The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII

by Marion Kummerow

  To prevent Rita’s eventual question, Ulya said, “But of course, you are curious where I work. At a canteen in an orphanage for Down syndrome children. Nothing to talk about. You better tell me about yourself.”

  “I’m a judicial consultant at the Kommintern metal-working plant. Boring.” She tripped over a twig and almost fell, but to Ulya’s surprise, straightened herself as though she was well-trained. “I’d like to show you something. But—” She made a zip gesture along her mouth. “Not a word to anybody, otherwise Bagdan will kill me. If you stay with your back to the conifer tree and take twenty steps in the direction of those two twisted birches, you’ll get to—One . . . two . . . sixteen—” Rita stopped abruptly to scare away a cloud of insects that bobbed in front of them. “Nineteen . . . twenty.” She leaned to one of the knee-high knolls and pushed it aside with her hands, revealing a hole with a narrow ladder that led into a manhole. “Now, after me.”

  They got down into the earthy-smelling inside, which could hardly accommodate two people unless they felt like clinging to each other like lovers. Built-in iron boxes lined two walls.

  “Bagdan told me his father hid here from Germans during the First War. Later, Bagdan kept himself out of sight of his father when he knew his father would lash him for mischief.”

  “What’s in the boxes?” Ulya touched the cool, smooth surface.

  “He uses them as storage for fruit and vegetables during wintertime. Empty now.”

  “And this?” Ulya motioned with her eyes at the one-and-a-half-meter elongated object wrapped in burlap that rested against a wall.

  “That’s Bagdan’s. Against wolves.”

  They climbed out of the dugout into the warm outside full of bird chatter and the smells of the mixed forest.

  “Want me to show you where the locals fish?”

  As though she knew Ulya’s answer in advance, Rita moved along a hardly discernable path of the unkempt grove, which Ulya first had mistaken for a wood.

  They walked for about five minutes. The wood was full of sounds and aromas: the scented new grass and blooming bushes, the buzz of insects, a high unpleasant call of a bird, a sudden beating of wings against water, the plop of a fish jumping. The trees stopped abruptly, giving a lovely view of a quietly flowing river, ducks and swans dotting its surface gray-green and white.

  “Vitba or West Dvina?”

  “Vitba. Not as broad as in other parts of the city but challenging enough.”

  “Did you . . . get to the other bank?” Ulya didn’t know what prompted her to ask, maybe because she knew Rita was a bad swimmer.

  “Yes. Once. So proud of myself.”

  Ulya hugged Rita. “Glad for you it’s not the Volga River.”

  “Making fun of me?” Rita returned her smile.

  From Vitba, Rita led Ulya through a marsh, indicating the passable places. The earth beneath their feet squelched. Why all this sightseeing? asked a little voice inside Ulya’s head.

  As if answering her unspoken question, Rita went on. “I scouted the area since Bagdan and I . . . since he started inviting me to spend weekends with him.” All of a sudden, she threw her arms up. “What an idiot I am! You must be hungry, and I think Bagdan must have returned home already.”

  He was.

  Wide-shouldered, squat, short brown hair with some premature streaks of gray and short reddish beard, he gave an impression of a peasant. He extended his enormous hand to energetically press Ulya’s in his. His sharp and assessing eyes caught and held hers. “Heard a lot about you.” But he did not say what it was exactly he had heard.

  Ulya suspected he was at least fifteen or more years older than Rita. What did she find in him? At his age he must have been married and have a bunch of children. What was Rita getting herself into? But the answer had to wait.

  For two days, Ulya and Bagdan’s cousins, Oksana among them, helped Rita to clean the house, to peel, and cut, and prepare a meal and tables for the wedding.

  II

  Everyone Has His Own War

  Vitebsk

  21

  Ulya

  June 22, 1941

  A beam of sun penetrated the closed window shutters through its cracks. Ulya stretched herself and, at once, her head, still swimming, brought back the snippets of remembrances: the guests around the big table, the bride and groom at its center, the abundance of the local delicacies, bottles of Garelka, Krambambulya, and something else, perhaps a home-distilled vodka. The insistent cheering, “Bitter! Bitter!” encouraging the newlyweds to kiss each other. Loud singing and dancing followed. Later, two men argued till they had to be hustled to separate corners by force. And above all of that, the happy faces of Rita and Bagdan.

  Ulya jumped from the side-oven bench but taken by nausea threatening to disgorge the bacchanalia of the previous evening, fell back. Was it what they called a hangover? With nostalgia she found her mind drifting back to her birthday, the last one she had celebrated with her Vati. Then, she had rejected Armenian cognac and instead preferred tea. What would he say to her drinking yesterday?

  Somebody banged at the door. “Open! Open!”

  “What’s that? Can’t they leave me alone on my first married day?” Bagdan’s groggy voice came.

  “Uncle! The war’s started!” Oksana’s terrified shout.

  There was a long silence then a sound of the radio crackling, and Yuri Levitan’s, the radio announcer’s familiar voice, solemn: “Today, with no declaration of war . . .” Like a treacherous punch to the gut.

  So, the Germans broke the Treaty of non-Aggression between our countries. Ulya threw herself to the window that gave a good view of Nikolskaya. The sun-streaked street was alive. Some inhabitants gathered at the loudspeaker affixed to a pole, heads up to it, old women pressing the corners of their kerchiefs to their eyes time and again. She turned on the sound. Rita was fully dressed. Bagdan, behind her back, too. Their countenance immobile.

  “What shall we do?” Ulya cut the silence.

  “I must go to the city, to my plant. Bagdan to his Kolkhoz. You stay put here. Don’t worry if we don’t show up for a day or two.” Their heads down, they strode past her as though to prevent Ulya from asking more questions.

  She stepped to the window, and after Rita and Bagdan disappeared from view at the bend of the street, made haste to wash herself from the washing stand in the yard. Upon returning inside, a whiff of a stench, akin to vomit, drew her attention away from the shock of the news. Her eyes darted around the room to find the origin of the stink and observed the signs of drinking from the day before. She’d take care of that later, she resolved.

  While she dressed, a little unconvincing voice kept saying in her head, It’ll end soon and, with this soothing belief, she headed to the bus stop. She could ask for another public phone in closer proximity, yet her gut told her not to, so she drove in the company of the silent and stunned passengers to the railway station.

  Above the molten pavement, the air seemed to tremble. Despite the open windows, sweat beaded her forehead.

  At the train station, the crowd moved toward the platform as a cohesive mass only to be stopped by an invisible power or perhaps because it just couldn’t hold any more arrivals.

  Ulya made her way to the building, catching snippets of indignant conversations. “No, they say only the military trains.” “They don’t care about people.” “Shut up, they know what to do.” “Herods, they attacked us on the Feast of All Saints whose light shone forth in the Land.” Some retorting, “All will be well.” “Our army is strong.” “It’ll be soon over.”

  People mobbed at the telephone booth. Ulya joined the uneven line.

  “Gena, Gena!” a woman cried into the receiver. “Do you hear me? Gena! Gena!”

  “Citizen, if you don’t hear, leave the phone for others,” hissed discontented voices from the queue.

  “Gena! Sonny!” Her face wet from tears, the woman stepped away.

  “Father! Father! I won’t be able to—” The yo
ung man pounded on the phone with his fist, which swallowed the coin, but not for long. Strong shoulders forced him aside.

  “Daughter! Daughter!”

  And so on and on. At last, her turn came. She dialed the number. A click. Half a ringtone, and the familiar voice, clear crisp, “NKVD.”

  “Hunter here.” To her relief, a whistle of a locomotive burst into the hall, drowning her code name from the ears of the people around her. She pressed the phone more closely to her ear, trying to block from the strangers the words she expected to hear.

  There was a moment’s silence and then, “Stay put where you are. You’ll be contacted. The same password. Clear?”

  “Yes.”

  The line went dead.

  In the city, people rushed about, and it was not obvious if they were buying what was available or robbing the stores. The blue hats of militia popped here and there. Whistles shrilled.

  The bus did not arrive for so long, Ulya decided to walk. Passing the column of the Red-Armisten—Red Army soldiers—she watched a woman who ran along shouting, “Take care of yourself, sonny.” An enthusiastic response followed, “Don’t worry, Mother, soon we’ll be back with victory.” “We’ll chase them away,” someone from the convoy confirmed. “Men, sing!” sounded an energetic order. Tired, discordant voices started the Katyusha song. The last words Ulya could hear were, “And to the warrior on a faraway border.”

  Two days passed without a sign of Rita or Bagdan and the tight feeling in her chest didn’t let up. In hopes of finding out about Bagdan, Ulya left the house to see his niece. She was feeding the squealing piglets, throwing into a smudged, battered trough some shapeless, viscous mass she scooped from a deformed rust bucket.

  “Oksana!”

  The girl craned her neck to see who it was. Her fresh handsome face, now red and swollen, twisted. At Ulya’s inquiry about her uncle’s whereabouts, she turned away from her and went on sobbing. “Why this panic, Oksana?” Ulya said to the girl’s back. “Our army won’t let the Germans come close.”

  “Let us alone,” a rude voice from the threshold came. Oksana’s father, so joyful and courteous to her at the wedding, lurched her way. “Mind your business.” He gave her a shove. “Go away.”

  Rather than doing nothing while waiting for Rita and Bagdan, Ulya applied her scout training. On the shelves in the small workshop in the back of the house, she discovered the all-purpose necessary instruments including a flashlight. She continued her searching in the attic where two little windows on the opposite sides of it allowed a great view to both the street and the forested area. In the bedroom, behind the swans in the pool motif wall rug, Ulya located the marked military maps, local and of Poland. An upholstered Dienstglas 6 x 30 binoculars were embedded in a small niche. The findings made her ponder. Bagdan’s? Or? She instantly rejected the thought they could belong to the former owner of the house. And why would he have maps and German binoculars? A flicker of apprehension coursed through her.

  Now intrigued more than ever, she went on exploring. First, she knocked along the walls then examined the flooring. Uncovering nothing suspicious, she refocused her attention on the wardrobes. In one of them, she found men’s suits and all different dresses, padded winter jackets, and shoes for all seasons, obviously belonging to Bagdan and Rita. In the other one, hanging in a neat line, there were all kinds of fancy blouses and dresses, jackets and coats for every season. On the bottom, shoes for all seasons aligned. On the upper shelf, scarves, hats, and matching leather handbags were in order. Elegant underwear was stacked on a side shelf in accurate rows. Observing all this splendid collection of female clothing, Ulya thought of the night two years ago when Herr Wagner offered her a look into western life through those colorful, glossy editions of the Modenschau magazines. Why all these gorgeous clothes in Rita’s wardrobe? Not her size at that?

  Just out of curiosity, Ulya tried one dress. It fit as though cut for her. In an instant, her mind left Bagdan’s house and brought her back to Herr Wagner’s manners and fashion tutoring. In front of the wardrobe mirror, she took some steps, turning the way he’d taught her, and leered at her reflection. She hadn’t forgotten his remarks about her insensitivity and, watching herself in this apparel and especially her smile, she wondered if it would satisfy him.

  Finding no other explanation for what all this extravagant stuff was doing in the wardrobe, she fancied the things belonged to the disposed Kulak’s wife. Good life she must have had, the thought came tinted with no feeling.

  Every day, squadrons of German bombers, like big black birds, flew eastward to later return relieved of their deadly weight. Every day, the radio brought horrible news: “The German troops bombed Kiev, Zhitomir, Sevastopol, Kaunas . . . Heavy fights of local significance continued toward the north eastern, central, and south eastern directions.”

  On June 25, Luftwaffe dropped their first bombs on Vitebsk. Since then, a wailing of sirens was sharply audible from the city center with regular perseverance.

  Night after night, Ulya watched searchlights swinging about, crossing and intertwining, flack guns banging. Two houses at the end of Nikolskaya Street were hit and burned. When she looked in that direction two hours later, the flames still ate the remains. The hand of war had reached this place.

  During the daytime, as soon as she heard sirens or the humming of the approaching airplanes, she slipped from the house through the back door into the grove and scouted it. Rita’s sincere excitement of the beauty and serenity of the surroundings and her own feelings of the quiet peacefulness of the wood emerged in her memory, which now the opposite mood replaced.

  The radio crackled and hissed as Ulya fiddled with the knob. A local administration spokesman urged citizens not to panic.

  Though the bombing continued, there were no plans for evacuation. According to the order by the Chief and Commander of the Vitebsk garrison, no one was allowed to enter or exit the city except for the seconded persons and Kolkhozniks—farmers, who delivered their produce to the local markets. The last words of the edict were: “For failing to comply with this Order and for its violation, strict liability will be imposed on the perpetrators according to the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.”

  On June 29, the radio announced Stalin’s Directive: “Don’t let the enemy have a single grain of bread, a single liter of fuel . . . The Kolkhoz members must raid cattle . . . All valuable property, including non-ferrous metals, which can’t be withdrawn, must be damaged without fail.”

  So, they are not confident they can hold against the onslaught. Ulya stiffened her jaw, trying to brush away the mixed feelings. We won’t surrender an inch of our land. We’ll annihilate the enemy on its own territory. Hadn’t their leadership assured the Soviet people of that? Did she, Ulya, believe the bravado? Yes and no, but there was a hope the Soviet government would hold to its confidence.

  Air battles over Vitebsk took place daily. Through the radio broadcast, the local authority appealed to the citizens to adhere to the blackout. Matching the map with the scenery and direction, Ulya figured out the Luftwaffe’s bombing was aimed at the transport hub and the Old Bridge over West Dvina.

  Everything was in fear-suppressed turmoil. Day after day, Ulya observed the unfolding tension on Nikolskaya Street. First, she watched young people with shorn heads and backpacks break themselves from the arms of their mothers, sisters, or wives and march away. When days later the radio declared the evacuation, starting with the children, she witnessed the young mothers hugging their little ones to their chests. She could not hear but imagined their wailing. They threw their arms in the air in despair after a fuming old bus swallowed their children in its insides and lurched away, kicking up clouds of dust and fumes in its wake.

  Every other hour, the broadcast asserted: “The Germans are being pushed back. There is no need to leave.” Meanwhile, every day, the sky was black with airplanes. High-flying bombers droned above, released black dots and, after the succession of blasts that
followed, returned to their base. Becoming increasingly loud, the humming of artillery joined the noise of the bombs.

  The cannonade drew closer and closer. From the opposite side of the city, explosions were heard. That was when the human sea flooded the streets and roads, slowing down along the narrow Nikolskaya Street. Buses vanished. In their place, horse-driven carts appeared overfilled with boxes and bags, furniture pieces, cages with cackling hens. Some people pushed wheelbarrows stacked with goods. Many on foot. Older people with sticks, dragging tired feet. Little children clutched their parents’ hands. Moving at a snail’s pace, the human mass on occasion halted, giving way to soldiers in formation led by officers, then closed in again and trudged on when the soldiers were gone.

  The morning of July 5 brought the sound of heavy fighting and then another kind of blast audible from the city. Ulya perceived that Stalin’s Directive of the scorched earth defense was in progress.

  22

  Natasha

  July 5, 1941

  The radio continued broadcasting the persistent battles, the Red Army retreats, but in the Vitebsk direction, the enemy was fought off twenty to thirty kilometers to the west of Polotsk.

  By now the familiar sound of air raid sirens overpowered the noise of hammers, screwdrivers, and axes that accompanied the dismantling of the plant equipment for leaving. The workers labored for over ten hours a day; however, no one would take a break or flee for cover to the basements, which were prepared in haste for protection from the bombing.

  During the first days of July, the Luftwaffe was tenacious with its pounding of the city, leaving more and more crumbling brickwork and misshapen architecture with their violent air assaults.