Aktsenty
Soviet Officer Revealed the Secrets of the Second World War: Told It Without Embellishment
3 May 2020
Author: Marina Levitan
A Soviet officer revealed the whole truth about the Second World War after his death.
In books and history textbooks, the Second World War is presented as
one great feat of courage, heroism, and superhuman effort.
Unfortunately, war also has another side — one that historians
and propagandists try to hide and avoid publicizing — and the
Second World War was no exception.
It is almost impossible to find truthful testimony about the darker
side of the period from 1941 to 1945, but such testimony does exist,
and it makes the blood run cold. Soviet officer Vladimir Gelfand
described, without embellishment or censorship, everything that
happened in Berlin shortly before victory.
Vladimir Gelfand on a bicycle. Photo: BBC News Ukraine.
On the road to victory, Soviet soldiers raped countless German
women. This is precisely the side of the Second World War that people
still try to hide from public view. At the same time, Russian
propaganda media dispute and deny that atrocities against German women
took place.
Lieutenant Vladimir Gelfand recorded what was happening in Berlin in
his diary. He described the events in great detail. It is noteworthy
that the officer kept his notes from the beginning of the war in 1941
until its end. His manuscripts speak of the lack of order and
discipline in the Red Army — meager food rations, lice, dirt and
disease, as well as crime and antisemitism.
Vladimir Gelfand described how Soviet troops surrounded and defeated
a German women’s battalion. He wrote that the women called
themselves avengers for men who had been killed at the front. The
lieutenant remarked that they should have been executed immediately.
He then described seeing women with bundles and suitcases in the
streets of ruined Berlin. During their conversation it emerged that the
women were relatives. They told the Red Army officer that a young woman
had been raped by Soviet “liberators,” and her mother said
she could not come to terms with what had happened. The young woman
said that around twenty men had forced themselves on her,
“sticking it in and sticking it in.” The lieutenant then
wrote that the young woman asked him to stay with her so that the
violence would not happen again.
Vitaly Gelfand, son of Soviet officer Vladimir Gelfand. Photo: BBC News Ukraine.
Vladimir Gelfand’s son Vitaly said that Red Army soldiers came
to Germany with a desire for revenge and killing. He explained this by
the fact that they had marched through towns and villages destroyed and
burned by the Germans. They had seen the atrocities committed by German
soldiers against girls in Belarus, Ukraine, and the European part of
Russia — how they killed and raped them.
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