Were we brave? Most people would probably say we were. Was our lead mare Fräulein Behn a hero? If she really were a lieutenant she would have definitely been given the Iron Cross. In any case I have to rethink my ideas about heroism and courage under fire. It’s only half as bad as I thought. Once you’ve taken the first step, you just keep charging ahead.
It’s also typical that while I was slogging through all that water I didn’t give my own apartment a second thought – not until some others mentioned the possibility that it might have been hit. So I flew upstairs and found the dump described above. That means that from here on in I’ll have to stay with the widow. It’s perfectly fine with her, she’s afraid of being alone in her apartment. In March they came and took her tenant to serve in the Volkssturm. Who knows whether he’s still alive or not. But that’s just a thought, not something you say out loud.
Four hours later, 3p.m., back in the basement. Once again I’m out of breath, once again my fingers are shaking, and with good reason.
Around noon things calmed down a little outside, so I went to the entryway to warm my damp back in the sunlight. The baker was next to me. A man came running past. He was coming from the former police barracks, most recently used by the Luftwaffe, and was carrying a loin of beef, dripping fresh. ‘Better be quick, they’re giving it all away.
‘We looked at each other and took off just as we were, without a rucksack, without anything. Henni, from the bakery, who always has her nose to the wind, came running behind us. The sun was burning, and the shooting started up again, very faintly. We ducked, hurrying along close to the buildings. Some grey–haired soldiers, probably Volkssturm, were crouching on the kerb by the corner. They were resting their heads on their knees. They never even glanced at us. A crowd outside the barracks, with baskets, sacks, bags. I run inside the first hall I come to. It’s dark and cool and completely empty, evidently the wrong one.
I dash back, hear people ahead of me groping and gasping, then someone shouting, ‘Here! Over here!’ I grab a crate that’s lying around and drag it behind me.
Feeling my way, I bump into some people and get kicked in the shin. All of a sudden I’m in a basement that’s completely pitch–black, full of people shrieking in pain. A boxing match in the dark. This isn’t distribution – it’s sheer plunder.
Someone switches on a torch, I can see shelves with cans and bottles, but only down below, the upper shelves have already been cleaned out. I bend over, drop to the ground, rummage in the lowest compartment, pull out five, six bottles and stuff them in my crate. In the dark I get hold of a can, but someone steps on my fingers and a man’s voice shouts, ‘Those are mine!’
I leave with my things, head for the door, go into the next room. There’s a faint shimmer of light coming through a crack in the wall. I can make out loaves of bread, rows and rows, once again only on the lowest levels. I grab a few, kneel back on the ground and grope and dig for more. I’m kneeling in a pool of wine – you can smell it. Shattered glass is everywhere, I cram all the bread I can inside my box. Since I can’t lift it any more I have to drag it out through the door, into the corridor, and towards the exit, which beckons at the other end of the dark tunnel like a brightly lit stage.
Outside I run into the baker. He has also managed to get some bread and packs it into my box. Then he hurries back for more. I stay right by my crate and wait. He comes back with canned food, porcelain plates, coarse towels and a ball of bright blue knitting wool, very frizzy and felted.
All at once Antoine the Belgian is there, the little baker’s apprentice, with a leg of beef, and then Henni with Chartreuse in thick–bellied bottles. She’s angry: ‘They have everything inside, everything. Coffee, chocolate, brandy. They were living it up all right, that little band of brothers!’ And she disappears back inside. I guard my crate. A man comes up, he’s made his jacket into a sack to carry several bottles of alcohol. He looks longingly at the bread in my box. ‘Can I have one of those?’
‘Sure,’ I say, ‘for some brandy.’
We trade one loaf of whole–grain bread for a bottle of Steinhäger, both very pleased with the exchange.
Wild scenes are taking place all around in the dazzling sun light. Now and then a few shells hit, two of them close. Men smash bottles against the walls, drinking in greedy gulps. Antoine and I each grab a side of my crate and head back.
It’s full and heavy, and hard to carry, so we frequently have to set it down. I’m very thirsty and do just like the others: I take a bottle of red wine and smash the neck against the gutter (the ones I got were all French labels). The jagged edge cuts my lower lip, I didn’t even notice until Antoine points it out and wipes off the blood with his handkerchief, all the while standing watchfully astride our box. The blood had already dribbled down below my neckline.
The baker comes puffing up behind us, carrying the bluish leg of beef, smeared with horse manure, pressing it against him like a baby. The sun is scorching, I’m dripping with sweat. A few close hits. Then, farther off, the tacktacktack of strafing and the bangbangbang of the light anti–aircraft guns.
Outside our house we divvy up the loot. The idiotic blue wool managed to get into everything. My share consists of five bottles of burgundy, three jars of preserved vegetables, one bottle of Steinhäger, four loaves of whole–grain bread, six packs of pea flour, which the baker generously gave me from his own stores, and one unlabeled can of I–don’t–know–what. Now I’ve lugged everything upstairs to the widow’s.
Hot and sweaty, I recount my adventures to about a dozen people as I stand next to the stove, plate in my left hand, and wolf down a few spoonfuls of the mashed potatoes that the widow fixed. A number of families have chipped in for fuel. More bombs hit outside. The others are eyeing my loot, but they don’t dare go to the barracks which had undoubtedly been emptied of their plunder by now.
Several hours later, around 6p.m. back in the basement. I was able to get a little sleep, the widow and I having finished the open bottle of burgundy. When I woke up I felt giddy, with a bitter taste in my mouth, it took a while to connect to the kerosene flicker of the underworld. Not until I saw people running out and heard them calling for sacks: ‘Come on, they’re taking potatoes out of the barracks!’
I rush over with the widow. The enemy is taking a break, and things are fairly quiet, which explains the sudden mass of people milling about streets normally deserted in the middle of the day. Two women pass by pulling a child’s toy wagon with a whole barrel on top that smells of sauerkraut. Young and very old alike run like mad in the direction of the barracks. The widow and I have grabbed all the buckets we could find, two or each of us. The way is strewn with trampled potatoes and rotting carrots – you just have to follow them and you can’t go wrong. But right by the stone steps is a patch of blood, I shrink back... but the widow just laughs. ‘That’s marmalade!’ And that’s exactly what it is, too –people are rolling it out by the barrel.
We push through the crowd in the corridor, stumble down the slippery steps, land in a stinky pile of rotting potatoes. By the light of the narrow skylights we dig around in the mush with our hands and shoes, picking out whatever we can use. We leave the carrots and muddy swedes and fill our buckets with potatoes. We find a half –filled sack, and without asking whose it is we grab it and carry it up the stairs, down the street, into our building and up to the first floor.
More rattling and booming. Nobody cares – they’re all gripped by plunder fever. We turn round and run right back, this time returning with buckets full of briquettes. Mobs of people everywhere, running and snatching.
Now they’ve begun to loot the abandoned shops as well. A white–haired man – ‘gentleman’ would be a better description, is hauling a drawer full of boxes of soap powder. The drawer is labelled ‘Rice’.
Up to the first floor. We sit around on the living–room couch. Our arms are stiff, our legs shaky. What windowpanes are still left are quivering slightly. A gentle warmth is wafting through th
e broken windows – that and the smell of fire. Now and then we hear a voooommm! Then a prolonged echo, from the heavy anti–aircraft guns. After that comes a pinng! – a short blow right to the eardrum– heavy artillery. And then, far away, an occasional knackvoom–knackvoom, very fast, accompanied by howling and barking. I have no idea what it is. The widow claims they’re katyusha rockets, the so–called Stalin Organs. Incidentally up to now the Russians have been using individual bombs rather than a carpet.
In the end the two of us go off to see whether there’s any pudding powder left at the comer store that was hit yesterday. It turns out there are still a few customers, and yes, they’re still selling. There’s a price printed on the powder – 38 pfennigs, I think. The person selling, who also owns the store and lives right there, insisted on giving every customer exact change, so he kept running up and down the queue asking who had small coins and could help him. And that while under fire! Only here. We’ll be counting our change right into the grave.
Just for fun we peeked round the comer, to see what was up at the butcher’s, since I still hadn’t used up my ration. There, too, they were selling, with more supply than demand – at most a dozen people were in the store, so we were able to get some good pieces, boneless pork, fairly weighed.
As we walked out of the store a truck drove by, with German troops, red tabs, meaning anti–aircraft. They were headed away from us, toward the centre of town. They sat there mute, staring off into the distance. A woman called out to them, ‘you leaving?’ No one answered her. We looked at each other and shrugged. The woman said, ‘They’re just poor souls themselves.’
These days I keep noticing how my feelings towards men and the feelings of all the other women – are changing. We feel sorry for them, they seem so miserable and powerless. The weaker sex. Deep down we women are experiencing a kind of collective disappointment. The Nazi world – ruled by men, glorifying the strong man – is beginning to crumble, and with it the myth of ‘Man’. In earlier wars men could claim that the privilege of killing and being killed for the fatherland was theirs and theirs alone. Today, we women, too, have a share. That has transformed us, emboldened us. Among the many defeats at the end of this war is the defeat of the male sex.
Later in the basement, intelligent conversations over supper. Cosy still–lifes – in one square metre per household. Here tea with bread and butter, there mashed potatoes. Stinchen with the Hamburg ‘s’ wields her knife and fork flawlessly as she pokes at her pickle. Her wounded head has been nearly band aged. The bookselling wife asks: ‘May I serve you some?’
‘Yes, please, if you’d be so kind,’ answers Curtainman Schmidt, softly.
A towel is spread over the canary’s cage. The deserter comes and announces that the Russians are scouting out the cinema. Our comer is currently under fire from small guns. The ex–soldier tells us we can’t have anyone wearing a uniform in the basement, otherwise under martial law we’ll all be subject to execution.
Palaver about the notices in the Armoured Bear. Two armies really do seem to be heading to relieve Berlin, Schömer from the south and some other one from the north. Teuenbrietzen, Oranienburg and Bernau are said to have been liberated.
And us? Very mixed feelings, and a sense of fright. ‘So now they’ll be back and forth and we’re caught right in the middle. Are we supposed to stay here for months? We’re lost one way or the other. If things don’t work out for Ivan, then the Americans will come from the air. And God have mercy if they start in with carpet–bombs. We’ll be buried alive in this basement.’
A new announcement from the street: the Volkssturm has retreated, Ivan is pushing right towards us. German artillery has pulled up on our corner, the explosions are booming through the basement. Meanwhile six women are sitting round a little table, the widow is reading the distiller’s wife’s cards. She’s very good at it, too: ‘In the short run you will experience a disappointment in connection with your husband.’ (He’s still holding his post in the distillery – together with the redheaded Elvira.)
I want to go to sleep right away. I’m looking forward to it. The day’s been packed to the brim. The net result: I’m healthy, bold and bright, for the moment my fear is mostly gone. My brain is full of vivid images of greed and rage. Stiff back, tired feet, broken thumbnail, a cut lip that’s still smarting. So the saying’s true after all: ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. ‘
One more thing. An image from the street: a man pushing a wheelbarrow with a dead woman on top, stiff as a board. Loose grey strands of hair fluttering, a blue kitchen apron. Her withered legs in grey stockings sticking out the end of the wheelbarrow. Hardly anyone gave her a second glance. Just like when they used to ignore the rubbish being hauled away.
FRIDAY, 27 APRIL 1945. DAY OF CATASTROPHE, WILD TURMOIL – RECORDED ON SATURDAY MORNING
It began with silence. The night was far too quiet. Around twelve o’clock Fräulein Behn reported that the enemy had reached the gardens and that the German line of defence was right outside our door.
It took a long time for me to fall asleep, I was going over Russian phrases in my head, practising the ones I thought I’d soon have a chance to use. Today I briefly mentioned to the other cave dwellers that I speak a little Russian, a fact I’d been keeping to myself I explained that I’d been to European Russia when I was younger, one of the dozen or so countries I visited on my travels.
My Russian is very basic, very utilitarian, picked up along the way. Still, I know how to count and to say what day it is and I can read the Cyrillic alphabet. I’m sure it will come back quickly now that practice is near at hand. I’ve always had a knack for languages. Finally, counting away in Russian, I fell asleep.
I slept until about 5a.m., when I heard someone wandering around the front of the basement – it was the bookselling wife who had come in from the outside. She took my hand and whispered, ‘They’re here.’
‘Who? The Russians?’ I could barely open my eyes.
‘Yes. They just climbed through the window at Meyer’s’ meaning the liquor shop.
I finished dressing and combed my hair while she delivered her news to the others. Within minutes the whole basement was on its feet.
Taking the back stairs, I felt my way up to the first floor in order to hide our meagre provisions, at least whatever wasn’t already squirrelled away. Before going inside I put my ear to the back door, which was in splinters and could no longer be locked. All quiet, the kitchen empty. Keeping close to the floor I crept over to the window. It was a bright morning outside, our street was under fire, you could hear the whistle and patter of the bullets.
A Russian anti–aircraft battery was turning the corner, four barrels, four iron giraffes with menacing necks tall as towers. Two men were stomping up the street: broad backs, leather jackets, high leather boots. Jeeps pulling up to the kerb. Howitzers rattling ahead in the early light. The pavement alive with the din. The smell of petrol drifted into the kitchen through the broken windowpanes.
I went back to the basement. We ate our breakfast as if in a dream, although I did manage to consume several slices of bread, much to the amazement of the widow. Even so, my stomach was fluttering. I felt the way I had as a schoolgirl before a maths exam – anxious and uneasy. wishing that it was already over.
After that the widow and I climbed upstairs. We dusted her apartment, wiped down the counters and swept and scrubbed with our next–to–last bucket of water. The devil knows why we slaved away like that, probably just to exercise our limbs a little, or maybe fleeing again into a palpable present to escape an uncertain future.
As we worked we kept creeping up to the window and peeking out at the street, where an endless supply train was passing by. Stout mares with foals running between their legs. A cow drearily mooing to be milked. Before we knew it they had set up a field kitchen in the garage across the street. And for the first time we could make out faces, features, individuals – sturdy, broad foreheads, close–cropped hair, well f
ed, carefree. Not a civilian in sight. The Russians have the streets entirely to themselves. But under every building people are whispering, quaking. Who could ever imagine such a world, hidden here, so frightened, right in the middle of the big city? Life sequestered underground and split into tiny cells so that no one knows what anyone else is doing.
Outside: a bright blue, cloudless sky.
Sometime around noon – the woman from Hamburg and I were just getting the second pot of barley soup, cooked at the baker’s for the entire clan – the first enemy found his way into our basement. A ruddy–cheeked farmer, he blinked as he sized us up by the light of the kerosene lantern. He hesitated, then took a step, two steps towards us.
Hearts pounding. Scared, people offered him their bowls of soup. He shook his head and smiled, still silent.
That’s when I uttered my first Russian words, or rather rasped them, since I suddenly went hoarse: ‘Shto vy zhelaete?’ What do you want?
The man spins around, stares at me in amazement. I sense I’ve taken him aback. He doesn’t understand. Evidently he’s never heard one of us ‘mutes’ address him in his own language. Because the Russian word for Germans – n’ emtzi –means ‘mutes’. Presumably it dates from Hanseatic League, over 500 years ago, when German merchants used sign language to trade textiles and lace for beeswax and furs in Novgorod and elsewhere.
Anyway, this Russian doesn’t say a thing, answered my question with a mere shake of his head. I ask whether he wants something to eat. With a little smile he says, in accented German, ‘Schnaps’ –brandy.
A Woman in Berlin : Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary Page 6