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| Каждому из нас есть о чем вспомнить... В каждой семье из поколения в поколение пересказываются смешные и грустные, горькие или героические события, которые превращаются в семейные легенды. Мы обязаны это сохранить. Не дайте умереть истории своей семьи. Напишите о ней здесь. Напишите о том, что случилось с вами. Оставьте большую историю историкам. Напишите честную историю сами. | ||
| Jeder von uns hat etwas, an das er sich erinnert ... Jede Familie hat lustige und traurige, bittere und heroische Ereignisse, die von Generation zur Generation erzahlt werden und in der Familie zu Legenden werden. Wir mussen sie bewahren. Lassen Sie Ihre Familiengeschichte nicht sterben. Schreiben Sie hier daruber. Schreiben Sie, was Ihnen passiert ist. Uberlassen Sie die gro?e Geschichte den Historikern. Schreiben Sie eine ehrliche Geschichte selbst. | ||
| Кожному з нас є про що згадати ... У кожній родині з покоління в покоління переказуються смішні й сумні, гіркі або героїчні події, які перетворюються в сімейні легенди.Ми зобов'язані це зберегти. Не дайте зникнути історії своєї сім'ї. Напишіть про неї тут. Напишіть про те, що трапилося з вами. Залиште велику історію історикам. Напишіть чесну історію самі. | ||
| All of us have something to remember. Each family have funny, sad, bitter or even heroic tales to tell, passing them from one generation to another, turning family history to family legends. Don't let family history to fade in the past - send your stories to the Future. Tell us here what happens to you today. Write your own one history |
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© memuarist.com
RussianMemuarist.com — Vladimir Natanovich Gelfand
All of us have something to remember. In every family, funny and sad, bitter or heroic events are retold from generation to generation and become family legends. We must preserve them. Do not let your family history die. Write about it here. Write about what happened to you. Leave grand history to historians. Write an honest history yourself.
Vladimir Natanovich Gelfand was born on 1 March 1923 in the village of Novo-Arkhangelsk, Kirovohrad Region. From May 1942 through November 1946 he took part in the war. A member of the Communist Party from 1943. In 1952 he graduated from Gorky University in Molotov, now Perm. From 1952 to 1983 he taught social studies and history at a vocational school. He left three sons. He died on 25 November 1983 in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine.
He is known as the author of published diaries about his years of service in the Red Army, 1941–1946, which have repeatedly appeared in German and Swedish translation.
Website about Vladimir Gelfand: gelfand.de
“Diaries. 1941–1946”
Vladimir Natanovich Gelfand
Life dates: 01.03.1923–25.11.1983
Country: Ukraine
City: Dnipropetrovsk
Source: zhurnal.lib.ru
Language: Russian
Published: 30.06.2015–05.07.2015
Events: 512
27.04.1941 — 1941-1
After the Sunday volunteer work my head hurts. So many impressions. I
need to think over a great deal, remember a great deal, and only then
write everything down...
More
01.05.1941 — 1941-2
It is already the first of May; again there are new events, and again no possibility of writing about them this evening...
More
02.05.1941 — 1941-3
It has been a very, very long time since we held a literary Sunday
gathering, and therefore the program of the forthcoming one promised to
be very interesting. Cherishing that hope, I went to Lena Malkina, and
we agreed to attend together...
More
02.07.1941 — 1941-4
The war changed all my plans for the summer holidays. I had already
passed almost all my examinations; only mathematics remained—my
most disliked and difficult subject...
More
18.09.1941 — 1941-5
They began evacuating the families of city-council members and police
officers. Car horns sounded again and again; day and night thousands of
residents were leaving the city. Rumors began to spread. Those
remaining looked indignantly at those departing...
More
27.09.1941 — 1941-6
The day before yesterday I visited the Lermontov House museum. I had
already been in this house back in 1937... After looking at the
exhibits and reading the visitors’ book, I left a rather
incoherent entry. Something like: let them know what we are made of; I
too am a man of substance...
More
06.10.1941 — 1941-7
We settled on the grass and the platoon commander began introducing us
to the disciplinary regulations. What grated on me was the
leaders’ lack of restraint and their mutual desire to show off in
front of us, trying to gain authority by methods that inspired no
authority...
More
07.10.1941 — 1941-8
At dawn Galya came and said that Uncle Lusya was asking for my
galoshes! Another brazen stunt. He asks me for my galoshes or my new
boots. And what about me—where am I supposed to go without
galoshes? Sit at home all day? No indeed. Of course I refused...
More
08.10.1941 — 1941-9
I read and listened to the radio. The exploits of some soldiers and
individual units inspire pride and amazement. One soldier, for example,
made a dummy from his clothes and forced the Germans to fire at it with
machine guns and mortars for several minutes, while meanwhile he
changed his firing position and opened return fire...
More
09.10.1941 — 1941-10
In the morning we again had universal military-training classes, from
nine to eleven. My movements in formation are hesitant, which draws
attention. Our troops have abandoned the city of Orel...
More
11.10.1941 — 1941-11
Yesterday Uncle Isaac was drafted into the army. It was unexpected and
sudden. We spent all day working in the vegetable garden, and in the
evening, on coming home, we learned the news. Until late at night we
saw him off, exhausted by worry and bustle. Anya cried a little...
More
13.10.1941 — 1941-12
I spent many hours in the park reading Maupassant. I tried to write
poetry but nothing came of it. People were milling around everywhere.
There is no secluded place here like the one in Shevchenko Park. I am
not trying to write prose because it takes too much time...
More
15.10.1941 — 1941-13
At military training we were told that the situation was serious and
that we must be ready to be called to the front at any moment. Today
the classes passed calmly and the “fair-haired ones” did
not bother me...
More
16.10.1941 — 1941-14
My aunt’s apartment has turned into an inn. Yesterday two Jews
came here and told me—my aunt was not at home—that they had
brought her sunflower seeds, that they wanted to give them to her, and
so on and so forth. Finally, after many promises, they came to the real
purpose of their visit: they announced that they wanted to spend the
night...
More
21.10.1941 — 1941-15
Of course, compared with France, Belgium, Holland and Poland, our
troops are fighting the Germans heroically. But if one compares the
USSR with poorly armed China, heroic Spain and unarmed Albania, it
becomes rather strange and very shameful for our country...
More
22.10.1941 — 1941-16
At military training I was again bullied by hooligans whom even the
squad commander fears. Indulging them in every way, he even quarreled
with the commander of another squad for their sake. And, what
especially helps them, he keeps declaring endless breaks. When they
literally pelted me with stones, he turned away...
More
23.10.1941 — 1941-17
In the streets and in the park, in the bread shop, in the queue for
kerosene—everywhere one hears whispering. A terrible whisper,
cheerful yet hateful. People are talking about Jews. For now they still
speak timidly, looking around...
More
26.10.1941 — 1941-18
Today, instead of military-training classes, we worked all day on a
collective farm harvesting cabbage, pulling it up by hand. Everyone,
with only one exception, headed by the junior commanders—a rank
assigned to them in our training course—are hooligans,
antisemites and scoundrels...
More
29.10.1941 — 1941-19
The classes passed relatively calmly. A couple of times somebody threw
a stone at me and hit me on the head, but I restrained myself and did
not respond. One scoundrel nicknamed me “Abram”; I do not
know why, since I had had nothing to do with him. I paid no attention
to that either—or rather, pretended not to notice...
More
30.10.1941 — 1941-20
Thus the capture of Odessa, or, as it was reported, “its
abandonment by our troops for strategic reasons,” caused almost
no dissatisfaction or disbelief in the supposedly voluntary but
compelled surrender of the city. But Kharkov—now I do not believe
that it too was given up voluntarily for strategic reasons...
More
31.10.1941 — 1941-21
“You are a loafer. You would not even get bread for Grandmother.
You read books and listen to the radio all day. Why did you not get a
job? You have settled on your aunt’s neck and decided that is how
things should be.” I answered, told her things, tried to explain,
but she kept interrupting and would not let me speak, forcing me to
talk louder than usual...
More
02.11.1941 — 1941-22
In the daytime I went to the bathhouse, for the first time in half a
month. All the rest of the time, apart from military training, I spent
standing in line for bread. Today I managed to get Grandmother fresh
bread at 4 rubles 10 kopecks a kilogram. She was delighted and even
offered me a little sour cream...
More
03.11.1941 — 1941-23
There were many people in the garden by the railway station. Refugees.
They were dirty and exhausted and reminded me of Mother’s and my
evacuation from Dnipropetrovsk...
More
05.11.1941 — 1941-24
At the district Komsomol committee I was offered a job, which I gladly
accepted. As of today I am an employee of the repair-and-restoration
communications column of the 4th line section...
More
06.11.1941 — 1941-25
I bought gray bread at the military shop; there has been none like it
in the city for several days. There is only black bread at 90 kopecks
and white at 4 rubles 10. Neither is worthwhile: the first because it
is badly baked and constantly stale, the second because of the price...
More
07.11.1941 — 1941-26
Would not the cheerful life of the trenches be better, the heated life
of military service, connected with danger, bloody battle scenes and
self-sacrifice for the good of the Motherland? But no—instead,
lonely seclusion under the authority of several bosses...
More
09.11.1941 — 1941-27
Something heavy and inexorable has enveloped my mind. I feel that
somewhere deep inside me there is hidden a heroic breadth, an
inexhaustible source of energy, a powerful mind, and unrestrained
daring and courage...
More
20.11.1941 — 1941-28
The other day, for example, when the horse had to be watered and the
groom had failed to do it in time, he said, addressing me and
apparently not yet suspecting that I was Jewish: “Laziness is
probably in their nature, those Jews.” Another time: “You
people know how to trade, but not how to work.”...
More
03.05.1942 — 1942-1
The May Day holidays are over, the day off is over, and I am still here
in Essentuki. Yesterday I received a letter from Olya in Magnitogorsk.
She works as an inspector at a factory. Ira Radchenko and Maya
Belokopytova live in the same city with her. They study at the
Metallurgical Institute, and the latter has enlisted in the army...
More
04.05.1942 — 1942-2
Today Uncle Isaac came back from the front. He has lost a great deal of
weight. He tells many stories about his life in the army, but nothing
about the front—he did not even see any dead because he was not
allowed near the forward positions; they only transported wounded men...
More
06.05.1942 — 1942-3
Today the decisive event in my life occurred: I was drafted into the
army as a regular Red Army soldier. I was completely unprepared, and
the call-up came suddenly at nine in the morning: report to the
military commissariat at ten with my belongings. I arrived at eleven,
but even that turned out to be too early...
More
07.05.1942 — 1942-4
Today I sent a letter to Essentuki, a postcard with a portrait of D.
Diderot. In Armavir I walked along the main streets and through the
bazaar. Lard costs 150 rubles a kilogram, but I did not buy any. It
turns out that everyone in our group is non-Party except me. That is
good; I will ask to become a political instructor...
More
08.05.1942 — 1942-5
Camp. Beautiful scenery. I am sitting on the roof of a dugout assigned
as quarantine for newly arrived soldiers. A few steps from me is a
steep precipice. At its foot is a narrow low bank beside a full and
turbulent river flowing from somewhere in the mountains...
More
11.05.1942 — 1942-6
We had no training all day: we went to the bathhouse, had injections...
I did not have the injections—how am I supposed to train and
march when they affect me so painfully?...
More
12.05.1942 — 1942-7
A few days ago—the day before yesterday, I think—the
company military commissar summoned me and asked whether I could write.
I answered that I write poetry and am fond of literature. “He
should go on the editorial board,” he told the commander who was
present. “Do you know German?” he then asked. I answered
that I could write and speak it...
More
20.05.1942 — 1942-8
Only toward evening did we arrive here. According to the map, we now
have 145 kilometers left before reaching the shores of Crimea. Fierce
battles have flared there and, according to the latest Sovinformburo
report, fighting is already taking place in the area of Kerch...
More
21.05.1942 — 1942-9
Many sergeants and other commanders, refusing to recognize me as an
equal, looked at me contemptuously as at someone who had accidentally
slipped into their family. The company commander said to the
lieutenant: “He was appointed commander?!” The lieutenant
confirmed it. “Gelfand?!” the company commander asked again
and, waving his hand, walked away...
More
28.05.1942 — 1942-10
When I went on kitchen duty, people advised me to steal a wooden spoon,
because my shallow iron one is very inconvenient. But I could neither
ask for one, because I was sure they would not give it to me, nor steal
one, because I knew I would be caught...
More
29.05.1942 — 1942-11
My shot turned out to be the most accurate of all. The mortar round
fell beyond the target, thirty to fifty meters high of it. My neighbor
Vogelman’s sighting device was torn off when he fired. I
suggested that the battalion commissar test the rounds from those
mortars whose shots had failed...
More
31.05.1942 — 1942-12
I ordered the crew to fire. The mortar round fell into the very center
of the target. The next round also hit. In all, five out of ten rounds
hit the target and five fell close to it, forming a ring around it. The
results were better than with the battalion mortar...
More
01.06.1942 — 1942-13
We leave today. Where to has not been said, but by train to the
north... I wrote the poem “Mortar,” a letter, and entries
in my diary. Only around twelve o’clock was I sent first to the
supply platoon, then to the third company, then to the fortified-area
headquarters, and finally into the field...
More
02.06.1942 — 1942-14
We ride and ride—it is good to travel! Only the crowding is
extraordinary. Terrible to say, an entire company is packed into one
railway car. There are all kinds of people here...
More
03.06.1942 — 1942-15
Reveille has not yet sounded. We are, after all, traveling to
Stalingrad. The sun rose as if to see us and turned crimson. How good
you are, sun!...
More
04.06.1942 — 1942-16
The city began with suburbs ten or fifteen kilometers away from its
center. The roofs, like the houses themselves, were wooden. Many houses
were very old, but beautifully made and painted. This ancient wooden
city on the Volga stretched on and on for a very long time...
More
05.06.1942 — 1942-17
Nine in the evening. It is getting dark. Today the commissar spent the
entire day giving us political instruction. Every day I like him more
and more for his firmness, strength of will and inexhaustible energy...
More
06.06.1942 — 1942-18
I am preparing to apply for Party membership. I want to go into battle
as a Communist. I shall conduct political work, with which I am
somewhat familiar and which is close to me. In battle I swear to be
first and to earn the rank of lieutenant...
More
08.06.1942 – 11.06.1942 — 1942-19
Rain, rain—endless and lazy, reminding me of Novorossiysk. True,
the ground here is firmer and does not turn to mush underfoot after
rain, stick to one’s feet or become a swamp...
More
12.06.1942 — 1942-20
From five yesterday evening until eight this morning we dug a dugout
for our crew. From about 8:30 until four in the afternoon we rested,
apart from walking a kilometer for lunch. Now we are digging a reserve
position in front of the main one...
More
13.06.1942 — 1942-21
At dawn. I worked until first light, digging a trench. Now Khaustov, a
soldier in my unit, is digging. This man arouses grumbling pity in me:
he is not as old as he looks and not as weak as he wants to appear...
More
15.06.1942 — 1942-22
The lieutenant apparently forgot that we had to finish digging the
storage pits and was the first to fall asleep after breakfast. Everyone
else lay down after him without reminding him about the stores. Today
is already the fifth day we have been digging trenches intended for
defensive fighting. The shots seem to have become clearer and closer...
More
16.06.1942 — 1942-23
All the books I had brought with me I gave to the soldiers to use for
cigarette paper. Only Ivanov’s book about Lermontov remains with
me for now. It is impossible to carry everything. Emergency food
rations, including concentrates and rusks for five days, eighty-five
cartridges, and a few other necessary things—all of this weighs
terribly on me, but is necessary...
More
18.06.1942 — 1942-24
They also say that in our sector, near Izyum, the Germans were driven
back eight kilometers. They say we were helped by a weapon called the
“Katyusha,” which burns everything in its path...
More
19.06.1942 — 1942-25
My stomach is terribly upset. Diarrhea and vomiting. I went to the
medical orderly but did not find him. Early this morning the soldiers
of our platoon had told him about my illness, but he merely advised,
again through the soldiers, that I eat nothing and offered no other
help...
More
20.06.1942 — 1942-26
At last the medical orderly came today. He said I was deliberately
poisoning my stomach in the hope of being sent to hospital. He said
they would treat me here, with discipline...
More
22.06.1942 — 1942-27
I am writing in the dugout. The air raids continue even now. Khaustov,
my soldier, has completely lost his nerve and has even become ill with
fright. He is vomiting. His hands are shaking and his face is
distorted...
More
23.06.1942 — 1942-28
Yesterday I sewed on two “sigilki,” as they call them
here—two little triangles on each collar tab—and became a
sergeant. “What a miracle: at breakfast a soldier came up to us,
and at lunch a sergeant,” the cooks said, pointing at me...
More
25.06.1942 – 26.06.1942 — 1942-29
A halt. We are riding in a truck toward the sunrise. We have already
traveled more than a hundred kilometers. There are enormous numbers of
troops on the road. Everyone is heading in the same direction as we
are—or we are heading in the same direction as everyone else.
Masses of vehicles...
More
27.06.1942 — 1942-30
I asked him to assign me to reconnaissance, but the company commander
appointed two other sergeants. I was unlucky. I did not get a chance to
take a risk. And I like taking risks. I did not get the chance to learn
much that was new, to observe closely, and perhaps to enter combat...
More
28.06.1942 — 1942-31
Shells burst here as if we were on the front line, although the combat
positions are at least five kilometers away. Yesterday a shell fragment
killed one cow and another cow had its leg torn off. The soldiers
bought up the meat. We were too late...
More
01.07.1942 — 1942-32
What a shameless man Khaustov is, though! What an unpleasant person!
Yesterday he slept the whole day. I did not wake him because, first, I
was washing clothes and writing at the time, and second, I decided to
let him get enough sleep so that by evening he would not bother me
either. But no such luck!...
More
02.07.1942 — 1942-33
It turns out that all the cows were taken away without even giving the
villagers receipts. One woman who refused to part with her cow was shot
by some lieutenant—wounded in the stomach—and now she is
dying. No one is even trying to save her...
More
03.07.1942 — 1942-34
We began talking about maps and the situation at the fronts. The
captain said that our maps are poor now, worse than the German ones,
because our command had not thought that the Germans would occupy so
much territory, so far into the interior, and had prepared maps only as
far as the Kiev Region inclusive...
More
04.07.1942 – 05.07.1942 — 1942-35
Khaustov fell asleep again. I came over, took the rifles lying beside
him and carried them to another place, and moved some of our things
away from the mortar—he heard nothing. I woke him up. I began
telling him that we could be shot for this and that people do not
behave like that at the front. He called me shit, told me to get fucked
in the mouth, and used other obscenities...
More
06.07.1942 – 07.07.1942 — 1942-36
We are somewhere near Slavyansk, in the village of Tumanovo. We arrived
late. There are still no vehicles. I am terribly tired; I have no
strength to write. We are about to move again. My feet are swollen,
covered with blisters and boils. It is hard and I want to sleep...
More
11.07.1942 – 13.07.1942 — 1942-37
For six days we have been making our way out of encirclement. I have
neither strength nor patience left. We are walking, at least two
hundred kilometers. These few days seem to me like a month, a year,
something unimaginable and crushing, like a nightmare...
More
18.07.1942 – 19.07.1942 — 1942-38
“You do not understand the situation, Comrade Gelfand; you do not
know what position we are in now,” and he ordered me to bring a
shovel so that we could bury the weapons. I asked that we at least keep
one company mortar—it weighs only ten kilograms—to which
the lieutenant replied, “Then carry it on your own
shoulders.”...
More
20.07.1942 — 1942-39
Belensky farmstead. Today is already our second day here. Troops keep
coming and coming: individuals, small groups, and large units. Everyone
looks exhausted and tormented. Many have changed into civilian clothes,
most have thrown away their weapons, and some commanders have torn off
their insignia...
More
21.07.1942 — 1942-40
Nikolaevka, where there had been a crossing until now, has, according
to many accounts, been occupied by the Germans. Ahead, around the
farmsteads and roads, airborne troops have supposedly also landed,
according to rumors and talk. Nothing definite is known, however. Now,
this morning, we are moving farther on by cart...
More
22.07.1942 – 26.07.1942 — 1942-41
On the way back I came across an NKVD border-guard post. There they
took my rifle and the thirty-six cartridges remaining in my ammunition
pouch, giving me a receipt. They kept me hanging around there all day
until evening. They gave me no food and spoke to me sternly. I did not
like that at all...
More
28.07.1942 — 1942-42
I decided to leave. I began asking the soldiers about my chances of
success if I escaped. One soldier who had already been here several
days advised me to go to Kotelnikovo, where there was supposedly a
military transit point. He advised me to leave through the vegetable
gardens, bypassing the guard posts...
More
30.07.1942 – 31.07.1942 — 1942-43
During this search I came upon a train carrying evacuees to Stalingrad.
I managed to squeeze into one of the cars. That was on the evening of
the 27th. On the 28th I arrived in Stalingrad. In the evacuees’
car they treated me to a piece of lard and tea with sugar and gave me
bread for the road...
More
02.08.1942 — 1942-44
I was sent to Raigorod, beyond Stalingrad... Here too they put us
through fire, water, brass pipes, and the commanders’ abuse...
The regimental commander ordered that we be fed and sent to the Volga
the next day to bathe and wash our clothes...
More
15.08.1942 — 1942-45
But as soon as the new lieutenant arrived, he became assistant platoon
commander, taking a sergeant’s post. This deeply wounded his
first-sergeant pride; he became a minister without portfolio, although
he did have a folder. From then on he gave me no peace, asking all
sorts of tricky questions that often led to arguments...
More
20.08.1942 – 23.08.1942 — 1942-46
Yesterday we fired the mortar. My crew destroyed and scattered many
Hitlerites and even an enemy ammunition truck. Our two platoons as a
whole destroyed and dispersed up to three companies of enemy infantry.
Those are only the first fruits. We held back the Germans’
furious assault, but their main forces bypassed us and encircled us...
More
30.08.1942 – 03.09.1942 — 1942-47
When Gorshkov received it, he stated quite seriously—and I am
sure that is exactly what he will do: “I’ll give everyone
half a mug and keep the rest for myself.” Ah, he floors me. I
would expose certain people... And these people have been recommended
for decorations...
More
03.09.1942 – 04.09.1942 — 1942-48
One lively little boy happily told the soldiers about his good fortune:
before leaving, the Germans had driven livestock into this village and
distributed it among the inhabitants for fattening, but when they fled
they did not have time to take it away. A great deal of livestock has
now remained with the local people. We slept the night in this village.
I was terribly tired from walking. Blisters...
More
06.09.1942 — 1942-49
For the third day we have been fighting fierce battles with an enemy
trying to go over to the offensive. Day and night the fire of rifles,
submachine guns, mortars, and guns of every caliber does not cease; the
Germans relentlessly shower the earth with them, trying to break us
with their power and shake our spirit...
More
08.09.1942 — 1942-50
A strange thing: during all my time at the front I have not seen a
single dead person, although I have been under enemy fire more than
once. Even today small shell fragments struck me several times. And
during tonight’s walk to supper and soon afterward to breakfast,
bullets whistled right over my ear...
More
09.09.1942 — 1942-51
The political instructor was in my trench. For a long time he explained
the duties of a squad commander. He scolded me harshly but fairly
because the bedrolls in my crew had not been rolled up, and for other
shortcomings in the squad for which I am responsible...
More
10.09.1942 – 11.09.1942 — 1942-52
The political instructor told me how to keep a diary. After that
incident when he happened to discover various foolish things he saw in
the diary, I now write the way the political instructor advised me. He
says that in a diary one should write only about the company’s
work, the course of battles, and the skillful leadership of the company
command...
More
12.09.1942 — 1942-53
I am delighted! After all, if it were not for the political instructor,
who would guide my actions? My rifle shines now and the mortar is in
order. Every action of mine is under attentive and sensitive
supervision...
More
13.09.1942 – 14.09.1942 — 1942-54
I remained assistant platoon commander and crew commander. Now I have
my hands full. We fired again during the night. I sent off ten mortar
rounds; once again there was a hitch with the firing...
More
17.09.1942 – 18.09.1942 — 1942-55
Today I wrote a long letter to Olya. In it I challenged my fellow
students to compete in study and combat. I sent greetings to everyone I
knew...
More
27.09.1942 — 1942-56
Now about my belongings. They have ruined me completely, robbed me. Of
course the political instructor had a hand in it; more than that, he is
the chief instigator—or rather, the person capable of, and
probably the one who carried out, this filthy deed. They rummaged
everywhere among my things, and the result of the search was
theft—or, more gently put, confiscation...
More
30.09.1942 — 1942-57
During the night the newly arrived men dug themselves trenches, and at
the same time we fired the mortar. We fired an enormous number of
rounds—our men were attacking and we supported them. Today we
will probably leave here. The company commander and political
instructor think we are going to Dubovy Ovrag. It was retaken from the
Germans last night...
More
13.10.1942 — 1942-58
The lieutenant is a shouter too. It has gone so far that today they
made me number three in the crew, removing me as squad commander. No
wonder a frog jumped into my soup last night; I bit it in the middle
and nearly ate it...
More
22.10.1942 — 1942-59
Now I am number three in the crew. This is how it happened: once, while
the men of our platoon were being tested on their knowledge of the
mortar, I failed to answer one question. All the soldiers of my crew
answered with top marks, and I was the one who had trained them...
More
23.10.1942 — 1942-60
Today for the first time in my life I drank vodka—two hundred
grams at once. I ate my last piece of bread with it, so for the rest of
the day I have no bread. The vodka made my head spin a little, but I
was not drunk, although the political instructor and the lieutenant
laughed and said they would not give me more than fifty grams...
More
21.12.1942 – 29.12.1942 — 1942-61
There are many other appalling disorders, but people—not
everyone, admittedly—blame the Jews for everything and openly
call all of us “yids.” I get it worse than anyone, although
I am certainly not guilty of any of this. They take out their anger on
me and shout the insulting word “yid” at me...
More
25.01.1943 — 1943-1
A month and a half has already passed since I landed in the medical
battalion and, fortunately, parted from my own unit. By the time I left
the unit my position there had become extremely precarious and
unpleasant...
More
26.01.1943 – 27.01.1943 — 1943-2
I am in no mood to write. I learned of the terrible ingratitude with which my trust was repaid...
More
31.01.1943 — 1943-3
Three more men, non-Russians, were brought here. I do not even know
what nationality they are. They are all terribly brazen. They poke into
everything. One of them, in front of me, supposedly examining my bag,
started looking into its contents. I tried to take the bag away from
him and spilled my ink...
More
01.02.1943 — 1943-4
I got up early today but managed to catch only the end of the latest
news. Our troops captured sixteen generals, many colonels, and five
thousand enemy soldiers and officers. In the Stalingrad area, as the
captured generals stated, there had been not 220,000 but 330,000 men...
More
02.02.1943 — 1943-5
I am still quartered in a private home. We have been divided into
platoons according to where we live, but so far that has done nothing
to improve the timely distribution of food without the pushing and
crowding. Twice a day, along with 800 grams of bread, we receive half a
bowl of liquid called soup here. That is all...
More
03.02.1943 – 04.02.1943 — 1943-6
Today at the house one of the soldiers, a Tatar, stole bread from the
landlady. She caught him in the act. In the evening I discovered that
my iron spoon had disappeared...
More
15.02.1943 — 1943-7
The Tatar who shares my quarters amuses me with his stupidity and
ignorance. He says Rostov is larger than the Donbas, that people come
to the Donbas to work for three years and then leave, and therefore the
Donbas has a small population. Together with our kulak-minded landlady
he curses our government...
More
17.02.1943 — 1943-8
Yesterday the three of us agreed among ourselves and, when the landlady
went out, each filled a pocket with sunflower seeds. She will not give
us any anyway, although they—the owners—crack seeds all
day, and although we gave them all our candies, seven each, they still
eat the seeds themselves...
More
19.02.1943 — 1943-9
Today I was discharged back to my unit, but when I asked whether I
would leave here before the 23rd, the doctors conferred and decided to
keep me until the evening of the 23rd because I am supposed to recite
poems...
More
23.02.1943 – 24.02.1943 — 1943-10
Hospital office. After I read my poems at the evening gathering, a girl
from Gomel—I still do not dare ask her surname and first
name—called me over and spent a long time rapturously praising my
poems...
More
27.02.1943 — 1943-11
Today I had a furious quarrel with the landlady and told her openly
everything I thought of her. She swore more obscenely than ever, cursed
“the Jews who have sat themselves on our necks,” cursed
Soviet power, and then brutally beat her grandson Kolka, calling him
“Soviet spawn” and a “Soviet whore”...
More
01.03.1943 — 1943-12
And so I set out on March 1, the day I turned twenty. They gave me two
certificates. One stated that I had received no money in the hospitals
for two months; the other was a certificate of my wound, with an
addition stating that, as a man wounded on the Stalingrad Front, I was
entitled to receive the wound badge...
More
06.03.1943 — 1943-13
On my very first day in Krasny Kut I visited the editorial office of
the district newspaper Stalin’s Path, intending to have my poems
printed there, but the editor said that at present they publish nothing
except Sovinformburo communiqués...
More
09.03.1943 — 1943-14
The corpses, incidentally, have almost all been collected and buried.
Yet all along the road to Stalingrad and in the city itself we still
encountered many bodies, some gathered into heaps and some not yet
collected, some clothed and some with their backsides exposed. Children
and women were dragging somewhere, with iron hooks, half-decayed human
***...
More
09.03.1943 — 1943-15
I am traveling to Kotelnikovo. My food has run out and I had to
exchange tobacco—about eighty grams—for three rusks. I ate
them, but I am still hungry. I slept at the station on the cold stone
floor, like all the other soldiers; it was so crowded that one could
not get through. We literally lay on top of one another...
More
11.03.1943 — 1943-16
The market consists of two or three women selling milk at fifty rubles
a liter, surrounded by many buyers—Red Army men. One man,
unwilling to wait, offered sixty rubles a liter; another offered
seventy. Thus the soldiers themselves create the prices...
More
12.03.1943 – 13.03.1943 — 1943-17
We spent the night at Dvoinaya station. The local inhabitants are
Cossacks. People from Stalingrad who had been driven to these parts by
the Germans said that the people here are bad and will not even let
anyone into their homes for a night. Fortunately, however, we were
lucky. At the very first hut where we knocked, they admitted us and
allowed us to spend the night...
More
13.03.1943 — 1943-18
Of the station and all the buildings adjoining it there remains only a
dreadful trail of wreckage. In the stanitsa, enormous craters from
bombs weighing no less than a ton gaped in the streets...
More
17.03.1943 — 1943-19
I have just returned home from the market. Bread prices have risen. I
bought six eggs for thirty rubles, half a liter of milk for
twenty-five, three glasses of sunflower seeds for five, and a piece of
bread weighing about eight hundred grams for thirty-five. Altogether I
spent ninety-five rubles in one day alone...
More
18.03.1943 – 19.03.1943 — 1943-20
The lice have bitten me again. It turns out I did not roast all of them
with the iron yesterday. I am heating the iron again now—I am
going to fry them. At the editorial office there was no result: I found
neither the editor nor the secretary. I do not want to leave my poems
there...
More
20.03.1943 – 21.03.1943 — 1943-21
Today was a very successful market day for me. I do not know whether it
is my appearance or some other reason that causes everyone to react to
me this way. But the fact remains...
More
22.03.1943 — 1943-22
I have decided not to stay any longer in these quarters where I am
writing these lines now. I am about to look for another place, because
I have already been here a very long time, about five days, and the
neighbors may report us. If there is an inspection, both the landlady
and I will suffer, especially since she has grown tired of inviting me
to the table when they eat in my presence...
More
23.03.1943 — 1943-23
I set about looking for quarters. I went around several huts before at
last one let me in. The landlady is young and pretty, but terribly
stingy. In the morning she served half a plate of borscht and hinted
that I should look for another place. I slept on the floor under
straw...
More
24.03.1943 — 1943-24
I am not cheerful now. Can it really be that I shall once again get
into a situation like encirclement and retreat, that again this summer
I shall have to wear out my feet over hundreds of kilometers? I so do
not want a repetition of last summer, I so do not want to run from the
enemy, alone and together with my army, backing away...
More
26.03.1943 — 1943-25
The people in whose house I am staying are quite prosperous collective
farmers. They have bread, butter, and other things. In short, I have
finally landed in the kind of quarters I could only dream of ever since
arriving in Salsk: borscht with a rich, buttered bun, sour milk, sweet
milk with magnificent homemade bread...
More
27.03.1943 — 1943-26
Here too I searched a long time for quarters—everywhere I heard
the tiresome answer, “We already have someone.” The reason
for it all is the requisitioning of surplus grain from the peasants;
now they do not want to feed soldiers as they did before. When I had
become utterly exhausted, I found a place. I had supper: half a bowl of
potato soup with bread...
More
28.03.1943 — 1943-27
A small loaf of bread for fifteen rubles, a bun for three rubles, half
a liter of sour milk—that was all I bought. I took off my long
underwear and wanted to trade it for lard, but they offered only three
or four hundred grams—not enough...
More
29.03.1943 — 1943-28
While crossing the highway I came upon a truck loaded with provisions
for a hospital. I asked for a ride. After long
hesitation—connected with the theft of bread and boots from the
truck by another chance passenger, a lieutenant—the driver agreed
to take me...
More
30.03.1943 — 1943-29
All day yesterday I looked for the local newspaper office, the post
office, a photographer, and lard. He who seeks shall always find, as
the song rightly says. I found them too...
More
01.04.1943 — 1943-30
The wounded men on the balcony of the building opposite, which had been
turned into a hospital, joked and laughed throughout the meeting and
burial; it was even awkward. Then the coffin was lowered on ropes. I
did not wait any longer and went off to look for a place to sleep...
More
03.04.1943 – 04.04.1943 — 1943-31
Near the traffic-control post I immediately managed to get onto a
vehicle, and within an hour or even less I was here in Kotelinki. I
searched a long time for quarters. I found a place at the edge of the
village. The landlady turned out to be unpleasant. A collective farmer,
she did not even undertake to offer me anything...
More
05.04.1943 — 1943-32
Yesterday, with great difficulty, I reached Zlodeiskaya. I traveled by
vehicles, but sometimes they put me off and sometimes the vehicles got
bogged down, and I walked most of the way. Thus I arrived in Zverevo
and reached the food-distribution point much later than the others from
our group. At the food point I received provisions for two days...
More
05.04.1943 — 1943-33
I got off in the center of Bataisk. Our men were not at the food point.
I went for a walk. On the highway I met evacuees from Matveev Kurgan.
Their belongings were piled on a handcart, with a thin, sad little cow
tied behind it. An old man and a boy pulled the cart from the front,
one elderly woman walked at the side, and another behind...
More
07.04.1943 – 08.04.1943 — 1943-34
Rostov. The landlady is a terrible antisemite. She is illiterate but
has a very high opinion of herself. She believes in God. Not suspecting
that I am Jewish, she denounces my people every way she can. She did
not allow me to spend a second night. She keeps saying, “How bad
the air is in here”—she wants to drive me out as quickly as
possible. I am leaving now...
More
10.04.1943 — 1943-35
Yesterday at the regimental Party meeting very serious questions
affecting the honor and glory of the regiment were discussed. After
three men had been accepted as candidate members of the VKP(b), the
meeting moved to the second item on the agenda...
More
12.04.1943 — 1943-36
Hundreds of kilometers of liberated Soviet territory, thousands of
towns and villages, and millions of their inhabitants experienced the
unparalleled crimes of fascist monsters in human form...
More
13.04.1943 — 1943-37
There is one Jewish soldier here. Although he has certain habits I
dislike—for example, he waves his arms vigorously when he talks,
twists the other person’s button, and pulls at his hand during
conversation—he is still close and sympathetic to me...
More
14.04.1943 — 1943-38
Today I worked all day on the wall newspaper. With the help of a girl
named Sasha I copied out the editorial for the May issue, as well as my
own poem. Shura is a girl from Tashkent, twenty-two years old, who
finished ten grades. She is pretty and, of all the girls here, the
least touched by any kind of debauchery...
More
15.04.1943 — 1943-39
I am preparing material for the next issue of the newspaper. Shura
likes me too and carries out all my wishes concerning the editing of
the paper. Today the company commander called me his correspondent...
More
16.04.1943 — 1943-40
In the morning I went out for exercises and then for formation, as
required. But afterward the platoon commander would not let me remain
in the barracks and, although it is raining, made me go to training in
felt boots...
More
17.04.1943 — 1943-41
The medical orderly is giving a talk now. Khabibullin is a
self-appointed sergeant, an unbelievably insolent little bitch. A
small, arrogant Tatar with the ringing voice of a mongrel puppy. He
sticks his nose into everyone’s affairs, quarrels with everyone,
and orders everyone about...
More
23.04.1943 — 1943-42
Yesterday I suffered a major failure—or rather, a whole series of
failures in everyday life and training. I fired at two hundred
meters—badly. Out of ten rounds I did not hit the target once.
The company commander gave me two extra duties for buying a glass of
sunflower seeds...
More
24.04.1943 — 1943-43
Today I bought more sunflower seeds. I shell them where no one can see
me. Yesterday Senior Sergeant Gaisek, a medal holder, VKP(b) member,
and agitator of our platoon, deserted or disappeared somehow...
More
29.04.1943 – 30.04.1943 — 1943-44
Three days ago, during regimental exercises, lists were being drawn up
of candidates for officer school. I was ill, with a temperature of
38.5. But when the deputy company commander asked me to write character
references for these men, I concealed my illness and decided to do it.
When I had finished, the deputy company commander, at my request, put
my name down for the school as well...
More
01.05.1943 — 1943-45
I rested all day today. The food was tasty and filling. There was a
concert by State Variety artists. Tamarina, Kirillova, Zharov, and
others performed...
More
03.05.1943 — 1943-46
The May holidays are over. Yesterday there was an amateur concert. I
signed up last on the program. Yet I performed first, opening the
concert with my poems. I had a great and noisy success. The command
staff arrived toward the end of my performance; all the officers
admired the poems...
More
07.05.1943 – 09.05.1943 — 1943-47
Yesterday marked one year since I entered the army. In the evening I
was at a rehearsal. They rehearsed only my performance. With me were a
colonel, a lieutenant colonel, and a captain—the head of the
club...
More
17.05.1943 — 1943-48
Our crew commander, Sergeant Kostenko, is a horrible scoundrel, a
racist and shameless Jew-hater. Every day he torments me, constantly
makes me lug the mortar around, and so on. Once he openly declared that
I was “a Jewish mug,” that “all Abrahams are cunning
and slippery,” and the like...
More
20.05.1943 — 1943-49
The head of the club, Captain Gorovtsev, used to be a film director. He
sings excellently, is educated and... has a shaved head, evidently
bald. My first impression: our geography teacher in eighth grade...
More
22.05.1943 — 1943-50
Pyotr Ivanovich—that is Captain Gorovtsev’s name. Yesterday
he summoned me to rehearsal: today the courses are giving a concert for
the district Komsomol committee. The captain said this would be a
rehearsal for an army-wide amateur concert. There will be many Komsomol
girls at the concert...
More
07.06.1943 – 12.06.1943 — 1943-51
On the thirteenth it will be six months since I have been in the rear.
Our platoon commander is now Senior Lieutenant Zakharov...
More
24.06.1943 — 1943-52
The day before yesterday marked two years since our country’s war
with fascist Germany began. The day did not differ from the others in
any special way. Even the food was ordinary: soup with dumplings,
sprats, soup with rice porridge and sausage...
More
28.06.1943 — 1943-53
I invited the landlady to go to the concert, but Dora, that household
prostitute, attached herself to us. It was awkward to refuse, so I had
to take her too...
More
02.07.1943 — 1943-54
My knowledge has settled in my head without plan or order, producing
such confusion there—made worse by some hidden illness that seems
to paralyze my brain—that perhaps only my habit and need to leave
everything on paper will make it possible, if I return to this someday,
to remember...
More
08.07.1943 — 1943-55
Training went fairly well yesterday, but Zamula, who had been appointed
crew commander, set up the mortar facing completely away from the
enemy. And he conducted the firing while knowing perfectly well where
the “enemy” was...
More
25.08.1943 — 1943-56
The examinations are over; I am an officer! Present at the examinations
were Captain Klimenko, our company commander; Senior Lieutenant
Zakharov, the platoon commander; and Major Kozlov, the fire-training
instructor...
More
29.08.1943 — 1943-57
On the 26th, after the order was read out, I received the rank of
junior lieutenant. Now I wear stars on my shoulder boards. It feels
strange and unfamiliar: “Comrade Junior
Lieutenant”—it is slightly embarrassing; I am not yet used
to the title. When I was being outfitted, the first sergeant ordered
that I be issued shoes. I refused to take them...
More
30.08.1943 — 1943-58
Today and tomorrow we remain without food; only on the first will we be
issued provisions, because in the settlement of Sultan-Saly, where
fifteen of us received provisions, they cheated us. One junior
lieutenant, a machine-gunner, received a single certificate for all of
us...
More
31.08.1943 — 1943-59
Many people here wear the medal “For the Defense of
Stalingrad.” I decided to use my free time to resume my efforts
to obtain the medal. The reserve chief of staff, a captain, said that
in a few days we would move to the second echelon and that the matter
could be discussed there, because they had medals there...
More
04.09.1943 – 07.09.1943 — 1943-60
We spent two and a half days in Manych. I ate watermelons without limit
and drank milk. Tishakov was quartered with me again. We slept on the
floor. There were many flies and they literally ate us alive day and
night...
More
07.09.1943 — 1943-61
We are now in Khutka, where the headquarters of the 248th Division, to
which I have been assigned, is located. Here, together with my fellow
course graduates Pleshakov, Anishchenko, Gostev, Tkachenko, and others,
I am waiting for the senior man of our group, who is still traveling
somewhere with six soldiers...
More
08.09.1943 — 1943-62
The reinforcements still have not arrived, so there are a great many
commanders and no one to command. A divisional reserve and a regimental
reserve have been formed. There are more than twenty officers here in
the regiment. There are senior lieutenants and lieutenants, but most of
us are junior lieutenants...
More
09.09.1943 — 1943-63
During the night the Germans were driven out. Our units advanced far
forward. Now we are about to move too. I saw flares on the front line,
but there was no firing. I kept dreaming of an advance, but it seemed
only a dream because everything was quiet. Before dawn someone finally
shouted, “To arms! Up!”...
More
15.09.1943 — 1943-64
We have just passed Andreyevka, a district center in the Zaporozhye
Region. Half of it is burned down. Telegraph poles along the roads have
been cut down to stumps. Everywhere there is fire, everywhere the
weeping of inhabitants excited and comforted by our arrival, but at the
same time deeply grieved by the ruin and atrocities of the Fritzes.
They even killed the livestock...
More
22.09.1943 — 1943-65
We have advanced a little farther. Now I alone remain in reserve. Most
of the junior lieutenants were sent to units in the divisional reserve
or away on assignments to bring back reinforcements. But even now I
still have to go on foot...
More
24.09.1943 — 1943-66
I am here as if in reserve, without a post. No one tells me or orders
me anything. I am my own master. Yesterday I wanted watermelons, so I
went and picked some. In general I gorge myself on watermelons here.
And melons too. Fifteen at a sitting. More than once it has given me
terrible diarrhea!...
More
26.09.1943 – 30.09.1943 — 1943-67
I watched the enemy through the stereoscopic telescope. The Fritzes
walk freely and openly along the front line at full height. Many are
without shirts, sunbathing; some search one another’s hair for
lice. Others hunt them on their bodies—and shirts—with such
fury that it seems there is no end to them...
More
01.10.1943 — 1943-68
The very foremost front line of all front lines... We have different meanings for the word “front line.”...
More
05.10.1943 — 1943-69
The day before yesterday the senior lieutenant told me to get ready to
fetch the “Maximkas.” He himself did not know what these
“Maximkas” were. I was to take three carts and go to
regimental headquarters. I was surprised by the order because, if they
were Maxim machine guns, they should have been collected from the
ammunition section, not headquarters...
More
06.10.1943 — 1943-70
Dear Comrade Editor! I read the poem “Forward, Soviet
Soldiers!” in your newspaper. But I cannot possibly acknowledge
authorship of it, because only three quatrains were actually written by
me; the others, wholly or partly, belong to someone else’s pen...
More
06.10.1943 — 1943-71
Today, while I was finishing my letter to the editorial office, a
senior lieutenant came to us. It turned out that he was a correspondent
for the newspaper Kirovets. His surname is Chervonny...
More
07.10.1943 – 09.10.1943 — 1943-72
I dream of becoming the battalion Komsomol organizer, but all this is
only a dream, although perhaps, if I wanted it badly enough, I could
obtain the position through the regimental Komsomol organizer. Once he
regretted that he had not made me a battalion Komsomol organizer, but
now, unfortunately, I do not see him...
More
11.10.1943 — 1943-73
Yesterday I fired all day. I sent off about seven hundred mortar
rounds, if I am not exaggerating. No one asked us how many
“cucumbers,” as they call the rounds over the telephone
here, we fired, but every minute they asked how many remained. The
enemy was silent all day and did not answer our fire...
More
11.10.1943 — 1943-74
I dig spacious and comfortable trenches, and so I assumed that my
trench would be taken by one of the lieutenants, or by the company
commander, or finally by his command post. That is exactly what
happened, especially since it was very deep and soft—lined with
grass and hay and equipped with a step that served as a bench...
More
13.10.1943 — 1943-75
October 13—or the devil knows what date it is. For two days we
marched day and night. We set out the evening before last. In one
village we rested in a tree belt for six hours and then walked again
all day and all night, without eating or drinking...
More
17.10.1943 — 1943-76
Suddenly a shell exploded. So close that it deafened me. The trench
collapsed, earth covered me, and finally something struck me painfully
on the arm, chin, lip, and eyebrow. I immediately decided that I was
badly wounded because I could not move anything and streams of blood
were running down my face. For several minutes I could not get up...
More
20.10.1943 – 26.10.1943 — 1943-77
Shells are exploding everywhere. We were firing, but for the moment we
have stopped—we do not want to hit our own men. The artillery has
fallen silent and the smoke that had hidden the whole earth from view
is clearing. The infantry is attacking. The roar of aircraft never
stops. Our aviation is working well today, if only it were not for that
careless pilot who dropped bombs on us...
More
01.11.1943 — 1943-78
It is evening now. Almost completely dark. The sun set long ago. We
have reached Lake Sivash, otherwise called the “Rotten
Sea.” It is a gulf of the Sea of Azov. We have taken up defensive
positions here, apparently until tomorrow. This is the first time we
can rest and sleep for more than two hours...
More
05.11.1943 — 1943-79
I lost my unit. Until dawn I rushed from one end of Akimovka to the
other, came upon a column of the 547th Division, if I am not mistaken,
and then ran into the 347th. In the village I found German canned food
and masses of magazines and leaflets in German...
More
13.11.1943 — 1943-80
Glyantsev is boiling potatoes now. We have only seven potatoes left in
reserve. But there are also beans, peas, and onions. Here we found a
ready-made dugout and settled in together, but the dugout is large and
cold. The thumb of my right hand freezes mercilessly. I wrapped my feet
in bandages...
More
18.11.1943 — 1943-81
I dream without cease of a sweet girl and blissful love. Before my eyes
appears a tender, smooth girl’s breast, so broad and dear that
one could drown in it, forgetting grief and hardship. When will I
finally encounter the caress and love of a dear creature and feel the
trembling of awakened happiness in my heart?...
More
24.11.1943 — 1943-82
On the 20th we attacked. The offensive began with an artillery
preparation unlike anything seen before, involving a new and mighty
representative of Soviet weaponry, “Ivan the Terrible.”
People had spoken more than once about “Ivan the Terrible,”
but no one had yet clearly understood what kind of weapon it was...
More
25.11.1943 – 27.11.1943 — 1943-83
Our artillery preparation has just begun. We too are firing our
mortars. The Germans answer with heavy artillery. Our
“Katyusha” and “Ivan the Terrible” are silent
for the moment. At dawn today we were issued about twenty-five grams of
vodka each—it “evaporated” on the way here...
Yesterday I passed the Divisional Party Commission, and now I am
finally a full Party member...
More
27.11.1943 — 1943-84
Once, after a brief respite following an artillery-and-mortar duel with
bloodthirsty Hitlerite bandits, while on one of the southern fronts of
the Patriotic War, I found a thick book written in a language I could
not understand, with a cover worn by time...
More
27.11.1943 — 1943-85
Having named the dog Nikolai Fyodorovich and given him enough time to
get used to his new name, Panas gradually began teaching him human
speech. And, incredible as it may seem,...
More
27.11.1943 — 1943-86
I remembered one of those stories well and shall try to tell it to you.
In one distant historical age covered with the mold of centuries, in
one of the great animal kingdoms, there ruled an enormous and
insatiable Giant Wolf...
More
27.11.1943 – 30.11.1943 — 1943-87
Seventeen men remained lying in the field until evening, until
darkness. Late in the evening another four men arrived. Thus only four
men in all were missing. The second battalion had roughly the same
losses...
More
01.12.1943 — 1943-88
I am at the observation post now. The neighboring regiment is
attacking. The German pinned down our infantry right from the beginning
of the advance—he gave us return artillery fire, as they say.
Shells burst close by and fragments reached the dugout. Snipers hunt
without closing their eyes. They have our observation post well
covered...
More
02.12.1943 — 1943-89
During the night I was summoned to the division to receive my Party
card. It is located—I assume I was called to divisional
headquarters—in Novo-Petrovka. At two in the morning I received
the card. In the photograph I came out somehow grimy and black, like a
Gypsy. It was the first time I had been photographed with a mustache...
All night I wandered around looking for a place to sleep...
More
04.12.1943 — 1943-90
Last night I went to the forward edge, to the riflemen, to get men...
The riflemen really do have it much worse than we do. Even at night one
cannot raise one’s head there—the German fires machine guns
and rifles all night, especially explosive bullets...
More
06.12.1943 — 1943-91
Now I am living splendidly! They made me a stove. It burns all day and
its warmth reminds me of home. Rudnev moved into my dugout and now
there are two of us. He rigged up a light. He asks me to write a letter
to his girl for him, but there is no time today...
More
07.12.1943 — 1943-92
I am at the observation post. The frost is savage. My hands and feet
are frozen and there is cold in my heart. Hardly any Fritzes are
visible; only on the left, during the whole day, about six men
appeared, digging in the vegetable gardens and looking for something. A
Focke-Wulf reconnaissance plane circles over us, studying the
defenses...
More
08.12.1943 — 1943-93
I am very, very glad at the rapprochement of our leaders with the
leaders of Great Britain and the United States. As glad as I once was
distressed by the rapprochement with Germany, a country of
obscurantism. This is a great and necessary friendship of civilization
and democracy. To hell with the fact that both allies are bourgeois
countries...
More
09.12.1943 — 1943-94
One of the soldiers who came to our company from the riflemen,
Lozovsky, is in my platoon. Like me, he is twenty years old. He is even
half a year younger. I decided to make him my orderly. I invited him
into my dugout because his is damp and cold. He chopped firewood for
me, washed all the mess tins—in short, he is a first-rate
fellow...
More
10.12.1943 — 1943-95
Then suddenly on the right, at the edge of what had been a green field,
where a small mound could be seen, I noticed the figure of a German
observer and, below him, a sniper sitting nearby. I telephoned, and
Sokolov suggested that I correct the fire onto the German observers...
More
12.12.1943 — 1943-96
The frost outside is colossal. I went out for about ten minutes to wash
and relieve myself, and in that time I froze my feet. Now I am sitting
completely barefoot and warming myself. Lozovsky is stoking the stove.
He obtained plenty of firewood in the village, and it is very warm in
the dugout...
More
14.12.1943 — 1943-97
Toward evening Zapryagailo began picking a fight with me. So we got
into it. We dragged each other all over the ground and in the end I
beat him. Several times I was on top of him, but I thoroughly dirtied
my trousers and, in general, it was embarrassing in front of the
soldiers. But he is like a child and does not understand words...
More
15.12.1943 — 1943-98
I talked with Savostin about life and the injustice that reigns
everywhere. Savostin said that, having seen injustice, deceit, and
people’s pursuit of petty interests, he had decided after the war
to withdraw from the bustle and city life and settle in a village,
where he would take up farming...
More
16.12.1943 – 18.12.1943 — 1943-99
We are about to attack. Each platoon will act independently. Everything
now depends on my initiative. Half an hour of artillery preparation,
and then—forward!...
More
21.12.1943 — 1943-100
The outcome of the offensive is pitiful. We are almost back in our old
positions. After the artillery preparation we advanced and occupied the
Bezymyanny farmstead. But during the night the Germans rushed into a
counterattack with shouts...
More
24.12.1943 — 1943-101
Our offensive stopped almost at its very beginning. The infantry
advanced no more than a kilometer. True, yesterday our neighbors on the
right pushed the enemy all the way back to the Dnieper. The day before
yesterday the enemy counterattacked us at night. We had to run,
especially we mortar men...
More
26.12.1943 — 1943-102
A sword of Damocles hangs over us here all the time. All around,
sometimes far away and sometimes very close, German shells and mortar
rounds explode. Some miracle alone saves me from death. Before dawn
today shells came screaming down into the little marsh below, about two
meters from us...
More
27.12.1943 — 1943-103
In the evening Junior Lieutenant Kolmagortsev, the Komsomol organizer,
a merry fellow and collector of trophies, was killed. He went to
retrieve the body of Senior Lieutenant Petrov, who had many trophies: a
German gold watch, three ladies’ watches, cigarette cases,
chains, two revolvers, and much else. Four of them picked up the body,
but suddenly a mortar round exploded...
More
28.12.1943 – 29.12.1943 — 1943-104
Today I got some potatoes—piles of them lie everywhere here.
There is a thaw, so some have thawed, though underneath they are
frozen. They turned out to be good. I boiled them and ate them with
butter...
More
30.12.1943 — 1943-105
Savostin left, and I wrote another part of the story. I cannot get much
done because people interfere: now Rudnev with his songs, now Sokolov
with a scandal over the crates. He is a very good man and I offended
him needlessly by not carrying out his order about the crates—I
burned one, and they are charging him for it...
More
31.12.1943 — 1943-106
The enemy has become restless too. They say that, according to
available information, deep in the rear the Germans are withdrawing
their forces to the right bank of the Dnieper. But here he still gives
us hell: he shells the front line even more heavily than before. To
some extent, however, that is a sign of withdrawal...
More
01.01.1944 – 02.01.1944 — 1944-1
So the New Year has come. I am going to the 33rd now. Morning. Senior
Lieutenant Shakurov is the regimental Party organizer. Captain Suslin
is deputy commander for political affairs...
More
04.01.1944 – 05.01.1944 — 1944-2
I wrote two long articles, one about Captain Andreyev and one about Sokolov...
More
09.01.1944 – 12.01.1944 — 1944-3
They brought supper. The night is dark. There is occasional rifle and
machine-gun fire. A little biplane is in the air, but whose it is is
unknown. I shall leave the diary until dawn, when breakfast arrives. My
pencil has gone blunt...
More
14.01.1944 — 1944-4
It is night now. We were ordered to get ready and to prepare the
platoon, bringing it to full combat readiness. So I packed my
belongings and the diary, which, incidentally, is coming to an end. I
shall write my poems in it...
More
15.01.1944 – 16.01.1944 — 1944-5
Our neighbors on the right attacked with air support but advanced only
eighty meters. The Fritzes are furious now. I sent the poem “The
Battles Go On” and “To Nina-2” to the editorial
office of Stalin’s Banner...
More
17.01.1944 — 1944-6
Night. Everyone has just been raised and ordered to get ready. It turns
out the enemy is attacking again. As luck would have it, the matches
were damp. I struck half the box without success. Then I struck two
small bunches of matches one after another and, after hissing, they
flared up...
More
18.01.1944 — 1944-7
I am slightly drunk now—I drank about three hundred grams. My
vision has darkened; my eyes seem to have narrowed, and my head has
grown heavy and pulls toward my shoulder. It is playing tricks but will
not fall—I will not let it! The dugout has not been heated, but I
obtained some boards and will fire the stove when I sober up...
More
21.01.1944 – 23.01.1944 — 1944-8
Dawn. We have just arrived in Belozerka. The soldiers were placed in
the large hut next door, while we—lieutenants and
signalmen—are here. I want to sleep. Evening. It is getting dark.
We are leaving now...
More
02.02.1944 – 04.02.1944 — 1944-9
Mud, slush, and rain on the road seem determined to finish us off.
Walking is unimaginably hard, standing still unimaginably cold. In the
villages assigned to us they would not even let us into the attics. We
were soaked through and hungry besides. We forced our way into attic
quarters despite the landladies’ tears...
More
05.02.1944 — 1944-10
The Germans left not a single person in the village, nothing alive
except dogs. This is the first time not one person managed to hide and
remain in the village, to say nothing of livestock and poultry. The
huts are intact. There is a cornfield beyond the village...
More
06.02.1944 — 1944-11
The terrain is completely open; one cannot even stick one’s head
out. The enemy defends itself with machine guns and rifles alone. At
night it fires especially fiercely...
More
07.02.1944 — 1944-12
During the night they brought soup with dumplings, and although there
were few dumplings and the soup was thin, for the first time in several
days my comrades-in-arms and I felt full...
More
29.02.1944 — 1944-13
The crossing was at a standstill. A tractor had sunk one of the pontoon
boats and they were replacing it with a new one. There I met Golubev
and rode by truck to ***. Night near Zeleny Gai. I am writing in the
dark. Today I found the supply platoon, but, unwilling to freeze while
waiting for the carts to depart, I went to Novo-Aleksandrovka, where I
decided to wait for a while...
More
01.03.1944 — 1944-14
Today on the outskirts of the village they found the body of Senior
Lieutenant Kiyan. The Germans had evidently finished him off while he
was wounded. What horror! What shame and reproach to all those petty,
miserable people who did not take him, did not carry him from the
battlefield...
More
03.03.1944 – 05.03.1944 — 1944-15
Today the German made a major artillery raid on the village-state farm.
I found myself right in the inferno. I hurried to hide and filled my
boots with water...
More
06.03.1944 – 07.03.1944 — 1944-16
I spent the night here after making a night march from the
Aleksandrovka state farm and the village of Kovalevka. I wandered
around for half the night, but never mind—I ate well today: soup,
porridge, and bread, which I traded for tobacco. I traded for a whole
loaf but gave half of it to the owners. They live in house number 17...
More
08.03.1944 — 1944-17
I could not fall asleep during the night: in the middle of the night
corps signalmen knocked at our door. They lit the stove and began
baking flat cakes. There were three of them. Later, when everyone had
gone to sleep, the German began shelling the village. Methodically, all
night long, he shelled the entire area where the village stood...
More
09.03.1944 — 1944-18
My head ached persistently, but vodka helped me fall asleep. In the
middle of the night lice woke me. They had multiplied even more and,
bloodthirsty and insatiable, bit without mercy. I tossed, turned, and
scratched, but it was useless...
More
10.03.1944 — 1944-19
Yesterday evening I was returning from the medical unit when, before
reaching the village, I heard shells exploding. The Germans were
shelling heavily the outskirts where my treasured sleeping place, my
small warm room, was located...
More
11.03.1944 — 1944-20
I was quartered with the reserve officers on the outskirts of the
village. There are very many women here, in almost every hut. The
Germans were in a hurry and had no time for them...
More
12.03.1944 — 1944-21
Even before the operation, when they were freezing my finger, I began
to feel sick, and during the operation I completely lost consciousness.
They gave me ammonia to smell, but for a long time afterward I still
felt nauseated and everything was dark before my eyes. I am very
impressionable and my nerves are sensitive to any pain...
More
13.03.1944 – 14.03.1944 — 1944-22
Today is magnificently sunny, warm, and mild. They say that by the old
calendar today is March 1. Real spring has now begun. No artillery fire
has been heard since yesterday. No one knows how far away the front
is—perhaps already at the Bug. Perhaps Nikolaev and Kherson are
already ours? I hear no news and have not read newspapers for a long
time...
More
15.03.1944 — 1944-23
A former Jewish village or hamlet. The Germans shot all the Jews and
buried them in an antitank ditch, down to the smallest children.
“Every last baby,” as the peasants say. After a short march
from the village of Novosibirsk, we stopped here for the night...
More
17.03.1944 — 1944-24
Today I spoke with an employee of a Red Army newspaper, a senior
lieutenant. Until late he went through my poems and promised to print
some of them. He had been Tychyna’s personal secretary and a
friend of Holodny...
More
30.03.1944 – 31.03.1944 — 1944-25
“Go into the hut, Comrade Lieutenant; the boys are eating honey
and jam there.” When I came in, everyone had already eaten and
risen from the table. The landlady invited me too, but I decided it
would be better to buy the remaining quarter jar of honey for money. I
paid her fifty rubles. I did not, however, remove the jar from the
table...
More
01.04.1944 — 1944-26
Nadya was the leader and organizer of resistance to the enemy and
sabotage of his decrees. Twice she was taken to Odessa for
interrogation and twice to Suvorovka. She was also held by the German
Gestapo, but her resourcefulness saved her...
More
03.04.1944 – 04.04.1944 — 1944-27
I am already badly overdue in returning to my unit, but today I think I
shall catch up with it. As luck would have it, the weather has turned
bad and I so dislike the thought of leaving the warm quarters and going
outside...
More
06.04.1944 – 07.04.1944 — 1944-28
Sychavka. Yesterday there was still snow; today is warm and
extraordinarily sunny. I wrote letters to Mother, Father, Anya
Lifshits, Aunt Anya, Maya Belokopytova, and Anya Perkina—six
letters in all...
More
09.04.1944 – 11.04.1944 — 1944-29
By morning the front had moved considerably farther away, and Pavel and
I went to the first outpost. We stopped at his mistress’s place.
Marusya threw herself around Pavel’s neck, and the neighbors in
the yard said, “Maria’s husband has come.” Pavel
treated her coldly and later told me she was not his main mistress...
More
12.04.1944 — 1944-30
On one of the streets in the center of Tiraspol we saw a large crowd.
We came closer and saw a gallows—a truck on which three
scoundrels stood: two Romanians and one Russian. One of the Romanians
was deeply shaken and could barely stand from the anticipation of
death...
More
14.04.1944 — 1944-31
We decided to spend one more night in Odessa. We began discussing how
to spend the time. After I admitted my inexperience in this matter,
Pavel promised to arrange things and teach me sexual intercourse with a
girl. Laughing, he gave his word to make me as much a professional as
he was...
More
19.04.1944 — 1944-32
The infantry, mortar men, artillery, and even part of the Katyusha
units crossed into the marshes, but unexpectedly the water began rising
and gradually flooded them. Before anyone could recover, the water had
risen to the men’s knees and there was a danger of losing the
guns. Many guns and Katyushas could no longer be taken out...
More
21.04.1944 – 25.04.1944 — 1944-33
In the evening they buried a lieutenant colonel killed in a bombing
raid. Later an order came to move toward Chebruchi in order to cross
the Dniester at another place. Here, in Chabruchi, there is no
Turchanka River, but they did not manage to force the Dniester during
the night, so the regiment is still in the marshes...
More
27.04.1944 — 1944-34
I ate and, together with all the reservists, went to the camp where
Rymar’s battalion is being formed. They told me the mortar
company was also being assembled there. But it turned out quite
differently. I became a rifleman...
More
28.04.1944 — 1944-35
At last what I had only faintly suspected has happened. Today Polushkin
appointed me commander of a rifle platoon. Just think of it—a
reward for eight months of combat at the front in this unit!...
More
01.05.1944 — 1944-36
In the evening he wrote me an absurd order, stupid to the point of
madness: to cross alone to the other side, to the antitank rifles
flooded by water, enter the village, and destroy a pillbox with a
heavy-machine-gun embrasure by throwing grenades or by some other
means. I signed that I had read it, but I hardly intend to carry it
out...
More
02.05.1944 – 03.05.1944 — 1944-37
Last night I moved with my platoon to the forward edge. We were told
that we were relieving the front-line men for the night, then for
twenty-four hours, supposedly because they had become exhausted, but
they were evidently lying. They tried to push me into the abyss as
quickly as possible, but no—they are mistaken; I shall stay above
the abyss and will not perish, to spite all my enemies...
More
07.05.1944 – 09.05.1944 — 1944-38
Yesterday marked two years since I joined the Red Army. We are moving
now. We left the marshes, went back, crossed the Dniester, and are now
moving with great difficulty on this, the left, bank of the river
northward, along the front...
More
11.05.1944 – 12.05.1944 — 1944-39
Today we are going to the front line. We shall take up defensive
positions on this, the left bank of the Dniester, at the edge of the
village of Krasnaya Gorka. Evening is already approaching. Soon the sun
will go down and disappear below the horizon, and when the air turns
gray we shall move...
More
14.05.1944 — 1944-40
Throughout all the days I have been here—with the unit I have
been here since the 9th—terrible fighting has thundered all
around. Especially on the other side of the Dniester, where our troops
hold a small but fairly well-fortified bridgehead...
More
15.05.1944 — 1944-41
Today our men on the other side crept right up to the Germans along the
bank, but for some reason came back. Probably a machine gun broke up
the attack—the Germans had set it up right at the bank, and it
lashed the attackers with bullets throughout the offensive...
More
16.05.1944 — 1944-42
Parkhomenko, being a base man, opened my letter to Lapin and read it,
including, of course, the passage about his absurd order to me:
“Disguise yourself as a soldier, cross by boat to the German
side, and throw grenades into their embrasure.” Now he is taking
revenge on me...
More
17.05.1944 — 1944-43
Dear Comrade N. Filippov, editor of the newspaper Soviet Warrior!...
Under conditions of spending many days on the forward line, in trenches
only one hundred to one hundred fifty meters from the enemy, it is very
difficult for me—or rather completely impossible—to hear
opinions and serious professional criticism of my works...
More
20.05.1944 — 1944-44
Why, then, did fate preserve me? I could have taken three more steps
after those servicemen, whom I had not known before, and fallen into
the claws of that gloating bloodsucker, death...
More
23.05.1944 — 1944-45
The first extraordinary event for me at the front is parcels. For the
first time during my service in the Red Army I was lucky enough to
receive a parcel from peaceful Soviet citizens: a piece of lard,
biscuits, and paper. It was sent by inhabitants of Odessa. I answered
them with a letter. But of course not everything that the Odessans had
sent was still in the parcel...
More
24.05.1944 — 1944-46
I was walking through the trench along the company positions, checking
the sentries’ vigilance and the defensive works dug during the
day. Suddenly I heard a commotion and hurried toward it. When I was
already close I heard: “Comrade Senior Lieutenant, why are you
beating me?” and another voice: “Do you know I’m the
deputy battalion commander!? I’ll f... you!...
More
28.05.1944 — 1944-47
During the night I did not lie down for a second because I crawled to
the front line to Chub, commander of the fourth company. We had to dig
a communication trench downward from the hill to the mortar men. We dug
as far as the descent, but when I decided to inspect the descent with a
mortar man, it turned out to be a fifty-meter cliff...
More
30.05.1944 — 1944-48
Dear Guards Colonel Paravishnikov! Comrade Major Suslin! I urgently ask
you to pay attention. I spent eight months in the mortar company of the
3rd Battalion. During that time I traveled a long and honorable combat
road with our regiment, almost from the Mius all the way to Odessa...
More
30.05.1944 — 1944-49
REPORT. I ask you to assist in appointing me according to my specialty as commander of a mortar platoon...
More
07.06.1944 — 1944-50
Zabortsev obtained a barrel of wine, but treated Nikolaev and me to a
glass only on the second day of the drinking spree, when the entire
battalion command had already been lying around drunk...
More
10.06.1944 – 16.06.1944 — 1944-51
We trained all day. In my free time I write, hurrying to pour my anger
out. Many officers of the 1st Battalion are going into reserve or away
for reorganization. Many veteran officers of the regiment are going on
leave...
More
18.06.1944 — 1944-52
REPORT. I ask you to help me in the following matter. My mother,
Nadezhda Vladimirovna Gorodynskaya, who was evacuated from
Dnepropetrovsk to Magnitogorsk during the occupation, has now received
from the director of the Lenin Plant, where she had previously worked
as secretary of the personnel department, a summons to return to
production...
More
21.06.1944 — 1944-53
It is so comfortable here! My dugout is the size of a room: two beds, a
feather pillow, all kinds of dishes. It is unpleasant that practically
everything was looted from private apartments and brought here, but it
is convenient in the sense that one feels at home...
More
25.06.1944 – 28.06.1944 — 1944-54
There was a film showing at night: newsreels and the film Liberation of
Orel. The print was terribly worn and glued together from scraps, so it
was impossible to watch without irritation. I did not finish it and
went to sleep in Kolosovo, although the colonel had ordered us to go to
the front line during the night...
More
01.07.1944 — 1944-55
Again I received a letter from that Anya Korotkina in Magnitogorsk.
From her letters I concluded that she was shallow and naive, and the
photograph confirmed my opinion that she was unattractive as well...
More
09.07.1944 — 1944-56
At last the long-awaited thing has happened—I left the rifle company and, I should think, will never return to it...
More
17.07.1944 — 1944-57
I am on duty in the operations section. The assistant duty officer is
Captain Shchinov. But in fact I do all the duty officer’s work
myself because Shchinov is very busy with staff work—he is the
only one left in operations. Some of the telephone girls are pretty, so
I have become absorbed in the work...
More
23.07.1944 – 25.07.1944 — 1944-58
My love adventures do not shine with success and contain nothing attractive except, I would say, an element of adventure...
More
27.07.1944 — 1944-59
I have not yet become acquainted with the soldiers. They are not giving
me a platoon now, so I shall have to work in the company. Of course I
shall. And if I work there, I shall have to get acquainted with them.
Tonight, as it happens, I am on duty for the company...
More
29.07.1944 — 1944-60
Yesterday enemy aircraft raided the town and dropped small bombs. The
military medical assistant was wounded. He was a good fellow, a joker,
and he had an interesting book, Notes of a Prostitute. I receive no
letters, but I write many...
More
31.07.1944 — 1944-61
In the evening, before leaving, I went to the battalion commander for
permission. They pointed me toward a door that was slightly ajar. I had
hardly entered the doorway, which I thought led to a corridor, when the
shutter opened. The battalion commander’s sister opened it, and I
caught the battalion commander and Figirita in bed...
More
02.08.1944 – 04.08.1944 — 1944-62
Today a senior lieutenant arrived. He came wearing the Order of the Red
Star. Although he has been here only a short time and has not yet taken
part in the offensive, the order was evidently presented to him at
division headquarters. The senior lieutenant does not trust me and
probably fears me—Filatov’s handiwork—for he conceals
all secrets from me...
More
05.08.1944 — 1944-63
In war, fiasco after fiasco. No orders. Not even medals, not even for
Stalingrad. No reputation. In effect I am again beginning life from the
beginning, experiencing suspicion and insincerity from my superiors.
The ground beneath my feet is shaky and uneven...
More
06.08.1944 — 1944-64
Dear, naive girls. They want decorations! If only they knew how those
decorations are obtained... For money, for vodka, for a good,
sycophantic approach. True, sometimes a person is decorated for merit,
but very rarely...
More
09.08.1944 — 1944-65
Today I am battalion duty officer. My duty, like everything in the
world that I encounter, is eventful. In the morning after breakfast the
battalion was formed up and I reported to Battalion Commander
Rozpadanov, and when the battalion left I happened to meet a number of
very important people...
More
10.08.1944 – 12.08.1944 — 1944-66
The bridgehead. A ravine right beside the Dniester—our firing
position is here. Bessarabia... My first steps on Bessarabian soil. How
interestingly the Dniester bends here. It turns out that the enemy is
in front of us, to the right and left—after all, it is a
bridgehead—and finally the enemy is behind us too...
More
16.08.1944 — 1944-81
Semenov sent me here with a crew of three men. It is a good place. The
main thing is freedom! There are no superiors, no one to instruct or
command me. I live alone with the soldiers, entirely and independently
disposing of my time and actions. Only one thing is bad: it is close to
the front line—one hundred meters...
More
19.08.1944 — 1944-67
About thirty men remain of the company. There were seventy. Two platoon
commanders were killed and one wounded. I was present when they
received their mission. The two who were killed—Uzbek or Kalmyk
lieutenants—were pale, and in their faces I read the deathly
shadow of corpses...
More
20.08.1944 — 1944-68
It turns out that the infantry itself crawled under our artillery fire
by beginning the attack too early, while the sappers left without
clearing the minefield separating us from the enemy. Petrusyan told me
that he himself cleared a large area near the enemy trenches...
More
21.08.1944 – 22.08.1944 — 1944-69
The German is angry: all day he throws shells around our ravine. But
not into the ravine itself! As if it were a forbidden zone for them.
Mortar rounds also fly past, leaving only an unpleasant hiss behind
them. Apparently the damned enemies have received more shells—or
perhaps they are firing their last ones before withdrawing?...
More
23.08.1944 – 24.08.1944 — 1944-70
Five in the morning. The war has begun. I think the Fritz has run away,
although Pugach still reports by telephone that he is throwing
grenades. I have just come from the front line. Silence. Not a single
shot. During the night, until the very first light, the enemy fired and
blew up his antitank mines...
More
26.08.1944 — 1944-71
Near Kotovsk. An enemy grouping has been surrounded here—twelve
divisions! We are to liquidate it. Other units have gone far west of
this place and are already in Romania...
More
27.08.1944 — 1944-72
Since yesterday captured Germans have been moving past in an unbroken
stream along the highway. Column after column, four abreast. Even now
their dark mass, evenly moving figures, is visible in the gray light. A
regiment—no, more, a division—and there is no end to this
procession of utterly bankrupt, hated Fritzes...
More
30.08.1944 — 1944-73
Today we are setting off in the opposite direction. We shall go due
east about fifteen kilometers. At five in the morning—a halt. We
are being transferred to another sector...
More
30.08.1944 — 1944-73
Today we are setting off in the opposite direction. We shall go due
east about fifteen kilometers. At five in the morning—a halt. We
are being transferred to another sector...
More
31.08.1944 — 1944-74
Friction between Senior Lieutenant Semenov and me appeared from the very beginning of my arrival in the mortar company...
More
01.09.1944 – 03.09.1944 — 1944-75
We are leaving here now. The route is twenty-five kilometers. We are
moving east. Evidently we shall cross the Dniester a second time in the
reverse direction, to the left bank, because the railway operates only
on the other side of the Dniester...
More
05.09.1944 – 06.09.1944 — 1944-76
The inhabitants call our arrival a second front. All the vegetable
gardens, melon fields, and orchards have been completely ruined and
emptied. Vineyards have been destroyed all along our route. It is
simply dreadful. And no one can manage the Slavs. They try them, shoot
them, punish them, curse them—it is all useless...
More
09.09.1944 — 1944-77
Yesterday I stopped at regimental headquarters to have my pay book
stamped. The regimental commander, Major Lynev, was there. He asked why
I continued to wear my hair long, and then said, “So then: for
failing to obey my order...” But I hurried to interrupt him
because I understood that he wanted to punish me...
More
10.09.1944 — 1944-78
The story of my “History of the Regiment” is too tangled
and unrewarding. There is nowhere to dig up material, and what I have
at hand is far from sufficient...
More
13.09.1944 — 1944-79
We are loading here. Right beside the railway is a seven-year school.
The teachers are young, pretty girls. A dream, in a word!...
More
14.09.1944 — 1944-80
Last night the senior adjutant, Captain Bondarenko, stunned me:
“By order of the battalion commander, you are taking the
gun!” “What do you mean, the gun? It already has a
commander!” “The battalion commander is appointing you. The
former commander of the 45-mm gun has been relieved of command by the
regimental commander.”...
More
22.09.1944 — 1944-82
I received several letters yesterday and today. Three from Mother. She
thanks me for my sensitivity and care, but writes that all my efforts
have so far produced no results. Mother still has no apartment, and the
approaching winter offers her a grim prospect...
More
27.09.1944 — 1944-83
My situation in the battalion has become unbearable. Every other day I
am appointed duty officer, and the senior adjutant says the duty
officer is entitled to only two hours of rest a day. Food also brings
many troubles and humiliations. My uniform is torn and dirty. They give
me no money...
More
28.09.1944 — 1944-84
Chief of Staff Bondarenko threatened to remove me from the ration list.
He demanded that I go again to the chief of the personnel section. When
I went to him, the man began swearing, called me undisciplined, and
told me not to come to him again until he summoned me himself...
More
29.09.1944 — 1944-85
I sleep on the floor in the operations group’s room. It is cold.
By morning my legs had gone stiff. Now the assistant chief of staff for
operations has given me work: inspect the guard and report by noon.
From noon there is a parade. Both men and horses are marching. Music.
An unimaginable scene...
More
03.10.1944 – 04.10.1944 — 1944-86
Yesterday I was at the Ninth. I met many old soldiers and commanders
with whom I had served. Many have risen in rank; some have received
decorations. A whole number of new officers arrived in the Ninth during
my absence. I do not know them...
More
06.10.1944 — 1944-87
I looked through addresses and the dates on which I had sent letters to
them. I am expecting letters from all thirty people, except, true, one
woman to whom I have never yet written and perhaps never will...
More
09.10.1944 – 11.10.1944 — 1944-88
Somewhere I lost a topographic map with notes written on its blank
side. Troitsky, a senior sergeant and Shishikin’s secretary,
found it. They recognized my handwriting and summoned me. Assistant
Chief of Staff Shishikin spoke of the consequences that might have
arisen if the regimental commander—or, still worse,
Furmanov—had found the map. I understood all that...
More
12.10.1944 — 1944-89
To Antyufeyev I am like a speck in the eye. Today, for example, while
he was standing with the deputy regimental commander for personnel and
I passed by, it occurred to him to remind the major that I was idle and
ought to be sent to a battalion. “Comrade Major, he just sits
there and plays his pipes,” Antyufeyev embellished the story...
More
13.10.1944 — 1944-90
Antyufeyev will not let up. He pursues me like an evil demon. Today
again he reminded the regimental commander about me when I happened to
be at headquarters after being summoned by Shishikin...
More
16.10.1944 — 1944-91
Major Ladovshchik, to whom I gave my ink to look at, did not return it,
and when I began demanding it back he spent about two hours talking
around the issue and trying to pull me into dancing. He is impossibly
brazen. Today, for example, he took a watch from one of the medical
orderlies...
More
17.10.1944 — 1944-92
The second time Nikolai Sultanov and I went there together. He became
interested in the younger sister, aged twenty-nine; I, of course, in
the older one. That day I was bolder than ever. It began with
photographs. The mother did not object even when Katyusha called me
“Vovochka”; she was uninhibited and, as it seemed to me,
sparkling with passion...
More
18.10.1944 — 1944-93
Today I drank quite a bit. The vodka is strong. They say I am drunk,
but no, that is nonsense, and inkblots... I love inkblots. When I got
drunk my soul felt so good, warm, and cheerful. I spilled the ink. What
shall I write with? Nothing but grief for me!...
More
19.10.1944 — 1944-94
As if to confirm her virginity, Klava lay down with Galya and made a
separate bed for me with the captain. I slept badly at night, and in
the morning, as soon as I got up, Klava called me to her, while Galya
thoughtfully gave up her place to me...
More
21.10.1944 — 1944-95
I entered the army too young and inexperienced in life. I remained that
way until I met Klava. I idealized love too much, loving at a distance,
with my eyes. I had little contact with girls...
More
22.10.1944 – 23.10.1944 — 1944-96
In Włodawa our troops were everywhere. I came across the Fifth. I had
acquaintances there among officers and soldiers, and they told me where
divisional headquarters was. In the operations section I found
Shchinov, the topographer, and others. Shchinov is already a major.
“Hello, Senior Lieutenant,” he said to me, but immediately
stumbled when he saw that I was only a lieutenant...
More
24.10.1944 — 1944-97
On the road here I met Galai. I was riding on a local
inhabitant’s cart and, recognizing him, greeted Galai. That was a
big mistake... He stopped the vehicle and pointed with his finger for
me to come to him. I ran up and reported. “Where are you going?
Why alone? You son of a bitch! You f...ing bastard, walrus cock!”
I had heard him use obscenities before, but...
More
25.10.1944 — 1944-98
We met again! “Oh, it is you, Comrade Colonel!” I exclaimed
in surprise and hurried to turn left. Not without reason, as it turned
out, because he was furious and attacked a first sergeant riding on a
cart when the latter said to him, “What asshole is shouting over
there?!”...
More
26.10.1944 – 27.10.1944 — 1944-99
A cart carrying a motorcycle was following the same route as I, so I
rode on it. A biting frost stood outside all day. I went through the
whole village, but everywhere they refused me lodging under one pretext
or another...
More
28.10.1944 — 1944-100
Poland resembles a malicious, capricious child that very grown-up and
very serious people fuss over and on which they waste a great deal of
time. I have seen Poland and, as far as I could, studied its manners,
way of life, and customs. Great importance is attached here to outward
polish...
More
15.11.1944 – 16.11.1944 — 1944-101
I am now drafting an explanatory statement for my new female friend and
fellow lodger, whom they want to expel from the Party on charges of
cohabitation and drinking. Just think what a shameful accusation for a
girl!...
More
17.11.1944 – 18.11.1944 — 1944-102
The girl who moved into the same house as me is pure trash. I very much
regret helping her justify herself before the Divisional Party
Commission; she is not worth it. She is rude to me and does not want to
talk, while different men come to see her every day, several times in
succession...
More
20.11.1944 — 1944-103
And the conversation went as follows. When I approached her and wanted
to caress her, she pushed me away roughly and quarreled with me, and in
the evening reminded me that I must not “lure girls.” I
asked what that was supposed to mean...
More
21.11.1944 — 1944-104
Łochów station. What an astonishing difference there is between
people! Here they received me so warmly and surrounded me with such
care that, truly, I do not want to leave. Yet I should have moved on
from here yesterday...
More
22.11.1944 — 1944-105
I gave up on everything and went to look around the town. This is the
first reasonably large town I have encountered in Poland. A straight
asphalt street runs through all of Mińsk Mazowiecki and, together with
the adjoining lanes, forms its center. Here shops are so numerous and
varied...
More
23.11.1944 — 1944-106
The kindness of these people knows no bounds. They spare nothing and
are ready to share even the last things they have. They fried potatoes
in butter for me, treated me to sauerkraut prepared with onions and
oil, twice during the evening made me drink tea with bread and butter
and sugar. They prepared a luxurious bed...
More
24.11.1944 — 1944-107
At the farmstead I settled with some pilots in a charming little hut
belonging to an equally charming young Polish woman. She is two years
older than I am, but a very elegant and sweet girl. Her parents
received me cordially, and she herself even hemmed the flaps of my
greatcoat that had been hanging down disgracefully...
More
25.11.1944 — 1944-108
A wonderful prospect has opened before me! Divisional topographer Zykov
seriously suggested that I study topography so that I could become a
regimental topographer. A very promising job! At any cost I must master
this subject, which is always needed...
More
03.12.1944 — 1944-109
There is a new head of personnel. Apparently a different sort of man
from Lysenko. From Piven’s words he concluded that I had spent
more time in reserve than on the front line. He shouted at me and said
I was eating bread for nothing; when I advised him to send me to the
army, he objected that they already had men there even worse than me...
More
04.12.1944 — 1944-110
Today, as yesterday, an unimaginable series of events unfolded around
me. I did not go to the Ninth immediately but decided to postpone it
until today because the question of my uniform had still not been
resolved. Pobiyanov wrote on the quartermaster requisition: there is no
clothing in the warehouse, therefore I cannot issue it. I went to
Zhirov...
More
05.12.1944 – 30.12.1944 — 1944-111
The regiment received me as one of their own. Skorobogatov sent me to
the third battalion. I still have no post, but nevertheless I
immediately felt that I was among my own people and that there was
someone to take care of me...
More
01.01.1945 — 1945-1
So the New Year has arrived. There was no chance to celebrate: we were
on wheels, moving. But we marked it on the road as best we
could—in our own military way. We drank one hundred grams each
from the round lid of a German mess tin. Those who drank first got
more; the last did not even get fifty grams...
More
02.01.1945 – 03.01.1945 — 1945-2
The front is very close—beyond the Vistula, about two kilometers
from here. We will have to walk eight or nine kilometers to our own
defensive line. Already we can hear explosions, the booming of
artillery fire, and the roar of aircraft. Gigantic battles are taking
place at the front, and after six months, if not more—I do not
even remember—spent in the rear,...
More
04.01.1945 — 1945-3
The bridgehead beyond the Vistula is large and clayey. The place where
we are to be positioned is under enemy fire from three sides; flares
dart and scatter light on the right, left, in front, and even slightly
behind our position...
More
07.01.1945 — 1945-4
Yesterday I walked all over the defenses, from the forward edge deep
into the rear, and everywhere saw so many interesting things that I
could scarcely take in all I had seen. An entire artillery division
with its newspaper Soviet Artilleryman stands in this sector. Several
Guards divisions, several artillery regiments, and finally our
artillery...
More
08.01.1945 – 13.01.1945 — 1945-5
I am dressed very warmly. I am wearing two tunics, a sweater,
undershirt, quilted jacket and greatcoat, long underwear, trousers, and
warm quilted trousers. And still I have no lice...
More
14.01.1945 — 1945-6
Ahead of us is a river—we shall have to force it. The frost is
weak; even the snow has melted. Ahead is a railway—we shall have
to seize that too...
More
15.01.1945 – 19.01.1945 — 1945-7
Rysev did not report his actions to the battalion commander, and only
before the battle on the 12th, seeing the seriousness of the situation,
did I approach the battalion commander myself. I was ordered to take
command of the platoon. Captain Rysev “fell ill” and
remained in the rear with his orderly...
More
21.01.1945 — 1945-8
No more than ten kilometers remain to Kutno. Here I decided to spend
the night with the soldiers. A senior lieutenant from the regimental
medical unit drank far too much yesterday, rode ahead on a horse, and
evidently wandered off somewhere. I remained with the soldiers,
although the night before last I could have caught up with my regiment
on any passing vehicle...
More
22.01.1945 — 1945-9
Theft and deception have acquired the force of tradition. In the first
days after I became acquainted with the company, to my astonishment I
encountered the theft of the company commander’s chrome-leather
boots and a kit bag containing underwear and other belongings.
Suspicion fell on Lieutenant Kanonenko...
More
26.01.1945 – 27.01.1945 — 1945-10
It is already dawn. We slept about two hours, no more, and now we must
move again. The lice have already begun their work. Gradually they are
becoming more and more brazen; they live and multiply—the
situation is bad and smells of kerosene, as Kanonenko says.
Incidentally, he has turned up...
More
28.01.1945 — 1945-11
Germany greeted us inhospitably, with a snowstorm, a savage wind, and
empty, almost dead villages. The people here, the Germans, fear Russian
wrath. They flee, abandoning all their homes and possessions...
More
30.01.1945 — 1945-12
The inhabitants are terribly frightened. When we arrived, they all
raised their hands and asked fearfully, “Alles kaputt, alles
kaputt?” Their place was turned upside down; everything needed
was taken. The luxury of the furnishings is indescribable, the wealth
and elegance of all the possessions astonishing. Now our Slavs have
finally gotten their hands on it!...
More
02.02.1945 – 03.02.1945 — 1945-13
We are moving toward the river, where very fierce fighting is now
taking place. Enemy vultures circle above our heads and lash us with
long, but more often short, bursts of explosive bullets from heavy
machine guns. There was no chance to rest. During the night I cleared
my bags of surplus trophy junk...
More
04.02.1945 – 05.02.1945 — 1945-14
Evening. The enemy has worn us out with his stubbornness. Half the
personnel of the rifle companies have been put out of action. Here in
the cellar it is hot and sweaty—the upper floor, set on fire by
the enemy, is burning. The roof has almost burned away, although the
ceiling is strong; it is stone...
More
06.02.1945 — 1945-15
Major Laptev was wounded yesterday. Konets too. My Nagant revolver has
disappeared. The major took it from me on the eve of our arrival here,
thinking I was drunk, and Konets, to whom he handed it, gave it to
someone together with his belt when he was being bandaged...
More
09.02.1945 – 13.02.1945 — 1945-16
Rysev is a boy. Again he removed me from the platoon and even raised
his hand against me in front of the soldiers, swearing obscenely. I did
not swear back; I merely said that I had expected nothing cultured, nor
anything better in general, from him...
More
14.02.1945 — 1945-17
Yesterday two men who had shot themselves to escape duty were executed,
so after night duty I spent the whole day occupied with the courts.
During my duty a soldier from our Eighth, Kolyada, who had shot
himself, was brought to battalion headquarters. The senior adjutant
ordered me to watch him all night...
More
17.02.1945 — 1945-18
Food could hardly be better either: livestock wanders everywhere,
rushing about, lowing and bleating, grunting, suffering and... being
destroyed everywhere throughout the defensive area...
More
19.02.1945 — 1945-19
Few commanders remained after the disastrous battle of the 12th.
Kanonenko says there are now supposed to be two platoon commanders per
company. Given the chance, Rysev will try to get rid of me, and I can
very easily end up in a rifle company again...
More
21.02.1945 — 1945-20
Yesterday evening I became slightly ill. During the night Rysev
telephoned and ordered me to lead men out to work. When I said I was
ill, he repeated the order, and I was forced to go to his quarters.
“Come with me,” he said and led me into the next room.
“Medical assistant, take his temperature.”...
More
26.02.1945 — 1945-21
It is already getting dark. Motors can be heard knocking. Work on the
bridge is boiling. Neither by day nor night, not even under enemy fire,
do the men stop building the bridge across the Oder. The Germans throw
shrapnel and canister at it, but the bridge will nevertheless be
completed...
More
27.02.1945 — 1945-22
Kanonenko is urging me to submit a report directly to the regimental
commander. Perhaps it is merely incitement, because he says that
yesterday a combat character reference on me was requested from the
battalion commander, and he did not fail to send it...
More
01.03.1945 — 1945-23
The great, long-awaited day passed, by fate’s will, so
inconspicuously and falsely for me. Half the day I
“shussed” watches. The word “shuss” entered our
usage recently and no one knows who invented it. Evidently it came to
us together with trophy loot...
More
02.03.1945 — 1945-24
I still endure it, although I do not know what a tolerant attitude
toward such intolerable phenomena can lead to. Rysev attacks with every
kind of baseness and insolence, on a broad front, and is restrained
neither by pangs of conscience nor by the bounds of decency...
More
03.03.1945 — 1945-25
There are heaps of riches. The Poles walk around in rags, practically
beggars. I met many Russian girls, almost fellow countrywomen from the
Krivoi Rog area, but had no time to talk to them—we were moving...
More
04.03.1945 – 05.03.1945 — 1945-26
Until dark I wrote my thoughts in the diary, then, to distract myself
from melancholy, played the harmonica. The soldiers have become
unbearable and insult me shamelessly, encouraged by Captain Rysev and
especially Kanonenko. It is very hard for me to command, although never
before have I had so few men—six...
More
13.03.1945 — 1945-27
Opposite us stands naval infantry whose battalions number four hundred
men—a serious enemy. Our Slavs, however, have already become
conceited; they say they spit on what divisions are made of and will
knock out any enemy because they are Stalin’s men...
More
15.03.1945 — 1945-28
REPORT. Captain Rysev has repeatedly threatened in front of
subordinates to shoot me and subject me to other reprisals, in most
cases entirely undeserved. There is not a single private, sergeant, or
officer in the company whom Captain Rysev has not publicly cursed with
the most reckless obscenities...
More
19.03.1945 — 1945-29
Events in general intertwine in very diverse forms. Yesterday, for
example, whole clouds of British aircraft flew over us, thirty to fifty
in each group. The day was hot, almost summery and sunny, and the sky
became mottled white with aircraft speckling the blue expanse...
More
20.03.1945 — 1945-30
Senior Sergeant Andreyev arrived. During the march he fell behind,
experienced a mass of adventures, rode with a tank-borne infantry
group, but then fell into the hands of counterintelligence, which
“worked him over” a little and sent him to our battalion,
though to a rifle company. Now he came to visit us, and I listened to
his story with interest...
More
21.03.1945 — 1945-31
I was lucky. I had to travel only five kilometers on foot. The rest was
by vehicle. I covered more than thirty kilometers today and here I am
in Neudamm. A medium-sized town, with many four-story buildings. Some
streets are asphalted, the rest paved. Everywhere are traces of
destruction and fighting...
More
22.03.1945 — 1945-32
No, I am lying! This morning, when I was preparing to leave the town, I
saw several interested female faces in the windows of a building,
smiling at me from the hospital operating ward on the first floor. I
went straight to the window...
More
23.03.1945 – 24.03.1945 — 1945-33
Today there was a formal inspection. The divisional commander came and
walked through the entire regiment, carefully inspecting everyone from
private to officer. He is small, stocky, dark, and angry. He swears
disgustingly...
More
28.03.1945 – 29.03.1945 — 1945-34
At the regiment they said I was being sent to a training assembly. In
the battalion they said nothing at all, only hurried me to pack, and I
rushed here almost headlong. Here are junior lieutenants just out of
courses: young, healthy, in new uniforms...
More
01.04.1945 – 04.04.1945 — 1945-35
The final court session in the case of the bandits from the gang led by
Lieutenant Abdurakhmanov. Previously there were not so many people
present, but now, awaiting the sentence, the hall is packed.
Twenty-three men are on trial...
More
09.04.1945 – 10.04.1945 — 1945-36
Bärwalde. Middle of the night. A hospital of some army has arrived
here—women only. All day there was bustle and movement around our
quarters as the newcomers searched for featherbeds, beds, sheets, and
blankets...
More
12.04.1945 — 1945-37
At last in Küstrin. I inspected it today: a large city, but
destroyed to its foundations. Here and there cellars survived,
occasionally the ground floors of once enormous buildings—a reply
to Stalingrad, though a milder one; in Stalingrad even the cellars were
wiped from the face of the earth...
More
13.04.1945 — 1945-38
The bridgehead beyond the Oder, west of Küstrin. The mailman has
just brought the most tragic and bitter foreign news I have received:
Roosevelt has died...
More
14.04.1945 — 1945-39
By the end of the war I have become a thorough rear-area man—I am
never closer than two or three kilometers from the enemy. But such a
prospect does not please me; I am drawn to where it thunders, groans,
and burns...
More
16.04.1945 — 1945-40
The enemy is nervous; he senses what is coming. Major Zhadreyev says
that by this evening we should be in Berlin. At five o’clock the
work will begin...
More
18.04.1945 — 1945-41
The mortar men said that the entire company has been put out of action.
Kanonenko, his orderly, and several other soldiers were killed. Rysev,
Shitikov, and all the rest except six men were wounded. Thus tragically
ended the mortar company in which I had sought glory...
More
25.04.1945 — 1945-42
Berlin. The Spree. The infantry crossed the Spree yesterday and the day
before and began fighting near the railway line. We, divisional
headquarters, have for the time being established ourselves on one of
the riverside streets on the outskirts of Berlin, in large half-ruined
multistory buildings...
More
28.04.1945 — 1945-43
The streets of Berlin are noisy and crowded. The Germans, every one of
them, wear white armbands. They are no longer afraid of us and walk the
streets freely. There are many events, so powerful and impressive that
it is difficult to put them into words...
More
01.05.1945 — 1945-44
The Germans did not agree to capitulate. At 21:15 the artillery
preparation will begin. We shall speak the language of weapons. On the
evening of April 30 the divisions’ artillery preparation began...
More
07.05.1945 — 1945-46
Today there was a parade of the division’s units. My chief made
me appear too. Major Yarovoi lent me his cap and I became a presentable
man. Only my trousers were very dirty, which spoiled the whole
impression. I am a terrible slob in every respect...
More
08.05.1945 — 1945-47
Suddenly the orchestra fell silent. The warning command
“Dress!” ran through the ranks, then
“Attention!”, and to the rush of a turbulent, boiling march
the divisional commander, Hero of the Soviet Union Colonel Antonov,
galloped onto the square on horseback...
More
10.05.1945 — 1945-48
Yesterday morning an unforgettable event occurred. The Germans agreed
to complete and unconditional surrender. The newspapers reported it
sparingly but solemnly...
More
15.05.1945 — 1945-49
Several days ago near the dining hall I met two pretty young German
women. We began talking. They compared me to an Italian and said my
hair was very black; they paid me compliments, which I did not fail to
point out to them...
More
21.05.1945 – 24.05.1945 — 1945-50
Let me have drunk a good deal... two in the morning... let it be. Poems
will not come, love will not come, and my heart does not beat for
baseness or prostitution. I am drunk now and my head is heavy, but
sober thoughts refuse to leave my mind...
More
28.05.1945 – 29.05.1945 — 1945-51
Today I woke at eleven in the morning. A day off—the second since
peace came—with music, volleyball and football... I slept through
a lot, but considering that I did not go to bed before three in the
morning, that in the first hour of the new day the moon attracted me,
and in the second a female sentry from the separate signal battalion...
More
03.06.1945 — 1945-52
I am still in an unstable position and have no definite post. Time
passes foolishly and talentlessly; I manage to accomplish nothing and
do not know how to plan my hours...
More
04.06.1945 — 1945-53
Dear Bertha! I received your letter of May 10 and was glad, but also
upset, now by your reproaches. In part, however, it is good that you
take offense and scold me—it means you are interested...
More
06.06.1945 — 1945-54
My dear Lyalechka! I have not written you for a long time, and although
I am busy, today I decided to scribble a few words. I live in Berlin
and am having photographs taken. In a few days I shall send you a
photograph of myself...
More
09.06.1945 — 1945-55
It is after one in the morning. Reveille tomorrow is at seven. I am
again in a mortar company, but in another battalion. Kuznetsov, the
chief of staff and a Hero of the Soviet Union, told me that he
personally was not pleased by my arrival in the battalion because he
had a poor character reference on me...
More
10.06.1945 – 12.06.1945 — 1945-56
I have been in the unit for several days, but still have not taken over
the platoon or talked to and learned about each of my soldiers. This is
very bad both for me and for the men of my platoon. The superiors will
be dissatisfied too...
More
16.06.1945 — 1945-57
What a job has fallen to me: looting the Academy of Sciences! I would
never have thought myself capable of such dirty work, but people and
circumstances force me. Filth in the temple of science, nothing less!...
More
23.06.1945 — 1945-58
Dear Mother! I received your letter and want to answer, but I lose
myself among my thoughts: there is so much to tell, yet with my
wordiness it is difficult to fit everything into the little piece of
rapidly fleeing time that I happened to seize...
More
24.06.1945 — 1945-59
I nearly sinned for the second time in my life, but I felt ashamed
because of the girl’s youth—she is not yet nineteen. She
was born in 1926, is named Marusya, is not beautiful but attractive
enough to compete with the beauty of others. The complete opposite of
Nadya from Berlin...
More
25.06.1945 — 1945-60
I shall probably visit Japan too. In any case I shall try to make it
happen. But now I shall no longer be as foolish and naive as before,
and I will not again rush so uncontrollably and headlong into the
thickest fighting. People did not appreciate the full depth of my
self-sacrifice...
More
28.06.1945 — 1945-61
Yesterday I learned the number of the order: No. 73 of 17 June 1945, by
which I was awarded the Order of the Red Star. The personnel clerks
suggested that I “wash” the award with a drink, but that
only made my heart feel still worse. This award has become my shame and
a reproach to my reason...
More
29.06.1945 — 1945-62
I have escaped the subordination of all superiors. In the regiment they
hardly bother me, in the battalion they take little interest in me, and
I do not depend on them at all. What will happen to me next, where will
they send me, how will they treat me? I have quarreled with everyone,
come to hate all these thick-headed “leaders,” and they
take revenge...
More
30.06.1945 — 1945-63
We attended the awards ceremony, which, I confess, embittered me even
more toward all sorts of scoundrels who became famous here and obtained
high ranks and decorations exclusively through baseness and duplicity...
More
02.07.1945 — 1945-64
In one room piled with barrels, tools, and all sorts of things stood a
bicycle. I carried it out, at first thinking one of the soldiers had
left it there, but later, even when I learned that everyone was
accounted for and the bicycle was not ours, I decided not to take it
back—it was risky, and besides, I badly needed a bicycle...
More
09.07.1945 – 12.07.1945 — 1945-65
I am now in the little town of Rüdersdorf, not far from our camp.
I am getting a six-month electric permanent wave purely out of
curiosity. They have been working on me for about two hours. A young
pretty German woman fusses especially attentively around my hair. I
shall have to make friends with her...
More
13.07.1945 – 14.07.1945 — 1945-66
Yesterday evening I was at a camp of Russian girls working here at a
factory. I rode there on a bicycle that had been left with me as
security for two thousand marks. There were many officers, sergeants,
and soldiers. The girls were in great demand...
More
18.07.1945 — 1945-67
For several days in a row I have been on a spree and wrote almost
nothing except a few letters. A lake with picturesque shores and dense
forest, with naked bathers from among the soldiers and officers of our
regiment, with Russian girls, often half-naked,...
More
23.07.1945 – 24.07.1945 — 1945-68
My mood is somehow half-philistine; I have no initiative for anything.
I want something incomprehensible. I dream of something great,
impressive, full of contrasts and filled with warmth and well-being. I
am tired of dragging out a half-beggarly existence, suffering need,
insult, and deception in everything...
More
26.07.1945 — 1945-69
Late evening. Mischievous fate plays cruelly with me. She enjoys
causing me trouble. Once again, for a moment, for whole hours or days,
and sometimes longer, she separates me from my diary, poems, notes,
prose, and drafts, playing with my absentmindedness...
More
06.08.1945 – 07.08.1945 — 1945-70
An unusual setting. I am in a tree in the dining-hall yard, waiting for a film whose title I do not yet know...
More
09.08.1945 — 1945-71
We were forbidden to talk to Germans, forbidden to spend the night in
their homes, forbidden to buy from them. Now they forbid us the last
thing as well—to appear in a German town, walk its streets, look
at its ruins. Not only soldiers, but officers too. But that is
impossible! We are human beings; we cannot sit behind bars...
More
12.08.1945 – 13.08.1945 — 1945-72
The day was wasted. Analyzing why I had spent my time so purposelessly,
I concluded that the fault lay in my old and worst habit: scattering
myself over trifles and bringing almost nothing I start to completion...
More
14.08.1945 — 1945-73
There was a Party meeting at which I criticized from my seat. I did not
get to make a full speech because the Communists were tired after
listening to so much foolishness and nonsense from a number of speakers
that one could not help pitying the audience’s ears...
More
15.08.1945 — 1945-74
Today is foggy as never before during my stay in Germany. One cannot
see a person five or ten steps away. The topic in political training is
“Japan.” In formation we sing old Far Eastern songs:
“And on the Pacific Ocean we finished our campaign,” and
“About the Japanese Samurai”...
More
17.08.1945 — 1945-75
We are now dispersed in the field and forest, waiting.
“Buyers,” as they are called here, have arrived at our
officers’ regiment. They will select us; where for is still
unknown. I am not going to Berlin again today—I cannot; they will
look for me...
More
24.08.1945 — 1945-76
Time passed. The day before yesterday, for the second time this week, I
decided to visit the city about which, on top of the Reichstag, I
wrote: “On the balcony of a Berlin building / I stand with my
soldier friends, / And I look and spit on Germany, / I spit on defeated
fascism.”...
More
26.08.1945 — 1945-77
Today they enrolled me for study. After several days of persuasion, the
temptation to return to the Motherland took effect and I yielded. For a
moment my heart prevailed over my mind, and I chose to sacrifice my
future for the lightning-fast smile of the present...
More
09.09.1945 — 1945-78
Yesterday I watched a remarkable film based on Gogol, The Slippers. In
it the fairy-tale and the realities of life are intertwined
convincingly and colorfully. There are many funny scenes...
More
14.09.1945 — 1945-79
The village of Caputh, six kilometers from Potsdam. So here I am in a
new place. All along the road and even after arriving I remained with
the club in my dreams, but it was as if they deliberately kept me in
the company, and despite all the conversations and promises I remain in
a hopeless position to this day...
More
27.09.1945 — 1945-80
I love myself. Very strongly and painfully. But the trouble is that I
have not yet made clear to myself for whom exactly—for myself or
for others—and which is better...
More
30.09.1945 — 1945-81
The village of Caputh. Again the tormenting days of waiting have
stretched out, the familiar uncertainty of the future and instability
of the present have returned. My “happiness” turned out to
be temporary...
More
06.10.1945 — 1945-82
And they began speaking about me at Party meetings. To make the
speeches more effective and their content more significant, they
invented more items “from Gelfand’s life”:
“They could not find him in the company for twenty days,”
“He was absent without leave in Berlin for seven days”...
More
08.10.1945 — 1945-83
“Thank you, Comrade General! A thousand thanks!” I blurted
out at the same moment that the doorman slammed the car door, and after
giving a crisp Red Army salute I froze in a prolonged military
greeting...
More
16.10.1945 — 1945-84
Before me is almost the finished image of a prostitute. Her eyebrows
are painted, lipstick is plastered on her lips, and she smells of
mustiness and cologne. She is not without beauty, but the hand of the
ugly artist, vulgarity, has taken away all her freshness and
attractiveness...
More
17.10.1945 — 1945-85
I searched my pockets for something suitable for making an inscription
on the wall as a sign of my visit to this place and found nothing. Then
I noticed someone’s scratches in English, standing out brightly
against the bronze already blackened above. And I had an
idea—with a knife!...
More
19.10.1945 — 1945-86
Yesterday I spent the day visiting the Rishovskys. In the evening I
watched “Kabarett” with the girls, and very late drank tea
and listened to music—the singing of the owner’s elder
daughter Elsa, with whom, incidentally, I had already managed to
exchange kisses...
More
20.10.1945 — 1945-87
SERVICE CHARACTER REFERENCE for mortar-platoon commander Lieutenant Vladimir Natanovich Gelfand, born in 1923,...
More
21.10.1945 — 1945-88
My assignment officially expired the day before yesterday, and I was
afraid to walk around Berlin—the commandant’s office is
especially active on weekends, when there are many servicemen about.
For me Sunday is the worst day...
More
22.10.1945 — 1945-89
In the morning I spent the whole day repacking suitcases. I expected my
plan concerning the political department to fail and, just in case,
prepared to travel—to the battalion or even back to the reserve
regiment. I had badly overstayed my assignment and arrived two days
later than the specified date...
More
23.10.1945 — 1945-90
Everything is over. What I feared most and awaited with disgust has
happened. The doors leading to the political-work road slammed shut
after briefly flashing a bright crack onto a promising path...
More
24.10.1945 — 1945-91
Together with the head of the personnel department I was received by
the brigade commander for the second time. “Well, then, you will
have to show your abilities in another job. And why is your personal
file so bad?” I remained silent. “Comrade Lieutenant, I am
asking why your evaluation is like this! Explain!”...
More
25.10.1945 — 1945-92
Tomorrow I shall go to work as a clerk—what a fate has fallen to
me in my twenty-third year. And all because of fate... Half past
midnight. Lights out...
More
26.10.1945 — 1945-93
The girl’s mother remained pleased with me. No wonder! On the
altar of the relatives’ trust and goodwill I had sacrificed candy
and butter, sausage, and expensive German cigarettes. Half of these
products alone would be enough to give one every basis and right to do
anything one wanted with the daughter before the mother’s eyes,...
More
27.10.1945 — 1945-94
“Are you familiar with this work?” he asked after I told
him about my previous army service. “No.” “Then why
did you take it? You will not cope, and at best they will ask you to
leave, if not throw you out, or even put you on trial.” I
listened and did not argue. He was speaking quite reasonably...
More
28.10.1945 — 1945-95
“In view of the fact that Lieutenant Gelfand is completely
unfamiliar with clerical work and we have no vacant position for him, I
am sending him to your disposal.” And once again I am waiting for
a motor vehicle...
More
29.10.1945 – 30.10.1945 — 1945-96
Today, however, fate decided to turn her mischievous face toward me and
smile slightly. The assistant chief of staff wrote a resolution on my
certificate placing me on rations, and I received coupons through the
end of the month. I have just found an apartment in the center of town
and obtained a job...
More
31.10.1945 — 1945-97
“I am leaving for Velten, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel.”
“To what post are they appointing you there?”
“Clerk.” “You have already been hanging around here
for two weeks, haven’t you?” “Yes,” I hurried
to confirm, afraid he might remember an even longer period...
More
01.11.1945 – 02.11.1945 — 1945-98
The three of us spent a long time choosing the work most suitable for
me. We settled on transport. The rate is seven hundred or seven hundred
fifty rubles. The post carries the rank of engineer-captain, and it
will be easier to handle than any other. “For the time being you
have nothing to do—there is no transport. Familiarize
yourself.”...
More
04.11.1945 — 1945-99
The vehicle was already standing in the yard of the armaments factory
where I now live and work. The driver was tired of waiting and, while I
dressed, blew the horn desperately without sparing the battery...
More
05.11.1945 — 1945-100
I am very drunk. Everything here has become tangled. My scheme caused a
major unpleasantness. I could not keep the black secret of my offense
in my breast and told Major Korneyev openly. He reported it to the base
commander, and the matter went too far...
More
06.11.1945 — 1945-101
My mood was sad, but when I drank I immediately forgot the sorrows and
failures of life. I swallowed a great deal, about six hundred grams,
and then suddenly lost myself and to this moment cannot clearly
remember what followed...
More
07.11.1945 — 1945-102
Today, for example, two especially significant events have engraved
themselves in my memory and relentlessly gnaw at my imagination. No, I
am lying! A whole long chain of incidents troubles me, stubbornly
refusing to let what happened pass without leaving a trace in me...
More
10.11.1945 – 13.11.1945 — 1945-103
A day off. Boredom devoured me completely. We were issued another
little bottle each. For a long time I did not want to drink, but could
not bear the melancholy, loneliness, and idleness. I drank a little
with two officers...
More
14.11.1945 — 1945-104
Our slogans and posters in German are displayed in trams as
advertising. There are no English or French ones. “Staatsfeiertag
der UdSSR”—what this slogan on the tram wall means, I do
not know...
More
16.11.1945 — 1945-105
Today I am duty officer. I did not drink much, but irretrievably lost a
good thought. It came to me over supper, but now I try in vain to
remember it...
More
17.11.1945 — 1945-106
I am again at the center of events. At two in the morning, after
checking the posts and drinking quite a lot at Yurchenko’s for
the second time, I lay down in my clothes... Shouting and noise arose
outside. I ran out to meet the unknown, which turned into an enormous
unpleasantness for me, with all the other fateful consequences...
More
22.11.1945 — 1945-107
Three in the morning. A woman. What can one do with her? She is three
years older than I am. She fell in love with me at first sight and so
strongly that even after getting drunk I do not dare keep silent about
it...
More
23.11.1945 — 1945-108
Yesterday’s incident is indelible from my memory. I met the woman
in the street when it was already dark. She was walking with a female
friend and seemed interesting to me at first glance...
More
25.11.1945 — 1945-109
At the most interesting point the light went out and the film stopped.
One bulb lights the hall. It is dark and I am writing by flashlight.
Back at the unit they may be looking for me. I am due for duty, but I
do not know whether today or tomorrow...
More
06.12.1945 — 1945-110
I have already been here many days. The days off and yesterday’s
Constitution Day have been completely filled with work loading
transport from the commandant’s warehouses and the Kremmen
sawmills. We work from eight to eight. The soldiers are good, but
soft...
More
12.12.1945 — 1945-111
I noticed this girl long ago, when I was a “candidate political
worker” here with the Brigade. I happened to see her in the town
barbershop and from then on became a frequent visitor to the
establishment...
More
20.12.1945 — 1945-112
Senior Lieutenant Shpeipeltoch grows more brazen all the time. Today he
was here at the factory and, although he knew I was here, did not want
to see me on the spot but passed an “order” through my Red
Army man: “Let the lieutenant report to my department and wait
there until I come!”...
More
23.12.1945 — 1945-113
I first knew a woman only after the war in Berlin, and even then only
because she herself volunteered. Since then there have been five on my
account, three in Berlin and two in Velten. One of the five was a
prostitute from Alexanderplatz, another had gonorrhea...
More
28.12.1945 — 1945-114
One thought and one hope, despite all my inability for prolonged and
orderly labor, never leave me: to be a writer and to be famous. Today I
am still far from achieving even the first half of this dream...
More
29.12.1945 — 1945-115
I did not dare go to the technical department alone. Sergeyev and I
went together. The lieutenant colonel did not swear—he was
preparing to go somewhere in Berlin...
More
30.12.1945 — 1945-116
I am alone again. I live out of the way. It is forbidden to appear in
theaters, restaurants, cafés, or German women’s
apartments, and there are no suitable Russian girls. Every day from
eight until ten or eleven in the evening I wander alone through the
streets, then return home, read newspapers, and write something...
More
05.01.1946 — 1946-1
And again, event after event... mostly unpleasant and dull. I was sent
to Kremmen to the sawmills. I have two of them under my control there.
There is not much work. The apartment is good...
More
05.01.1946 — 1946-2
REPORT. I request your order to issue me a personal weapon, because the
conditions of my work often require me to be alone at night outside the
Base...
More
06.01.1946 — 1946-3
This girl is truly worthy of love and respect. She is a year older than
I am and has already had a husband, with whom she lived no more than
thirteen days, yet preserved both her virginity and beauty. She is a
human being in the fullest sense of the word, although she is a woman
and a German...
More
12.01.1946 — 1946-4
Again there is trouble with the parcel. They would not accept it
because the address said “Poste restante,” although shortly
before that I had repacked it—it weighed eleven kilograms one
hundred grams—and I paid a pack of cigarettes merely to have it
sewn up...
More
14.01.1946 — 1946-5
I arrived in Potsdam late, at eight in the evening—the trading
delayed me: I bought a camera, a watch, two pens, and a cap, half of
what I had planned. I went around photographic studios and visited an
artist. I had photographs taken and left some photographs to be
enlarged...
More
16.01.1946 — 1946-6
Again I spent the night with Margot. She has changed little: she is
pretty, but her hands have become covered with pimples, and she has
scratched them all over her body. Now I feel a little squeamish, though
not enough to leave her altogether...
More
17.01.1946 — 1946-7
Today a senior lieutenant—I have forgotten his
surname—arrived in Kremmen and presented a note containing Major
Korneyev’s demand that I immediately hand over the sawmills and
report to the assistant chief of the Base for technical matters...
More
18.01.1946 — 1946-8
I did not remain long in Kremmen—one night. In the morning I
looked out the window and noticed a senior lieutenant from the
technical department walking along the road. At first I thought he had
come to inspect me because he was looking so attentively at the
contents of the sawmill, studying them with interest as he walked...
More
21.01.1946 — 1946-9
I stayed a long time in Berlin. I acquired a radio receiver, cloth for
a greatcoat, and much else. But now this is already the fifth day of my
absence from the unit. What will my chief say, and what shall I answer
him?...
More
25.01.1946 — 1946-10
And here I am in Berlin again. Yesterday I visited the girls whom I had
met at the Reichstag. I sat with them until almost half past eleven at
night. They are intelligent and well developed, but not interesting in
the sense in which I understand the word...
More
26.01.1946 — 1946-11
I talked far too much and became overly frank, forgetting
Tolstoy’s words that “the dangerous woman is not the one
who holds you by the ..., but the one who holds you by the
soul”...
More
27.01.1946 — 1946-12
I met Sergeyev with another serviceman who wore no shoulder boards but
was warmly and elegantly dressed in an officer’s uniform. He
greeted me first and I paid no attention to who he was. I began telling
Sergeyev the story of my trip to Potsdam and my attachment to the
military trade organization...
More
02.02.1946 — 1946-13
After a long interval I again visited the restaurant famous here for
beer, dancing, and assorted other things—“Shalmon,”
as the officers at our Base call it. Again, as before, all the
girls’ glances and smiles were directed at me...
More
14.02.1946 — 1946-14
My life has changed fundamentally. There is now enough work that there
is not always even an opportunity to sleep. There are now six officers
in the transport department. Three, headed by the chief, a major,
arrived only yesterday...
More
21.02.1946 — 1946-15
The stealing continues. Every evening drunken shouts fly about, cards
flash—the life goes on. And how gray it becomes through the
officers’ general lack of interest in its content...
More
28.02.1946 – 01.03.1946 — 1946-16
Major Korneyev did not want to drink with everyone and was generally in
a hurry to go somewhere. I poured him a separate glass; he swallowed
about three to four hundred grams in one gulp and began telling stories
and giving lessons about various incidents of life...
More
02.03.1946 – 03.03.1946 — 1946-17
And so my day, March 1, passed without a trace, without even smiling at
me kindly. Stern, bilious, and empty like all the others, it departed
never to return...
More
04.03.1946 — 1946-18
The socialist government of Great Britain has not justified
humanity’s hopes. England has not changed its vile and wholly
unjustified role as strangler of the freedom and independence of
peoples. India is indignant...
More
06.03.1946 – 10.03.1946 — 1946-19
At a German evening party. Much music, stuffiness, and sadness. I do
not want to sleep although it is already three. Dancing until morning.
The German women are naked, almost in the literal sense of the
word—it is shameful and disgusting to see, while they pose and
twist themselves, pleased that they are repellent. Old women of seventy
and more whirl briskly in the waltz...
More
13.03.1946 — 1946-20
I spent the night in Kremmen. I listened to Schwartz’s bitter
confession, slept with her but did not sin. I tasted the fruit of
sleeplessness, experienced the power of temptation, and nevertheless
conscience proved stronger. At seven I was at the station and shortly
after eight at home...
More
16.03.1946 — 1946-21
Today in Potsdam I took care of all the matters entrusted to me and
managed things in Berlin too. The day was not wasted, but nevertheless
it is now behind me...
More
21.03.1946 – 24.03.1946 — 1946-22
In a few days the officers are moving to live elsewhere, and I may find
myself faced with leaving all my belongings and my apartment
unattended, exposed to looting from the street. In my absence
manufactured goods will arrive from the military store; the Velten
German women will be left without me, and Berlin will hardly see
me—my tunic is being sewn there, my suitcases are there...
More
25.03.1946 — 1946-23
REPORT. I consider it my duty to bring to your attention the outrageous
behavior of Senior Lieutenant Poloskin in the Base officers’
hostel on the night of March 24 of this year...
More
27.03.1946 — 1946-24
Life is changing for the better. And this small inconspicuous town,
with only one broad street—an asphalt highway, true—a
church with a bell tower, and two or three shops, smiled before the
spring sun with a childishly joyful smile...
More
28.03.1946 — 1946-25
My reflections ended in vodka. There was no need to continue looking
for the senior lieutenant; he himself appeared at the station in
Glewen, and the railway workers immediately informed me...
More
08.04.1946 – 09.04.1946 — 1946-26
The Singer factory... They say this factory is the first and principal
one in Germany. All the machine tools and sewing machines have already
been removed. The contents of the factory filled 170 railway cars. The
buildings will be blown up, but for now they have left a couple of
machines for making nails...
More
10.04.1946 – 12.04.1946 — 1946-27
I sit here and feel sleepy, although it is not yet ten in the evening.
At the new place things are not easy so far: there is much work and, as
it has now turned out, responsibility beyond my strength. I am not a
technician...
More
13.04.1946 – 14.04.1946 — 1946-28
But I have never met fools like myself, and one ought to beat the
foolishness out of them; so much melancholy and grief comes from this
stupidity. I drove around all night, and in the end it turned out that
I had forgotten the door key in Velten...
More
15.04.1946 — 1946-29
In reality life and work here proved much more complicated and tangled
than I had imagined when I came. Lieutenant Colonel Pieskachevsky had
not prepared all the necessary conditions for rapid work...
More
21.04.1946 — 1946-30
Yesterday I decided to go to Velten for money. Incidentally, I became
acquainted in Berlin with an intelligent family, and since then my life
in the city has brightened considerably. It happened in a German
exchange shop...
More
22.04.1946 — 1946-31
Life has entered a new phase. I spent the whole day with Dina
Lenskaya—Dinochka—and with Wanda, whose surname I still do
not know. The girls are very good, a rarity now...
More
23.04.1946 — 1946-32
Dina will not leave my mind. All my time and all my thoughts are
devoted to her. She is a sweet, intelligent girl. One cannot call her
an unsurpassed beauty, but it is impossible not to love her, if only
for her intelligent forehead, her tact, and the way she knows how to
smile so tenderly and warmly...
More
24.04.1946 — 1946-33
A woman loves a man. But before Dina I showed myself as a sentimental
youth who had not seen life. She is impressionable, with a good memory,
a clear but ordinary mind. I was strongly seduced by her chance smile
and freshness, forgot the rest, became lavish with both money and time,
and ruined everything—and for nothing...
More
27.04.1946 — 1946-34
After a long absence of four days I again visited the Lenskys’
apartment. True, yesterday I went to them, but I was angry over what
had happened before and, meeting Wanda, went dancing with her...
More
03.05.1946 – 04.05.1946 — 1946-35
I decided to pay the Lenskys a visit. The mother was home alone and
said that Dina had gone fishing with her father. Imagine my surprise
and annoyance when at last I waited for the father, Dina and...
Vladimir Ivanovich, that same thirty-five-year-old man whom Dina loves
so passionately and prefers to others, including me...
More
15.05.1946 — 1946-36
Life is sad when love is unhappy. So it is with me. I gave up Dina,
overcame myself, made incredible efforts of will, and now I have cooled
toward her. But another misfortune simply had to happen!...
More
17.05.1946 — 1946-37
I resume my entries after a considerable break. Yesterday I was again
at the Lenskys’. They received me more joyfully than ever before,
especially Dina. I behaved properly and did not stay long enough to
become tiresome...
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22.05.1946 – 24.05.1946 — 1946-38
I decided to acquire a few things. I have already had two suits made
but had no money to redeem them. Today I sold cigarettes and am going
to the tailor. There is plenty of photographic film now. I also have
developer and fixer...
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26.05.1946 — 1946-39
I enjoyed intimacy with a woman to the fullest. This is how it
happened. Fate threw me into Treptow Park, where I had a suit made and
where, at the Agfa factory, I obtained photographic material. On the
way a pleasant-looking girl caught my eye...
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01.06.1946 — 1946-40
I am traveling to Weimar—the city of Goethe, the city of muses
and monuments of art. I did not sleep tonight; I was preparing for the
journey. At first I felt exhausted and weak, but now I am entirely in
the window, beyond the window, and even farther, somewhere far ahead in
the depths of nature...
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04.06.1946 — 1946-41
Now it is worthwhile to surrender to memories. I have just returned
from the Lenskys’; I had not been there for a long time. They
waited impatiently, but I am more than certain not so much for me as
for the photographs. And imagine, my diary, their embarrassment and
disappointment when they saw their favorite Vladimir Ivanovich looking
so disfigured and unattractive...
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07.06.1946 — 1946-42
How right, I think, my country acted, and how wise our helmsmen aboard
the ship heroically sailing amid three storms and countless rolls, when
they used the military situation—peace with Germany and the
weakness of the present allies—to hurry to expand our borders on
land and sea...
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09.06.1946 — 1946-43
In search of a suit. Where can one buy a military suit? I want to dress
decently, but even among the Germans a piece of khaki cloth is a great
rarity. I again decided to visit the tailor in Treptower Park who had
nearly cheated me...
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10.06.1946 — 1946-44
Unexpectedly my mind became completely numb. The ailment that has been
with me since before the war makes itself felt. My physical condition
is linked with my mental one. Everything is paralyzed. My hands refuse
to work; my tongue does not agree with my mind...
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17.06.1946 — 1946-45
Walking along one street, I noticed a large crowd of people by a fence.
People stood on tiptoe, peered through cracks and over the heads of
those in front. I became interested too...
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23.06.1946 — 1946-46
In the end two decent suits, one of which I am wearing now, cost me,
including tailoring, two and a half thousand. I traded for the suits
with a radio receiver, which I valued at two thousand marks...
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26.06.1946 — 1946-47
The most unpleasant day of my life—I contracted gonorrhea. Pain, torment, and shame squeezed my head like a hoop...
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27.06.1946 — 1946-48
I finished my work long ago. Altogether I have spent more than three
months here. And all because no one took any interest in me, no one
demanded businesslike accountability from me, no one interfered with
me, but no one helped me either...
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01.07.1946 — 1946-49
Night. Insomnia has overcome me. To the thought of gonorrhea was added
another, forced on me by the pamphlets I read about syphilis. Can it
really be that I am so unlucky that life will not spare me, destroying
me with an even more vile weapon of its own?! Can it really be so?...
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02.07.1946 — 1946-50
How clever and cautious I shall be now! Only spare me, fate. In both
hospitals they say I do not have syphilis, yet I do not regret the
sleepless night I lost. Better to experience the feeling of fear than
fear itself, living and real...
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03.07.1946 — 1946-51
So I reached Oranienburg, tormented by thoughts of my misfortune. I
still had to get to Kremmen in time, collect my certificate, and travel
back to the hospital. But because fate and I disagreed in our views,
she decided otherwise...
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05.07.1946 — 1946-52
They have just cauterized me. On me, a man inexperienced in such
diseases and undergoing treatment for the first time, it had the
intended effect. But this is only the beginning. There is an injection
today too. The most frightening thing, they say, is that I will not be
able to sleep and will gnaw at myself—the turpentine injections...
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08.07.1946 — 1946-53
I cannot sleep—it is hard to lie down. As if paralyzed, I lie on
my stomach, using two pillows for the almost impossible purpose of
easing the joint pain that immobilizes me after the injection. I did
not eat for three days; today for the first time my appetite returned...
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10.07.1946 — 1946-54
Eleven in the evening. My illness is in the final stage of cure. At
twelve I take the last tablet, and after that I shall undergo only
checkups and tests. Sixth day in bed. For the first four days my whole
side was paralyzed...
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13.07.1946 — 1946-55
It is hard to lie down—the right side and abdomen, after eight
days of being saturated with turpentine, have become no less sensitive
than the diseased parts of my body. I cannot stand for long either...
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16.07.1946 — 1946-56
The others would gladly have dumped their work on me—they were
pleased not with me as a person but with me as another unit in the
officer corps. I spoiled their joy at the outset: without delay I
announced loudly enough for everyone to hear that I was going to
Kremmen for my certificate and from there to the hospital...
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18.07.1946 – 19.07.1946 — 1946-57
I have just felt many little bumps at the site of the turpentine
injection. I took off my trousers and looked—a rash, signs of
syphilis. I am completely upset and wait for morning to find out. Can
it really be syphilis? How unlucky I am! Again!...
More
21.07.1946 — 1946-58
By the time I returned to the unit, rumors had thundered through it
that I had a double infection and other horrors, making my heart still
heavier. It turns out the rumors were spread by Captain Yuryev, our
chief—an authoritative source, by unanimous decision of the
officers. They do not want to shake hands with me...
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24.07.1946 — 1946-59
For the third day I have written no letters. Headache, anxiety,
feverish fear of syphilis. Every day I search my body for sores and a
rash but find none, and still there is no consolation—evil
thoughts...
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25.07.1946 — 1946-60
REPORT. I hereby bring to your attention that the tools accepted,
according to invoices, from the mechanization department of military
unit 41757 and transported to the Materials and Equipment Base by
Lieutenant Lokshin were abandoned by him on the Base premises...
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26.07.1946 – 27.07.1946 — 1946-61
I now count myself among the old men: my beard is black, stands out,
and catches the eye sharply. It is clear that I am not old, but they no
longer recognize me as young either. They look and smile, and I find it
amusing: at least I have something with which to surprise Europe,
though it seemed indifferent to everything and accustomed to
everything...
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28.07.1946 — 1946-62
The day off has smiled on me—it is now after eleven, and I still
have much to do. It is damp outside, raining, and overcast in my soul.
Lack of prospects is now a destructive figure in it...
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29.07.1946 — 1946-63
I wrote a report requesting leave and became upset. How useless I am, and how indifferent everyone is to me...
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05.08.1946 — 1946-64
The train is packed: many people gathered at the station, everyone
wants to travel, but there are not enough places. The Germans are
persistent but timid. They climb through windows and squeeze into the
middle like herrings being packed in a barrel—still not everyone
fits. There is one train and few cars; some remain behind...
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10.08.1946 — 1946-65
The Germans are stingy, and commonplace as that may be, it is still
strange to me and hard to grow accustomed to their miserliness. A
German will never drop even one pfennig—less than a kopeck in
Russian money—without picking it up, and will never give away the
smallest, most trivial object unless he gains twice over from it...
More
17.08.1946 — 1946-66
Captain Modolevsky is being demobilized and gave an evening party.
Unexpectedly he invited me too, and later it turned out that he had not
made a mistake. He thanked me. Our rowdies Moroz and Soluyanov almost
got into a fight over a lost button...
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26.08.1946 — 1946-67
I am traveling to Pillau, a port on the Baltic Sea not far from
Kaliningrad-Königsberg, East Prussia. The assignment is a long one
and the transport train is long. And I have three soldiers spoiled by
life at the Base. The result: during two days standing in Pankow they
stole about two cubic meters of boards...
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29.08.1946 — 1946-68
Werbig. We are to stand here for a long time. The locomotive has gone.
Lichtenberg answers in an official bureaucratic tone and often hangs up
the receiver...
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04.09.1946 – 05.09.1946 — 1946-69
We did not stand long in Werbig. I brought Ruth with me. On the way
German policemen wanted to take her away; she stayed with me until my
departure...
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06.09.1946 — 1946-70
The realization of my dream has begun. The final goal still appears to
me as a fantastically unreal picture—there are so many obstacles
and such a vast road ahead that I still cannot believe in a happy
outcome...
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07.09.1946 – 08.09.1946 — 1946-71
I went out of town along a forest road where people, I thought, did not
walk, where no one bargained or sold anything, where fresh air and the
smell of the sea were easily and freely available. But even here there
were wire barriers, checkpoints, sentries, guns on the shore, and
patrols...
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14.09.1946 — 1946-72
After the assignment I encountered gloomy news—I had been placed
above establishment, without a post. Several days of thoughts and
guesses, worries and speculation. Today my thoughts reached their
climax—I smoked half a pack of cigarettes...
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18.09.1946 — 1946-73
Yesterday I went junk-shopping. I bought several pairs of gloves and
socks, many hats and caps of different colors—there will be suits
now that I have something to cover my head with. I did not manage to
obtain a radio. Now what remains is to get a typewriter and bicycle
tires...
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19.09.1946 — 1946-74
Germany—you have not grown tiresome, yet I leave you with
pleasure, depraved and empty as you are. There is nothing astonishing
in you, nothing joyful. Only life in you is cheerful and carefree,
cheap, noisy, and talkative...
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20.09.1946 — 1946-75
Different thoughts make me both joyful and bored. “Meet me, meet
me, I am coming!”—that is what I want to write to Mother,
so briefly and so excitedly! I really have been lucky, and at the Base
they now call me “the lucky one.” Today I received a great
deal of food. Extra rations were issued at thirty...
More
26.09.1946 — 1946-76
I must take care of suitcases and various purchases. I have ten
suitcases, small but heavy, and two sacks of belongings, but there is
nowhere to put my things. I would like to have fewer but larger
suitcases, so I set out looking for them. I did not get any...
More
27.09.1946 — 1946-77
Berlin. Today again to the Berlin market. I need to acquire a few things. Perhaps I shall never encounter Germany again...
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01.10.1946 — 1946-78
Warsaw. A big, big city as far as the eye can see. The Poles sell
everything. And where do they now get so much lard, vodka, sausage, and
chocolate? I sold the bicycle for five hundred zlotys. I thought that
was a lot, but money is simply not valued in these parts...
More
02.10.1946 — 1946-79
I have a disgraceful amount of belongings. I know everything is needed
and everything will be useful, but they cause me so much trouble and
anxiety. Sometimes my courage fails and I want to leave everything at
the station before the Kiev train departs. But that happens rarely.
Mainly I am possessed by one natural dream—to bring everything
home...
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03.10.1946 – 04.10.1946 — 1946-80
Korosten. Here I put Major Kostyuchenko off the train. We said goodbye over vodka—he ordered it in the restaurant...
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05.10.1946 — 1946-81
Bagley station—the first tram in Ukraine: blue, smart-looking,
without windows. The people are dark, dressed in village clothes. The
Dnieper is visible far away, wrapped in white sand. It is shallow and
not as broad as before...
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30.10.1946 — 1946-82
I sit and listen to music. Blanter’s songs “In the Forest
Near the Front,” “The country of Bulgaria is fine, but
Russia is best of all...”...
More
01.11.1946 — 1946-83
Eight in the evening. I have only just returned from the institute.
Nights here are dangerous—people are stripped and robbed. Murder
combined with robbery has become fashionable. As soon as darkness
falls, life in many districts of the city comes to a halt. The streets
seem tense, awaiting bloodshed. People have become vile...
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22.11.1946 — 1946-84
Today I received my student card—now I am enslaved by the
institute, which is still better than the army. In the first month I
shall receive a stipend, as one of the few. But in the future I do not
have much confidence in myself...
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01.12.1946 — 1946-85
My mood is extremely depressed. It is so hard to fight obsessive and
evil thoughts about my helplessness and how completely behind I am. I
never expected to discover so many flaws in myself, never expected to
be so weak in academic subjects...
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03.12.1946 — 1946-86
By chance I heard from a female student with whom I had studied before
the war at School No. 10, whom I met again in a repatriates’ camp
in Germany and now once more, that Tamara is here in the city and is
studying in the third year at the medical institute. What an event for
me!...
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05.12.1946 – 09.12.1946 — 1946-87
People say that extra months have been added to the year: Hunger-month, Swelling-month, Drying-up-month, Death-month...
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10.12.1946 — 1946-88
Do you know what I shall tell you, my dear diary? Hold your breath and
listen carefully. Today’s event is one of the most important in
my life—who knows, perhaps even a fateful one?!...
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15.12.1946 — 1946-89
Tamara disappointed me painfully. The day before yesterday I could not
restrain myself and dropped by her apartment before classes, and they
told me there that she lived elsewhere and had moved out a long time
ago. What treachery! Why?...
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16.12.1946 — 1946-90
No, I was mistaken, and I am glad to pay for my fatal mistake. Tamara
is light, Tamara is an angel; she could not deceive me. How could I
think so badly of her? Tamara studies, comes home late, and does not
see the owners of the house, so they decided that she did not live
there...
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