Vladimir Gelfand's son, who lives in Berlin, discovered the diaries of his father, a Soviet officer who emerges from the pages not as a ruthless conqueror driven by revenge and the desire for booty, but as a sensitive observer and participant in events.

Nineteen-year-old Gelfand grew up in a typical working-class environment in the southern regions of the Soviet Union, which were undergoing rapid industrialization during the 1930s. In the spring of 1942 he went to the front and belonged to the proletarian Jewish minority whose lives were intertwined with the communist movement. He witnessed heavy fighting on the southern flank near Kharkov and the Red Army's retreat toward Rostov. Later he fought at Stalingrad in the 15th Guards Rifle Division, presenting himself as a convinced communist, "going into battle as a Party fighter."

By August 1944, as the war moved toward its end, he increasingly encountered columns of German prisoners of war. In his diary he describes the fury of Red Army soldiers toward the prisoners. After two and a half years at the front, his sense of duty has begun to dull. The entries show exhaustion, but also pride and anticipation of victory.

During numerous journeys through occupied Germany he meets people and takes photographs, recording everyday life in the defeated country both on film and in his diary. Although he belongs to the victors, he does not elevate himself above the defeated or abuse his role. His notes show that he condemns violence by his comrades against German women. In his own encounters with women there is not even a hint of violence.

"He was a sensitive young man, not a warrior, not a man of force," historian Elke Scherstjanoi writes (p. 332). Gelfand was well educated and had literary ambitions, yet his concern for social justice did not extend to the defeated Germans. He watches the suffering of Germany's starving population with cool detachment and keeps his distance from their misery. Scherstjanoi concludes: "The twenty-three-year-old Vladimir Gelfand was not the unbiased observer we might wish him to be today" (p. 335). It is precisely this ambiguity that makes his notes so valuable: they do not fit familiar historical and political narratives. Gelfand was not a fighter against violence within the Red Army, but neither did he become an occupier driven by a thirst for revenge.

Johannes Klotz
(Bremervoerde)