So in TTL the *Bengal Famine is caused by Axis actions. Interesting. Certainly helps explain why India remains friendly to the FBU post war.
The Great Crusade (Reds! Part 3)
- Thread starter Aelita
- Start date
Bookmark1995
Banned
Considering how the TTL Second World War has been more a defining moment in India's history, more Indians might be supportive of the war.
Considering India was more directly attacked by the Axis, it would make sense.
Hirohito suffered an injury that left him in need of a regent and Chichibu backed the Kodoha.
Again, his death came before India itself was directly embroiled. For all people realized, he was protesting a foreign war before it reached their shores and his early death prevent his direct endorsement of the war (like he did during the Boer War and WW1)
Tintin in WW2
The Shooting Star
Written and drawn by Georges Remi (Herge)
Our favorite Reporter Tintin is strolling casually with his dog Snowy when he catches sight of a shooting star. He goes to the observatory, where he takes a look with the astronomer Decimus Phostle. They discover a meteorite is about to reach the Earth. This prompts him and a self-proclaimed prophet Philippulus (who Tintin meets after freaking out) to declare the end of the world. Unfortunately for the two, (after a mild scare) the meteor passes the Earth without incident. However, a small chunk lands in the Arctic, causing a small earthquake. Phostle is excited by a spectroscope reading that indicates the chunk has a new metal hitherto unknown to mankind.
Tintin convinces Phostle to assemble an expedition to the Arctic to find this new metal (called Phostlite), which is staffed by scientists from Germany, Sweden, Finland, Romania, and Italy aboard the ship Aurora, with Tintin, Snowy, and Captain Haddock tagging along.
However, they experience trouble before they even set sail: there are some acts of sabotage and Philippulus tries to stop the expedition.
They receive news that another ship, the Peary, has been commissioned by the American bureaucrat Blumenstein, to retrieve the metal “for the International Revolution”.
The Peary attempts to sabotage the Aurora at every opportunity (planting dynamite, trying push it out of the harbor, siphoning the gas), but it pushes on (with some help by their old friend Captain Chester, who gets them gas from the German-owned Golden Dawn Company) until both are on the verge of reaching the meteor.
Tintin manages to get a good look at the Peary on the Aurora’s seaplane (an Arado 196) , watching them approach the meteor and convinces Haddock to accelerate the pace. However, they get briefly interrupted by an SOS from another ship, which Tintin determines to be a forgery.
The two ships reach the meteor. However, while the Peary crew rows, Tintin uses the seaplane to surpass them, and place the flag of the Aurora. (The Peary crew crashes, the American flag flops down).
However, Tintin is stranded on the island because of the boiling water, and is forced to wait for the seaplane to gain more supplies.
Eventually, Tintin discovers the meteor has the ability to enlarge organisms and accelerate their growth. Thus, he sees gigantic mushrooms, a large apple tree from a core he threw away, and large insects that he has to flee.
Eventually, the meteor begins to sink into the sea, but Tintin manages to get a piece of the phoslite and himself and Snowy out before it disappears.
A few weeks later, Blumenstein learns that his failure will mean his “reassignment”, which will mean his corruption will no longer be shielded.
Back on the Aurora, they finally break land, to the relief of Haddock (wanting more whiskey).
Background Information:
With the war and Nazi occupation reaching Belgium by 1942, Herge’s last Tintin story Land of Black Gold had to be reedited during its collection, removing the Italian villains and toning down the conflict between Jewish and Arab partisans in the British Mandate of Palestine. Shifting towards apolitical grounds under the now Nazi owned Francophone paper Le Soir, the next serial The Crab with the Golden Claws (which had started serialization, but was interrupted following the invasion) focused instead on Tintin and the new character Captain Haddock investigating and breaking up an international opium trading operation, with the help of a Japanese detective (meant to counterbalance the portrayal of the Japanese in The Blue Lotus).
Herge initially had plans for Blumenstein to be an Americuban banker and for the Peary to be flying the flag of American Havana. Herge admitted a disdain more for “American-Cuban big business” over American communism. However, directives from Herge’s old acquaintance Leon Degrelle (the leader of the Rexist collaborationist government)[1] forced him to hastily change the character to a Red Army bureaucrat and the Peary a Red American ship. Both variations were explicitly Jewish coded. The story also included scientists from several Axis allied countries.
Herge also included a small gag with two stereotypical Jews being pleased by Phillipulus’ prediction as an excuse to not pay creditors. When the book was collected, the gag was removed.
The book would become politically embarrassing for Herge in the post-war period, and was held, alongside his previous affiliation with Degrelle as evidence of his pro-Nazi sympathies. Herge distanced himself from Degrelle, denying that Tintin was based on the pre-war exploits of Degrelle.
In the 1954 republishing, Blumenstein (now “Bohlwinkel”, a sweet candy shop, though also a Jewish surname) was made back into a banker and the Peary was made into the fiction Caribbean nation of “Sao Rico” (though with a suspiciously familiar stars and stripes flag).
Elements of The Shooting Star were merged with the later The Seven Crystal Balls, The Prisoners of the Sun and The Calculus Affair for the 1967 film Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (part of the lucrative Belvision series of Tintin animated film adaptations). The opening was directly adapted, with Professor Calculus replacing Phostle, and instead of Blumenstein, the feuding nations of Borduria and Syldavia from The Calculus Affair were inserted (here, satirizing the then-recent split of Belgium following the Congo War rather than the Cold War).
Later, the late 1990’s Wallonian tv series The Adventures of Tintin adapted the serial as a stand-alone fairly closely, though with the now Walloon and Fleming inserts Borduria and Syldavia again the villains rather than the anti-Semitic Blumenstein.
[1] Degrelle OTL claimed that Tintin was based on him and his adventures as a reporter in Mexico. For his part, Herge said that Tintin was based on his brother Paul, but credited Degrelle with introducing him to American comic strips published in Mexican newspapers.
Written and drawn by Georges Remi (Herge)
Our favorite Reporter Tintin is strolling casually with his dog Snowy when he catches sight of a shooting star. He goes to the observatory, where he takes a look with the astronomer Decimus Phostle. They discover a meteorite is about to reach the Earth. This prompts him and a self-proclaimed prophet Philippulus (who Tintin meets after freaking out) to declare the end of the world. Unfortunately for the two, (after a mild scare) the meteor passes the Earth without incident. However, a small chunk lands in the Arctic, causing a small earthquake. Phostle is excited by a spectroscope reading that indicates the chunk has a new metal hitherto unknown to mankind.
Tintin convinces Phostle to assemble an expedition to the Arctic to find this new metal (called Phostlite), which is staffed by scientists from Germany, Sweden, Finland, Romania, and Italy aboard the ship Aurora, with Tintin, Snowy, and Captain Haddock tagging along.
However, they experience trouble before they even set sail: there are some acts of sabotage and Philippulus tries to stop the expedition.
They receive news that another ship, the Peary, has been commissioned by the American bureaucrat Blumenstein, to retrieve the metal “for the International Revolution”.
The Peary attempts to sabotage the Aurora at every opportunity (planting dynamite, trying push it out of the harbor, siphoning the gas), but it pushes on (with some help by their old friend Captain Chester, who gets them gas from the German-owned Golden Dawn Company) until both are on the verge of reaching the meteor.
Tintin manages to get a good look at the Peary on the Aurora’s seaplane (an Arado 196) , watching them approach the meteor and convinces Haddock to accelerate the pace. However, they get briefly interrupted by an SOS from another ship, which Tintin determines to be a forgery.
The two ships reach the meteor. However, while the Peary crew rows, Tintin uses the seaplane to surpass them, and place the flag of the Aurora. (The Peary crew crashes, the American flag flops down).
However, Tintin is stranded on the island because of the boiling water, and is forced to wait for the seaplane to gain more supplies.
Eventually, Tintin discovers the meteor has the ability to enlarge organisms and accelerate their growth. Thus, he sees gigantic mushrooms, a large apple tree from a core he threw away, and large insects that he has to flee.
Eventually, the meteor begins to sink into the sea, but Tintin manages to get a piece of the phoslite and himself and Snowy out before it disappears.
A few weeks later, Blumenstein learns that his failure will mean his “reassignment”, which will mean his corruption will no longer be shielded.
Back on the Aurora, they finally break land, to the relief of Haddock (wanting more whiskey).
Background Information:
With the war and Nazi occupation reaching Belgium by 1942, Herge’s last Tintin story Land of Black Gold had to be reedited during its collection, removing the Italian villains and toning down the conflict between Jewish and Arab partisans in the British Mandate of Palestine. Shifting towards apolitical grounds under the now Nazi owned Francophone paper Le Soir, the next serial The Crab with the Golden Claws (which had started serialization, but was interrupted following the invasion) focused instead on Tintin and the new character Captain Haddock investigating and breaking up an international opium trading operation, with the help of a Japanese detective (meant to counterbalance the portrayal of the Japanese in The Blue Lotus).
Herge initially had plans for Blumenstein to be an Americuban banker and for the Peary to be flying the flag of American Havana. Herge admitted a disdain more for “American-Cuban big business” over American communism. However, directives from Herge’s old acquaintance Leon Degrelle (the leader of the Rexist collaborationist government)[1] forced him to hastily change the character to a Red Army bureaucrat and the Peary a Red American ship. Both variations were explicitly Jewish coded. The story also included scientists from several Axis allied countries.
Herge also included a small gag with two stereotypical Jews being pleased by Phillipulus’ prediction as an excuse to not pay creditors. When the book was collected, the gag was removed.
The book would become politically embarrassing for Herge in the post-war period, and was held, alongside his previous affiliation with Degrelle as evidence of his pro-Nazi sympathies. Herge distanced himself from Degrelle, denying that Tintin was based on the pre-war exploits of Degrelle.
In the 1954 republishing, Blumenstein (now “Bohlwinkel”, a sweet candy shop, though also a Jewish surname) was made back into a banker and the Peary was made into the fiction Caribbean nation of “Sao Rico” (though with a suspiciously familiar stars and stripes flag).
Elements of The Shooting Star were merged with the later The Seven Crystal Balls, The Prisoners of the Sun and The Calculus Affair for the 1967 film Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (part of the lucrative Belvision series of Tintin animated film adaptations). The opening was directly adapted, with Professor Calculus replacing Phostle, and instead of Blumenstein, the feuding nations of Borduria and Syldavia from The Calculus Affair were inserted (here, satirizing the then-recent split of Belgium following the Congo War rather than the Cold War).
Later, the late 1990’s Wallonian tv series The Adventures of Tintin adapted the serial as a stand-alone fairly closely, though with the now Walloon and Fleming inserts Borduria and Syldavia again the villains rather than the anti-Semitic Blumenstein.
[1] Degrelle OTL claimed that Tintin was based on him and his adventures as a reporter in Mexico. For his part, Herge said that Tintin was based on his brother Paul, but credited Degrelle with introducing him to American comic strips published in Mexican newspapers.
Operation Aurora art by Vlitramonster
Marshal Mikhail Frunze (center-left), commander-in-chief of REVMIL Forces Europe, visits General of the Army Harry Haywood (far-left) commanding officer of the 1st Byelorussian Front, in the forward headquarters at the Seelow Heights. Also present are Major General Chen Geng (center-right), commanding officer of the 2nd Detachment of the New Fourth Army, and his WFRA liaison Acting Lt. Colonel Young-Oak Kim. By @vlitramonster
Last edited:
Bookmark1995
Banned
I wonder what the TTL Downfall movie is like? I can imagine Hitler being more erratic after being given a time out.
Cool update, it seems the end of the war is reaching closer. I wonder what the Japanese are up to; it seems that a lot more resources have been spent on China than OTL if they can afford to send troops to the West, but I don't know if that would slow down the naval war. And since it seems the American air forces are more reluctant to target civilians here, would be interesting to see where their decision to drop the atomic bomb comes in. Will there be a "Downfall" in this timeline?
This drawing style reminds me of the drawing style of the game "We the Revolution". It's a source of inspiration ?
Marshal Mikhail Frunze (center-left), commander-in-chief of REVMIL Forces Europe, visits General of the Army Harry Haywood (far-left) commanding officer of the 1st Byelorussian Front, in the forward headquarters at the Seelow Heights. Also present are Major General Chen Geng (center-right), commanding officer of the 2nd Detachment of the New Fourth Army, and his WFRA liaison Acting Lt. Colonel Young-Oak Kim. By @vlitramonster
The Unwomanly Face of War (Short Story)
“The Unwomanly Face of War”
Content warning: post-traumatic stress, war crimes, sexual violence
It’s July 1941 and I’ve been ordered to present myself for medical examination. It was ridiculous, but I am a soldier and I follow orders.
“Come this way Mrs.--”
“Lieutenant Schafer,” I said pointedly.”
The nurse shrugged. “Sorry, is all new to me.”
The military uniform fit uneasily on her petite frame. I limped along behind her, indulging her using me as an opportunity to practice her English. I passed throngs of men with missing limbs, or wrapped in blood-stained bandages. I didn’t belong here...and I didn’t know why regimental HQ insisted.
There was nothing wrong with me.
She ushered me into a quaint tiled room. Smiling, she shut the door behind me. The bathroom was simple and elegant. I started talking to myself, something to fill the dead air I guess. “Guess it has been a while since I’ve had a hot bath.”
I’ve been on the line or behind enemy lines for too long. I peeled off the grimy field uniform, not caring if the clothes the nurse left for me would fit. I couldn’t ignore the sweat, dirt and ash caked to my skin. The scabs across my back, breasts and belly peeled as I disrobed.
I winced as I traced along a particularly stubborn cut that ran from my throat down the right side of my chest. It was taking too long to heal.
The shower was a little metre wide cubicle, with a broad spout hanging just above my head. I was fine...until I was standing in it fumbling at the knobs. My chest tightened as the cold spray splashed on my skin. I sucked air through clenched teeth.
I was there again...the water spraying too cold then too hot. His hands on me, roaming, invading. His words echo in me: “Such a feisty dirne.” Probably the most polite he ever was with me. I relive every second of it, from the clumsy molestation, his pathetic, self-aggrandizing dirty talk, to the supplication he forces on me after the act.
The moment passes, and I’m back in the present, braced against the shower wall hyperventilating. “Schweinehund!” I spit. The shaking stops, and I realize the water is now almost scalding hot.
I was lucky. He saved me all to himself. The local women were not treated as tenderly as I.
I’m clean now. But not clean enough. There’s a physician examining me. She’s got a kindly look in her chubby cheeks. I can tell she knows. There’s no point in hiding. Something in her frown tells me she understands. So she is the first person I tell about my other injuries.
She says that those injuries will heal in a few weeks, and to not try anything strenuous. Ah, the way she hits that word, I can tell she knows about my bad taste in men--and women. Her English is impeccable, but I make a point of replying in Russian.
“That’s the last thing I want to think about right now.”
She nods. After rummaging through her kit, she finds me some salve for the cuts. Compared to most of the casualties here, my wounds aren’t that serious. I can tell she’s relieved to see someone who’s not on death’s door, and it makes me feel like I’m malingering. Even though I’m here against my will.
When I report back to my regiment, the weary staff officer hands me a forty-eight hour pass. He can’t look me in the eye when he does. Ah, they know too. Everyone knows. I thought I’d escaped German captivity, but now I wore that albatross around my neck.
I suppose it’s only natural. The...creatures...of the Waffen-SS have a reputation, none more so than the vermin in the Totenkopf division. All this worry is for nothing though. I’m fine, they don’t need to treat me like I’m made of china.
I’m only in garrison long enough to get my service uniform and some cash from my footlocker. We’re far enough from the frontline here in Moscow that something approaching a night life exists. Once you get used to the constant threat of air raids, that is.
It’s supper time by the time I get my hotel room booked. I head to the galley and wind up seated with some RKKA junior officers who are also on leave. They didn’t know me to treat me like I’m glass, so I enjoyed their company.
There was live music. A thin young Ukrainian woman did some covers of popular jazz vocal hits. There was vodka served alongside black tea, but not enough for my other dinner guests’ liking. They wanted me to flirt with the waiter to see if he could bring us some more. I casually rebuffed them, and just let the singer serenade me.
They’re good company in all. They like my jokes at least, though I’m told men will laugh at anything a pretty girl says. I wouldn’t have called myself that, but apparently I’ve come into my own in my early twenties. They even find my scars attractive. One, a blond and rugged man from Sochi named Sergei Mikhailovich, asks me how I got them.
I laugh uneasily. “Oh, I got them knife-fighting.”
He laughs. “Did you win?”
“No, the knife won, but I’ll get it next time.”
He calls me Ivanna, saying that Jane makes me sound like an English novelist, not a hard-fighting krasnoarmeyka.
The main course comes soon after. Chicken Kiev--officially just “chicken cutlet stuffed with butter” because the former sounded too bourgie. It was probably the most decadent thing I’ve had since shipping in. The waiter tells me that it’s our lucky night, usually they don’t have anything this lavish.
Mother would have probably have a kanipchen if she saw me. The rabbis may have relaxed some of the kashrut after the revolution, but they still weren’t giving up on separating meat and dairy.
As I watch Sergei hungrily tuck into his cutlet, the seasoned butter bleeding out, the image of the knife slicing across my flesh flashes. For a moment, I’m no longer in the hotel. I’m back in that cold, dim basement. It was Gothic and foreboding, like so many of the manors of Russia’s former gentry. A perfect castle for the Waffen-SS.
I can feel the ropes around my wrists again. I blink, and I’m tied to the table, struggling against the ropes.
The sensation of the knife gliding across my skin rippled over me. His wolfish grin, as he drew the shallow cuts all over his body. “Oh, I hope I don’t go too deep,” he’d taunt. “This isn’t the proper sword to penetrate you.”
It was his “punishment”, you see. I’d nipped his delicate parts with my teeth, the first time he’d tried to make me use my mouth. I suppose I should’ve known he’d react poorly, but honest truth, the only thing I regret is not biting it off.
When I snapped back to present, Sergei and his comrades were staring at me with concern. I must’ve gone pale. I tried to pass it off as being awestruck by the meal, but I can tell they aren’t buying it. I can’t even convince myself anymore. I am not fine.
Weeks pass. I’m now working as a translator and liaison for the headquarters of the Central Front. Some days I’m teaching Soviet officers English. Other days I’m teaching scientific socialism to cadets. I don’t belong here. I belong at the front, with a rifle in my hand.
I made some friends though. A Soviet general takes a liking to me as I translate for him in staff meetings. He asks for my opinion on operational matters. He says he likes my moxy. He introduces himself as Georgy Konstaninovich Zhukov.
It’s not long before I get myself in trouble. Apparently when I’m not out in the field, I “clean up nice”. The military is an old boys’ club, and it is not uncommon for senior officers to take women in their commands as mistresses. The Soviet army is especially rife with this. The mobilisation of women for war is much more reluctant there. We at least had a few years of peacetime to start working out the problems.
I’d made chief lieutenant when I’d been posted here. I reported to a Soviet lieutenant colonel in this department. At first I thought his interest was innocent. But his eyes seemed to linger just a bit too long.
A lot of the work we were doing as rote drudgery; translating after-action-reports etc. The hours were long, and it wasn’t uncommon to pull all-nighters. Nabokov gave me a document just before I was supposed to head out for the night, and told me it was urgent.
I got to work on it straight away. There was no use in complaining, regardless of how much I wanted to. About an hour later, Nabokov returned with tea and cigarettes. At the time, I thought it was decent of him. He offered to light mine after his. As I puffed on the harsh Belomorkanal, his hand caressed my cheek.
I recoil and he passes it off as brushing off a bit of dust. But he doesn’t leave it at that. He starts talking about how it would be nice if we would look out for one another as comrades. I’m not dumb, I know exactly what he’s propositioning. But I try to pretend I don’t when I reject him.
He doesn’t buy it. He says I should stop playing “hard to get”, that I’m a tease, that I like toying with mens’ hearts. I try to walk away, but he catches me. I flash back to my unfortunate time in Dietrich’s “company”, and I freeze.
Nabokov takes this as an invitation. When I realize he has me pinned against a wall, I start fighting back. I hurt him. Badly. I didn’t want to, but in the moment I’m acting on instinct. When I realize I have him on the floor, face bloodied, I stop. I straighten my uniform, and decide the only thing I can do is report this up the chain of command.
The brig is cold and damp, but it’s away from Nabokov so I take it gladly. If I was lucky, I figured, they’d send me to a shtrafbat. I hear whispers of court-martial from my jailers. I’d made my report. It wasn’t my fault if they wouldn’t believe me.
To my surprise, I woke up the next morning to find Zhukov being led into my cell. I apologise for the lack of accommodations. When he chuckles, I start to wonder if there is hope.
He tells me he’s been following my career. Even the parts that I don’t talk about. He calls Nabokov “a fucking stain on that uniform,” and tells me I don’t have anything to worry about. He wanted me on his staff in the 21st Army headquarters as a liaison officer.
Life on Zhukov’s staff was much more agreeable to me. It was much nicer being in the field, even in the desperate circumstances during Operation Typhoon. And while I didn’t do much beyond fetch and carry, I think I learned more during these few months than I did in any other part of my career. I got to see more of the big picture of war, the coordination of thousands of soldiers in operational plans, and be a small part of that machine.
Zhukov was a demanding but fair boss. He liked using me as his translator and helping him learn English. I suppose you could say we became friends, as much as a major and a general can be friends in the same hierarchy. He told me that I reminded him of his little Margarita, who was now twelve and very precocious.
The Boss had been mortally wounded during the siege of Moscow, and at the time I didn’t realize how truly earth-shaking this was. I was busy following the tanks rushing to encircle the German Ninth Army to dwell on it. But there were loose ends that needed tying up.
When Zhukov first approached me to deal with Beria, I hesitated. Everyone in the WFRA, we’d all long lost our rosy illusions about the nature of the USSR, and with the war the RKKA was slowly wrestling power back from the vampires in the NKVD. But assassinating its chief...that was too much.
It had been a lovely dinner. The first proper sit-down dinner since the Moscow offensive had begun. But I realized why I’d been invited once Zhukov broached the subject. All of his most trusted junior officers were here. We all would have our role to play. The Chekists had inflicted a reign of terror across the Red Army and Soviet society. The whole edifice had become a counterrevolutionary fifth column, and we needed to clean house with an iron broom.
I’d already been prepared to do what was necessary. But as for why he wanted me...while all of the NKVD after Dzerzhinsky had abused their office, none had been so prurient as Beria. After liquidating his predecessor, Beria had used his office to prey on young women. It helps me forget my lingering doubts.
It’s a cold January evening when we make our move. Zhukov placed me in command of the commissar detachment. While we have a decree signed by General Secretary Molotov for Beria’s arrest, we’ve been ordered to kill his bodyguards if they resist.
It doesn’t come to that. They’re not soldiers, they’re all cowards used to beating up prisoners who can’t fight back. We arrest them and barge our way into Beria’s villa. When we reach the master bedroom, the toad-faced little shit is hurriedly dressing himself. The young woman in his bed looks more terrified of him than armed men who’ve barged in. Whatever doubts I have are extinguished.
He doesn’t tremble in the slightest when I aim my M6 at him. “Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria,” I say, “by decree of the State Defense Committee, you are hereby under arrest for your crimes against the international proletarian revolution.”
Beria laughs. “So who put Molotov up to this? Was it Frunze?” He scans the room. “No answers? I’ll be remembering all your faces for when this little charade is done.”
He still thinks that this is just a power play now that the Boss is dead. I conceal my smile. As we cuff Beria, my skin crawls. His victim trembles as we lead him away. I linger to tell her that everything is going to be okay. She doesn’t believe me.
We stuff him in the back of a deuce-and-a-half. The rest of his men go in another truck. Even with the heater, it’s still frosty under the canvas cover. Beria asks for a cigarette. The other soldiers aren’t sure what to do. I oblige him with a Lucky Strike from my pocket. He smirks as I light it for him. He still hasn’t noticed that a jerry-can of gasoline is stuffed under his seat. Or the shovels and picks.
The military checkpoints have been withdrawn on our route. Marshal Frunze has made sure there won’t be any unnecessary witnesses. We drive out of Moscow uneventfully, into the rolling frost-covered forests. Beria complains that he needs to piss. Good enough time as any. I bang on the cab, and we pull over.
I accompany him out of the truck. He smirks, saying that either I’ll have to uncuff him or handle it for him.
“I’ll untuck you, but I really couldn’t care less if you piss down your leg.”
As he relieves himself, he casually remarks that while the rest of my team will be shot when this is all over, he has special plans for me.
“Is that so?” I release the safety on my pistol, and squeeze off a single round in his back.
It takes him a moment to realize what’s happened. His body goes stiff with the shock of the bullet ripping through his lung. He glances down and starts to toddle. He faces me, eyes wide, mouth hanging open as the white linen stains with blood.
The next one goes through his heart. He falls backward onto the frozen earth, still squirming. I put one more in his head for good measure, and he stops squirming. He won’t be the only one in the NKVD to be liquidated tonight.
We scratch a shallow grave a few hundred metres from the road in the frozen ground. We dump him in it and empty the jerry-can on him. A few of the soldiers kiss religious icons. Others spit on him.
I’d picked up smoking after escaping because some of my comrades said it helped with nerves. I think that’s bullshit. As I light up my last Lucky Strike, I decide I’m quitting. I flick the butt in after a few drags. The grave erupts in orange flames. The smell is ghastly, but we watch him burn beyond recognition. When the embers die down, we scoop the displaced earth over his corpse and cover it all up with snow.
I am to report back to Zhukov immediately. I found him just as he was arriving at the Stavka of the Main Command. The dawn air is frigid as I salute. He returns the salute. “Then it’s done,” he says.
“It is.”
“Follow me, I have something for you.”
There’s hot tea and breakfast waiting in his office. He offers, and I graciously accept. He spares asking any questions about the details. It’s better if he doesn’t know. He does pull a small box from his desk.
“I don’t know if anyone told you, but your old battalion CO recommended you for commendation for your heroics in defense of Smolensk in the spring. Posthumously, it was thought. When it turned out you lived and managed to fight your way out of captivity there were some questions brought up by the bureaucrats, especially when you weren’t willing to talk about the nature of captivity.”
“I’d heard as much. Some of them went as far as to suggest I’d be turned and sent back as a double-agent.”
“Well, I was able to sort out of some of those questions. The least I could for such a brave and effective officer. For gallantry above and beyond the call of duty.”
He hands me the box. I open it, finding the gold star medallion of the Hero of Socialist Labor. “I...I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. If it was up to me, I’d give you a second one for ridding the world of that little toad.”
I nod.
“Some day, you’ll be able to tell the world the favor you did them. But for now, getting something you were already due is enough. There’ll be a ceremony in a few weeks. Mostly medals given out in the Battle of Moscow. Someone can hang it ‘round your neck in front of the whole world.”
That wasn’t the end of the strings he pulled for me. He got me back into the field again, securing me a position in the cadre for a newly raised grenadier division.
It’s August 1943. We’ve just crushed the Axis at Stalingrad. It was a long and hard year to get here, but I see the fruits of our labor in the fields of burning Panzers outside of Grachi.
The euphemism we used was “liquidation”. They don't talk about that part in the war movies or the news reels. I won’t pretend what we did was good or just. It was evil, but it was necessary evil. The indignation on the faces on the SS men when I ordered them put up against a wall, I’ll never forget. They had sown these seeds at Babi Yar and a thousand other towns and villages and now they cried angry tears when it came time to reap.
We had the motion-picture units take photographs of their lifeless bodies. They’d be dropped on leaflets over the German lines with a stern warning: if you continue to commit atrocity, you will drown in blood.
I haven’t been with a man since enduring the Totenkopf division’s hospitality. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I think if they'd just been more patient with me, I could have worked through the flashbacks.
It’s not even that I’m scared or afraid of men. The first time I was with a woman after, I had a particularly bad one at the moment of release--that’s the part no one wants to talk about. That your body can be turned into a weapon against you, that it’s an automatic reaction that doesn’t have any bearing on whether you liked it or wanted it. But Lana...I think she understood what happened even without me telling her. She just comforted me until I came back to myself.
I met Henry Kerrigan again that December. My division had been moved to the Stavka reserve to rebuild and integrate replacements, so I was in and around Moscow. He was back in country to continue reporting for The Times of London.
I finally worked up the courage to tell him about it. He’d asked in our last meeting on the Volga, and I’d deflected. The whole time, he just listened and didn’t say a word. It was the first time I’d told the whole story to anyone.
When we did make love, the sweetheart was careful and gentle with me. Afterwards, he joked about marrying me when this war was over. I didn’t say anything, I just kissed him and held him close. It would have been nice, but some gut feeling told me that it wouldn’t work.
It’s now October 1944. We’ve marched through the ghost villages of Byelorussia. Four years of Nazi occupation has left its mark. The partisans tell us of mass deportations of the population westward and their fruitless efforts to stop the trains. They’ve gone to forced labor camps to feed the German war economy.
We find camps more local. But these are different. Men of the 101st Guards Airborne found one that I had to see for myself. My division, 1st Guards Grenadier, is scheduled to link up and relieve them.
By the time I arrived, 1/506th Parachute Infantry had already completed its grim work of liquidating the SS-Totenkopfverbande guards. I call back to division HQ to get engineers to help with the burials.
I’d been acting in command of 3/570th Grenadiers since my CO was wounded and required evacuation on D-Day. The camp at Linova was the worst thing in the world. At least, until I saw Auschwitz-Birkenau.
A boy, maybe fourteen, approached me, delirious with hunger. He was gaunt and skeletal, skin wrinkled and hair graying far beyond his years. He latched onto me, called me mother, demanded to know why I left.
I told him he was safe, that everything would be okay. It was hard to understand his dialect, it was so different from the Yiddish I was immersed in as a girl. We had to keep them here, keep them from eating too much, or they’d die. We had the grim experience of treating starvation. I gave the boy some of my crackers and water from my canteen. When he calmed down he started to realize I wasn’t his mother.
The medics gave him penicillin for his fever. He told me his name was Gavrel, and that the Germans had separated his family when they were sent here. His mother and two sisters were sent on a different train. I did not have the heart to tell him.
That evening, I broke down and cried for the first time in years. One of our physicians, Dr. John Clarke, had killed himself. He left a note. He was all too lucid in his rejection of life. Having to help herd these poor victims back into the camp, having to keep parcelling out food to them at starvation levels...after all he’d seen, it was just too much. I sympathized too much with the act. The world had gone to hell, and there was precious little any of us could do about it. Wanting out was all too rational.
And we were stuck here waiting for fuel and ammunition, so that we didn’t overrun our operational tempo. We fought off several counterattacks by the Germans, who hoped to erase the evidence of their crimes. I am not ashamed to say that we killed them with extreme prejudice.
Even the Wehrmacht deserters who were attached as liaisons to our unit went along with it. One of them, who went by the nom de guerre Vanya, just shook his head and said, “They had their chance.”
After we crushed the hasty counterattacks, I had a few moments to catch up with Isaak. He’d done well for himself since, advancing to battalion sergeant of 1/506th. A lot of the faces had come and gone, but his remained constant in the battalion.
I treated him to some brandy I’d picked up from an abandoned German headquarters a while back as we ate our c-rations. He puffed on his pipe while we caught up on life since we parted ways.
I asked him if he’d learned his lesson about getting handsy. He laughed and said, “After my pass at you went down in flames I figured I had enough danger for one life.” His face turned grim. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have joked about that?”
“Joke about what?”
He finished the rest of the brandy in his canteen. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pried. But after the disaster as Pskov...when we found out you lived I wanted to find out what happened to you.”
“What exactly did you hear?”
“Ricardo, you know how he had that way with women. Well, after we found out what hospital you went to...he schmoozed his way into a certain doctor’s good graces.”
“Oy…”
“I still have nightmares. When that ponce ordered the regiment to retreat against orders and the rest of the battalions pulled back. It was us stuck holding the lines. Even after Captain Oldman bit it, and you were the only officer left in the company, and the troops wanted to run, you held that crossroad as long as possible.”
I could only sit and listen. I hadn’t thought about Pskov for a long time. It always reminded me of what came after.
“And when those fascists started barking at you over the loudspeaker, ‘Amerikaners! Don’t throw your lives away for Jewish-Bolshevism!’, I’ll never forget what you replied.”
“The Red Army dies, it does not surrender.”
“It’s a good line.”
“I borrowed it from a book about the Battle of Waterloo.”
Flashbacks of the battle rushed over me. They’d surrounded us, hammered us all day long but hadn’t broken us. We broke out in the night, melted into the woods. Fought a fighting retreat as the frontline collapsed around us. I took three other men in a diversion to help the rest of our number escape with the wounded. It was down to bayonets at the end. My helmet got dinged with a pistol round and knocked me out.
Of the four of us, only Ricardo slipped away. “Our enemies commit atrocities all the time, Isaak. I’m not special.”
“I should have never let you go.”
“Like you could have stopped me.”
“What they did to you was unforgivable.”
“Yes. But I’m still alive. So are all of you. Seeing all the familiar faces from that company, it made me happier than I’ve been in a long time.” My fingers traced along the scar over my stomach. “And as stupid as it sounds, I think I’m finally ready to let go. Seeing this place, seeing you again...it made me realize that I’d do it all again.”
The worst of the nightmares had stopped. The flashbacks too. I’ll never be the girl I was before. But I’m not broken, I realize. From high ground here, you can almost see what was the Polish-Soviet border. This war will be over soon. But before it’s done, a lot more men have to die.
It’s July 1945. The 2nd Guards Tank Army is racing through the Mark of Brandenburg. The death knell of the Third Reich is sounding. The irony isn’t lost on me, that I’m only a few kilometres from where I was born, riding shotgun in the tank of an invading army. I was six when we left Germany. Maybe I’ll be able to celebrate my 28th birthday in my childhood neighborhood.
We pause at a rail yard to refuel and grab some chow. They’ve entrusted me with a regiment now. It’s far more responsibility than I ever wanted.
And that’s when I see him, taking a piss amid the rubble of a bombed out train station. Dietrich Vogt is rougher and scragglier than when I last saw him. All the badges of rank, unit and insignia have been torn from his uniform. But he’d been a Hauptsturmführer in the 3rd SS-Panzer Division “Totenkopf” when I’d been in his clutches. Now he was a deserter from a fallen empire.
He startles when I shout for him to put his hands up.
“Ahh, I’m sorry fraulein, may I preserve my modesty?” he says. He speaks in an unnervingly good Received Pronunciation accent.
I don’t say a word while he finishes his business. He turns to me, as affable as ever. “Ah, I was hoping to find an American comrade before Schörner finds me, eh?” He laughs uneasily. “Death to Hitler, workers of the world unite!” He really was trying too hard.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Dietrich takes an involuntary step back. “I’m sorry, it seems you have me at a disadvantage, comrade. Perhaps we met before the war?”
“When we last spoke, you told me you were going to put a proud Aryan baby in my belly. And when you settled in the East, you’d make me your concubine.”
He turns white as a sheet.
“You’re under arrest.”
Dietrich bolts for it. He’s only made it a couple strides before I squeeze off a burst. The bullets tear through his legs, and he goes down in a heap. He rolls over on his back, panting, reaching for something in his pocket.
I’m on him, ready to stop any threat. But as I grab his hand, I realize it’s just a photograph.”
“Please…” he coughs, “tell my wife I’m sorry.”
“You’ll get to tell her yourself behind bars.”
“I think not. Good shooting, but I’m afraid you aimed too high.”
I see the dark blood staining his belly. A liver shot. A terrible way to die. On instinct I apply pressure to it.
“It’s no use,” he whispers.
“I’ll pass the message to your wife. But not for your sake. For hers.”
He nods.
I make it quick.
Content warning: post-traumatic stress, war crimes, sexual violence
It’s July 1941 and I’ve been ordered to present myself for medical examination. It was ridiculous, but I am a soldier and I follow orders.
“Come this way Mrs.--”
“Lieutenant Schafer,” I said pointedly.”
The nurse shrugged. “Sorry, is all new to me.”
The military uniform fit uneasily on her petite frame. I limped along behind her, indulging her using me as an opportunity to practice her English. I passed throngs of men with missing limbs, or wrapped in blood-stained bandages. I didn’t belong here...and I didn’t know why regimental HQ insisted.
There was nothing wrong with me.
She ushered me into a quaint tiled room. Smiling, she shut the door behind me. The bathroom was simple and elegant. I started talking to myself, something to fill the dead air I guess. “Guess it has been a while since I’ve had a hot bath.”
I’ve been on the line or behind enemy lines for too long. I peeled off the grimy field uniform, not caring if the clothes the nurse left for me would fit. I couldn’t ignore the sweat, dirt and ash caked to my skin. The scabs across my back, breasts and belly peeled as I disrobed.
I winced as I traced along a particularly stubborn cut that ran from my throat down the right side of my chest. It was taking too long to heal.
The shower was a little metre wide cubicle, with a broad spout hanging just above my head. I was fine...until I was standing in it fumbling at the knobs. My chest tightened as the cold spray splashed on my skin. I sucked air through clenched teeth.
I was there again...the water spraying too cold then too hot. His hands on me, roaming, invading. His words echo in me: “Such a feisty dirne.” Probably the most polite he ever was with me. I relive every second of it, from the clumsy molestation, his pathetic, self-aggrandizing dirty talk, to the supplication he forces on me after the act.
The moment passes, and I’m back in the present, braced against the shower wall hyperventilating. “Schweinehund!” I spit. The shaking stops, and I realize the water is now almost scalding hot.
I was lucky. He saved me all to himself. The local women were not treated as tenderly as I.
I’m clean now. But not clean enough. There’s a physician examining me. She’s got a kindly look in her chubby cheeks. I can tell she knows. There’s no point in hiding. Something in her frown tells me she understands. So she is the first person I tell about my other injuries.
She says that those injuries will heal in a few weeks, and to not try anything strenuous. Ah, the way she hits that word, I can tell she knows about my bad taste in men--and women. Her English is impeccable, but I make a point of replying in Russian.
“That’s the last thing I want to think about right now.”
She nods. After rummaging through her kit, she finds me some salve for the cuts. Compared to most of the casualties here, my wounds aren’t that serious. I can tell she’s relieved to see someone who’s not on death’s door, and it makes me feel like I’m malingering. Even though I’m here against my will.
When I report back to my regiment, the weary staff officer hands me a forty-eight hour pass. He can’t look me in the eye when he does. Ah, they know too. Everyone knows. I thought I’d escaped German captivity, but now I wore that albatross around my neck.
I suppose it’s only natural. The...creatures...of the Waffen-SS have a reputation, none more so than the vermin in the Totenkopf division. All this worry is for nothing though. I’m fine, they don’t need to treat me like I’m made of china.
I’m only in garrison long enough to get my service uniform and some cash from my footlocker. We’re far enough from the frontline here in Moscow that something approaching a night life exists. Once you get used to the constant threat of air raids, that is.
It’s supper time by the time I get my hotel room booked. I head to the galley and wind up seated with some RKKA junior officers who are also on leave. They didn’t know me to treat me like I’m glass, so I enjoyed their company.
There was live music. A thin young Ukrainian woman did some covers of popular jazz vocal hits. There was vodka served alongside black tea, but not enough for my other dinner guests’ liking. They wanted me to flirt with the waiter to see if he could bring us some more. I casually rebuffed them, and just let the singer serenade me.
They’re good company in all. They like my jokes at least, though I’m told men will laugh at anything a pretty girl says. I wouldn’t have called myself that, but apparently I’ve come into my own in my early twenties. They even find my scars attractive. One, a blond and rugged man from Sochi named Sergei Mikhailovich, asks me how I got them.
I laugh uneasily. “Oh, I got them knife-fighting.”
He laughs. “Did you win?”
“No, the knife won, but I’ll get it next time.”
He calls me Ivanna, saying that Jane makes me sound like an English novelist, not a hard-fighting krasnoarmeyka.
The main course comes soon after. Chicken Kiev--officially just “chicken cutlet stuffed with butter” because the former sounded too bourgie. It was probably the most decadent thing I’ve had since shipping in. The waiter tells me that it’s our lucky night, usually they don’t have anything this lavish.
Mother would have probably have a kanipchen if she saw me. The rabbis may have relaxed some of the kashrut after the revolution, but they still weren’t giving up on separating meat and dairy.
As I watch Sergei hungrily tuck into his cutlet, the seasoned butter bleeding out, the image of the knife slicing across my flesh flashes. For a moment, I’m no longer in the hotel. I’m back in that cold, dim basement. It was Gothic and foreboding, like so many of the manors of Russia’s former gentry. A perfect castle for the Waffen-SS.
I can feel the ropes around my wrists again. I blink, and I’m tied to the table, struggling against the ropes.
The sensation of the knife gliding across my skin rippled over me. His wolfish grin, as he drew the shallow cuts all over his body. “Oh, I hope I don’t go too deep,” he’d taunt. “This isn’t the proper sword to penetrate you.”
It was his “punishment”, you see. I’d nipped his delicate parts with my teeth, the first time he’d tried to make me use my mouth. I suppose I should’ve known he’d react poorly, but honest truth, the only thing I regret is not biting it off.
When I snapped back to present, Sergei and his comrades were staring at me with concern. I must’ve gone pale. I tried to pass it off as being awestruck by the meal, but I can tell they aren’t buying it. I can’t even convince myself anymore. I am not fine.
Weeks pass. I’m now working as a translator and liaison for the headquarters of the Central Front. Some days I’m teaching Soviet officers English. Other days I’m teaching scientific socialism to cadets. I don’t belong here. I belong at the front, with a rifle in my hand.
I made some friends though. A Soviet general takes a liking to me as I translate for him in staff meetings. He asks for my opinion on operational matters. He says he likes my moxy. He introduces himself as Georgy Konstaninovich Zhukov.
It’s not long before I get myself in trouble. Apparently when I’m not out in the field, I “clean up nice”. The military is an old boys’ club, and it is not uncommon for senior officers to take women in their commands as mistresses. The Soviet army is especially rife with this. The mobilisation of women for war is much more reluctant there. We at least had a few years of peacetime to start working out the problems.
I’d made chief lieutenant when I’d been posted here. I reported to a Soviet lieutenant colonel in this department. At first I thought his interest was innocent. But his eyes seemed to linger just a bit too long.
A lot of the work we were doing as rote drudgery; translating after-action-reports etc. The hours were long, and it wasn’t uncommon to pull all-nighters. Nabokov gave me a document just before I was supposed to head out for the night, and told me it was urgent.
I got to work on it straight away. There was no use in complaining, regardless of how much I wanted to. About an hour later, Nabokov returned with tea and cigarettes. At the time, I thought it was decent of him. He offered to light mine after his. As I puffed on the harsh Belomorkanal, his hand caressed my cheek.
I recoil and he passes it off as brushing off a bit of dust. But he doesn’t leave it at that. He starts talking about how it would be nice if we would look out for one another as comrades. I’m not dumb, I know exactly what he’s propositioning. But I try to pretend I don’t when I reject him.
He doesn’t buy it. He says I should stop playing “hard to get”, that I’m a tease, that I like toying with mens’ hearts. I try to walk away, but he catches me. I flash back to my unfortunate time in Dietrich’s “company”, and I freeze.
Nabokov takes this as an invitation. When I realize he has me pinned against a wall, I start fighting back. I hurt him. Badly. I didn’t want to, but in the moment I’m acting on instinct. When I realize I have him on the floor, face bloodied, I stop. I straighten my uniform, and decide the only thing I can do is report this up the chain of command.
The brig is cold and damp, but it’s away from Nabokov so I take it gladly. If I was lucky, I figured, they’d send me to a shtrafbat. I hear whispers of court-martial from my jailers. I’d made my report. It wasn’t my fault if they wouldn’t believe me.
To my surprise, I woke up the next morning to find Zhukov being led into my cell. I apologise for the lack of accommodations. When he chuckles, I start to wonder if there is hope.
He tells me he’s been following my career. Even the parts that I don’t talk about. He calls Nabokov “a fucking stain on that uniform,” and tells me I don’t have anything to worry about. He wanted me on his staff in the 21st Army headquarters as a liaison officer.
Life on Zhukov’s staff was much more agreeable to me. It was much nicer being in the field, even in the desperate circumstances during Operation Typhoon. And while I didn’t do much beyond fetch and carry, I think I learned more during these few months than I did in any other part of my career. I got to see more of the big picture of war, the coordination of thousands of soldiers in operational plans, and be a small part of that machine.
Zhukov was a demanding but fair boss. He liked using me as his translator and helping him learn English. I suppose you could say we became friends, as much as a major and a general can be friends in the same hierarchy. He told me that I reminded him of his little Margarita, who was now twelve and very precocious.
The Boss had been mortally wounded during the siege of Moscow, and at the time I didn’t realize how truly earth-shaking this was. I was busy following the tanks rushing to encircle the German Ninth Army to dwell on it. But there were loose ends that needed tying up.
When Zhukov first approached me to deal with Beria, I hesitated. Everyone in the WFRA, we’d all long lost our rosy illusions about the nature of the USSR, and with the war the RKKA was slowly wrestling power back from the vampires in the NKVD. But assassinating its chief...that was too much.
It had been a lovely dinner. The first proper sit-down dinner since the Moscow offensive had begun. But I realized why I’d been invited once Zhukov broached the subject. All of his most trusted junior officers were here. We all would have our role to play. The Chekists had inflicted a reign of terror across the Red Army and Soviet society. The whole edifice had become a counterrevolutionary fifth column, and we needed to clean house with an iron broom.
I’d already been prepared to do what was necessary. But as for why he wanted me...while all of the NKVD after Dzerzhinsky had abused their office, none had been so prurient as Beria. After liquidating his predecessor, Beria had used his office to prey on young women. It helps me forget my lingering doubts.
It’s a cold January evening when we make our move. Zhukov placed me in command of the commissar detachment. While we have a decree signed by General Secretary Molotov for Beria’s arrest, we’ve been ordered to kill his bodyguards if they resist.
It doesn’t come to that. They’re not soldiers, they’re all cowards used to beating up prisoners who can’t fight back. We arrest them and barge our way into Beria’s villa. When we reach the master bedroom, the toad-faced little shit is hurriedly dressing himself. The young woman in his bed looks more terrified of him than armed men who’ve barged in. Whatever doubts I have are extinguished.
He doesn’t tremble in the slightest when I aim my M6 at him. “Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria,” I say, “by decree of the State Defense Committee, you are hereby under arrest for your crimes against the international proletarian revolution.”
Beria laughs. “So who put Molotov up to this? Was it Frunze?” He scans the room. “No answers? I’ll be remembering all your faces for when this little charade is done.”
He still thinks that this is just a power play now that the Boss is dead. I conceal my smile. As we cuff Beria, my skin crawls. His victim trembles as we lead him away. I linger to tell her that everything is going to be okay. She doesn’t believe me.
We stuff him in the back of a deuce-and-a-half. The rest of his men go in another truck. Even with the heater, it’s still frosty under the canvas cover. Beria asks for a cigarette. The other soldiers aren’t sure what to do. I oblige him with a Lucky Strike from my pocket. He smirks as I light it for him. He still hasn’t noticed that a jerry-can of gasoline is stuffed under his seat. Or the shovels and picks.
The military checkpoints have been withdrawn on our route. Marshal Frunze has made sure there won’t be any unnecessary witnesses. We drive out of Moscow uneventfully, into the rolling frost-covered forests. Beria complains that he needs to piss. Good enough time as any. I bang on the cab, and we pull over.
I accompany him out of the truck. He smirks, saying that either I’ll have to uncuff him or handle it for him.
“I’ll untuck you, but I really couldn’t care less if you piss down your leg.”
As he relieves himself, he casually remarks that while the rest of my team will be shot when this is all over, he has special plans for me.
“Is that so?” I release the safety on my pistol, and squeeze off a single round in his back.
It takes him a moment to realize what’s happened. His body goes stiff with the shock of the bullet ripping through his lung. He glances down and starts to toddle. He faces me, eyes wide, mouth hanging open as the white linen stains with blood.
The next one goes through his heart. He falls backward onto the frozen earth, still squirming. I put one more in his head for good measure, and he stops squirming. He won’t be the only one in the NKVD to be liquidated tonight.
We scratch a shallow grave a few hundred metres from the road in the frozen ground. We dump him in it and empty the jerry-can on him. A few of the soldiers kiss religious icons. Others spit on him.
I’d picked up smoking after escaping because some of my comrades said it helped with nerves. I think that’s bullshit. As I light up my last Lucky Strike, I decide I’m quitting. I flick the butt in after a few drags. The grave erupts in orange flames. The smell is ghastly, but we watch him burn beyond recognition. When the embers die down, we scoop the displaced earth over his corpse and cover it all up with snow.
I am to report back to Zhukov immediately. I found him just as he was arriving at the Stavka of the Main Command. The dawn air is frigid as I salute. He returns the salute. “Then it’s done,” he says.
“It is.”
“Follow me, I have something for you.”
There’s hot tea and breakfast waiting in his office. He offers, and I graciously accept. He spares asking any questions about the details. It’s better if he doesn’t know. He does pull a small box from his desk.
“I don’t know if anyone told you, but your old battalion CO recommended you for commendation for your heroics in defense of Smolensk in the spring. Posthumously, it was thought. When it turned out you lived and managed to fight your way out of captivity there were some questions brought up by the bureaucrats, especially when you weren’t willing to talk about the nature of captivity.”
“I’d heard as much. Some of them went as far as to suggest I’d be turned and sent back as a double-agent.”
“Well, I was able to sort out of some of those questions. The least I could for such a brave and effective officer. For gallantry above and beyond the call of duty.”
He hands me the box. I open it, finding the gold star medallion of the Hero of Socialist Labor. “I...I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. If it was up to me, I’d give you a second one for ridding the world of that little toad.”
I nod.
“Some day, you’ll be able to tell the world the favor you did them. But for now, getting something you were already due is enough. There’ll be a ceremony in a few weeks. Mostly medals given out in the Battle of Moscow. Someone can hang it ‘round your neck in front of the whole world.”
That wasn’t the end of the strings he pulled for me. He got me back into the field again, securing me a position in the cadre for a newly raised grenadier division.
It’s August 1943. We’ve just crushed the Axis at Stalingrad. It was a long and hard year to get here, but I see the fruits of our labor in the fields of burning Panzers outside of Grachi.
The euphemism we used was “liquidation”. They don't talk about that part in the war movies or the news reels. I won’t pretend what we did was good or just. It was evil, but it was necessary evil. The indignation on the faces on the SS men when I ordered them put up against a wall, I’ll never forget. They had sown these seeds at Babi Yar and a thousand other towns and villages and now they cried angry tears when it came time to reap.
We had the motion-picture units take photographs of their lifeless bodies. They’d be dropped on leaflets over the German lines with a stern warning: if you continue to commit atrocity, you will drown in blood.
I haven’t been with a man since enduring the Totenkopf division’s hospitality. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I think if they'd just been more patient with me, I could have worked through the flashbacks.
It’s not even that I’m scared or afraid of men. The first time I was with a woman after, I had a particularly bad one at the moment of release--that’s the part no one wants to talk about. That your body can be turned into a weapon against you, that it’s an automatic reaction that doesn’t have any bearing on whether you liked it or wanted it. But Lana...I think she understood what happened even without me telling her. She just comforted me until I came back to myself.
I met Henry Kerrigan again that December. My division had been moved to the Stavka reserve to rebuild and integrate replacements, so I was in and around Moscow. He was back in country to continue reporting for The Times of London.
I finally worked up the courage to tell him about it. He’d asked in our last meeting on the Volga, and I’d deflected. The whole time, he just listened and didn’t say a word. It was the first time I’d told the whole story to anyone.
When we did make love, the sweetheart was careful and gentle with me. Afterwards, he joked about marrying me when this war was over. I didn’t say anything, I just kissed him and held him close. It would have been nice, but some gut feeling told me that it wouldn’t work.
It’s now October 1944. We’ve marched through the ghost villages of Byelorussia. Four years of Nazi occupation has left its mark. The partisans tell us of mass deportations of the population westward and their fruitless efforts to stop the trains. They’ve gone to forced labor camps to feed the German war economy.
We find camps more local. But these are different. Men of the 101st Guards Airborne found one that I had to see for myself. My division, 1st Guards Grenadier, is scheduled to link up and relieve them.
By the time I arrived, 1/506th Parachute Infantry had already completed its grim work of liquidating the SS-Totenkopfverbande guards. I call back to division HQ to get engineers to help with the burials.
I’d been acting in command of 3/570th Grenadiers since my CO was wounded and required evacuation on D-Day. The camp at Linova was the worst thing in the world. At least, until I saw Auschwitz-Birkenau.
A boy, maybe fourteen, approached me, delirious with hunger. He was gaunt and skeletal, skin wrinkled and hair graying far beyond his years. He latched onto me, called me mother, demanded to know why I left.
I told him he was safe, that everything would be okay. It was hard to understand his dialect, it was so different from the Yiddish I was immersed in as a girl. We had to keep them here, keep them from eating too much, or they’d die. We had the grim experience of treating starvation. I gave the boy some of my crackers and water from my canteen. When he calmed down he started to realize I wasn’t his mother.
The medics gave him penicillin for his fever. He told me his name was Gavrel, and that the Germans had separated his family when they were sent here. His mother and two sisters were sent on a different train. I did not have the heart to tell him.
That evening, I broke down and cried for the first time in years. One of our physicians, Dr. John Clarke, had killed himself. He left a note. He was all too lucid in his rejection of life. Having to help herd these poor victims back into the camp, having to keep parcelling out food to them at starvation levels...after all he’d seen, it was just too much. I sympathized too much with the act. The world had gone to hell, and there was precious little any of us could do about it. Wanting out was all too rational.
And we were stuck here waiting for fuel and ammunition, so that we didn’t overrun our operational tempo. We fought off several counterattacks by the Germans, who hoped to erase the evidence of their crimes. I am not ashamed to say that we killed them with extreme prejudice.
Even the Wehrmacht deserters who were attached as liaisons to our unit went along with it. One of them, who went by the nom de guerre Vanya, just shook his head and said, “They had their chance.”
After we crushed the hasty counterattacks, I had a few moments to catch up with Isaak. He’d done well for himself since, advancing to battalion sergeant of 1/506th. A lot of the faces had come and gone, but his remained constant in the battalion.
I treated him to some brandy I’d picked up from an abandoned German headquarters a while back as we ate our c-rations. He puffed on his pipe while we caught up on life since we parted ways.
I asked him if he’d learned his lesson about getting handsy. He laughed and said, “After my pass at you went down in flames I figured I had enough danger for one life.” His face turned grim. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have joked about that?”
“Joke about what?”
He finished the rest of the brandy in his canteen. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pried. But after the disaster as Pskov...when we found out you lived I wanted to find out what happened to you.”
“What exactly did you hear?”
“Ricardo, you know how he had that way with women. Well, after we found out what hospital you went to...he schmoozed his way into a certain doctor’s good graces.”
“Oy…”
“I still have nightmares. When that ponce ordered the regiment to retreat against orders and the rest of the battalions pulled back. It was us stuck holding the lines. Even after Captain Oldman bit it, and you were the only officer left in the company, and the troops wanted to run, you held that crossroad as long as possible.”
I could only sit and listen. I hadn’t thought about Pskov for a long time. It always reminded me of what came after.
“And when those fascists started barking at you over the loudspeaker, ‘Amerikaners! Don’t throw your lives away for Jewish-Bolshevism!’, I’ll never forget what you replied.”
“The Red Army dies, it does not surrender.”
“It’s a good line.”
“I borrowed it from a book about the Battle of Waterloo.”
Flashbacks of the battle rushed over me. They’d surrounded us, hammered us all day long but hadn’t broken us. We broke out in the night, melted into the woods. Fought a fighting retreat as the frontline collapsed around us. I took three other men in a diversion to help the rest of our number escape with the wounded. It was down to bayonets at the end. My helmet got dinged with a pistol round and knocked me out.
Of the four of us, only Ricardo slipped away. “Our enemies commit atrocities all the time, Isaak. I’m not special.”
“I should have never let you go.”
“Like you could have stopped me.”
“What they did to you was unforgivable.”
“Yes. But I’m still alive. So are all of you. Seeing all the familiar faces from that company, it made me happier than I’ve been in a long time.” My fingers traced along the scar over my stomach. “And as stupid as it sounds, I think I’m finally ready to let go. Seeing this place, seeing you again...it made me realize that I’d do it all again.”
The worst of the nightmares had stopped. The flashbacks too. I’ll never be the girl I was before. But I’m not broken, I realize. From high ground here, you can almost see what was the Polish-Soviet border. This war will be over soon. But before it’s done, a lot more men have to die.
It’s July 1945. The 2nd Guards Tank Army is racing through the Mark of Brandenburg. The death knell of the Third Reich is sounding. The irony isn’t lost on me, that I’m only a few kilometres from where I was born, riding shotgun in the tank of an invading army. I was six when we left Germany. Maybe I’ll be able to celebrate my 28th birthday in my childhood neighborhood.
We pause at a rail yard to refuel and grab some chow. They’ve entrusted me with a regiment now. It’s far more responsibility than I ever wanted.
And that’s when I see him, taking a piss amid the rubble of a bombed out train station. Dietrich Vogt is rougher and scragglier than when I last saw him. All the badges of rank, unit and insignia have been torn from his uniform. But he’d been a Hauptsturmführer in the 3rd SS-Panzer Division “Totenkopf” when I’d been in his clutches. Now he was a deserter from a fallen empire.
He startles when I shout for him to put his hands up.
“Ahh, I’m sorry fraulein, may I preserve my modesty?” he says. He speaks in an unnervingly good Received Pronunciation accent.
I don’t say a word while he finishes his business. He turns to me, as affable as ever. “Ah, I was hoping to find an American comrade before Schörner finds me, eh?” He laughs uneasily. “Death to Hitler, workers of the world unite!” He really was trying too hard.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Dietrich takes an involuntary step back. “I’m sorry, it seems you have me at a disadvantage, comrade. Perhaps we met before the war?”
“When we last spoke, you told me you were going to put a proud Aryan baby in my belly. And when you settled in the East, you’d make me your concubine.”
He turns white as a sheet.
“You’re under arrest.”
Dietrich bolts for it. He’s only made it a couple strides before I squeeze off a burst. The bullets tear through his legs, and he goes down in a heap. He rolls over on his back, panting, reaching for something in his pocket.
I’m on him, ready to stop any threat. But as I grab his hand, I realize it’s just a photograph.”
“Please…” he coughs, “tell my wife I’m sorry.”
“You’ll get to tell her yourself behind bars.”
“I think not. Good shooting, but I’m afraid you aimed too high.”
I see the dark blood staining his belly. A liver shot. A terrible way to die. On instinct I apply pressure to it.
“It’s no use,” he whispers.
“I’ll pass the message to your wife. But not for your sake. For hers.”
He nods.
I make it quick.
It took me a very long time to pull the trigger on this one. I wanted her, essentially the TL mascot and "main character" to be more than just a passive witness to the horrors of the Eastern Front, but I struggled with a way to frame it that wouldn't be prurient.
Great writing as usual, with poetical justice properly served. Now, with Stalin out of the picture and Beria purged some ten years ahead of the schedule, I'm getting stoked for the Thaw coming right after the war and put into overdrive. And I wouldn't be surprised either if the purge of the NKVD has stopped short the planned repressions against peoples of the Soviet Union. A whole lot of hotspots butterflied away, I guess.
On a tangential note would you mind some nitpicking?
On a tangential note would you mind some nitpicking?
Bookmark1995
Banned
Considering how much of a vicious hellhole the Eastern Front really was, downplaying anything would be the terrible thing.
Thank god she is in mother Russia.
I appreciated this update even if we could criticize certain aspects "the world is small after all" of your story (a minor aspect).
Do you plan to write another short story describing her return at home ?
You don't need to quote the entire damn thing to reply to it. Just the title is plenty.