A Woman in Berlin : Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary (25 page)

Perhaps art, toiling away in the service of form? Yes, for those who have the calling, but I don’t. I’m just an ordinary labourer, I have to be satisfied with that. All I can do is touch my small circle and be a good friend. What’s left is just to wait for the end. Still, the dark and amazing adventure of life beckons. I’ll stick around, out of curiosity, and because I enjoy breathing and stretching my healthy limbs.

MONDAY, 14 MAY 1945

Last night the noise of motors tore me from my sleep. Hearing shouts and honking, I stumbled to the window and lo and behold, there was a Russian truck full of flour. The baker already has coal, so now he’ll be able to bake, to accommodate the ration cards and numbers. I heard him shout for joy and saw him hugging the Russian driver, who was also beaming. The Russians enjoy playing Santa Claus.

Then this morning at dawn I was wakened by the sound of chattering people queuing for bread. The line wound halfway round the block and it’s still there now, in the afternoon. Many women have brought stools along. I can literally hear the hiss of gossip.

For the first time we have water from a proper hydrant, not far away at all. It’s a mechanical wonder, an automatic pump with three taps that deliver the water in a thick stream. Your bucket is filled in a flash. And you don’t need to wait more than a few minutes. That really changes our day; making our lives easier.

On the way to the hydrant I passed a number of graves. Practically every front garden has these silent billets. Some are marked with German steel helmets, some with the gaudy red Russian stakes and white Soviet stars. They must have hauled along whole trainloads of these memorials.

Wooden plaques have been set up on the kerbs, with inscriptions in German and Russian. One of them quotes Stalin to the effect that the Hitlers disappear, but Germany remains.
Losungi
- that’s the Russian word for such slogans, from the German
Losung
.

Now a bulletin has been posted next to the door of our building: ‘News for Germans.’ The last word sounds so strange in this context, almost like an insult. You can read the text of our unconditional surrender, signed by Keitel: Stumpff, Friedeburg, along with reports of arms being surrendered on all fronts. Goring has been captured. One woman claims she heard on a crystal set that he cried like a child at his arrest and had already been sentenced to death by Hitler. A colossus with feet of clay.

But there’s another sheet posted up, which attracts far more attention and sparks more debate. Evidently the Russians are introducing new rationing regulations with larger allotments, but allocated according to group - heavy labourers, blue-collar workers, white-collar workers, children and others. Bread, potatoes, concentrated foodstuffs, coffee substitute, real coffee, sugar, salt, even fat. Not so bad, if it’s true. In some cases the rations are more generous than we had lately under Adolf. This information is making a profound impact. I hear people say things like, ‘There’s another example of how our propaganda made fools of us all.’

It’s true too: the constant forecasts of death by starvation, of complete physical annihilation by the enemy were so pervasive that we’re stunned by every piece of bread, every indication that we will still be provided for. In that respect Goebbels did a great advance job for the conquerers: any crust of bread from their hands seems like a present to us.

This afternoon I queued up for meat. There’s nothing more instructive than spending an hour like that. I learned that trains are back up and running to Stettin, Küstrin and Frankfurt an der Oder. On the other hand our local public transport is apparently still shut down.

One woman enjoyed telling the story of why the Russians chose to leave their building alone: on their first brief visit, they found one family poisoned in their beds on the second floor, and another, one floor up, all hanging from the transom of the kitchen window. The Russians took off terrified and never carne back and the residents keep everything the way it was, as a kind of scarecrow, just in case... Anyway I was able to get my meat without a hitch. All beef, no bones - that will help us out.

‘Tenants’ meeting in the basement - 4:30p.m.’ - the word went from door to door. At last the basement barricade is being dismanded. A good thing, too; we’ll be able to get to the rest of the widow’s potatoes. We formed a chain along the hallway. A small candle stuck onto a chair gave a faint glow as bricks, boards, chair and mattress parts passed from one hand to the next.

The basement was a complete mess. The smell of excrement. Each person packed up his things. Unclaimed goods were supposed to be placed in the light well (despite this, the widow let some silk underwear that didn’t belong to her quietly vanish into her sack. Later she remembered the Ten Commandments and put the piece of clothing, which had an embroidered monogram indicating the rightful owner, back where it belonged, claiming she had taken it ‘by mistake’.) But all notions of ownership have been completely demolished. Everyone steals from everyone else, because everyone has been stolen from and because we can make use of anything. So the only unclaimed goods were ones not worth the taking: threadbare slips, hats, a single shoe. While the widow kept poking around bitterly for the pearl tie-pin - she’d forgotten where she hid it - I lugged the potatoes upstairs and dumped them next to Herr Pauli’s bed. The widow followed me up and immediately started in like Cassandra with warnings of how we’d starve to death as soon· as we finished the last of their potatoes. Herr Pauli vigorously seconded everything she said. This makes me think that the household is beginning to view me as a burden, one more mouth to feed, that they’re counting each morsel I consume and begrudging me every single potato. Meanwhile Pauli is still happy to dip into my major’s sugar. Nevertheless I want to try to get back on my own feet, as far as food is concerned - only how?

I can’t bring myself to be angry with the two of them. Not that I’ve had to, but it could well be that in their situation I wouldn’t be too happy to share my food either. And there’s no new major on the horizon.

TUESDAY, 15 MAY 1945

The usual tedious housework. Two roofers are stomping around in the attic apartment, which I entered for the first time since the Russians invaded. They’re getting paid in bread and cigarettes. I can tell that the Russians never made it up here because the floors are covered with a fine layer of plaster dust that shows every footprint, and it was untouched when I let in the roofers. Presumably I could have held out up here, if I’d had enough water and food - an undisturbed Sleeping Beauty. But I’m sure I would have gone crazy, all alone like that.

Once again we all have to report to the Rathaus. Today was the day for people with my last initial. The street was unusually crowded at registration time. A man in the Rathaus lobby was chiseling away the relief of Adolf. I watched the nose come splintering off. What is stone, what are monuments? An iconoclastic wave such as we have never seen is currently surging through Germany. A new twilight of the gods - is it remotely possible that the big Nazis could ever rise again after this? As soon as I’ve freed my mind a little I really have to tum my attention to Napoleon; after all, he too was banished in his day; only to be brought back and glorified once more.

We had to go up to the third floor and wait in line. The corridor was pitch-dark, packed with women you could hear but not see. A conversation in front of me had to do with planting asparagus, a task several women had been assigned to do. That wouldn’t be so bad. The two women behind me were well-bred ladies, judging from their speech. One said: ‘You know, I was completely numb. I’m very small there; my husband always took that into consideration.’ Apparently she’d been raped repeatedly and attempted to poison herself. Then I heard her say, ‘I didn’t realize it at the time, but I later learned that your stomach has to have enough acid inside for the stuff to work. I couldn’t keep it down.’

‘And now?’ the other asked, quietly.

‘Well - life goes on. The best part was over anyway. I’m just glad my husband didn’t have to live through this.

Once again I have to reflect on the consequences of being alone in the midst of adversity. In some ways it’s easier, not having to endure the torment of someone else’s suffering. What must a mother feel seeing her girl devastated? Probably the same as anyone who truly loves another but either cannot help them or doesn’t dare to. The men who’ve been married for many years seem to hold up best. They don’t look back. Sooner or later their wives will call them to account though. But it must be bad for parents - I can understand why whole families would cling together in death.

The registration was over in a flash. We all had to say which languages we· know. When I confessed to my bit of Russian, I was given a paper requiring me to report tomorrow morning to Russian headquarters as an interpreter.

I spent the evening preparing lists of words, and realized how paltry my command of the language really is. After that I ended my day with a visit to the lady from Hamburg downstairs. Stinchen, the eighteen-year-old student, has finally come down from the crawl space. The scars from the flying rubble have healed. She played the part of the well-bred daughter from a good home perfectly, carrying a pot of real tea from the kitchen and listening politely to our conversation. Apparently our young girl who looks like a young man also managed to come through safely. I mentioned that I’d seen her in the stairwell last night. She was arguing with another girl, someone in a white sweater, tanned and quite pretty, but vulgar and unbridled in her swearing. Over tea I found out that it was a jealous spat: the tanned girl had taken up with a Russian officer - in time more or less voluntarily - drinking with him and accepting food. This evidently irked her young friend, who is an altruistic kind of lover, constantly giving the other girl presents and doing this and that for her over the past several years. We discussed all of this calmly and offhandedly over a proper tea. No judgement, no verdict. We no longer whisper. We don’t hesitate to use certain words, to voice certain things, certain ideas. They come out of our mouths casually, as if we were channelling them from Sirius.

WEDNESDAY, 16 MAY 1945

I got up at 7a.m. Moscow time. The streets were quiet with an early morning stillness. The shops were empty, the new cards have yet to be distributed. A girl in uniform was standing by the iron-bar gate outside the headquarters; she didn’t want to let me in, but I showed her my paper and insisted.

At last I was sitting in the office of the commandant, the present lord and master of at least a hundred thousand souls. A small, slender man, very much spit-and-polish, pale blond, with a conspicuously quiet manner of speaking. Russian is his only language, but he has an interpreter at his side, a bespectacled woman in a checked dress - not a soldier. Fast as the wind she rattles away in German and Russian - translating between the commandment and a sharp-nosed woman, the owner of a caf
é
. The woman wants to reopen? Excellent, she should go ahead and do so. What does she need? Flour, sugar, fat, sausage. Hmm, hmm. What does she have? Coffee substitute? Good, she should serve that along with a little music, if possible, perhaps set up a gramophone - the goal is for life to return to normal very soon. The commandment promises that she should have power back tomorrow, along with the rest of her street. The interpreter summons a man from the next room, most likely an electrical engineer; he brings in some blueprints and shows the commandant how power is being restored in the district. I crane my neck to look, but our block isn’t there.

More petitioners follow. A man in blue overalls asks if he can take home a horse that’s lying lame and bleeding in the park, to nurse it back to health. Please, go ahead - as long as he knows something about horses. I’m secretly amazed that the horse hasn’t been cut up into pot-sized pieces by now. Or have we seen the last of those days, when animals were slaughtered right where they fell? It’s astonishing to see all these people suddenly so fixated on obtaining permits just so they can cover their backs for anything they want to do. ‘
Commandant
’ is clearly the word of the day.

A factory owner comes in with two stenotypists to register his small business, a stovepipe plant, temporarily closed due to lack of material. ‘
Bud’et
,’ says the commandant - ‘It will be’ - a magic Russian formula that the interpreter consolingly translates as, ‘Don’t worry, there’ll be new material corning in soon.’ Well, bud’et is definitely one of the words I can manage, along with the second magic formula, ‘
zavtra
’ - tomorrow.

Next come two men, apparently managers of a chocolate factory. They’ve brought along their own interpreter, someone at the same level as me; the man must have spent time in Russia as a soldier working there. Chocolate is still a long way off, of course, but the men want to bring some rye flour from a warehouse outside town and use it to make noodles. Go ahead! The commandant promises them a truck for ‘
zavtra
’.

The atmosphere is very matter-of-fact - no stamps and very few papers. The commandant works with small scribbled notes. I’m all eyes and ears watching the authorities in action; it’s fun and exciting to observe.

Finally it’s my turn. I jump right in and brazenly confess the obvious, namely that my Russian isn’t up to the complex task of interpretation. In a friendly way he asks where I learned Russian, what I studied. Then he says he’s sure that in the foreseeable future there’ll be a need for people trained in drawing and photography, that I should wait. That’s fine with me.

Meanwhile two Russians have come in, boots gleaming, their freshly pressed uniforms richly decorated: Being washed and groomed is a mark of
kultura
for them, a sign of a higher level of humanity. I still remember all the posters I saw hanging in offices and trams throughout Moscow: ‘Wash your face and hands every day, and your hair at least once a month’ with cute little illustrations of splashing and blowing and rinsing in washbasins. A religion of cleanliness. Polished boots are also part of the same
kultura
, so I’m not surprised by how eager the men are to shine them up whenever possible.