The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII

by Marion Kummerow

  With surprise and relief, she soon learned that the Polizei spent their smoke breaks in the backyard right under Ulya’s window. Since then, the first thing she did while entering her room in the morning was to open it as she did today.

  “Yesterday, we had fun again,” a voice said. “These Jews . . . Not a word of protest when we drove them like sheep to the right shore of West Dvina.”

  “Same when we shot them in July—mostly men, young and old. Not a single one fought back. Just plodded to the trench, heads down. We didn’t line up to shoot them simultaneously, instead, made them kneel at the edge of the ravine, one next to the other. Bang! Each and every one in the neck. They toppled over and down into the ditch. Then the next group. Bang! Others on top of their own. The last ones formed a line without a command. We had only to wait for them to get into position.”

  Another excited voice chimed in, “Gavrilyuk, you must have watched how Germans invited them into the ghetto. That was hilarious! They ordered them to swim across the Dvina. The kikes flopped about like unhappy swine.”

  They seemed to be intoxicated by their stories, by the fact they could share them with impunity. Ulya caught herself clenching her fists.

  “I’ve heard we’ll have more of such fun soon,” a third voice chimed in.

  “Shostak warned to be ready this evening. We go on a round up to pry out the rest of the Jews from the ruins on the Peskovatiki. Our men got a lead that they burrowed themselves into the ground like rats. Last time,” something inaudible, “sewer holes. What bastards! They concealed their little children, some still babies, there.”

  “The Germans spared them the shit humiliation.”

  Ulya cringed at their guffaw, thinking, You skunks, continue calling yourselves by your names. Make my task easier.

  “So, you’ll have fun today, Grigoryev.”

  “And you? Aren’t you assigned, Semyon?”

  “Neah, I’ll escort women to the former circus to sort things that are left from the Yids. What a thorough nation these Germans are. I respect them. Top garments to one pile, underwear to another. Shoes a different pile.”

  “A sweet spot you’ve hit. Women . . . girls . . . I bet any gold nuggets you can get your hands on too.”

  “I wish. All the best stuff goes to SD. They keep a close watch on us while we sort.”

  The voices drifted away and with it, the air entering her space was fresh again.

  What did she feel while listening to such abominable details of how they treated Jewish people? What did she feel when she typed the next announcement: For every tip about a hiding Jew you get a reward of 1000 Rubles?

  The memory took her back to her training in SHON. After she’d studied Mein Kampf, Herr Wagner had asked her what she thought of Hitler’s hatred for the Jewish people. She recalled replying, “I don’t understand this hate” and Herr Wagner’s extended silence. Then, as a thunder from a clear sky, “You should learn to hate them. It’s important for your future assignment.”

  Did she learn? No, of course not. They were Soviet people like herself. Instantly, a question arose: But other Soviet people hated them, these Polizei, for instance. The morbid sensation their names would end up in her dispatches for the Underground gave her a certain relief.

  That her work was not in vain, she learned days later while typing a report of those Polizei being killed in their own homes by “bandits,” namely partisans in German interpretation.

  The last month of the summer brought a new wave of willing collaborationists. The Germans released dozens of local prisoners of war from Stalag 113. Most of them swelled the ranks of the local auxiliary forces. Were they all enthusiastic to serve the new regime, or did the unbearable conditions of the prisoners’ camp force them to betray their motherland? How could she know? She typed up their names, which later went into her dispatches and the duplicates into the spent artillery shell harbored in the dugout, and that with satisfaction.

  There was no end of the reports submitted to the Ortscommandantur, and today, she prepared a new one: “During the months of July-October 1941, fifty-seven members of the Vitebsk Auxiliary Police took part in the elimination of the Jewish ghetto prisoners in Ilov ravine.” Their names specified, they rightly belonged in Ulya’s clandestine reports as well.

  Like a countercurrent stream, more and more often, she typed reports like this one: “Bandits killed three Polizei in their homes.” She enjoyed the feeling of the keys, watching the words form on the piece of paper before her. She hardened herself against giving way to her anger when she prepared another type of dispatches: “Klepikov from our village hides some people in his barn.” Or, “I have seen Marfa Dekevich go to the wood with a sack and return without it.” Or, “Antonina from the last house on our street urged villagers to flee to partisans.” Every tip was concluded with the name and address of the informer.

  Not all the time was Ulya shackled to her typewriters. After the harvest, she accompanied the deputy burgomaster and his entourage to the village festivals with dance and music, which the German district officials and members of the security units attended as well. Like today.

  “Fräulein Kriegshammer.”

  She recognized Herr Schmiedecker aka Wagner’s voice and turned. He stretched his hand for a shake. “It’s good to see you again, Fräulein Kriegshammer. We didn’t really get a chance to talk much the first time I met you at Deputy Burgomaster’s.” He turned his head around then his eyes drew back to her. “Life prospers for your compatriots,” he said in the loud voice.

  “Yes, people are satisfied. As long as it continues this way—”

  “Why would anything change?” He widened his eyes. Concern? A warning?

  “But of course, it will change. For the better.” She tried to keep a straight face, which provoked a suppressed burst of laughter from him, and she joined.

  “Herr Schmiedecker,” a voice in German came from behind Ulya’s back. She already felt the presence of another person in their earshot. “Is it that lovely Fräulein Kriegshammer you’ve told me about?” A tall Hauptsturmführer with the SD patch on the right sleeve of his uniform jacket and a peaked hat adorned by a death’s-head and crossbones in his left hand either to air his head or out of politeness, closed the distance between them and gave her a once-over. His eyes, set under a high forehead, were a striking shade of steely gray and together with a chiseled strong nose and blond hair could make him a model for the ideal Aryan.

  She waited till he offered his hand for a shake. “Max Hammerer. We even have similar names.” His firm voice spoke of an unassailable authority. His hand was strong, and he held hers a moment longer than she thought appropriate. “Though we have never met, I read your reports on a regular basis. I do like how meticulously you prepare them. Where did you learn to type?”

  “I learned by myself when I couldn’t find work after—”

  “Your father was arrested.”

  Ulya widened her eyes and hoped her new acquaintance didn’t detect falseness in them.

  “And I don’t ask you why you, in the Soviet Union, had a personal typewriter?”

  “It was not personal. My father took it from the editorial office. He was the chief redactor of a newspaper and often worked at home.”

  His mouth opened most likely to ask her something else when a soldier approached him on the run, saluting Heil Hitler then handing him a slip of paper.

  “Excuse me, Fräulein. Herren.” Hammerer stepped aside and opened the dispatch. His face unreadable, he put it into his pocket. “Herr Schmiedecker, we say goodbye to our lovely Fräulein Kriegshammer. Join me.” He bid farewell with a nod of his head and strolled to the parked Opel, the messenger on his heels.

  Briefly, Herr Schmiedecker took Ulya’s hand in his and, while leaning to place a kiss, whispered, “Be aware of this wolf.” Without a farewell glance at her, he quickened his steps to join Hammerer in his car.

  In the corner of her mind some small fear settled.

  32

&
nbsp; Natasha

  November 1941

  “Give me these spare parts.” Golubev, the head mechanic, dropped a slip of paper on Natasha’s desk.

  “Are you eating them, the spare parts that is? Not a week goes by you don’t get some from me.” She narrowed her eyes at him then flipped through the pages. “Here. November first.”

  “It was the wrong diameter. Let me find out what I need.” He headed to the shelves behind her back.

  “No, Golubev. I don’t want a rope around my neck.” She jumped to her feet and spread her arms. “Over my dead body.”

  Golubev spit on the concrete floor, gave her a murderous look, and stormed out of the storage unit.

  She replayed the scene inside her head now, one week later, sitting in the director’s room of the locomotive depot in front of the interrogator Astafyev of the Vitebsk District Police.

  After asking for her name, date of birth, and address, and scribbling something on his pad, he looked at her sharply, assessing. “How long have you known Golubev?”

  “Since July.”

  “Did you notice anything suspicious?”

  “For instance, what?”

  “Does he spend all his time working, or does he carry out any conversations with his co-workers?”

  “We have no time for chatting. We work hard for our liberators. For the glorious Third Reich.”

  He looked at her, his eyes probing. “Are you mocking the new power?”

  “I am serious.” She bestowed on him her most charming smile. “But why all this questioning?”

  He took the bait and lowered his voice. “I’ll tell you. There are saboteurs among the workers in your depot. All the locomotives that leave the station got wrecked some kilometers into the train path and especially in the wooded areas at that. Lately, after the train stopped, it was overrun by bandits and they looted the cargo.”

  “How can I know who did it?”

  He leaned over the table to her. “If you keep your eyes and ears open, you may notice something suspicious. The Germans pay good for valuable information.”

  She leaned even closer to him and whispered, “I will keep my eyes and ears open. May I go now?”

  “Wait, Ivanova.” He fished a chocolate bar from his battered briefcase and after she took it, his eyes lit up. “You live on Kommunisticheskaya Street, right?”

  “Right.”

  “May I visit you with some more scrumptious stuff?”

  “I live with my aunt, a dragon of a woman.” Natasha turned and made toward the exit. Slug. She spat on the concrete floor when she shut the door after herself.

  33

  Ulya

  December 1941

  The day before, snow had fallen upon the city, concealing the ugly heaps of wreck with the virgin white cover and blotching the sea of German decrees on the walls.

  Despite the frigid temperatures, the first thing Ulya did as she stepped into the room was open the window. Well, the “window-radio” worked uninterrupted.

  “Hah! The Soviets. They were brave before the war. And now the German troops are thirty kilometers from Moscow. Did you see their communique? They can see the Kremlin through their binoculars.” Voron’ko’s snort was audible.

  By now, Ulya knew all the Polizei by face, their biography, and by voice. However, their ranks constantly thinned out, and in their place, others came. It looked like there was no shortage of willing men. The clients for the partisans, Ulya called them for herself.

  Due to their whispering, she couldn’t hear their conversation until Ryabkov’s voice proclaimed, “My aunt said, last night some Soviet prowlers sneaked into her barn to steal eggs and took both of her hens as well. Rats!”

  Ulya winced at the dirty swearing that concluded his statement.

  “Did she report the robbery?”

  “Yes. She won’t let anybody take a crumb from her table,” Ryabkov guffawed. “For her tip, she received twenty-five German Marks and two hundred grams of tobacco. Germans are fair.” There was respect in his voice.

  “Were the robbers apprehended?” came from outside.

  “But of course. So, they will rot in the lager. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  “In the lager? Most likely in a ditch,” Snopok retorted.

  The screech of the door opening made Ulya stiffen and turn from the window.

  “Taking time from work?” Klimko surveyed her with open accusation.

  “I just wanted to air the room.” She closed the shaft.

  “Translate this at once.” He put a piece of paper on her table.

  “Yes, Herr Klimko.” Without waiting for him to exit, she started reading.

  Bands of scattered Russian soldiers make constant foraging raids on the villages and subject them to callous looting and plundering. They subject you and your children to hunger and fear. Immediately report to the authorities any suspicious activity and your neighbors who assist the marauders.

  She wound the paper and a carbon into the Bashkiria and started typing it in Russian.

  As she finished, her mind reeled back to Ryabkov’s aunt. She’d find out her address.

  Ulya learned to do her work without adding feelings to what she knew would be the outcome of her messages. In the six months since the start of the mission, thirty-seven Polizei shuffled off this mortal coil and, for herself, she claimed credit for it.

  34

  Natasha

  January 1942

  Natasha kept her eyes on the ground while feeling her way through the debris and piles of snow along Frunze Street. Something prompted her to glance up at the three lonely figures trotting some paces away in front of her. One of them limped a bit. He is here. In the city! She took a quick, sharp breath and picked up her pace.

  In front of a gateway, he looked about him and, paying no attention to Natasha, disappeared in a half-bombed two-story house. She followed him, jagged glass scratching below her feet. Before she could even cry out, a hand clamped her mouth, arms yanked her inside through a breach in the wall. “Are you on my steps?” a whisper came and with that, the hand released her. She threw a wary glance around. They were alone in the damaged room sheltered by the half-collapsed walls. Windows missing. The wooden floor caved in.

  “Sergey . . . Vladimirovich, I’m so happy to see you. I thought you—” But she didn’t finish the sentence.

  The sound of hobnailed boots interrupted her. They stopped somewhere close, and a voice came with a slight Lithuanian accent, “Let’s check this wreck.”

  “Shh, Polizei.” Sergey Vladimirovich jerked Natasha to himself, pinning her to the wall, covering her mouth with his.

  She choked at his unexpected move and reacted with her tongue making its way between his teeth and not quite understanding why he clamped his lips closed in response.

  The gravel crunching, the steps advanced toward them, then stopped. First, the smell of cigarette smoke came then the words, “These Untermenschen are fucking everywhere—war or no war. Like cockroaches.”

  “Let them. That may be their last time,” another voice came in Byelorussian.

  When the sound of boots faded away, Sergey Vladimirovich pulled back from her and mumbled, “Sorry, Comrade Ivanova.”

  His obvious embarrassment made her cringe, bringing her down to earth, to this destroyed room with the missing ceiling in the corner. It took some time till she could mutter, “I understand. You have no Ausweis. Do you?”

  He wagged his head. “You go now.”

  “You may need me. Didn’t you get it just a minute ago?”

  He looked at his watch. “I’m fine. I know ways to escape.”

  “Where to? To the woods?”

  “Nonsense. You go. And you did not meet me,” he said angrier now as he stole another glance at his watch.

  “As you insist. I’d be glad to help with . . . you know what I mean.”

  “Go!” he said in a cry-whisper.

  Natasha turned around and, navigating between the piles of rubble, s
tepped through the doorway.

  Among other emotions, a deep sense of shame felt like it strangled her. Shuddering at the comprehension of being rejected again, the memory of her last meeting with Stepan ripped through her, jagged and painful. Before turning the corner, she looked back. A shadow of a slim man in a long coat and a hat pulled down low over his forehead slipped into the breach in the house she had just left.

  Later, upon reflection, she reasoned to herself. There was no question, Sergey Vladimirovich was with the partisans or Underground who, she knew, and everybody knew, had become a serious thorn for the occupying forces. She wished she could be with him in that dangerous resistance. Her nights were full of those images: people shot on the streets, bodies hanging from the gallows. “Jews.” “Communists.” “Commissars.” “Partisans.”

  These nauseating images gave way to Sergey Vladimirovich’s face and the feeling of excitement and long forgotten longing. She readily explained his behavior by the urgent and dangerous situation. No doubt, he had a clandestine meeting with that lean man.

  35

  Ulya

  January 1942

  Big snowflakes flowed down peacefully to the frozen ground. The snow was her enemy and still, thanks to it, she saw him. Yesterday. She wouldn’t like to confess to herself that since her first meeting with Nathan, he was on her mind. Even more after she, dressed as a man, met him in the city to exchange the lists with the names of the Polizei and other information too voluminous to be squeezed into the hiding place.