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GermanThe first private diary by an officer of the Red Army to be published in German. It was written by Vladimir Gelfand, a young Ukrainian Jew, under the immediate impact of the fighting during the advance on Berlin and of his experiences during the first year of the occupation.
At the front, Vladimir Gelfand experienced violence, destruction and the constant threat of death; he encountered comradeship as well as baseness. At the end of April 1945 he entered Berlin with the Red Army as a victor. Initially without a permanent assignment, he sought opportunities to escape the dreary life of the barracks. Young, good-looking and never violent, he made acquaintances among the civilian population. His candid notes show that encounters between Germans and Soviet soldiers were shaped not only by hatred, contempt and rape.
Gelfand detested everything military. The strict ban on private contact with Germans and on independent excursions angered him. He fulfilled his duties as a member of a transport unit of the occupying power and took his responsibilities as a Party member seriously. But after the murderous fighting he wanted at last “freedom — the freedom to live, to think, to work, to enjoy life.” This aspiration brought him into conflict with superiors and comrades, who accused him of indiscipline or dismissed him as an aesthete. After returning home, Gelfand was unable to realize his ambition of becoming a writer and producing a truthful war novel.
As an honest chronicler, Gelfand does not conceal breaches of discipline in his own ranks, acts of revenge, looting or crimes against civilians. Never before have we been able to look so deeply into the thoughts and feelings of a victor from Stalin’s army after Germany’s collapse.
In her afterword, Elke Scherstjanoi traces the stages of Gelfand’s life and his long, contradictory struggle to come to terms with his wartime experiences.
