A Woman in Berlin : Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary

by Marta Hillers

  The cave dwellers shake their heads: regrettably they have no brandy or alcohol of any kind. Whoever has any left keeps it well hidden. So Ivan wanders back off, trying to find his way through the labyrinth of passageways and courtyards.

  Cheerful bustle of soldiers on our street. Along with two or three other women I venture out to watch. A young man is polishing a motorcycle in our entranceway, a German Zündapp, nearly new. He holds out the cloth, gestures at me to go on buffing. I tell him in Russian that I don’t want to, even manage a laugh, he looks at me in surprise and then laughs back.

  Some Russians are wheeling freshly stolen bicycles up and down the driveway. They’re teaching one another to ride, sit ting on their seats as stiffly as Susi the bicycle–riding chimpanzee in the zoo. They crash into the trees and laugh with pleasure.

  I feel some of my fear beginning to dissipate. It turns out that Russian men, too, are ‘only men’ – i.e. presumably they’re as susceptible as other men to feminine wiles, so it’s possible to keep them in check, to distract them, to shake them off.

  The pavements are full of horses that leave their droppings and spray their pee. A strong scent of stables. Two soldiers ask me to show them to the nearest pump –the horses are thirsty. So we traipse through the gardens for fifteen minutes. Friendly voices, good–natured faces. And questions that will keep coming back, heard now for the first time: ‘Do you have a husband?’ If you say yes, they ask where he is. And if you say no, they ask if you wouldn’t want to ‘marry’ a Russian. Followed by crude flirting.

  These two first address me using the familiar ‘du’, but I dismiss the impropriety by sticking with the formal form. We walked down the deserted green path, as artillery shells arc across the sky. The German line is ten minutes away. No more German planes, though, and hardly any German flak. No more water in the taps, no electricity, no gas. Only Russians.

  Back with the buckets, now full of water. The horses drink as the two men look on contentedly. I stroll around, talking to this Russian and that. It’s past noon, the sun so hot it feels like summer. There’s something strange in the air though, something I can’t put my finger on, something evil, menacing. A few men look past me shyly, exchanging glances. One young man, small and sallow and reeking of alcohol, gets me involved in a conversation. He wants to coax me off into the courtyard, shows me two watches on his hairy arm, he’ll give one to me if I...

  I draw back to the passage that leads to our basement, then sneak out to the inner courtyard, but just when I think I’ve shaken him he’s standing next to me, and slips into the basement along with me. Staggering from one support beam to the next, he shines his torch on the faces, some forty people all together, pausing each time he comes to a woman, letting the pool of light flicker for several seconds on her face.

  The basement freezes. Everyone seems petrified. No one moves, no one says a word. You can hear the forced breathing. The spotlight stops on eighteen–year–old Stinchen resting in a reclining chair, her head in a dazzlingly white bandage. ‘How many year?’ Ivan asks, in German, his voice full of threat.

  No one answers. The girl lies there as if made of stone. The Russian repeats his question, now roaring with rage: ‘How many year?’

  I quickly answer, in Russian: ‘She’s a student, eighteen.’ I want to add that she’s been wounded in the head, but I can’t find the right words so I resort to the international word ‘kaput’. ‘Head kaput, from bomb.’

  Next comes a conversation between the Russian and myself, a rapid back and forth of questions and answers that would be senseless to record, for the simple reason that it was senseless. All about love: true love, passionate love, he loves me, do I love him, whether we want to make love. ‘Maybe,’ I say, and start heading towards the door. He falls for it. The people all around are still paralysed with fear, don’t have the faintest idea what’s going on.

  I flirt with fluttering hands, hardly able to speak because my heart is pounding so. I look the man in his black eyes, amazed at his yellow, jaundiced eyeballs. We’re outside in the hall, it’s nearly dark, I prance backwards ahead of him, he doesn’t know his way in this labyrinth, he follows. I whisper: ‘Over there. Very beautiful there. No people.’ Three more paces, then two stairs... and we’re back out on the street, in the bright afternoon sun.

  Right away I run to my two horse handlers, who are now combing their steeds. I point at my pursuer: ‘He’s a bad egg, that one, ha–ha!’ The man looks daggers at me and takes off. The horse grooms laugh. I talk with them a while and catch my breath. Little by little my hands calm down.

  As I was chatting away, a number of heroes visited our basement, but they were more interested in watches than in women. Later I would see many an Ivan with whole collections on both arms – five or six pieces, which they would constantly compare, winding and resetting, with childlike, thief–like joy.

  Our street corner has become an army camp. The supply train is billeted in the shops and garages. The horses munch their oats and hay, it’s comical to watch them stick their heads out of the broken display windows. There’s a hint of relief in the air – Oh well, there go the watches. ‘Voyna kaput,’ as the Russians say. The war is kaput. And for us it is kaput, finished, all over. The storm has rushed past and now we’re safely in its wake.

  Or so we thought.

  Things started happening around 6p.m. A man built like a bull, dead drunk, came in the basement, waving his pistol around and making for the distiller’s wife. No one else would do. He chased her with his pistol up and down the basement, shoved her ahead of him, towards the door. She fought back, hitting him, howling, when all of a sudden the pistol went off. The bullet went right through the supports and hit the wall, no one was hurt. The basement broke into a panic, everyone jumped up and started screaming. The hero seemed to have frightened himself and slipped off into the corridors.

  Around 7p.m. I was sitting upstairs with the widow, peace fully eating our evening porridge, when the concierge’s youngest daughter burst in yelling: ‘Come quick, you have to talk to them in Russian. There’s more of them after Frau B.’ The distiller’s wife again. She’s by far the plumpest woman in our group, very buxom. People say they like that. Fat means beautiful, the more woman there is, the more her body differs from that of a man. Primitive people are said to have had particular respect for women who are fat, as symbols of abundance and fertility. Well, these days they’d have a hard time finding such symbols here. The older women in particular who had once been quite plump have shrunken terribly, at least for the most part. Of course, the distiller’s wife is an exception. Since the war began she hasn’t lacked for things to trade. And now she’s paying for her unmerited fat.

  When I came down she was standing in the doorway, whimpering and shaking. She had managed to run out and escape. But she didn’t dare go back to the basement, nor did she dare go up the four flights of stairs to her apartment, since the German artillery was still firing occasional shells. She was also afraid the Russians might follow her upstairs. Digging into my arm so firmly that her nails left marks, she begged me to go with her to the ‘commandant’ to request an escort, some kind of protection. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking of.

  A man came by with stars on his epaulettes and I tried to explain to him how afraid the woman was, but couldn’t think of the word for ‘afraid’. He just shrugged us off impatiently. ‘Don’t worry, nobody’s going to do anything to you, go on home.’ Finally the distiller’s wife staggered upstairs, sobbing. I haven’t seen her since, she must have sneaked off somewhere. And a good thing, too – she was too compelling a decoy.

  No sooner was I back upstairs than the concierge’s girl evidently the designated messenger – came running in for the second time. More men in the basement. Now they’re after the baker’s wife, who’s also managed to keep a bit of flesh on during the years of war.

  The baker comes stumbling towards me down the hall, white as his flour, holding out his hands: ‘They have my wi
fe...’ His voice breaks. For a second I feel I’m acting in a play. A middle–class baker can’t possibly move like that, can’t speak with such emotion, put so much feeling into his voice, bare his soul that way, his heart so torn. I’ve never seen anyone but great actors do that.

  In the basement. The lantern is no longer burning, it’s probably out of kerosene. By the flickering light of a so–called Hindenburg lamp – a wick in tallow kept in cardboard – I see the baker’s wife in a recliner, her ashen face, her twitching mouth. Three Russians are standing next to her. One is jerking her up by the arm, but when she tries to get up, another shoves her back in the chair as if she were a puppet, a thing.

  All three are talking to one another very quickly, evidently arguing. I can’t understand much, they’re speaking in slang. What to do? ‘Commissar,’ the baker stammers. Meaning, find someone who has some authority. I go out on the street, now peaceful, calmed down for the evening. The shooting and burning are far away. As luck would have it I run into the same officer who had been so dismissive with the distiller’s wife. I speak to him in my most polite Russian, ask him for help. He understands what I’m saying and makes a sour face. Finally he follows me, reluctant and unwilling.

  The people in the basement are still scared stiff and silent, as if they all, men, women and children, had turned to stone. It turns out that one of the three Russians has backed off. The other two are still standing next to the baker’s wife, arguing.

  The officer joins the conversation, not with a tone of command but as among equals. Several times I hear the expression ‘ukaz Stalina’ – Stalin’s decree. Apparently Stalin has declared that ‘this kind of thing’ is not to happen. But it happens anyway, the officer gives me to understand, shrugging his shoulders. One of the two men being reprimanded voices his objection, his face twisted in anger: ‘What do you mean? What did the Germans do to our women?’ He is screaming: ‘They took my sister and...’ and so on. I can’t understand all the words, only the sense.

  Once again the officer speaks, calming the man down, slowly moving towards the door, and finally managing to get both men outside. The baker’s wife asks, hoarsely, ‘Are they gone?’

  I nod, but just to make sure I step out into the dark corridor. Then they have me. Both men were lying in wait.

  I scream and scream... I hear the basement door shutting with a dull thud behind me.

  One of them grabs my wrists and jerks me along the corridor. Then the other is pulling as well, his hand on my throat so I can no longer scream. I no longer want to scream, for fear of being strangled. They’re both tearing away at me, instantly I’m on the floor... something comes clinking out of my jacket pocket, must be my key ring, with the key to the building. I end up with my head on the bottom step of the basement stairs. I can feel the damp coolness of the floor tiles. The door above is ajar, and lets in a little light. One man stands there keeping watch, while the other tears my underclothes, forcing his way–

  I grope around the floor with my left hand, until I find my key ring. I hold it tight. I use my right hand to defend myself. It’s no use. He’s simply tom off my suspender belt, ripping it in two. When I struggle to come up, the second one throws himself on me as well, forcing me back on the ground with his fists and knees. Now the other keeps lookout, whispering: ‘Hurry up, hurry up.’

  I hear loud Russian voices. Some light. The door opens. Two, three Russians come in, the last a woman in uniform. And they laugh. The second man jumps up, having been disrupted in the act. They both go out with the other three, leaving me lying there.

  I pull myself up on the steps, gather my things, drag myself along the wall towards the basement door. They’ve locked it from the inside. ‘Open up,’ I say. ‘I’m all alone, there’s no one else.’

  Finally the two iron levers open. Everyone stares at me. Only then do I realize how I look. My stockings are down to my shoes, my hair is dishevelled, I’m still holding on to what’s left of my suspender belt.

  I start yelling. ‘You pigs! Here they rape me twice in a row and you shut the door and leave me lying like a piece of dirt!’ And I turn to leave. At first they’re quiet, then all hell breaks loose behind me, everyone talking at once, screaming, fighting, flailing about. At last a decision: ‘We’ll all go together to the commandant and ask for protection for the night.’

  And so finally a small platoon of women, along with a few men, heads out into the evening twilight, into the mild air smelling of fire, over to where the commandant is said to be staying.

  Outside it’s quiet. The guns are silent. A few men are sprawled in the entranceway – Russians. One of them gets up as we approach. Another mumbles, ‘They’re just Germans,’ and turns back over. Inside the courtyard I ask to speak to the commandant. A figure breaks away from the group of men standing in the door that leads to the rear wing of the building: ‘Yes, what do you want?’ He’s tall, with white teeth and the features of someone from the Caucasus.

  He looks at the pitiful group of people come to complain and laughs, laughs at my stammering. ‘Come on, I’m sure they didn’t really hurt you. Our men are all healthy.’ He strolls back to the other officers, we hear them chuckling quietly. I turn to our grey assembly: ‘There’s no point.’

  We leave and return to our basement. I don’t want to go back, don’t want to look at their faces any more. I climb upstairs, together with the widow, who’s hovering over me as if I were sick, speaking in hushed tones, stroking me, watching my every move to the point where it’s annoying. I just want to forget.

  I undress in the bathroom – for the first time in days – and wash up as well as I can with the little water I have and brush my teeth in front of the mirror. Suddenly a Russian appears in the doorframe, as still as a ghost, pale and tender. ‘Where, please, the door?’ he asks in a quiet voice – in German, too. He’s evidently strayed into the apartment. Frozen in shock, wearing nothing but my nightgown, I point the way to the front door, leading to the stairwell, without saying a word. ‘Thank you,’ he says, politely.

  I hurry into the kitchen. Yes, he broke in through the back door, which the widow had blocked off with a broom cupboard – he simply pushed it aside. The widow is just coming up the back stairs from the basement. Together we barricade the door again, this time more thoroughly, piling chairs in front and shoving in the heavy kitchen dresser for good measure. That should do it, says the widow. As always she bolts the front door and turns the lock twice. We feel a little secure.

  A tiny flame is flickering on the Hindenburg lamp, casting our overlarge shadows on the ceiling. The widow has set up a place for me in her living room, on the sofa bed. For the first time in ages we didn’t let down the blackout blinds. What for? There won’t be any more air raids this Friday night, not for us, we’re already Russian. The widow perches on the edge of my bed and is just taking off her shoes when all at once we hear a clatter and din.

  Poor back door, pitifully erected bulwark. It’s already crashing down, the chairs tumbling against the floor tiles. Scraping of feet and shoving and several rough voices. We stare at each other. Light flickers through a crack in the wall between the kitchen and the living room. Now the steps are in the hall. Someone pushes in the door to our room.

  One, two, three, four men. All heavily armed, with machine guns on their hips. They look at the two of us briefly without saying a word. One of them walks straight to the chest, rips open the two drawers, rummages around, slams them back, says something dismissive and stomps out. We hear him going through the next room, where the widow’s tenant used to live before he was drafted into the Volkssturm. The three others stand around murmuring among themselves, sizing me up with stolen glances. The widow slips back into her shoes, whispering to me that she’s going to run upstairs for help from the other apartments. Then she’s gone, none of the men stop her.

  What am I to do? Suddenly I feel insanely comical, standing there in front of three strange men in nothing but my candy pink nightgown with its ribbons and
bows. I can’t stand it any longer, I have to say something, do something. Once again I ask in Russian, ‘Shto vy zhelaete?’

  They spin around. Three bewildered faces, the men lose no time in asking: ‘Where did you learn Russian?’

  I give them my speech, explain how I travelled across Russia, drawing and photographing, at such and such a time. The three warriors plop down in the armchairs, set aside their guns and stretch their legs. As we chat, I keep my ear cocked for any noise in the hallway; waiting for the widow to return with the neighbours and the promised help. But I hear nothing.

  Meanwhile the fourth soldier comes back and leads number three into the kitchen. I hear them busy with the dishes. The other two speak quietly to each other, evidently I’m not supposed to understand. The mood is strangely restrained. Something is in the air, a spark, but where will it land?

  The widow doesn’t come back. I try to draw the two men into conversation again, as I get under my quilt, but nothing comes of it. They look at me askance and shift around. That’s a sign things are about to happen – I read about it in the papers, when there still were some –ten or twenty times, what do I know. I feel feverish. My face is burning.

  Now the other two men call them from the kitchen, and they get up clumsily and stroll over there. I crawl out of bed, very quietly; put my ear to the kitchen door and listen a moment. They’re obviously drinking. Then I slink down the pitch–dark corridor, silently; on bare feet, grab my coat off the hook and pull it on over my nightgown.

  I cautiously open the front door, which the widow has left unbolted. I listen at the stairwell, silent and black. Nothing. Not a sound, not a shimmer of light. Where could she have gone? I’m just about to go up the stairs when one of the men grabs me from behind. He’s sneaked up without a sound.

  Huge paws. I can smell the alcohol. My heart is hopping like crazy. I whisper, I beg: ‘Only one, please, please, only one. You, as far as I’m concerned. But kick the others out.’