WE WILL NOT FORGET
UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO
JUN 22 1944 L U• t\. y
by ILYA EHRENBURG
. I DRAWINGS hy D. SHMARINOV CARTOONS by KUKRINIKSI Ilya Ehrenburg Ilya Ehrenburg, recently awarded the Order of Lenin, is one of the most widely read of Soviet writers. He is a fighting author whose pen is tipped with passion, wrath and hope. Ehrenburg happily combines two talents, those of novel ist and journalist. His artistic· gift is enhanced by a jour nalistic sense which enables him to react quickly-with an essay, short story or novel-to the questions which history places on the agenda. He discusses the present and deals with problems which influence the destinies of the very people who read him. Born in Moscow in 1891, Ehrenburg emigrated from Tsarist Russia at the age of 17. After the Revolution he returned home. In 1921 he again went to Europe, this time as a writer and journalist. Although far away, he fol lowed everything happening within his own country, and on visits to his homeland saw how the sense of human dig nity and creative energy had awakened in the millions. His enthusiasm for. the constructive labor of the people found expression in two novels-The Second Day and Without Stopping for Breath. Two Years Nineteen-forty found the writer in Paris. He witnessed the occupation of the great city by the Hitler forces. He saw the people betrayed by cowards and traitors. All this he described in his novel The Fall of Paris. Shortly before fascist Germany invaded the Soviet UNE 22, 1941 will remain a momentous date in Who can calmly recall that June? In two grim Union, Ehrenburg returned to his country. When his J history. On that short summer night Germany years we have changed so much that we look back motherland was threatened with mortal danger, he be came a war correspondent and found in his heart the right crossed our frontier. Automobiles of all European on the prewar years with tenderness, but al.so with words to speak. In a series of ardent, passionate and in makes sped by, motorcycles clattered, the first a sense of renunciation. We have become both tensely dramatic articles he called upon every Red Army shotR fired b:y tommy gunners frightened the larks. simpler and more complicated. Much that seemed man, every Soviet citizen, to rise up and resist, to fight to save his country from the brown plague. Pomeranian cattle-breeders and Bavarian psycho to us natural, habitual and concrete has been aban Ehrenburg's words sear the hearts of Red Army men analysts, :flushed with 'war as if it were a picnic, doned and forgotten as illusions. Much that we like coals of fire. Every word is a rifle shot and every mar, J1ed in quest of silver foxes and iron crosses. considered unreal, illusory, has become clothed in phrase a machine-gun burst. Every article is ~aturated with seethin"' passion, like a stream of lava eruptmg from Among the invading hordes were sportsmen, flesh, enabling us to hold out and to repel the a v.olcano. These qualities have earned for the fighting masters of law, bookkeepers, duelists, votaries of enemy's thrusts. author an extraordinary popularity with the Red Army. Wotan, connoisseurs of Paris night clubs, cham But there is something in common between the Ehrenburg can hate as strongly as he can love. He ha~es the Hitlerites with a mortal hatred, a hatred that kills pions of the Aryan breed, husky producers and people who on June 22, 1941 crowded around the and scorches. But it is not a blind hatred, a one-sided pygmie::i of the Goebbels type, natives of Swine loudspeakers, and the seasoned veterans of the hatred that thinks only of revenge. munde, Merseburg and Zwickau, Kurts and Fried front who have experienced so much-and this is "Our hatred of the Hitlerites is dictated by love-by love of our countrymen and mankind,'' he writes. "Therein richs, Kwatschkes and von Gruenwalds, the con the nation's conscience. It was this conscience that lies the power of our hate. And therein lies its justification." querors of Thermopylae, designers of gallows, rose against the invaders. The German generals The present collection includes only a small part of llya electricians and geophJ'.'sicists, commandants and who studied relief maps of the Ukraine and Bye Ehrenburg's writings during the three years of war. company fuehrers, wearers of the insignia of skull lorussia and the types of our tanks and guns did ' and crossbones, and lecherous orderlies. not reckon with what is usually omitted in mili Here were 70 years of German history: Reichs tary academies : they failed to reckon with the wehr academicians, "blitz" experts, masters of conscience of our peoples. pincer movements and organizers of encircle We can speak of the magnitude of the misfor ments. Here was Germany's entire industry: port tunes that have befallen our people. Consciousness able appliances for setting houses on fire, pocket of sacrifices only emphasizes our spiritual radios for spies, huge mortars and collapsible strength. Frenchmen were happy before the war; bridges. On the advancing tanks was the dust of they had begun to look upon adversity as some all Europe. In the staff cars sat gray-moustached Information Bulletin thing disgraceful and unworthy of man. Their generals-firmly convinced that the German army punishment was severe. When the crucial days Embassy of the was invincible. came many Frenchmen preferred the white :flag Soldiers snorted and expectorated, wore their Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to red, warm blood. Then one heard in France talk caps at a jaunty angle, tanned themselves, sent such as, "We must save what can still be saved Washington, D. C. postcards to their sweethearts, devoured buck . .. We must save our cities, our children ..." wheat honey, murdered nursing babies and sang Special Supplement The ruling circles of France wanted to save them their soldier's song: "Hi, hi, ho, ho! The gay, gay selves at any cost. war!" June, 1944 But what has surrender brought to France? Her Thus clashed two incompatible worlds: the children are dying of starvation. Her wealth is world of brigandage and the world of labor; the plundered by the Germans. Her heroes are ex world of malice and the world of confidence. terminated-not in battle but in dungeons. Her
I cities, which have become German bases, are sub because he had a corkscrew-shaped cigarette French rentier, on Germany's technical training, even his life, yet one cannot give the Germans his jected to severe bombings, and any day now lighter and a pencil with six colored leads, and on perfidy and surprise attacks, on infamy, on soul. We have realized this from the first day of France will become a battlefield. lastly because he had got from Klagenfurt to Bor self-seeking, on arrogance. "The Fuehrer thinks war. It was then we became inflamed with hate. We chose another lot. In the summer of 1941 deaux and from Bordeaux to Orel. for me," was the answer I heard hundreds of times Now the hate has matured and become resolve. we were weaker than the German army. We held Such vanity excludes the concept of dignity. The from German war prisoners. I would like to ask We have acquired new coolness in suffering in out then when it seemed impossible to hold out. Hitlerite 'despises his antagonists-and even his Hitler at his last examination who thought for these two years. We do not seek words, gestures him? or arguments. We thirst for but one thing: justice: Two years of cruel war-an epic of human self own kinsfolk if their rank is lower, their enter denial. We remember the torments of Leningrad. prise less, their muscles weaker than his own. By In our country everyone is supposed to think: We enter this third year of war with the grim The enemy wanted to strangle it with hunger, to insulting others the fascists have lost all the at that is the substance of our society. determination to rout the enemy, to rout him tributes of humanity. with the greatest possible speed, to liberate our mangle it with bombs and shells. In the first winter Never has our hatred of the invader been so Our people ·from time immemorial disliked the native land with the greatest possible speed. We of siege the enfeebled hands of mothers tore in keen as in these days of lull. It is as if we were know that the denouement is drawing nigh. vain at the frozen earth: it was impossible even arrogant, ridiculed vanity and was wary even of now fully realizing the entire me~sure of suffer to bury a dead child. Can words describe the cour pride. This is the basis of that sense oi human ing inflicted upon us by the invaders. I recently In 1941 Hitler, like the ancient tyrants, sent age of Leningrad, which has held out despite dignity which has twice covered Sevastopol with read in a German newspaper a story about the his armies into distant countries. The Germans glory and which has enablecl Russian youngsters Ukraine. The correspondent describes how the manufactured war for export. They pictured everything? tc endure torture at the hands of the German ex death as a foreigner, without right of entry into We remember the time when hundreds of Ger Saxonian "lord and master" leads a prosperous ecutioners with a consciousness of inner super life in a Ukrainian village. How many such Sax the Reich. Now the war has reached Germany. man planes hovered over Stalingrad from sunrise iority. Now German cities crash beneath bombs. Now to sunset. The fate ·of this city seemed so irre onians, Prussians and Bavarians now torment our We of course loved our country before the war, sisters? Several days ago the Berlin radio re Hitler's vassals are filled with trepidation : they trievably sealed that, according to one Swiss jour too. But can the power of sentiment be compre are to play the role of gatekeepers, but who knows nalist, Berlin newspapers daily inquired of Goeb ported a tour made by the Baltic adventurer Ros hended in the fullness of possession? We sang enberg through German-occupied regions. The whether they will not prefer to open the gates bels' department whether they should publish the songs about Russia's breadth and vastness. We announcer spoke with a sneer about how the wide rather than to bury the entrance with their celebration issue prepared beforehand. The Ger expressed our love for . our country in terms of slaves must present Rosenberg, "according to the own bodies. mans did not realize then that the word Stalin great distances : "From the Black Sea to the Russian custom, with bread and salt," they must One German woman writes: "The war is now grad would for decades and centuries inspire awe White," or "From the Pacific to the Carpathians." shout "heil" and slave girls must sing and dance everywhere." We do not gloat: we are above such in Germany. But Russia is bigger than Russia: the nation's to gratify Herr Rosenberg ... Can the heart en sentiments. We want to see justice done. We want Some neutral observers thought that nothing soul is bigger than the concept of territory and dure such insult? We see weary girls who dance Germany to drink the bitter cup, not because could stop the army that had covered the distance all its wealth. In wartime we have realized that at the word of command. We hear old women our burdens are heavy, but because crime must be from the English Channel to the Volga. It was the Russia for which there seemed not enough shout "heil" at the point of tommy guns. The Hit followed by punishment. Last winter at Kastor stopped by 500 yards of earth and a few divisions. room on the huge map of the world can be car lerites encroach not only upon the people's life noye I saw the beginning of retribution-the dead It was Russia's conscience that stopped it. ried in the heart. but upon its soul. bodies of conquerors, the erstwhile fo .. midable Thus ripened a new, exacting, unobtrusive and When I say "conscience," I mean the soul of the And impatiently the Red Army looks westward. a::maments reduced to · scrap. The conquistadors noble patriotism. We often read of the progress There every tree, every child, every house, is had found their match. people, which long since conceived a hatred for in made by Red Army commanders and men-prog justice. Compassion for others was sometimes in waiting for it. The word Stalingrad is associated in the mind ress connected with our winter victuries. But A certain Chrystal Keller who lives in Muen of the entire world with. the triumph of historic terpreted as a weakness on the part of the Russian. the fighting experience of our men at the fronts It was his strength. The bulwark of the wronged ster writes her brother, a corporal: "In Nordwald justice. is but one of the manifestations of the maturity there are also Russian women working now. It and humiliated-that is the nation's conscience. of the entire people. It reveals not only that our I had an opportunity recently to view types of When our profoundly peaceable people first beheld is sad-they disfigure our beautiful country. I German armaments captured by the Red Army. company commanders have learned to better un am even afraid to walk in the streets in the even the gallows, the ashes of villages, the trampled • derstand the enemy's methods, to better prepare Of what does this spectacle of German strength bodies of children, the outraged young girls, the ings; some of them look so desperate. In general speak? It speaks of our strength-the strength of attacks, that they have mastered the principle of I loathe the Russians. There are people here who question of war was settled in the heart of each. cooperation and appreciate the time factor. It our armaments which inflicted and will continue have pity on Russian girls-that is the character to inflict defeats on the Germans and their gen Reason may be influenced, but an angered consci reveals that they have grown in stature, that of the German, his heart is always like' butter. ence cannot be stilled. Hitler or Goering, poring they have developed, thought a great deal, recog erals and field 1.1arshals. Here is Hitler's latest But in genera~ they are few. Personally I feel no hope: the heavy tank called the "Tiger" by the over the "green folder" wherein were filed the nized their shortcomings. pity whatever for them ..." plans of Russia's enslavement, hardly guessed In the words "careless·ness" or "conservatism" Germans. It was smashed by our shells. The "Ti What infinite meanness this letter reveals. We ger" landed in a cage in the zoo. what a whirlwind they would reap. we represent the whole aggregate of our inner see our girls, pure and good, torn away from Human dignity has risen against the Hitlerites. defects. Two years of trial have lifted us above everything they hold dear, reduced to slavery. Nothing can save Germany from inexorable There is nothing more contradictory than vanity them. Therein is the explanation of the defense of They are tormented by the Germans, men and retribution. The Hitlerites now pose as innocents. and the sense of human dignity. Stalingrad and our winter off<.:nsive. women. And some such woman as this Chrystal They try to encourage each other with fear : "We A characteristic feature of the modern German It is not an accident that contemporary Ger dares to speak of German soft-heartedness. She must fight. We are hated because we are Germans." is the sense of his own superiority. It rests on many found her embodiment in the contemptible asserts that the Germans have "hearts like but Even in the hour of mortal danger they lie. Even superstitious ideas about race purity, on the cult figure of Hitler-this maniac, filled with malice ter." Their hearts are rancid margarine. Never in the hour of agony they lie. The woif is hated of the machine, on intoxication with success in as a snake's glands are filled with poison. His suc has pity lightecl those dark dungeons. not because he is gray, but because he devours she.ep. war. Why did some shopkeeper from Klagenfurt cesses were based on bluff, on blackmail, on a net Our enemy is cruel and selfish; he has come to . regard himself as a superman in Yasnaya Poly wor of esp!onage, on fifth ·columns, on the greed us for loot; he does not shrink from anything. Racial and national hatred are as alien to us as ana? Because his chin was the standard model, of the German burgher and the unconce;rn of the And if one does not care for his possessions, or before. We hate the Germans because in their con-
2 3 cept they have drenched the world in blood. We have not renounced the old German philosophy city called Arras; those people who were shot but also because the fate of European culture is infinitely dear to us. We remember that the De hate them because they are fascists. We defend or music. were brought from the Czech town of Tabor. The cembrists were inspired by the "Declaration of our homes and our Soviet country. Tnereby we It is not we who burn books. It is not we who extreme western part of the Brittany Cape of Rights" because Turgenev was the friend and in defend something bigger : great ideas and lofty judge man by the shape of his nose. Amid blood Europe, jutting out toward the new world, is sentiments. We love our land, our air, our flowers, and suffering we have not lost faith in the tri called by the French and Latin name of Finisterre spirer of France's finest writers. We are not by standers at Europe's tragedy. but true love for one's own does not breed hate umph of justice and human brotherhood. --end of the earth. And now, from Gzhatsk to for others. On the contrary, love broadens the Dark is the night enveloping Europe. But to Brest to Finisterre, one can see the same night, For a thousand days the Germans have been mind. Loving Russia, we love Europe, we love the day, after two years of fighting, we see a streak the same desolation, the same scenes of ghastly trampling upon the European countries they con world. of light. We see the dawn of victory. We are not mockery, slaughter and barbarity. The great quered. I repeat-a thousand days. A continent No matter how great is our hate for Hitler's alone in battle; with us are our mighty Allies, European night has stretched to "the end of the until a little while ago flourishing and so varied, soldiers, for fascist Germany, for the predatory the nations that have risen in defense of their earth." has become a place of horror. Death is monot traditions of the Reich, its pseudo-science, its dignity; with us are all the downtrodden nations We are passionately attached to our land, our onous. The sight of Voronezh, Vyazma and Istra greed, its philistine callousness, its people of all of Europe. With us is humanity's conscience. And sources, our history. We are proud of our Slavonic is sufficient to convey the idea of many European ranks and classes, we have not because of this . with us is the sister of our youth-pure, immor Hellas-Kiev; the Russian grace of Saint Sophia's cities. Neither the Germans nor their henchmen begun to burn Goethe's or Schiller"s works, we tal liberty. Cathedral; Yaroslavna's Lament; Andrei Rub can restore what has been destroyed: all their June,1943 lev's classic, clear-cut quality; Novgorod's civic efforts are directed toward further destruction. liberties, and the military exploits of Alexander Therefore to this day Spanish Guernica is a Nevsky and Dmitri Donskoi. But we have never charred ruin, Almeria's streets are rubbish heaps. drawn a dividing line between our culture and In all these five years General Franco has not Europe's Fate the European. For it is not wires and railways been able to build a new Barcelona or Madrid. that link us, but a system of blood-vessels and The Spaniards cannot put their house in order; brain convolutions. they are obliged to wait upon the German admin We were not only diligent pupils but teachers istrative service and to die outside Leningrad for RECENTLY I visited the Gzhatsk District, lib- Visions of the dark ages of the dawn of man's of Europe. Only an ignoramus would present Rus Berlin. erated from the Germans. The word "desert" history arise in the mind's eye. Vainly did moth sia as a child admitted 200 years ago to the school · Rotterdam's ruins are the twin of Belgrade's is inadequate to convey the spectacle of the cat ers strive to hide their children from the German of culture. The testament of ancient Greece, ruins. Northern France, once reminiscent of an aclysm, the terrible catastrophe, that meets the slave-traders. Mothers buried their boys in snow cradle of Europe's consciousness, reach~d us not anthill, where the streets of one town . led into eye when you reach this place, where the Ger -they froze to death. Mothers hid their little through the Rome of conquerors and legislators, the streets of another, has become a stony desert. mans ruled for 17 months. girls in hay, but the Germans plunged their bayo but through the Byzantium of philosophers and The towns on the Atlantic seaboard are shattered Gzhatsk was once a cheerful, rich and thriving nets into the stacks. Through the streets of the ascetics. We have only to compare Andrei Rub and burned. district. Milk from its pedigreed cows was sent town lads of 12 and 13 years of age were driven lev's paintings with the frescoes of the early Ren What has become of the people? A Gzhatsk to Moscow ; its tailors and seamstresses, past with rifle butts: the Germans were sending the aissance-Cimabue or Giotto-to realize how woman whose four children had been carried masters of their craft, came to the Capital. In children into slavery. Sometimes they drove whole much closer old Russia was to the spirit of Hellas, away by the Germans and her home burned, said our country the .-•ncient and the modern were cur families, whole villages, and the rural district with its clearness and gaiety. to me, "Houses can be found-but you can't go on iously intermingled; side by side with Gzhatsk's was soon deserted. Hunger, typhus, diphtheria When in the 19th Century Russia astounded the living without children." The Germans encroached old Cathedral of the Kazan Virgin, and the squat and Gestapo torture cells did their work. world with her loftiness of thought and word, not only upon Europe's ancient stones: they But more terrible even than this physical ex wooden houses, rose spacious new schools, clubs it was not birth, it was maturity. Who shall say trampled her body, her youth, her children. The termination is the moral suppression of human and hospitals, molded with light. There were which moved Pushkin more--Byron's verses or people have been deprived of the most elementary dignity. When you enter a town liberated from dark alleys and there were lads who dreamed of the fairy tales told by his old nurse, Arina? The right-the right to live in their native country. flight to the stratosphere. the Germans, what frightens you is not only progressive minds of the last century in Russia ruins and corpses, but human eyes in which all Voix du Nord, a French paper published illegally, Now in the place where the town stood there is felt Europe's passions, hopes and griefs, and con informs us that in Lille and Valenciennes profes only an unsightly pile of broken iron girders, light seems to have been burned out. People talk tributed to the European consciousness the strong in whispers, start at every footfall, recoil from sors from Kiev University and students from smoke-blackened stone and crushed pebbles. Russian emotions of truthfulness and humanity. Kharkov and Minsk are doing penal labor. And Gzhatsk is still marked on the map, still marked every shadow. That is what I saw in Gzhatsk this March. That is what I saw in Kursk in February. In Belinsky's vehemence, Chernyshevsky's as in ~he towns of Zaporozhye, French engineers and in human hearts, but it is gone fro:rn the face of ceticism, and the heroism of the Russian revolu workers brought from Paris by the Germans are the earth. The vandals of our day have destroyed At the outbreak of thi,s war the newspapers talked of what fascism was bringing to the world. tionaries, we see more than gifts from the West, pining in the munitions works. Hitler does a driv it by what was the last word in modern technical the heritage of humanism and the French Revolu ing trade in slaves: he has sent Poles to the Fin methods. They blew up nurseries and churches Now we see what fascism has brought to the regions captured by the Germans. The word tion: we feel the search for truth that was the nish forests and Slovenes as navvies for the earth with dynamite; bursting into houses they smashed historic path of Russian culture-"the seekers works in Poland. Alsatians are sent to the Uk the windows, poured gasoline over the walls, and "death" belongs too much to life-it is out of place here: better to say extinction or abyss. The of the City." That is why Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, raine to build German roads. Belgian lacemakers were delighted with this species of "Bengal Tchaikovsky and Moussorgsky enriched any cul are digging Lithuanian ground. Germans carry lights" they had created. Gzhatsk was burned. old peasant woman was right when she told me sadly that the Germans were "worse than death." tured European and gave profundity and breadth out street raids in French towns, seize all the able Half the villages in the district were also burned. to Europe's every conception. That is why Lenin bodied and drive them eastward into slavery. Only those survived from wh!.ch the Germans had Looking westward you see frightful scenes : somewhere far away there is another Kursk and lives as Russia's example and State genius, the Ten thousand captives are carried away daily to take to their heels under pressure of the ad from France. · another Gzhatsk-and they are called at first by peak of European and human thought. vancing Red Army. Not alone because we have our Gzhatsk, Khar The lament of the Gzhatsk mother sounds as an Few people remained, for the Germans had familiar names-Minsk, Chernigov. Then the kov and Minsk do we understand France's woe, echo in Lyons-but it is not an echo-it is the driven 6,000 Russians from Gzhatsk to Germany. names change. That charred pile was the French
4 5 mothers of Lyons weeping. "Our times can only a Frenchman who escaped from Germany "Writes be compared to the years of plague and murrain in Le Document. A Frenchman who recently es in the Middle Ages," wrote the Journal de Geneve. caped from Germany reported that two Serbs had A French king once expressed the wish that every been sentenced to imprisonment for what "Was subject should have a chicken in the pot. Before called a barbarous act: they had eaten a kitten the Germans came there were 37,000 fowls in belonging to a Danzig resident. Gzhatsk-now there are only 110. Recently I read Europe is swarming with street "Waifs. A cor a very detailed article in a German economic mag respondent of the National Zeitung "Writes that azine on the disappearance of eggs in Europe. in France he encountered "a mob of wild children The Herr Doctor analyzed the position occupied "Who fled shrieking wheneve1· anyone approached by eggs in international trade, and <:oncluded them." In the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris there gloomily that "new exports must be found for are 286 girls betW'een the ages of 9 and 14 suffer Denmark, France and the protectorate." They ing from syphilis. Two boys of 8 and 11 years of have been found, these exports. They are slaves. age were arrested on a murder charge in Mar It is worthwhile noting, however, that in con seilles. These waifs roam the streets of Serbia in sidering the causes of the disappearance of eggs groups of 20 to 30. Instances of cannibalism "Were from Europe, the German "scholar" neglected to noted among the street waifs in Greece. mention one-the chicken-eating German soldier. Is it necessary to speak of the lapse of culture What have the people of Europe to eat these into savagery? Schools and universities are either dayR? The French have eaten all the stocks of closed or turned into hotbeds of Hitlerite ignor fodder and turnips, have eaten the crows and spar ance. In the newspaper Marseillaise there is ..a de rows. The Southerners eat grass, which they call scription of lectures given by a "Professor of the "Laval salad." The Northerners subsist on acorns College de France." He explained at some length and tree bark ground fine. Maddened by starva that "when the chin was not clear-cut an·d the line tion, the Greeks are devouring shrubs. Phantoms of the oval somewhat wavy, it "Was a sign of race FASCIST HORDES rove the streets of Athens-wraith-like figures of impurity"-this in an auditorium where the math scientists, workers, artists and artisans. They are ematician Poincare, the chemist Perrin, the physi not given work because they have not sufficient cist Langevin, once lectured. Depeche de Toulouse strength to lift a spade. So they beg, and the Ger remarks ruefully, "Amohg young men who pass man soldiers kick them away. There are no more graduation examinations the standard of educa dogs. They have all been eaten. tion is extremely low." After the 'Hitlerite burn Deadly diseases strike down those whom the ing of the Czech libraries, the stocks of books slaveowners have left in their native country, for "Were reduced by 70 per cent. - like plague-bearing rats the Germans have I have seen some books · published in France brought infection with them. In well-fed, rosy during the German occupation; of the ideas they cheeked Holland, the country of Van Houten's contained I shall not speak-even books on philos Cocoa, tuberculosis has spread on a truly formid ophy are full of the cattle-breeding sentiment able scale. In the Hague alone, 17,000 caroes of an which is inevitable in "Neo-Europe." I am speak acute form of tuberculosis "Were recorded in the ing of something else: these books "Were written finit nine months of 1942. by savages. Every French schoolboy used to ex In France, according to figures in the controlled preRs himself ably and well. Now even "writers" newspaper Sept Jours, there are 1,000,000 per in France are unable to express themselves. sons suffering from an acute form of tuberculosis. A thousand days isn't such a short time-in a The number of those suffering from syphilis has thousand days you can learn a great deal and you increased by 12 times; of those affected with skin can unlearn a great deal. Living with "Wolves, diseases, by 30 times. Soap, medicines and bread Europe has forgotten how to speak articulately are not to btl found. One-third of the pop1.Jation and has taken to howling like a wolf. of Greece has been swept away by hunger and The institution of the system of hostages, the epidemics. Diphtheria has attacked Poland and spectacle of exE:cutions and tortures, deform weak Czechoslovakia. There is no inoculation, and the souls. Children see gallows; adolescents are bul mortality among children reaches 60 per cent. lied-"Betray your father and you "Will receive But more terrible still is the life of Europeans a tin of food and a bottle of "Wine. Refuse and we uprooted by the Germans. A half million French take you to the Gestapo, where they know hoW' to slaves have dled in Germany; tW'o million are drive pins under your nails." Terror deforms peo awaiting death. "We are living in a horribl~ bar ple and some grow cowardlv, some pathoJog-icnlly racks among human excrement and lice. We are cruel. Behavior stan 8 9 who had robbed my interpreter, Frau Reidman. en's gossip. I thrashed two girls here in my flat I ask our readers, citizens of our beautiful, planes, tanks and guns : millions of Germans, We gave her a good thrashing on her bare behind. on the bare buttocks . . . honest and clean-souled country, to read over such beasts as Friedrich Schmidt, are scouring Even Frau Reidman cried when she saw it. Then April 18: A dull, rainy day. I summoned a lot carefully these notes of a German. Let their our country, tcrturing and killing our dear ones. I went for a .walk in the village and dropped in of girls who didn't approve of the Secret Field hatred for the vile invaders grow still stronger. I ask my readers, commanders and fighting men on our butcher, who's preparing me the sausages Police. I .thrashed them all. They will see before them a hangman with the of our glorious Red Army, to read the diary of the . . . Then I examined two fellows who had tried . itch, a brutal bully who breaks the handle of his I need quote' no more from the diary of the German Friedrich Schmidt. My friends in the to get a way to Rostov over the ice. They were whip over the tender bodies of Russian girls; fighting ranks, remember that you have Fried Secretary of the Secret Field Police Friedrich shot as spies. Then they broughc me a youngster they will see the German, a dealer in sausages, a rich Schmidt before you. Not a word more-only Schmidt. I could hardly bring myself to write the who came over the ice from Y eisk some days ago trader who trades the linen of the victims of his guns, only death for all, down to the last one! sickening lines. In the whole of world literature ... By the way, they're bringing me liver sausage. shootings; they will see the murderer of a four Reading about our brothers and sisters tortured you probably couldn't find a more vile and con It's not half bad. There's a girl I wanted to year-old child. Workers, men and women-give in Budyennovka, let us take an oath: They shall temptible villain. He shoots boys and girls, and thrash .. . more shells, mines, bullets and bombs, more not get out alive-not one, not one! is afraid of airplanes. He is a miserable coward. March 27: The night passed quietly ... I exam May, 1943 ined two 14-year-old boys found wandering about He can't get to sleep in the evenings for fear bomb in the neighborhood. I ordered a woman to be ers may come. Here you have a real thoroughbred beaten for not registering he:·self. German. Not for nothing did they give him a cross March 28: I paid a visit to Colonel Arbeitsfueh with swords for his military services; he was a rer Weiner. At 6 :00 P. M. I ordered a man and a real hero at torturing Russian girls. woman to be shot who were trying to get away He even valorously slaughtered a four-year over the ice . . . old child. A disgusting coward, who is tortured April 1: I received 108 marks ·in rubles-a big by the thought: "But what if they catch me?" Expectation wad of mqney. Valya is massaging and bathing He gets diarrhea, goes itchy all over with sheer me again ... fright. A mean, pedantic-minded little German, he writes down how many eggs he ate, how many April 10: The sun is baking hot. When Maria OR many a day now we have been reading that we hate this war and that we would much girls he shot, and how he alternates between opens the window in the morning, bright sunshine Fthat "no material changes occurred at the prefer constructive labor to being in service to diarrhea and constipation. He is a profligate and floods my bed. Now I've got a swollen nose. Maria front." But we know that even in days like these, the War Gods. We hate our enemies because they a sadist. He admits rapturously: "I thrashed a hunts lice on me. The ice has disappeared, and struggles are still going on. Artillerymen are forced this war on us." lot of girls." He hasn't a single human feeling. now it's only airplanes that threaten us. I again diligently seeking enemy batteries. Scouts sally Thus this brawler coos plaintively. He is be had several girls and fellows thrashed for not He is not fond of his folk. He could not find one forth in search of a "tonguo"-an enemy 1who word of affection for his accursed Germany. He ginning to grasp the fact that he, too, has ribs getting registered. Among them was the elder's will let his tongue wag. Snipers, those virtuosos . . . But who will trust this lament? The paper daughter. I get an unpleasant feeling when it writes with enthusiasm only about sausage ... in the administration of justice, steadily reduce for which Ley writes is eloquently named the begins to get dark: then I think about bombers. this hangman and butcher. He greedily counts the invaders' numbers. Guerrillas attack German the money he gets for his hangman's work, counts Angriff, which means assault. That word conveys April 11: They're all glad I came here. They columns. Stupendous battles are fought in the the whole outlook on life of both Ley and his treat me like a tsar. We have good suppers and the marks and pfennigs, the rubles and kopeks. air, and our bombers make their own corrections For one moment something dawns upon this mad master Hitler. drink vodka .. . in the orders of the German command regarding After Stalingrad and Tunis the Germans are April 12: Every morning I drink hot milk and beast: he sees with what heroism Russian boys the concentration of troops. and girls endure torture, and he asks in terror, out of humor with the War God. But they have eat an omelette ... There's not so much work Nevertheless, the lull on the front continues. no other idol, nor did they ever have. now ... Now we work only on a local scale. Pun "What is it?" A brute blinded by the light of German war prisoners say that this lull has a human superiority! The Angr iff wrote on June 28, 1941: "Then at ishments consist either of flogging or shooting. disastrous effect on our enemy's psychology. last ... in the radiant morning our army crossed Usually I have people flogged on their bare but The diary of the Secretary of the Secret Field When there is a relative silence all around him, the frontier and marched ahead. Here were the tocks. Police is an exceedingly valuable document. True, the German begins to think-and a thinking Ger first enemy dead. Here was the wonderful music April 16: Today's been a quiet day. The only it is not the first time we have read of monstrous man is only the eighth part of a German. His of bombs. What German's heart does not feel a thing I did was to settle a quarrel between the orders about shootings. True, it is not the first whole strength lay in his unthinking plunge for thrill of joy when he hears a melody like this? elder and the chief of the militia, and then I time we have found notes about murders and ward, lured on by the scent of his prey, urged Our dashing soldiers, who had seen triumph in thrashed three men and one woman who, in spite tortures in the diaries of German soldiers. But on by the Feuhrer's bellow. Now the German is Norway, Flanders and Greece, sweep onward, of the fact that it's forbidden, came to Budyen these were merely ref~rences in passing. Here left to his own cogitations and is asking himself blessed by the ancient God of War." novka looking for work ... Then I thrashed an the German himself has given us a full-length -what exactly has happened? The Germans were fond of the War God in those other female in uniform: she admitted she was a portrait of himself. Here the German appears be . The newspaper Angriff hastens to bring him days. They are very much like the savages who Red Cross worker ... I several times got vodka, fore the world in his true colors. to his senses. And who is it that comes forward grease the lips of their idol when they have luck cigarettes and sugar from the Rumanians. I'm I ask foreign newspapermen to give the diary in the role of preacher? One of the gangster in the day's hunting, and whip him when they happy again. At last Groschek got to the point of the Secretary of the Secret Police to all papers chiefs, their own Dr. Ley, who made a fortune haven't. of recommending that I should be awarded a cross of freedom-loving countries. Let the English and in cars, who was the foremost brawler in Ger Even the most dull-witted German understands with swords of the second rank for military serv Americans know about the work of Friedrich many and notorious for breaking the ribs of a that Dr. Levy is departing very markedly from the ices, and I received the award. Schmidt. Let the citizens of the neutral countries boon companion in one of their haunts. This actual truth. Nobody ever forced this war upon April 17: The girls (Maria, Anna and Vera) learn about it. The conquering German, the cav bandit writes dolefully: "We do not deny that the Germans. The Germans forced it upon the are singing and playing round my bed ... In the alier of cross and swords, the confidential col the blows inflicted on us have been fairly shrewd. whole world. As far back as a year ago the Ger evening some reports came in, and I went with league of Graf von ·Foerster, should be known Nor do we deny that last year and this we have mans wrote that "war is the summit of the Ger the interpreter to investigate on the spot. Worn- the world over. suffered reverses in North Africa . . . We a:dmit man spirit." What is this "constructive" labor of 10 11 which the rowdy Ley dares to speak? What did writes from Duisburg that she tried to clear out through our defenses-to push ahead. He may lands of which Turgenev wrote, to wait in these the Hitlerites do before the war? They "con to Dusseldorf, but on the way met her sister-in take fright at the mildew on the stagnant waters days. We hear the words "No material changes," structed" tanks and bombers. They tortured re law who was ciearing out from Dusseldorf to of the German army. He may attempt to bolster but the groans of our dear ones are borne f ron1 calcitrants in camps. Then they proceeded to con Duisburg. The German soldier sighs: the four up his authority with boastful communiques. He the west. struction : which meant that they destroyed War ton bombs have jarred even the stolid brains 'of is as crazy as ever, and this fact must not be for The yearning for vengeance lends silence to the saw, Rotterdam, Orleans, Belgrade, Minsk, Go German men and women. The soldier picks up a gotten. He acts upon the intuition that once took footsteps of our scouts and steadies the sniper's mel, Smolensk and hundreds of other cities, and newspaper which speaks of bombardments, of the him to Stalingrad and Africa. He is capable of hand. Twelve months ago hatred was new to us; trampled half of Europe underfoot. They were preparations of the Allies for landing troops. doing anything outrageously inept. He is even it seethed in us, almost suffocated us. Now we firmly convinced that the world had been created "We. shall not let them in," the newspapers de capable of undertaking an offensive. have passed through this to the cold, alert, right solely that the Germans might march through it. clare, but the soldier is extremely uneasy. For This lull cannot weaken us. For there are live eous hatred of last summer. They rejoiced as they watched our cities burning. 130 years now Germany has been fighting exclu coals in our hearts, and coals do not go out; coals sively on foreign soil, which no doubt explains the btirn the things they touch. If a man at the front What happened yesterday at the front? On one They guffawed when they ::nowed down refugees sector Red Army men took 18 German prisoners, from low altitudes. They drew inspiration from German fondness for the War God. forgets himself for a moment in a green wood, he is reminded of the foe by the rustle of leaves and on another artillerymen put out of action two en the spectacle of the children they had crippled. Now the war is clearly shifting toward Ger emy battalions, on a third a sniper picked off his Now the Uerman can read in an article penned many and the soldier feels uncomfortable. His the cry of birds. He remembers that Russian women and their children are roaming these 200th German. There is a Messerschmitt falling by Ley that peaceful toil is more beautiful than sister writes from Dresden, "Everyone is afraid mortally wounded by an excellent shot. There is a robbery. The German papers write, too, of the of the workers-the Ukrainians and Serbs-who woods, sheltering here from German hangmen. Every cottage tells him the country's terrible platoon of ours hauling an armored car they have dangers attendant upon the moral disintegration have been brought here. Robert says that if our seized. And all this is the daily round, the com of the German. army. It is neither conscience nor army only so much as flinches under the blows woe. Silence weighs heavily upon his heart-not with doubt, but with hatred. When all is quiet, mon task of an ordinary, quiet day. But the em the conclusions they have · reached in their own of the enemy, all this polyglot crew will fall upon bers are still glowing under the ashes., minds that are sapping the German soldier, but us." when the sun is shining in the sky and the earth is robed in emerald, the flame of wrath burns What material change has taken place during inaction. For the first time he is beginning to The soldier thinks to himself that Robert is re the day? Our hearts have become heated to a still realize that when supper is over, the bill is pre markably near the truth this time: 7,000,000 ene hotter. Who of us will ask: what are we fighting for? higher point. Our regiments have grown still sented along with the broken mirrors; that high mies are waiting, crouching ready to spring from stronger. The day of victory comes still closer. spirited marauding must wind up with heavy the very loins of robber Germany. Further on the We are fighting for our beautiful, our desecrated land. We are fighting for the greatest of all val The silence is tense with expectation. The Ger r'etribution. soldier reads what the Relazione Internazionali mans are awaiting retribution. Attacking, retreat The Hitlerites make ineffectual attempts to has to say: "We will not leave, we will resist. On ues : liberty. We are. led on by conscience, hot with indignation, and no words can console us. ing or digging themselves in-they see but one soothe their soldiers. Even while assuming the June 10 it will be three years since Italy entered end before them-death. We, too, are waiting. defensive, they say, Germany may still win the the war. Despite the fact that the Italian army We know that every minute brings our brothers new trouble. We know that the lovely Poltava But what we are awaiting is different: it is lib war. has no good results to show, Italy will carry on erty for our captive sisters, justice for the world, In the Donau Z eitung the sprightly Schramm with the war." This wrings a heavier sigh from country is racked with sobs in these days of lull on the front. We know how hard it is for ancient victory for Russia when her tribulations shall be declares, "A defensive war follows Germany's the soldier: he remembers June 10, 1940, when ended. indigenous traditions." For four years now these he was marching to Paris. Confident of Germany's Kiev, gentle Byelorussia and the pleasant Orel Schramms have been dinning into our ears that imminent triumph, Mussolini resolved to attack June, 1943 Germany's traditions are offensive, and nothing France. Having conveyed the declaration of war, but offensive. In those days there was only one the Italian Embassy did not leave Paris, but bar word in their vocabulary-"lightning"-so when ricaded itself in the house on Rue Varennes. The did the bandit pass to defensive warfare? Only Embassy officials were awaiting their masters' Bombing and Biology when he was surrounded by honest people. Ger arrival. It was then that they bawled: "We will many's traditions were those of assault. Hitler not leave; we will resist." JN1938 the Nazi magazine Archiv fuer Biologie the bombing of German towns. I cannot quote prided himself on falling upon one country after Nobody touched them. Paris, now frantic, was und Rassengesell;schaft published an article the Archiv fuer Biologie und Rassengesellschaft another on Saturday night when peaceful civilians racing for dear life along the highways. Four "On the Usefulness of Aerial Bombardments on the subject, but here is a quotation from Goer least of all expected it. days later the Germans entered the city. From the Viewpoint of Racial Selection and So ing's National Zeitung of July 18: "We mourn not In 1870 the Germans, starting with an offen Three years have passed. Italy has :Jst every cial Hygiene." The author declared: "A person only the death of our fellow citizens, but those sive, pushed on to the center of France. During thing and tomorrow, if not today, Germany will whose nervous system is defective cannot stand shocks which all residents of Essen have to suffer. the First World War, they seized Belgium, North lose her foremost vassal, The German soldier re heavy aerial bombardments. Thus, aerial bom Bombardments inevitably affect the nervous sys ern France, Rumania, Poland and a portion of calls the Italians who were stationed in the Uk bardments will help us to discover the neuras tem, and how many sensitive natures have been Russia. In this war Hitler has been attempting raine with him last summer. They are no more. thenics and remove them from social life." crippled forever by the barbarous raids, how an offensive for thre~ and a half years. The Fueh And where are the Hungarians? It is said that This article was written a year after Germa:n many talented adolescents, how many frail Ger rer used to talk of "Germany's offensive tradi they have gone home ... Even Rumanians are bombers had destroyed the Spanish town of Guer man women have been affected with nervous ail tions." The Germans forced their way into Egypt; as rare as old coins nowadays. nica. In 1939 they ravaged Warsaw. On May 14, ments, frequently incurable ..." they sojourned on the banks of the Volga. If True, the Fuehrer is recruiting village elders 1940, they demolished Rotterdam. On April 6, We still await a competent article in the Archiv Schramm now keeps harping on the traditions and "police" to replace the Rumanians, but it is a 1941, they burned Belgrade. Through the autumn fuer Biologie und Rassengesellschaft. No doubt of defensive war, it means that the minds of case of substitute for substitutt ... The Germans of 1940 they bombed London every night. In 1941- they will be able to convince Essen that air raids German soldiers have to be distracted. have to fight alone now. They did their robbery 42 they carried death to Leningrad, Chernigov, are useful, as the bombs hit neurasthenics. What is worrying the German soldier still in in company, but they will be called to account Gomel, Livny, Yelets and countless other Russian Can it be that the four-tanners of our Allies Orel and Belgorod? For one thing, he sees no way separately. towns. have turned the staff of this respectable magazine out. He receives letters from home; his wife We know that Hitler may attempt to break Now the German press protests hotly against into neurasthenics? ... · December, 1943 12 13