The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII

by Marion Kummerow

  “Why do you think I was late? Went to Saratov and stood an hour in the queue at Struzhkin bread-baking factory then stopped by the Central Market.”

  While Ulya set the table, he disappeared into his study and returned with a bottle of Ararat brandy. “Take two glasses.” He gave her a wink, responding to her probing stare. “Today, it’s permitted.”

  “I prefer tea,” she retorted.

  They both loved the evening meals together. That was when they shared their news and plans.

  After enjoying delicacies, they drank tea. Ulya took the old Meissen china from their fine glass-fronted cabinet and placed a pastry on each plate.

  “All is yours.” He shook his head and moved his plate closer to her. “So, what’s next, Schätzchen?” His mouth curved into a relaxed smile.

  How could Ulya wait any longer to taste her favorite sweets? She took a bite, which was a half of the piece, and closed her eyes, letting her father wait for her answer. “Next Friday, I’ll get my work placement.”

  “I hope they give you a position somewhere not far away from home.”

  Ulya cocked her head. “I wouldn’t mind going somewhere. I so much would like to visit different places, rather than be stuck here for my whole life.” She noticed how her father’s face stiffened but he, himself, had taught her to express what was on her mind without fear. “I must confess, Vati, that since the seventh grade when we learned about it in the geography lesson, I fancied visiting Lake Baikal. Living there would be my wish come true. It’s so beautiful there, in Siberia.”

  “Not everywhere in Siberia is beautiful,” her father countered.

  “But that’s just my dream,” Ulya hastened to say.

  Despite noticing how her father’s eyes saddened at the revelation of her wish, later, in bed, she could not deny herself fantasizing about Baikal, though she did not know what it was that fascinated her about the lake and the place.

  The next day, she met Rita at the dock on her side of the Volga, and they set off for the beach. Though not yet the middle of June, the merciless sun scorched their heads and the sand burned their feet. Most of the vacationers preferred to stay in the water, both grownups and children, playing splashy-splashy close to the shore. A group of young men attempted to play volleyball, but soon, throwing the ball away, ran into the water to cool off.

  Ulya and Rita found a bit of shade in a cluster of old poplars and flopped onto their towels. Worn out by the heat, they did not talk.

  A steamboat sailed by, blasting a song from the Volga-Volga movie, bringing a memory, which now was colored with indifference. She’d crossed Konstantin from her mind and heart, but suddenly caught herself on the thought that since she hadn’t seen him, the sensation of being watched had ceased.

  Taking a bit of a tree shade nearby, three young mothers with a gang of small children laid out their picnic rugs and sat down, letting their offspring play in the sand.

  “Are they speaking German?” Rita’s voice broke their silence.

  Ulya nodded.

  “Do you understand everything they say?”

  “But of course I do. I’m German.” Ulya snickered, suppressing a laugh. “I’m German in fifth generation.”

  “You have never told me about your ancestors.”

  “There is not much to tell. From what little I learned from my father, his forefathers came with the first settlers in 1772 and they worked on the land. My father was the first of his family who chanced to be somebody better. When he was with the Bolsheviks while they were establishing Soviet power, he once contributed his written thoughts to a local paper. Antonov-Saratovskiy noticed his talent and recommend him to the Saratov University.

  “If it was not for Soviet power, you’d perhaps be a cowgirl and bring milk or some vegetables to Saratov Market on Saturdays and I’d buy them from you.” Rita giggled.

  “And, besides that, I would follow the three Ks rule for German women: Children, Kitchen, Church.” Ulya chuckled.

  “And your mother? What—”

  “I have no mother.” Ulya moved her eyes up to watch the few lazy clouds flowing overhead. Never knowing her, Ulya felt nothing for that young woman with the round face and dark eyes on the black-and-white framed picture on her father’s desk. Like a vicious circle that drew her into its orbit, the memory of that day engulfed her again. She was eight or seven. Through the split open door, she saw her father clutch the picture in his hands, his trembling voice preserved in her head. “My Natasha, my one and only love, why did you leave me?” Ulya didn’t understand it then but now she knew it shocked her to see her father, always strong and reliable, feeble at that moment, more like a weakling.

  For many years—and it still stayed with her—the terrifying suspicion felt like an acute sense of despair. Her Vati did not love her, Ulya. Later, another realization surfaced—he blamed her for the woman’s death. Even now, a trace of that unexplainable sensation of a frog leaping in her chest made her freeze. In her early teen years, she’d learnt to turn into her own mind, setting herself into a lonely world, and resolved to trust only herself. In any case, she had never been one to speak about her personal life, her feelings, even to her only friend, who never probed.

  Meanwhile, the German women started putting out flatbreads, early summer vegetables and herbs from their baskets on a spread blanket. They called their children for a snack and the little ones sat and consumed their meal in what looked like mute reverence.

  “They make me hungry.” Rita motioned at them with her head.

  They picked up their food, wrapped in newspaper, and satisfied their hunger with rye bread, radishes, green onions, and boiled eggs. Worn out by the heat, they chewed in silence.

  When the sun was down, they took one last dip in the Volga, and with the seven o’clock boat, Rita departed for Saratov.

  It was after midnight when the sound of a car stopping in front of their house made Ulya throw herself to the window. Through the night darkness sparsely illuminated by a light from a pole, Ulya watched two men climb out from the back seat and turn around as though scanning the street and the houses. Two other figures joined them. All disappeared from her sight. Seconds later, an insistent doorbell rang.

  Her father stepped from his office. “I’ll open it, Schätzchen.” There was something in the tone of his voice that made her flinch.

  Three men with hard faces entered, one of them keeping his right hand in his pocket. Behind their backs, Maria Adolfovna, the local mail woman with whom they were on friendly terms, lingered on the threshold, her head bent. Without introducing themselves or stating the purpose of their appearance, the older one, thick set, said, “Citizen Kriegshammer?”

  Just addressing someone with “citizen” meant big trouble.

  Her father let out a long, audible breath and nodded. So did Ulya.

  The man waved a paper in her father’s face then refolded it and returned it to his pocket. “A search warrant.” His voice, unemotional, chilled Ulya.

  “Why?” Her father’s face was a drawn scape of despair. “I’m a member of the Communist Party.”

  She saw something she’d never seen before—her Vati was scared. He’d known it was coming. Somehow, she was sure of it.

  Ignoring her father’s question, the one with his hand in his right pocket motioned to other men to start the search. “You too go with them,” he poked his finger at Maria Adolfovna and watched the three disappear inside the study.

  “I protest! On what grounds?”

  “Shut up and take a seat. Hands on the table. Don’t make me manacle you.” The man waited till her father did as he was told and turned to Ulya. “You too, sit quiet.”

  And so they sat on opposite sides of the table listening to the noises coming from the study: the sounds of drawers pulled from the desk, rustling of papers, books thrown on the floor, the furniture sliding across the hardwood floor, the intruders’ heavy breathing.

  Was her father involved in something anti-governmental? Was he
a member of an anti-Soviet organization? Questions burst inside her, torturing, bringing a wave of doubt with them. She almost stopped breathing and shook her head trying to shed the idea from her mind. “Vati.” She wanted him to look at her.

  “Don’t worry, Ursula. They won’t find anything.”

  Won’t they? She saw his fingers trembling. Hers curled into fists.

  As if bored by doing nothing, the man, whom Ulya judged was in charge, got up with an obvious swagger and opened their fine glass-fronted cabinet, pulling the Meissen porcelain teacups one after another. Then, with his thumb and index finger, he picked up a silver teaspoon and twirled it, whistling under his nose and roaming with his eyes. Ulya cringed as she watched the spoon disappear into his pocket.

  When morning flickered behind the window, they finished the search—her bedroom and her father’s, the kitchen, the bathroom, and the storeroom included—leaving nothing in its place. They offered Maria Adolfovna some papers to sign. As a law student, Ulya knew—a search protocol. The woman’s miserable face could not hide her exhaustion. Poor Maria Adolfovna. Her mail delivery shift starts soon, Ulya thought.

  The superior gestured to his subordinates at the drawers filled with her father’s papers and the clippings of the newspaper archive. “Carry the haul to the car and come back.” As they made to the exit, he pulled a Walther from his pocket.

  “Are you done?” her father asked, seemingly relieved they would leave at last.

  “Not yet.”

  As his people returned, the one with the gun voiced what Ulya had suspected was coming. “Citizen Kriegshammer, in the name of the Soviet power, you are arrested. Follow me.”

  “Why? I have done nothing wrong!”

  The superior dismissed his statement with a wag of his chin. “Move.”

  “Vati!” Ulya threw herself to him.

  His gun on the ready, the man—a good soul—allowed her to put her hands over her father’s neck. Gently, he freed himself from her embrace and, looking deep into her eyes, said, “Remember, Ursula, who you are. And do what you must according to your own convictions.”

  The group made to the door, her father in front with his hands behind his back.

  Weak in the legs, Ulya went to the window. She watched them push her father into the back seat, wedging themselves on each side of him. The doors slammed. The car disappeared in the dawn of a new day.

  A spark of pain stabbed at her and she leaned on the windowsill, bending forward. And so she stayed bent for a while. There is nothing I can do. She straightened up. Or can I?

  To distract herself from the consternation of what had just happened, she went to the kitchen to wash dishes.

  It took three attempts at striking the match before it would take, emitting a cloud of sharp-smelling Sulphur. The gas stove gave a bit of warmth, but she still shivered while she dealt with the tea cups and plates.

  In her father’s room, all was upside down, his wardrobe emptied on the floor. She bent to pick up his scarf of soft wool and raised it to her nostrils to inhale. Ignoring the musty odor of moth balls, she pressed it to her face and her mind drifted to that time when her Vati would come to her bed to wish her good night. When did he stop doing it? She was six. The day she killed a bird, she pushed her father’s hand off and kept on doing it the subsequent nights. That was when he ceased touching her cheek, limiting himself to, “Sleep well, my Schätzchen” while standing on the threshold. Now, she remembered it with bitter regret. At this first dawn without her Vati, Ulya cried, rent by a terrible heartache. Even as a child, she had never cried before.

  Two days later, on Friday, she set off for the university to pick up her work placement.

  The dean’s secretary took a paper from the file, looked at it for a long moment then at Ulya. “Wait, I must talk to Mikhail Stepanovich.” She got up and disappeared behind the door.

  “Kriegshammer?” Ulya turned to see the dean. “My apologies. The factory from Ryazan that requested a judicial consultant sent a telegram stating they don’t need one. I must look into the matter and what if you come in a week or two? We’ll have something for you.”

  But when, ten days later, she came to see the dean again, he was on vacation, and his secretary carried his words to Ulya. “We could not find any position for you. Mikhail Stepanovich asked me to tell you that if he succeeds in it, we’ll send you a letter.”

  Did they take her for stupid? She’d find a workplace herself, she resolved.

  It took Ulya another two weeks to visit and to speak with heads of human resources departments in seventeen enterprises. Four of them had positions for specialists of her education and were eager to take her, but those positions disappeared by the time she came to do the necessary paperwork.

  She lived through the days doing her usual chores without thinking. The pain ceased and in its place a cold, dark presence settled. Her attempts to find where her father was jailed proved futile. The answers were identical: “No record.” “Is unaccounted for.” “Not listed.”

  13

  Natasha

  End of August-September 1939

  Vitebsk

  Not long ago, Natasha preferred to stay for an extra shift rather than attend Komsomol meetings, but lately, she looked forward to them. The morning pleased her with a placard on the message board announcing an extraordinary joint Communist and Komsomol members meeting at the plant’s assembly hall. As the shift was over, she hurried there to get a place close to the podium. She made every effort to control her facial expression so as not to reveal how disappointed she was by his absence among the leaders at the chairman’s table. And how startled she was at his voice, addressing her, “Comrade Ivanova, is this place vacant?” Forgetting she was to keep the chair for Elvira, she nodded twice. “Please, take a seat, Sergey Vladimirovich.”

  “Comrades! Comrade Communists and Komsomol members!” The plant’s partorg—the Party secretary—rattled a pencil at his water glass jar and rose to speak. “Attention! The meeting is called to order!” He waited till the audience calmed down. “Comrades, as you all know, the foreign policy of our government and personally Comrade Stalin’s is aimed at maintaining peace in Europe. We, as trusty assistants of the Soviet Communist Party and, with a view of strengthening the role and authority of the Soviet Union as a pillar of peace in the world, should remain constructively committed to this ongoing process,” the partorg proclaimed in one breath then took a sip from the thick glass tumbler. “As you may have heard on the radio, today in the night—”

  “We worked our night shift,” a voice came, supported by a single chuckle but the orator couldn’t hear it and went on, “the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union.”

  A collective sigh of relief escaped many throats. The speaker continued elucidating the benefits of the agreement. “Precludes any aggressive actions . . . providing for the peaceful and friendly settlement of disputes . . .valid for ten years . . .”

  Confused, Natasha turned her mind to her school days when from history class she knew—and the teachers knocked it into the children’s heads—the Germans had been their enemy during the Great War. She remembered that at some point, she racked her mind wondering how it was possible that the Germans became friends. But they did. Otherwise, how could their pilots be trained in the Flying school in Lipetsk? Stepan. Before she knew it, she was thinking of his eyes, his lips against hers, and her heart was thrashing against her chest. She stopped listening to the speech and no longer felt the light touch of Sergey Vladimirovich’s elbow on the armrest they shared. For some reason, he turned to her and under his gaze, she dropped her lashes to hide the hurt.

  Suddenly, all critique of the militaristic, warmongering politic of the German government and their persecution of the Jewish population vanished from the front-page headlines and radio broadcasts, and so the Soviet people learned the Germans were again not enemies. On the contrary, they became allies.

  On September 1, the
allies started the war, and on September 17, the Soviet Union cancelled all pacts with Poland.

  During the last weeks, something strange was going on, and only the blind could not see the airplanes coming in swarms and landing on the airbase. On market days, the peasants brought news about military columns moving covertly during the nights in the direction of the Polish border.

  On September 17, the moment Natasha entered the production hall, the alarm wailed, stalling lathes’ engines and the loudspeaker called for attention. “Comrades! Citizens of our great country!” The Chairman of the Soviet of People’s Commissars Molotov announced and explained to the Soviet citizens why the Soviet government could not remain indifferent to the destiny of the kin-blooded Ukrainians and Byelorussians living in Poland after its government ceased to exist. “The Red Army must honorably fulfill the honorary mission in performing its great liberating task,” he proclaimed in his speech.

  Vitebsk suddenly blossomed with placards. From the building walls and billboards, they encouraged the population: “Give a helping hand to the West-Ukrainian and West-Byelorussian brothers!” “Returning West Ukraine and West Byelorussia into the family of the Soviet People is our sacred duty.”

  The Red Army marched toward Lvov.

  14

  Ulya

  Beginning of October 1939

  Saratov; Balashikha, Moscow Region

  At exactly nine o’clock in the morning of October 1, Ulya opened an unmarked entrance door of the gray-brick four-story building on Sakko and Vancetti Street. A formal voice stopped her in her tracks. “Stop! Your summons.”

  “My name is Ursula Franzevna Kriegshammer. I need to see Senior Lieutenant Godyastchev.”

  “A major already.” The sentry cast her a sharp glance and picked up one of three phones on his small desk. “Ursula Franzevna Kriegshammer is inquiring for you, Comrade Major.” He opened what she figured was a registry book and, after making some notes, motioned for her to go. “Second floor, room twenty-one.”