZ". There is an opinion that these are female pilots, but - IMHO - it is unlikely: both have "clean" shoulder straps of privates.
In 1944, the attitude towards women prisoners of war hardened. They are subjected to new tests. In accordance with general provisions on the testing and selection of Soviet prisoners of war, on March 6, 1944, the OKW issued a special order "On the treatment of Russian women prisoners of war." This document stated that Soviet women prisoners of war held in camps should be subjected to checks by the local Gestapo branch in the same way as all newly arriving Soviet prisoners of war. If, as a result of a police check, the political unreliability of female prisoners of war is revealed, they should be released from captivity and handed over to the police.
On the basis of this order, on April 11, 1944, the head of the Security Service and the SD issued an order to send unreliable female prisoners of war to the nearest concentration camp. After being delivered to a concentration camp, such women were subjected to the so-called " special processing» - liquidation. So Vera Panchenko-Pisanetskaya died - senior group seven hundred female prisoners of war who worked at a military factory in the city of Genthin. A lot of marriage was produced at the plant, and during the investigation it turned out that Vera led the sabotage. In August 1944 she was sent to Ravensbrück and hanged there in the autumn of 1944.
In the Stutthof concentration camp in 1944, 5 Russian senior officers were killed, including a female major. They were taken to the crematorium - the place of execution. First, the men were brought in and shot one after the other. Then a woman. According to a Pole who worked in the crematorium and understood Russian, the SS man, who spoke Russian, mocked the woman, forcing her to follow his commands: “right, left, around ...” After that, the SS man asked her: “Why did you do this? ” What she did, I never found out. She replied that she did it for the Motherland. After that, the SS man slapped him in the face and said: "This is for your homeland." The Russian spat in his eyes and replied: “And this is for your homeland.” There was confusion. Two SS men ran up to the woman and began to push her alive into the furnace for burning corpses. She resisted. Several more SS men ran up. The officer shouted: “Into her furnace!” The oven door was open and the heat set the woman's hair on fire. Despite the fact that the woman vigorously resisted, she was placed on a cart for burning corpses and pushed into the oven. This was seen by all the prisoners who worked in the crematorium. Unfortunately, the name of this heroine remains unknown.
________________________________________ ____________________
Yad Vashem archive. M-33/1190, l. 110.
There. M-37/178, l. 17.
There. M-33/482, l. 16.
There. M-33/60, l. 38.
There. M-33/303, l 115.
There. M-33/309, l. 51.
There. M-33/295, l. 5.
There. M-33/302, l. 32.
P. Rafes. They didn't repent then. From Notes of the Translator of Divisional Intelligence. "Spark". Special issue. M., 2000, No. 70.
Archive Yad Vashem. M-33/1182, l. 94-95.
Vladislav Smirnov. Rostov nightmare. - "Spark". M., 1998. No. 6.
Archive Yad Vashem. M-33/1182, l. eleven.
Yad Vashem archive. M-33/230, l. 38.53.94; M-37/1191, l. 26
B. P. Sherman. ... And the earth was horrified. (About the atrocities German fascists on the territory of the city of Baranovichi and its environs June 27, 1941 - July 8, 1944). Facts, documents, evidence. Baranovichi. 1990, p. 8-9.
S. M. Fischer. Memories. Manuscript. Author's archive.
K. Kromiadi. Soviet prisoners of war in Germany... p. 197.
T. S. Pershina. Fascist genocide in Ukraine 1941-1944… p. 143.
Archive Yad Vashem. M-33/626, l. 50-52. M-33/627, sheet. 62-63.
N. Lemeshchuk. I didn't bow my head. (On the activities of the anti-fascist underground in the Nazi camps) Kyiv, 1978, p. 32-33.
There. E. L. Klemm, shortly after returning from the camp, after endless calls to the state security agencies, where they sought her confession of betrayal, committed suicide
G. S. Zabrodskaya. The will to win. On Sat. "Witnesses for the Prosecution". L. 1990, p. 158; S. Muller. Locksmith team Ravensbrück. Memoirs of a Prisoner No. 10787. M., 1985, p. 7.
Women of Ravensbrück. M., 1960, p. 43, 50.
G. S. Zabrodskaya. The will to win... p. 160.
S. Muller. Locksmith team Ravensbrück ... p. 51-52.
Women of Ravensbrück… p.127.
G. Vaneev. Heroines Sevastopol fortress. Simferopol. 1965, p. 82-83.
G. S. Zabrodskaya. The will to win... p. 187.
N. Tsvetkova. 900 days in fascist dungeons. In: In Fascist dungeons. Notes. Minsk. 1958, p. 84.
A. Lebedev. Soldiers of a small war ... p. 62.
A. Nikiforova. This shouldn't happen again. M., 1958, p. 6-11.
N. Lemeshchuk. Head not bowed... p. 27. In 1965, A. Egorova was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Archive Yad Vashem. М-33/438 part II, l. 127.
A. Stream. Die Behandlung sowjetischer Kriegsgefengener… S. 153.
A. Nikiforova. This must not happen again... p. 106.
A. Stream. Die Behandlung sowjetischer Kriegsgefengener…. S. 153-154.
The only surviving diary of an Ostarbeiter girl from the USSR was published in the “Edition of Elena Shubina”. A young woman from Kursk, Alexandra Mikhaleva, was driven away by the Germans to work in 1942, where she stayed until the end of the war and all this time wrote down what happened to her.
An excerpt from the diary of an Ostarbeiter girl
1942
June 5
At 6 o'clock the train started from the Kursk station. It included Russian young people going to Germany to work. We're riding in a freight car, 43 girls. Got to know many. Our best travel companions. Vera is a smart, reasonable, good girl in all respects, Zina. We all sleep side by side on straw.
June 7
At 10 o'clock we arrived in Minsk, got some soup and, after eating, went to bed. For each pasture, a German soldier is assigned - a brigadier. It is interesting how the Belarusians looked at us, looking out of the cars. It was Sunday. The residents were all dressed up in festive costumes. Many older women wept as they looked at us.
June 8
We drove all night and early in the morning we were already in Poland.
Polish Jews work at Polish stations. Young boys and girls, marked with yellow stars in front and behind.
Russian prisoners are working everywhere, and we are going farther and farther from our homeland. It's already the 3rd day. We received only about 1 kg of bread, we drank tea once.
It is now 10 o'clock in the morning, the train stops in Baranovichi. We ate here, this time a good soup. We drive through fields and forests for many hours in a row. Finally, at half past five, we arrived in the Polish city of Volkovysk, a nice, small town badly destroyed by German bombs.
My [cousin] Gali's nose bled from the long drive, she was crying.
the 9th of June
At 5 o'clock in the morning we arrived in Bialystok. Here we passed the medical commission. Previously, our heads were examined in front of her, they were smeared with some kind of ointment and then bathed. Then they gave the soup to eat and, having seated again in freight cars, only without straw, they drove on. At night, the carriage was especially crowded. Without straw it turned out to be very difficult to sleep.
I woke up at dawn, the train was approaching the capital of Poland - Warsaw. A huge city divided by a river into western and eastern parts. Lots of factories and plants. The industrial areas have been heavily bombed.
June 11
We are approaching the German border. Small towns and villages flash by. The fields are neatly marked, cleanly processed.
At 5 pm we arrived in the German city of Halle. We stood at the station for a long time. Then we were led through the streets of the city to a bathhouse. We walked in a long column of three people in a row. Many of us were rural - poorly, shabby, clumsily dressed. Luxuriously dressed German women with bizarre hairdos walked through the streets and proudly held their beautiful swollen heads high.
The streets are paved and lined with large brick buildings. Everything is gray and gloomy, gloomy and strict, like the inhabitants themselves. No loud laughter, no friendly smile was met here. In general, the population looks at us as a burden - probably, the radio said that we came to them voluntarily - to escape from hunger.
In fact, only the 1st echelon left our region voluntarily. The rest - and our echelon was the 5th in a row - were sent by force, according to subpoenas.
After the bath, we walked for a long time through the streets of the city with suitcases, village streets with bags, and finally came to a provincial area, to wooden houses built for us, though clean, with bunks for sleeping. I really wanted to eat. We ate, even when we were on the road, at 12 noon we drank coffee with bread and after that we got nothing more, went to bed hungry.
12 June
Woke up early. The sides hurt - it was hard to sleep on plank beds. Having built everyone, they handed each three a loaf of bread. It was very cold and overcast. The sky is cold, grey, inhospitable. We stand in the yard and crush bread.
Soon they take us to the commission - already the 3rd in a row. The commission is not strict, they do not stop for a long time - they quickly throw it aside as suitable. We returned to the barracks. Terribly hungry.
Frozen and wet, we did not immediately enter the barracks, because the bosses came to take the workforce. They looked at us and talked. They began to count. We were very worried - we were afraid that we would be separated. In our group were almost all urban. One batch was taken to the fields. We, a group of 70 people, were taken by the factory chief and another manufacturer. At first, our host - an old man with thin lips and blue, really good-natured, sly eyes - was liked by everyone.
Our hosts took us to the station - very beautiful, well-lit, large. We had to go to another city. We boarded the passenger train, still hungry and tired from the long walk.
Happened on the train interesting case. There were two girls in the car with us. They began to show us photographs, including photographs of German soldiers. In the carriage, talking animatedly and eating a biscuit, sat a German girl in a railway suit. When one of the German photographs was in my hands, this girl jumped up and, taking the card from my hands, glanced quickly, and blushed greatly. Then I read what was written reverse side cards and in a changed voice asked whose card, from whom. And since the Russian girl did not know what these questions led to, and, in addition, she was confused, she answered: my friend.
The German girl began to talk to the German in an excited voice. Then the German took away all the German photos from the Russian girl, explaining that a German soldier should not give cards and that if the police saw a soldier's card from a Russian girl, the soldier would be "cut off his head."
Actually, it wasn't. The soldier turned out to be the fiance of this German girl. We understood this from her conversation with the German.
So in the same car came together German and Russian girls - rivals in love.
We drove on. There were two transfers. On one of them we were divided. One owner took 25 people for himself, the other - 45. Galya, Yulia and our best fellow travelers got to the last one. And our neighbors, two sisters - Galya and Zoya - to the first.
It was very embarrassing. We asked to join them to us, but they did not even listen to us.
It was 10 pm. We went out to the platform. The village girls could not immediately line up in a row of three. They were confused. Yes, and the city, too, did not behave cheekily, it turned out turmoil. The owner was angry. He hit one of the village girls in the face. He got angry and yelled at us like a flock of sheep. Soon we were all put into a large freight car - dirty and dark - and, having closed the doors, we were taken further.
After driving a little, we got out of the car and went to the factory. With what a heavy, heartbreaking feeling we crossed the threshold of the plant. There was the sound of cars. We were taken to a working dining room - simple tables, no luxury. They handed out a small piece of sandwich and strong coffee. Then they took me to the barracks. We liked the barracks after the road and the first barracks.
There were 12 girls in one room. There were 5 sleeping bunks in the room. There are 2 girls on each bed - upstairs and downstairs. After settling in, we went to bed.
June 13
Early in the morning we were awakened by a German woman - our boss. Having washed and cleaned the beds, we went in a group with a policeman at the head to the dining room. We drank cold coffee with a sandwich.
At 12 o'clock they ate soup without bread. It was bitter to watch how Russians, Ukrainians and other workers greedily ate soup and, knocking each other down, climbed to German chef for a supplement.
At 4 o'clock, young girls who had arrived at this factory earlier came to us. They began to talk about the local order.
They brought fear and terror to us. Apparently they were being held captive. They talked a lot about their life in Ukraine. They are all so friendly and kind.
We are not working today. All the time they come to our room from other rooms, to look at us - newcomers. Then we all wrote letters home. It was very annoying that it was not possible to write freely. The letters were placed in an envelope and left open for inspection. Moreover, it was completely impossible to write to the home address. It was necessary to write to the commandant's office or to a German soldier.
The mood was very heavy. Many, remembering their relatives, wept. There were no words, no deeds to console, to soothe shattered nerves and a worried heart.
Will we ever return home now? What is our future? What is the outcome of this damned war, which made almost the whole world suffer. True, many live even better than before the war. These are people who are indifferent to the external environment. They don't care who wins - Russia or Hitler. They know how to live in prosperity and contentment under one or the other government. Especially during this war, people who did not participate in it at all became so rich and fat that they did not feel the suffering of others, did not notice the hunger and tears of others.
June 14th. Sunday
Nobody works. The weather is rainy and cold. We are chilly, we want to sleep, some kind of fatigue, laziness.
In general, how long we have been here, and whoever arrived here before, has not yet seen good, warm, sunny weather here. By evening the rain had stopped, but it was still cold. We were sitting under the window. The windows were all open, and girls were sitting in them, young guys were walking along the street behind the partition - Ukrainians, Croats and representatives of other nationalities who had worked in German factories for a long time. They stopped and talked to the girls. Many wanted to go out for a walk, run. But it was strictly forbidden to go beyond the fence.
Ukrainian girls, who quickly fell in love with us, vied with each other to invite us to their rooms. Having joined one of the groups of girls, we sang a Ukrainian song.
The guys stood and listened to us. Suddenly 3 German soldiers approached. One of them, coming close to one of the guys, asking him something, swung it in the face with a strong blow. Got another one too. The rest dispersed quickly.
The girls, frightened, fled. In the evening, having gathered in one room, we decided to have fun. Dance songs were sung, girls danced. It was fun. One girl was crying through laughter. To our songs, Croatian girls ran up to the windows, who were in a better position here than other nations, because the Ungar military fought together with the Germans against Russia. And our brothers and fathers were their enemies.
June 15
First day at the factory.
We were each placed at the car and ordered to closely monitor the progress of the work. The German worker, to whom I was assigned, looked at me, smiled and continued to work quickly, pressing the cogs, turning the wheel. I looked with uncomprehending eyes, trying to make my physiognomy smarter. I couldn’t even get a closer look at where it starts, what it leads to, and stood, deafened by the noise, watching how the machine moves with all its parts, like a living one.
Our barracks worked this week from 3 pm to 1 am with two breaks of half an hour. The girls, each standing by their car, blinked, smiled and showed signs that they could not understand anything.
Looking closer, I saw both the beginning and the end. The worker made me do the easiest part I could. Then he suggested even further, I tried, I was in a hurry, but I forgot what followed, and I got lost.
There was a break at 7 o'clock. Then we went back to the cars. Little by little, although often straying, I was able to do something. At 12 o'clock at night they began to finish.
My "teacher" began to clean, wipe the car. I tried to help him. On a dark night we walked towards the barracks, lit by a policeman's lantern.
22nd of June. Monday
This is the second week I've been working at a factory that makes weapons. We help the Germans in their struggle against our fathers and brothers. I worked with Galya in the revolving shop, on the machine. In this workshop, only Russian girls were behind this, in essence, male work. German girls and women worked in other workshops, in lighter sedentary work. These patriots of their “victorious motherland” came to the factory with pride and pleasure: in silks, crepe de chines, richly but tastelessly dressed, all with the same, twisted hairstyles, most of them were bow-legged, shapeless.
Today is the anniversary of the war between Germany and Russia. A year since the German troops crossed the Russian border. It's been almost 8 months since the Germans captured my hometown of Kursk, and I don't see my own, beloved father.
Yesterday was Sunday, they took us for a walk. We walked 4 people in a row with a German matron. The town is wonderful, just a corner of paradise, surrounded by mountains, lush from continuous forests. Houses - clean, beautifully built, with balconies decorated with flowers - were almost invisible among the forests. Very nice, cozy in this place Walterhausen.
Already the 2nd day we all feel hungry. Especially on Sunday. At 10 in the morning they gave 50 g of bread with coffee, at 12 for two they gave out a plate of potatoes, rotten and smelly, and a ladle of gravy, and the “feeding” ended at 7 in the evening with a piece of bread and butter.
June 24
I feel broken. Can't get used to hard work. Do not get enough sleep. They raise with a merciless cry right at the strongest, sweetest time of sleep, at 3 am. The body, as if bruised, aches, the hands hurt, the legs hurt, the head is heavy, the eyes stick together, everything is spinning, it makes noise in the ears. With difficulty getting out of bed, having hastily dressed, having eaten a small piece of a loaf, we all go to work in the barracks.
It is still dark outside, the early morning dawn is barely breaking. Very cold. The cold covers the bodies that have not cooled down from the bed. Everyone's faces are yellow, their eyes are red, sleepy. You can hardly stand at work and look forward to a break. At 7 o'clock they give bread and butter. You greedily swallow this bread, which seems so delicious. Then you go back to the shop. You start working.
Making some part for a revolver. The main course of work was memorized mechanically, but no one understood anything. Weakened hands barely hold the planing lever, hot shavings burn the hands, fly into the face, cut the hands from inexperience. At long tables sit rejecters - old men. They look with insensitive, dull faces at young Russian girls, not yet completely faded. They examine from head to toe strong bodies, beautiful legs, breasts of Russian girls. From time to time they eat bread, thickly buttered, and drink something from flasks, irritating our appetite. Every now and then the chief master with a stone face passes through the workshop. He stands at each machine for a long time, strictly monitors the work.
June 26
At night they woke us up, saying that there was an air raid alert. They made me get dressed and go to the shelter. The German watchman shouted and swore, driving everyone into the shelter. I didn't feel any fear - I had already seen and heard bombings so many times. I wanted to sleep, I was terribly cold.
The alarm lasted 10 minutes. At 3 o'clock they got back to work. It's so disgusting to stand at the barre, you just count the time until the break. The girls, in order to get humpbacks, leave, hide in the restroom, in 15 minutes. before the call. Then, when they receive bread, there is a fight for these big pieces, a German woman - a fat, lush lady - calls for help from a policeman, because a crowd of hungry young girls pinned her to the wall.
Having eaten this bread, they again went to the machines and stood from 7 to 11, looking forward to dinner. An unpleasant feeling seizes me when I watch how everyone, with inflamed eyes, reddened and sweaty faces, knocking each other down, runs to the poured plates and greedily swallows hot soup. Spoons are sparkling, everyone is rushing to get more. German workers, craftsmen, women workers often stand at the door and watch how, forgetting shame and pride, all the girls, who are not like themselves, scolding each other angrily, impudently climb for more. The policeman shouts, calls us pigs and explains all this disgrace by the uncivilized and disgusting Russian people.
Today at 11 p.m. they gave potatoes with sauce, liquid and sour. Moreover, they give potatoes in their uniforms, and there are a lot of rotten potatoes. Who has more, who has less, who is bolder, climbs for more. At 7 pm there was again potatoes with sour curd. Before we had time to finish eating potatoes, a German girl came up to our table, distributing potatoes, and asked Galya and Yulia to dance - once she saw the girls dancing in a tent and now she asked: the policeman, they say, wants to watch. There was no mood, the potatoes were not yet finished, but the German asked so much that Galya and Yulia had to dance in the dining room without finishing the potatoes.
June 28
Day off. During this week we were so overtired, and the weather was cloudy and cold, that we spent the whole day in bed, going only once to the dining room. We lie in bed, we want to eat. All sorts of delicious foods come to mind, we remember how we ate at home, at festive dinners, but we want to eat more and more.
We are looking forward to 7, when we should give two thin pieces of loaf, lightly spread. All the girls agreed to protest, that is, to refuse this bread, after which you remain hungry, you even feel hunger even more. But as soon as the German woman began handing out pieces neatly wrapped in paper, everyone quickly ran for bread, they could not stand it.
Having eaten this bread in an instant, we decided to go and tell the German woman that we were hungry. Vera and I opened the doors to each room and called the girls for more. A large crowd had gathered. A German woman came out to the noise and asked what had happened. One of the girls said that we were hungry and that Herr said that on Sunday we should be given 4 pieces of bread instead of 2.
The German woman screamed at us and pushed 2 girls in the back. Everyone ran to the rooms. Then the German woman went from room to room and warned that if we behave like this, she will call the policeman and the instigators will be arrested. In the evening, while we were still in bed, three soldiers came into the room with a superior, who described our room as the worst. We didn't know why they came. They saw how the three of us were lying on the same bed and said something about our hairstyles and other compliments. The boss ran up to us and, all red with anger, screamed and pulled the blanket and even slapped Vera on the ass. In general, our "cool ladies" did not consider us, shouted at us, hit us in the face.
There is always cursing, screaming, fighting in the dining room. They argue about who ate less and who ate more. Everyone tries to come to the dining room first. They climb, crushing each other. The policeman is unable to contain this crowd, strong from hunger.
July 11
What a hard job for me. The machine is not listening. Hands are cut, swollen, aching with pain. Only men work behind such machines, and even then not all. We don't understand the car at all. Having mechanically memorized the main steps of the work, we make some things for anti-aircraft guns. Standing behind the car, I always remember my father. How he honestly worked in the printing house behind his machine. I visited him, he was happy, he explained his work to me.
For the 7th month now, I have not seen him, I have not heard his affectionate, playful words.
Germany! It was your leaders, led by Hitler, who turned everything upside down. It is you who play on the human nerves of the whole world. How much blood and tears have been shed. People have become like animals.
The war has been going on for a year now. At first, everyone was afraid of death, I remember how everyone was terribly afraid of air raids when they could not see or hear an enemy aircraft. Gradually they got used to all the surprises, became indifferent, but terribly nervous, greedy, angry. That's when people really do not live, but vegetate. We - young people - had a hard fate. We - hundreds and thousands of young Russian people - are slaves. We were forcibly torn away from our mothers and from our native, friendly nest were transferred to a foreign country, plunged to the bottom of unrestrained discontent, darkness, sleep.
Nothing is clear to us, everything is incomprehensible, everything is unknown. We must work, but forget about our human feelings. Forget about books, theaters, movies, forget about the love feelings of young hearts. And as soon as possible, get used to feeling hunger, cold, get used to humiliation, bullying from the "winners".
We seem to be used to it, at least it is noticeable from the outside. Everyone works, whether they want to or not, they don’t pay attention to ridicule, on the contrary, they excite these ridicule even more with their somehow especially bad, attention-grabbing behavior.
For example: young girls swear and even often fight among themselves in the dining room, show themselves without hesitation as uncultured, ill-mannered.
During the occupation of the territory of the SRSR, the Nazis constantly resorted to various kinds of torture. All torture was allowed at the state level. The law also constantly increased repression against representatives of a non-Aryan nation - torture had an ideological basis.
Prisoners of war and partisans, as well as women, were subjected to the most cruel torture. An example of the inhuman torture of women by the Nazis is the actions that the Germans used against the captured underground worker Anela Chulitskaya.
The Nazis locked this girl every morning in a cell, where she was subjected to monstrous beatings. The rest of the prisoners heard her screams, which tore apart the soul. Anel was already being taken out when she lost consciousness and thrown like garbage into a common cell. The rest of the captive women tried to alleviate her pain with compresses. Anel told the prisoners that she was hung from the ceiling, pieces of skin and muscles were cut out, beaten, raped, bones were broken and water was injected under the skin.
In the end, Anel Chulitskaya was killed, last time her body was seen mutilated almost beyond recognition, her hands were cut off. Her body hung on one of the walls of the corridor for a long time, as a reminder and a warning.
The Germans even resorted to torture for singing in their cells. So Tamara Rusova was beaten because she sang songs in Russian.
Quite often, not only the Gestapo and the military resorted to torture. Captured women were also tortured by German women. There is information that refers to Tanya and Olga Karpinsky, who were mutilated beyond recognition by a certain Frau Boss.
Fascist torture was varied, and each of them was more inhumane than the other. Often women were not allowed to sleep for several days, even weeks. They were deprived of water, the women suffered from dehydration, and the Germans forced them to drink very salty water.
Women were very often underground, and the struggle against such actions was severely punished by the Nazis. They always tried to suppress the underground as quickly as possible, and for this they resorted to such cruel measures. Also, women worked in the rear of the Germans, obtained various information.
Basically, torture was carried out by Gestapo soldiers (Third Reich police), as well as SS soldiers (elite fighters personally subordinate to Adolf Hitler). In addition, the so-called "policemen" resorted to torture - collaborators who controlled order in the settlements.
Women suffered more than men, as they succumbed to constant sexual harassment and numerous rapes. Often the rapes were gang rapes. After such bullying, girls were often killed so as not to leave traces. In addition, they were gassed and forced to bury the corpses.
As a conclusion, we can say that fascist torture did not only concern prisoners of war and men in general. The most cruel fascists were precisely to women. Many soldiers of Nazi Germany often raped the female population of the occupied territories. The soldiers were looking for a way to "have fun". Besides, no one could stop the Nazis from doing it.
Below are excerpts from various books (I don’t remember the names, alas)
Our past neighbors - grandparents - got married in the war. She was a nurse, she slept, and he raped her sleeping. In the process, I realized that she was a virgin, was afraid of arrest and offered to marry: “anyway, no one will marry you anymore.” She was scared and agreed. So he later reminded her all his life: “Now, if I hadn’t taken pity on you, no one would have taken you.”
Then there was Allenstein and there was more fire and more death. Near the post office, he (Kopelev) met a woman with a bandaged head, who tightly held the hand of a young girl with blond pigtails, she was crying, the child's legs were stained with blood ... "The soldiers kicked us out of the house," she said to the Russian officer, " they beat and raped us, my daughter was only 13, she was raped by two, and everyone else raped me" She asked him to help her find her little son. Another woman asked him to shoot her.
3. "I remember what happened the first three days after the capture of Stettin, all the roads were covered with feathers from featherbeds, posters were placed on the approaches to the city - "Blood for blood!", And the corpses of civilians here and there did not cause anyone surprise As if the Mongol horde had passed. And when it became clear to the command that the time had come to urgently curb the vengeful impulse of the advanced units, then the order of Marshal Zhukov appeared - “For violence and looting - to be court-martialed and shot” ... Then Alexandrov’s article “Comrade Ehrenburg” appeared simplifies", and the commanders, together with political workers and tribunals, were able to restore discipline in the army units."
4. “They poked here,” the beautiful German woman explained, lifting up her skirt, “all night, and there were so many of them. I was a girl,” she sighed and cried. “They ruined my youth. they climbed on me, they all poked at me. There were at least twenty of them, yes, yes, - and she burst into tears.
“They raped my daughter in my presence,” the poor mother put in, “they can still come and rape my girl again.” From this again everyone was horrified, and bitter sobbing swept from corner to corner of the basement where the owners had brought me. here, - the girl suddenly rushed to me, - you will sleep with me. You can do whatever you want with me, but you are the only one!" writes Gelfand in his diary.
- “There is no way to say that the major is raping me,” she writes. “Why am I doing this? For bacon, sugar, candles, canned meat? major, and the less he wants from me as a man, the more I like him as a person."
Many of her neighbors made similar deals with the winners of defeated Berlin.
- “Suddenly, tanks appeared on our street, bodies of Russian and German soldiers lay everywhere,” she recalls. “I remember the terrifying twang of falling Russian bombs. We called them Stalinorgels (“Stalin’s organs”).”
One day, between bombings, Ingeborg climbed out of the basement and ran upstairs for a rope, which she adapted for a lamp wick.
“Suddenly, I saw two Russians pointing guns at me,” she says. “One of them forced me to undress and raped me. Then they switched places and another raped me. I thought I was going to die, that they would kill me.”
Then Ingeborg did not tell about what happened to her. She kept quiet about it for decades because it would be too hard to talk about it. "My mother used to brag about the fact that her daughter had not been touched," she recalls.
I want to note that it's scary, but it was. And women have always been war trophies, they have always paid for the war, wherever it takes place - and the winners are not judged. There are bastards in any country, on any side of the barricades. There are, were and will be. Like good people, I hope.