Some time ago I read in your newspaper a review about „The Moloch“, a movie about Hitler. While I was reading the article, my thoughts roamed over to the past. So many things happened in my life! But that’s the way it is … Late in June 1941 I gave two women a helping had, two women I clearly recall up to this day, although more than 60 years have passed since then. What does Hitler have to do with it, you are asking? Well, listen to what I am going to tell you.
In 1941 my grandmother’s mother received a death notice: “Your son and husband, first lieutenant Georgiy Golovko, was killed in action when defending his Socialist fatherland not far from the town of Klinets. He did his duty faithfully”. (By the way, it was only 54 years later that we learned about the exact place, where the father had been killed. And last year only, we were able to bow to the modest soldier’s grave – I, my daughter and my grand-daughter). After the funeral feast, when the guests had left, father’s elder brother, Vladimir Vasilevich, asked us to gather in his hut. He said: “According to the old Cossacks’ tradition, the surviving brother has to take over all duties from his killed brother. Thus, I will now replace my brother, and you are going to obey me implicitly. Listen Mum, listen Polya, in case these Philistines refuse to do what you told them to do, I will get out my silver belt and beat them to a pulp. Did you get it?” – We snarled some kind of an answer and sadly hung our heads. We were terribly frightened – our father had never beaten us.
A few days later his daughter Kyuba comes rushing up. She is screaming – come here, come here immediately, father is waiting for you! There we are! Now the time has come – and I am going to have first-hand experience of his silver Cossacks’ belt. Such were my thoughts. We entered the room expecting the worse. We stood aghast, but uncle Vladimir gave a peacable impression. He handed over a caramel candy to both of us, asked us to sit down in front of him, looked into our eyes and said: “Listen, children, I will set you a task. A serious matter of military importance. The most important thing, however, is that you do not tell anybody alse about it. Is that clear?”
We did not have the slightest idea, what he was talking about, but we kept silent – we had never seen such a serious expression on our uncle’s face before. And then he told us the following story.
Our uncle had made friends with the head of the local militia unit, who had told him under seal od secrecy that he had received the order to compulsorily transfer all Germans from the Rosa Luxemburg kolkhoz farm to some other place. And there lived the wife of a militiaman, who went away to the front, together with her old mother. She was not a German, but from Austria. And the authorities intended to resettle them, as well. The old woman would certainly die on the road – that was for sure. She was already 82 years old. And where would they take them to – the war still being on? Umar (this is the husband’s name) will return home, and the head of the militia gave him his word: don’t worry! to – the war still being on? Umar (this is the husband’s name) will return home, and the head of the militia gave him his word: don’t worry! You go to war, while I am going to take care of your two women. And then, all of a sudden, comes this unfortunate order! Well, the head of the militia and our uncle were whispering secretly for a while and then agreed to evacuate Umar’s wife and her mother to some quite place for about a week and then, once again, take them to some new whereabouts.
Thus, we received instructions to carry out this operation. There was an island in the middle of the Terek river, the Cherkesskiy Island, where we stole watermelons from the Kabardinians. During the day the Chechens who lived there usually got a long sleep; at nighttime, however, they would set out to steal cattle. We had to take along two inner tubes, an axe, a spade, a sickle and a bottle of kerosine. Apart from this, of course – bread, bacon, a cooking pot and salt. At sundown we set out for the Terek to get the raft prepared, cross over to the island, build a little wooden shed or some hut covered with leaves and dig a drainage-ditch to protect us from mud in case it started raining. Moreover, we would thus be able to keep away snakes by pouring some kerosine into the ditch. When all work was done, we would certainly relax for a while and wait for our uncle to bring the two women.
After lunch we began to do what had to be done: we fixed the beams of the raft, crossed over to the island, cut off branches. Having chosen a dry spot, we joined and fixed a number of wooden poles to pitch up some kind of a tent. This was no unusual task for us at all, for any Cossack you please knows, how to put up a hut and cover it with leaves. I cut reed by means of the sickle and took it to Mikhail, who then covered the hut with it. From time to time he would kill a snake creeping through the brushwood – there seemed to be thousands of them on this island. After we had thatched the roof with fresh-cut reed and finished digging a small ditch, we went back to theembankment, hid the raft and lay down to take a rest. We had hardly closed our eyes, when we heard our uncle drive up – he brought us grandma Elsa Karlovna and Rosa (as Umar’s wife was called).
In the Caucasus, immediately after sun set and when the moon dos not shine, one cannot see one’s hand before one’s eyes. Therefore the uncle insisted to return home without delay, leaving the two women with us. “Now you have to fend for yourselves”, were his last words.
You should have watched, how werafted them over. Grandma Elsa approaching the quickly flowing by river and noticing its troubled waters, broke into loud lamentations: “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” - She began to cry and refused flatly to get on the raft. What were we supposed to do in such a situation? I recalled to my mind that the Cossacks, whenever their horses shy at moving on, simply blindfold them, and so I asked Rosa for her head scarf. I neared the old woman, who was shouting at me all the time: “Simon, Simon, I have just been praying to God that he won’t let me fall into the water, but you haven’t said your prayer yet!” – At first we were at a loss for words, but then Mikhail and I said an “Our Father” with a serious look., carried Elsa on the raft and started to move, asking Rosa to hold tight on the raft to avoid her being swept away by the current.
There was a terible current, indeed! We pushed and pulled the raft, we groamed and sighed, but we were not allowed to complain or swear loudly, because evry single noise could be heard on the river. I as already pretty exhausted at that time – the raft with grandma on it was quite heavy, and Mikhial and Rosa were also clinging on to it. I rafted towards the island and tired to get hold on the bushes, but the raft began to turn round and roll. We had to get to the embankment, but the current driftet us away. We did not realize what was going on, and due to all the exertion everything went black …
I do not remember, how we escaped this difficult situation, but I do recall that I regained consciousness in the middle of the river, when the current had already swept us away from the island for about 300 meters. Finally, I succeeded to reach the embankment. I got out of the water, my teeth were chattering with cold and fright, there was darkness all around me – where was I supposed to go? Suddenly I heard a noise – not far from me grandma Elsa was talking to herself: “My God, my God!” – She was probably greatful to her God that he rescued her. I drew near. The others had already sat down on the ground. Rosa had taken her mother to thehut, and now they were sitting together, crying, as the thought I had died by drowning. When they recognized me, they threw themselves down to the floor, then embraced and kissed me. And Rosa suggested: “That calls for a celebration!”
We filled the glasses with “Spotykacha” (home-distilled vodka; literally “stumbling block”; translator’s note) I emptied the glass at once, gasped for air. That very moment grandma called me; she wanted me to come over to her and drink another glass with her. It was impossible to refuse, when an elder person requested you – such an unwritten law existed at that time. I took my glass and krept into the hut. Elsa and I had a drop, and then she suddenly said: “You are courageous, Simon, one day you will receive a big present for me, and you will make some good “Geschäft” (German word for business; translator’s note) with it”. For some reason or other, I did not attach any importance to her words at that time …
Ant then? … Mishka and Elsa entered the hut and went to bed, while Rosa and I set out for the embankment. By night, in the darkness, with the Terek quietly murmering, we were talking to eachother for a long while. Finally Rosa asked me: “Don’t you want to go to sleep?” – “Oh no”, I replied, although, after having drunk all this “spotykacha”, I felt so sleepy that I was hardly able to keep my eyes open. Rosa went to get her big wrap, when she returned, we covered ourselves up and embraced. And then, for some reason or other, she began to talk about her life.
Her father was from Austria, a commanding officer of some railway batallion. In 1916 they sent him and his batallion to a place near Pskov, where he hardly escaped captivity during the very first fight. He was taken to the Caucasus then to build the Minvody-Vladikavkas railroad line. On some occasion he happened to meet on the marketplace in Pskov some local German colonists from Prishibskaya. He became friends with them, paid them visits, and then he was offered a job as head of the workshop, where they used to produce calashes. There they also buil machine-gun carts, two wheel-carts and sledges. He settled, became acclimated and, right after the Civil War, gave notice of his family’s – Elsa’s and Little Rosa’s – change of address to the Austrian authorities.
Later the colony became the Rosa Luxemburg kolkhoz farm. Before the war Rosa finished the 8th term and then took training to be a secretary (typist). She joined the Young People’s Communist League. During one of the meetings she became acqainted with a Kabardian, a rather congenial guy, and soon they had a close relationship with eachother. Later Umar Keshekov, as the bridegroom was called, was sent to the MVD (Ministry of the Interior; translator’s note) College in Stavropol. As soon as he had finished college, they got married and took up residence in Maiskiy, where the uncle lived. Umar worked as a district militia officer, while Rosa became the first secretary of the district committee of the Young People’s Communist League. Later she got to know the Kabardian’s first wife, Nina, who was in possession of the “Badge of Honour”. When the war broke out, they sent her husband to the front, and soonafter, Nina’s husband went there as a commissar. The men left two flaxen-haired women behind, practically widows, who had meanwhile become good friends.
All of a sudden it started raining cats and dogs, it was lightening and thundering. Rosa smuggled her head against my chest … what else do I need to explain? Hence followed that she became my first woman that night. All around us there was war and grief, sadness and misery, and we were hiding on an island, … but life is life. How could two weak women be enemies of the people?
Well then. The next morning we went to tell Nina, as a precaution, whera Rosa and her mother stayed in hiding. I was terribly afraid to go there and did not inform Rosa about my intention, either. She feared that Nina might think God knows what. I approached Nina_s house through the garden. She was just on the point of making jam. She sttof by the kitchen stove, wearing a house frock. She was very happy when she saw me. “The jam will be ready soon”, she said. “Then we will sit down, have a glass of arrack and try the fresh jam”. – “there is no time for any rest”, I replied – “Listen carefully to what I have to tell you”. And then I told her everything.
After my detailed report Nina, entirely imbued with progressiveideas, became absorbed in thought for a long time. “What have you done? For this they might take both of us to Magadan!” – I regretted having told her the whole story in such an open-hearted way, but then Nina said: “Well, we are orthodox and they are Catholic, but there is only one God anyway. Come here again in the evening, throught the kitchen garden, so that nobody will see you. We have to talk about it again. This matter requires careful consideration”. Two days later Rosa and her grandmother moved to Nina’s house at nighttime.
After that I never saw them again. I was called up into the army, my fate led me through all Europe. I ended up in the 3rd section of the Gorlag in Norilsk – I had been sentenced to death by execution. “Gor” is not only short for “gornyi” (mountainous; mining; translator’s note), but also an equivalent for “special State forced labour camp with an especially strict regime”. In 1950 we received the permission to write letter – one single letter a year. When they brought me the first letter from home, I was terribly frightened to open it: ten years I had been chased through Europe … are they still alive? Do they really remember me? I don’t know – it is just not possible to explain these feelings in words.
There, in the forced labour camp, I learned how the whole story came to an end.
Evidently, Nina hid Rosa and her mother in her house even until September 1942, when Maiskiy was occupied by the Germans. The following day Elsa went to the commandant’s office. Nobody knows what they were talking about, however, three days later the commanding general von Manstein arrived from the south front in person, with his complete convoy, and, as it seems, directly set off for Grandma Elsa. Manstein talked to her for a long time, then he drove away, leaving a whole squad of soldiers for Granny Elsa’s protection behind. The people considered the situation from every angle, they racked their brains about why she might have achieved such an honour. And then Elsa called them all together and explained to them that she was Hitler’s aunt and that she would now leave for Germany at his personal invitation.
Then they left – Elsa, Rosa and Nina. Nothing is known about their fate. However, one month later, my mother received a parcel from Germany – a whole bag full of clothes: leather jackets, shorts, climbing boots, knitted caps and some other things. A German officer brought the parcel; he behaved in a very obliging and polite way. Together with the parcel he reached out a document to grandfather Volodia. After grandpa Volodia had finished reading it, the blood drained from his cheeks. And when Mum learned who the parcel was from, she lost conscience and had to be splashed with water. She immediately burned all clothes in the kitchen garden at nighttime, including this terrible document. The only garment she decided to keep was a red polo-shirt, which she hid in a flower-box.
Only many years later grandfather Volodia decided to tell me, what the strange paper had been about. He described it in details – remembering every single seal and stamp. It was some kind of a pass, a permit, saying that the Chancellery of the German Reich informed all authorities in Germany – the Gestapo, Security Service, Military Intelligence of the German Reich, Wehrmacht (Armed Forces), Military Police and the National Socialist Party – to grant and guarantee any possible help to the person delivering this very document. Signature: Hitler, Chancellor of the German Reich.
Believe me or not, but all this is true and correct.
During their whole lifetime Mum and Grandpa Volodia were afraid that someone might become aware of this document. When they learned about my address in Norilsk, mum sent me this red polo-shirt, a gift made by Hitler. I was wearing it for more than eight years, after having written my prisoner number III-140 on it by means of oil colour – so that nobody would dare to steal it. At that time I did not know that the polo-shirt was a gift made by Hitler, and I would never have believed anyone telling me something like that: people used to tell a lot of strange things in the labour camps at that time. They had merely written me that the shirt was a gift from Rosa, and so I wore it as a remembrance of my first wife, while I was serving my sentence. I also did not know, who this Rosa was, where she had got the polo-shirt from and which kind of a story was behind all this …
Many years passed by. The polo-shirt does not exist anymore. From time to time, however, I think about how human fates sometimes cross eachother on this world – and in how strange a way. Beautiful Rosa, member of the Yound People’ Communist League, her mother, the island, the hut covered with leaves and reed, the polo-shirt, the forced labour camps and Hitler – is it really possible to invent a story like this? And who is he, this inventive person, who connects our sinful lives and fates on this wonderful earth?
Recorded by Vl. TOLSTOV
“Zapolnyarnaya Pravda”, March 31, 2000, No. 48 (12286)
(Newspaper published in Norilsk)