And again, two million raped German women. "Diary, dear buddy!" War diary of Vladimir Gelfand

Gelfand Vladimir Natanovich

Diaries 1941-1946

Gelfand Vladimir Natanovich

Diaries 1941-1946

*** Unrecognized words are marked this way.

Hoaxer: diaries sequentially - a Red Army soldier, then a junior lieutenant, a platoon commander of a rifle company, then a platoon commander of a mortar company, a lieutenant and, finally, assistant chief of the transport department - Vladimir Gelfand, who was in the army from 19 to 22 years old. The evidence of the liberation of Poland is very interesting. Gelfand served in occupied Germany for over a year, actively contacting the local population. Gelfand was far from inclined to embellish the surrounding reality; rather, on the contrary, he was skeptical about life, with gloomy pessimism, therefore, what he described is very different from the picture familiar to us from memories and diaries. I only publish diaries additional materials you can find it at zhurnal.lib.ru/g/gelxfand_w_w.

Annotation of the publisher: The book includes entries in diaries spanning six years, from the first days of the war to 1946. The book in Russian in the CIS as of March 2004 was not published. Maybe today's generation has not yet read to the end everything written, false, contrived and smoothed about the war by historians, artists and publicists of the past?

About the author: Gelfand Vladimir Natanovich was born on March 1, 1923 in the village of Novo-Arkhangelsk, Kirovograd region. From May 1942 to November 1946 he participated in the war. Member of the CPSU since 1943. In 1952 he graduated from the University. Gorky, Molotov (Perm). From 1952 to 1983 lecturer in social science and history at the State Pedagogical University. He left three sons. He died on November 25, 1983 in Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine).

*** but back to Beba. I liked her at the very end school year, in the 5th grade. How it happened - I don't remember at all. I only know that before that there was not even a hint of any feelings for her and, moreover, I do not even remember anything about her, and in general, until the moment of my infatuation with her, she never once appeared on the horizon of my heart's reach.

04/27/1941 Sunday.

After Sunday, my head hurts. Many impressions. You have to think about a lot, remember a lot and then write everything down. The best source of memories is the bed. And so - to bed, to memories, to sleep. Till tomorrow...

But for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, there was no need to talk about the literary Sunday, which was on April 27. For the first of May, again new events and again no opportunity to write about them tonight. Well, it might have to be postponed until tomorrow. But until what tomorrow? ..

Not today. Finally today! So about Sunday? Well, listen, my diary, take it into yourself, my only friend is a friend of my soul.

Looking through the latest issue of "Dneprovskaya Pravda", I found a long-awaited, and, I think, belated message about Sunday.

For a long, very long time, the Sunday Sunday was not convened and therefore the program of the upcoming literary Sunday promised to be very interesting. Nurturing this hope, I went to Lena Malkina, with whom we agreed to go to this event.

Met her at the entrance, going down the stairs. It was already twelve twenty in the afternoon and I was in a hurry. Lena wanted to invite one girl, an 8th grade student, with her. I didn't mind.

When I saw this girl, I remembered that I had met her more than once in the lecture hall - at lectures on literature. Her name was also Lena.

Another ten minutes passed while she was getting ready. But now, at last, we set off. On the way, from a conversation with her (with Lena N2), I learned that she is a very well-read, very developed and intelligent girl. I was able to learn more about her afterwards.

But about the Sunday. We arrived by tram at about one o'clock in the afternoon. I entered first, my companions behind me. I went on and sat down, but they stayed at the door for a while. And therefore, what a man with beautiful, it seems, black eyes, a low forehead and a smug face said - did not hear - was busy thinking about Lena thrown at the door. And only when they finally sat down - Lena Malkina said that this is the same Utkin, whom she had once listened to at some institute and about which she told me about. Only then did I begin to listen to his words.

He spoke a lot, beautifully, with every phrase of his obsessively emphasizing his popularity in Moscow:

The poet must be original, not like others. And here, from the poems of young novice poets, it is impossible to recognize not only the personal (distinctive) motives of creativity, not only experiences and observations, but even gender. This is because the profession of a writer seems easy to many beginners. That is why they do not understand for themselves the whole complexity of writing. I see that now it is already moving towards the fact that they will develop a strict criterion for writers, which will severely cut the wings of lovers of light fame, which will force them to start their main work.

We know that now everywhere in production there is a reduction in staff due to workers who cannot cope with their positions. Writers, too, must reduce their staff, let incapable poets down the mine. I have already spoken about this at the next meeting of the CSP under my chairmanship. Keep in mind: I performed after S. Kirsanov! So I can read an excerpt from my speech - and he began to read about his speech in Moscow from the Literaturnaya Gazeta, which was obligingly offered to him by local writers who were sitting on the podium.

"Utkin spoke ...", "Utkin made a proposal ...", "Utkin emphasized ...", etc. etc. - he read, choking on his pride. Finally, apparently realizing that he had gone far in self-glorification, he interrupted ... to return to him again after a short pause and never part with him to the end. Moved to the song. Of course, here he remained true to himself:

I am often asked how you feel about Lebedev-Kumach. This is the question I want to answer you here. What explains the popularity of Lebedev-Kumach? And it is explained by the love of the Russian and other Soviet peoples for the song.

And then he pushed away from Lebedev-Kumach moved on to pre-revolutionary songwriters: Sumarokov, Merzlyakov and many others. Utkin also provided excerpts from their songs.

But all of them - continued Utkin - have long been forgotten, and many are known only to literary scholars. And these are songs popular at the time! But there were such poets as Pushkin, Lermontov - not songwriters, and they are not only not forgotten, they are known and loved to this day by the entire Soviet people.

The poet Mayakovsky did not write a single song, - on this basis, Utkin allowed himself to attribute the song to a genre not purely literary, but as a genre that is an appendage to artistic basic poetry.

The popularity of L.-Kumach, he explained by the same people's love for the song:

Lebedev-Kumach - songwriter. This is his strength and distinctive feature... His merits were appreciated by our government, which considers the tastes of the people, singing from edge to edge the songs of Lebedev-Kumach. However, the poetry of Lebedev-Kumach is weak. I have repeatedly spoken about this to my friends-poets, Yaseev and others. And once, when Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach sent me a collection of his poems for editing, I wrote to him directly in a letter that the poems were worthless and that he should not publish them. (But he did not obey Utkin himself (!) And nevertheless released a collection of his poems. After that, both poets do not speak).

Several times he repeated that Moscow is the center, and Dnepropetrovsk is a province: "We in Moscow have already overcome this situation in creativity. Maybe this has not yet reached your province?" “In our center, everyone already knows, but in Dnepropetrovsk, it is probably not yet known.”

We have long ago created conditions in Moscow under which any scribbler cannot become a poet. We do not have in the center of the theory of the common boiler, which is widespread everywhere. Mayakovsky writes, for example, I write - we write in blood, and some poet who writes with mud from a drainpipe invites us to combine our poems with his poems. And this together: the work of Utkin, Mayakovsky and some other poet not worthy of attention, should be poetry. Yes, I don't even want to know him! The poet is a flower. I am a flower! And I'm going to mess with someone there !? I had such a case: a certain hack wanted to meet me. But I didn’t even let him near me. The poet must be original to the end. Is this originality: getting to know each and every one by the hand?

And then more, more and more ... He said that from his, Utka's light hand, the phrase of the poet Baratsky, "I had the modesty not to follow Pushkin," spread throughout Moscow ... He said so much ... do not remember.

But then he finished and the discussion began.

The first to speak was Ortenberg (critic) - a man of considerable age, a face typical for most critics, a predatory picky look and a bald spot on his venerable head. All his performances are unsuccessful: shallow, meaningless and extremely picky. It is often and much criticized by those who, in turn, are attacked by it. They laugh at him and throw hurtful insults at him. But he does not lose heart, does not get lost and again speaks, accuses, attacks.

"Brothers penguins! Save yourself! Red submarines are approaching the shores of Antarctica. These crazy Russians will occupy your ice and force all able-bodied penguins older than eggs to cut out monuments to Putin. And they power all penguins. Flee to Europe! There you will find the cold sea and the gender tolerance of true defenders. democracy!

(Russian Air Force Service).

Old songs about the same. And surprisingly on time. As soon as it is necessary to arrange the next stage of Russophobic hysteria, they take out fakes smelling of mothballs and start again raping the weak on the head of citizens. By the way, "The Russian Air Force Service has already deleted the article discussed below, fearing a ban on its activities in Russia.

But in vain. It begins beautifully: "A remarkable book is going on sale in Russia - an officer's diary Soviet army Vladimir Gelfand, in which the bloody everyday life of the Great Patriotic War is described without embellishment and cuts. "

I'll clarify right away - this is a lie of an illiterate journalist. No Soviet Army existed until February 1946. We read further:

"BBC correspondent Lucy Ash tried to make sense of some obscure pages in the history of the last world war. Some of the facts and circumstances outlined in her article may be inappropriate for children.th.
... Soviet soldiers raped countless women on the way to Berlin, but it was rarely talked about after the war - both in East and West Germany. And in Russia today, very few people talk about this.

Diary of Vladimir Gelfand

Many Russian media outlets routinely dismiss rape stories as a myth concocted in the West, but one of the many sources that told us what happened is the diary of a Soviet officer.

Lieutenant Volodymyr Gelfand, a young Jew from Ukraine, from 1941 until the end of the war kept his notes with extraordinary sincerity, despite the then ban on keeping diaries in the Soviet army.

His son Vitaly, who allowed me to read the manuscript, found the diary while sorting through his father's papers after his death. The diary was available online, but is now being published for the first time in Russia as a book. Two abridged editions of the diary were published in Germany and Sweden. "

I will not talk about the authenticity of these particular quotes from the diary - but for some reason my son gave the correspondent to read not the diaries, but his own manuscript. But what Madame gives excerpts !!!

"The diary tells about the lack of order and discipline in the regular troops: meager rations, lice, routine anti-Semitism and endless theft. As he says, the soldiers even stole the boots of their comrades."

It is even pointless to argue - all this was in the American army, and in any other. There are plenty of books and memoirs on this topic. These are the everyday life of any war - soldiers are not at all the ideals of goodness and justice. Moreover, when it comes to a global war with general mobilization. But further it is much more interesting.

"In February 1945 military unit Gelfand was based near the Oder River, preparing to attack Berlin. He recalls how his comrades surrounded and captured a German women's battalion.

“The day before yesterday, a women's battalion was operating on the left flank. He was smashed to pieces, and captured German cats declared themselves avengers for the husbands who died at the front. I don’t know what was done to them, but it would be necessary to execute the villains mercilessly, ”wrote Vladimir Gelfand.

Moreover, the prisoners could not declare themselves to anyone. Here Gelfand shows himself to be a ruthless officer who is ready to shoot prisoners. But in the next episode he is different.

"One of Gelfand's most revealing stories concerns by April 25when he was already in Berlin. There Gelfand rode a bicycle for the first time in his life. Driving along the bank of the Spree River, he saw a group of women dragging their suitcases and bundles somewhere.

“I asked the German women where they lived in broken German, and asked why they left their home, and they told with horror about the grief that the front leaders caused them on the first night of the Red Army's arrival here,” writes the author of the diary ...

“They poked here,” the beautiful German woman explained, lifting her skirt, “all night, and there were so many of them. I was a girl, ”she sighed and began to cry. - They ruined my youth. Among them were old, pimpled, and everyone climbed on me, everyone poked me. There were at least twenty of them, yes, yes - and burst into tears. "

“They raped my daughter in front of me,” the poor mother put in. “They can still come and rape my girl again. - From this again everyone was horrified, and bitter sobs swept from corner to corner of the basement, where the owners brought me. “Stay here,” the girl suddenly rushed to me, “you will sleep with me. You can do whatever you want with me, but only you alone! " - Gelfand writes in his diary.

Now stop.To begin with, at 12-00 the Russians crossed the Havel River, into which the Spree flows. This was the beginning of the storming of Berlin. And no officer of the Red Army could physically ride a bicycle along the embankment of the Spree, talk to the Germans, and then, on the same day, April 25, make this record. Moreover, they could not tell what happened "on the first night of the arrival of the Red Army here" - the first night in Berlin had not yet come. Or were they fleeing across the front line to Berlin? Isn't it funny yourself?

The second, purely psychological aspect. No woman raped will complain the next morning to a random officer on a bicycle who is in the same uniform. Just out of fear. However, after the words "there were more than 20 of them," then you can only ask a friend gynecologists what will happen in this case. They will describe to you in detail that no one with knots and trunks will run anywhere in the morning after such a night.

"When the Red Army entered the" den of the fascist beast, "as the Soviet press called Berlin at the time, the posters encouraged the soldiers' fury: “Soldier, you are on German soil. The hour of revenge has come! "

Can anyone show me at least one such poster? No. Because in February 1942, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin explained that "we are not fighting the German people." Erinburg and his "dad - kill the German" were also defeated.

Describing what follows is simply boring. In the Red Army, the rapes ended in execution in front of the formation, which there is numerous documentary evidence. It is impossible to hide the mass rapes in the army - any events at the company level will inevitably become known - anyone who served in the army knows this.

REFERENCE. Gelfand had a draft reservation, but volunteered for the front. He began to fight as a sergeant, joined the party, being the commander of a mortar squad, and was simultaneously appointed deputy platoon commander for political work. In February 1943 he was discharged and received a referral to the Rifle Officers' School near Rostov.

In the summer of 1943, Vladimir Gelfand managed to restore the postage with his mother, who was evacuated to Central Asia. From her, he learned that almost all of his paternal relatives in the Nazi-occupied Essentuki were killed during an action to exterminate Jews. The Germans killed in Essentuki Vladimir's grandmother, uncle, two aunts, two cousins. Only his father and his father's brother survived, who, before the arrival of the Germans, managed to escape to Derbent, crossing the Caucasian ridge.

So the attitude of a member of the CPSU (b) and a political worker towards the Nazis is understandable.

Biography

Vladimir Gelfand in Yessentuki finds work as a repair worker. In April 1942, he applied to the military registration and enlistment office and on May 6, 1942 became a soldier of the Red Army. It passes preparatory training in a small artillery school near Maykop in the western Caucasus and receives the military rank of sergeant.

When the oil fields at Maikop became the direct target of German attacks in August 1942 and the Wehrmacht moved forward into the Caucasus, Vladimir Gelfand has been located since June on the southern flank of the Kharkov front.

Gelfand is experiencing a chaotic army retreat in the Rostov area. In mid-July 1942, his military unit was surrounded and destroyed. With a small group of soldiers, Vladimir managed to break out of the encirclement and again join the military unit that is fighting near Stalingrad. Sergeant Gelfand is appointed deputy platoon leader for political work. He writes an application to the Communist Party and receives a candidate membership card.

By the end of the year fighting concentrated in the Stalingrad region. With a hand wound in December 1942, he ended up in a military hospital near Saratov, east of the Volga. In February 1943, Vladimir was discharged and sent to a rifle school for officers near Rostov.

In the summer of 1943, Vladimir Gelfand is restoring mail with his mother, who was found in Central Asia. From her, he learned that almost all of his paternal relatives in occupied Yessentuki had been killed during Nazi actions to exterminate Jews. Only his father and his father's brother remained alive in the unoccupied Derbent.

Vladimir graduates from the three-month training course for officers in military rank Ensign . At the end of August 1943, he was transferred to the 248th Infantry Division, where he took command in a mortar platoon.

The 248th Infantry Division, being formed twice, was completely destroyed and re-formed again, it received, during the third formation in 1942, fully certified forces from various schools of junior infantry officers and military hospitals of the front.

Gelfand's mortar platoon is heading south of Melitopol - 150 km. In the fall of 1943, the 248th Infantry Division is part of the 3rd Ukrainian Front.

At the end of January 1944, Vladimir Gelfand was promoted to lieutenant. In November 1943 he became a full member of the CPSU (b).

A diary

Throughout his time - at the front, in a military hospital and at the junior officers' school, he keeps a diary. In the respite between attacks and bombing of the enemy, on marches, during fortification work and preparation of offensives, he seeks spiritual pursuits. In the areas that part of him passed, he ransacked libraries and asked in apartments about books. He wrote poems and offered them to various front-line newspapers. He sent articles and poems to central newspapers, published wall newspapers and wrote war leaflets. Vladimir spoke at Komsomol and party meetings, discussed Stalin's speeches and the directives of the command.

At the beginning of 1944 Gelfand's unit took part in the battles in the south of the Dnieper. In early May 1944, part of it crossed the Dniester near Grigoriopol. A new offensive in the southern part of the front led Gelfand to Bessarabia in August 1944. Columns of prisoners of war and traitors from their own ranks, collaborators were increasingly encountered. In his diary, he describes the hatred of the Red Army towards the prisoners.

During the crossings of the unit, he managed, like many others, to move independently, outside the convoy, navigate more convenient roads, find vehicles and places to spend the night.

In the fall of 1944, his unit is located in the region east of Warsaw. The diary is filled with notes on meetings with the Polish civilian population. At the end of November 1944, he had been out of action for more than two months.

His delays aroused displeasure even among the divisional commander, Galai. When Vladimir Gelfand tried to turn to his feelings the front-line friend of the division commander, he turned the personal fury of divisional commander Galai on himself. In December 1944, he had to explain the unauthorized abandonment of the unit to the army prosecutor.

In early 1945, the Red Army was preparing for two powerful offensive operations: an offensive on the Vistula-Oder and an offensive on East Prussia. More than 3 million Soviet soldiers were re-formed for this purpose, supplied and prepared for the offensive. The battle was to follow the successful offensives around Berlin. The Red Army was opposed by a still powerful enemy who was ready for stubborn resistance at the borders of his country. On January 12 and 13, the Soviet offensive began.

Gelfand was instructed at the beginning of January 1945 in the 1052 Infantry Regiment of the 301st Division, which ended up in training offensive operations. 301 rifle regiment since October 1944 belonged to the 5th Army of Colonel-General Berzarin within the 1st Belorussian Front under Army General Zhukov. Vladimir Gelfand received command of a mortar platoon in the 3rd battalion, and this time things really went to the very front line of battle. Probably, this was something like a penalty change for him, since Gelfand's old unit in the 5th Army occupied a strategic foothold behind the 301st division.

On the morning of January 14, 1945, an offensive began south of Warsaw on the Pilica River. 1052 rifle regiment in 2 weeks reached the border of the empire violated by the Wehrmacht in 1939. Gelfand's diary entries testify to exhaustion, but also to pride and expectation of victory.

In early February 1945, its part from the north advanced on the western bank of the Oder. In the memoirs of the division commander, Colonel Antonov, it is reported that the 3rd battalion 1052 Rifle regiment had to repel especially brutal enemy counterattacks.

In anticipation of Berlin operation to the headquarters of General Antonov at the end of March 1945 Gelfand was assigned to the headquarters of the 301st division to keep the Journal of Combat Actions. At this time, the 301 division moved in mid-April at Küstrin to attack Berlin. He independently visited the positions, passed the newly captured units. Late April 301 Rifle division entered Berlin.

Gelfand during the first weeks of peace in occupied Berlin and the surrounding area is a staff officer in various uses: troop movements, new formations, dismissals, technical round-up renewal, as well as political and general preliminary training of teams. Until June 1945, Gelfand remained in a "inconsistent position" (entry dated June 3, 1945), then he had to join the unit.

Gelfand wanted to go home, "complete apathy, indifference," he wrote in his diary (entry dated June 12, 1945). All summer he hoped to be fired from military service... However, the criteria for dismissing Vladimir Gelfand did not concern him, he was not noticed either by the first wave of demobilization, respectively, by the decree of June 23, 1945, or by the second loud decree of September 25, 1945.

Without a specific assignment, he spent June in an unstable relationship with the command. When Science Library had to be robbed, he considered it "shameful barbarism" (entry dated June 16/17).

At the beginning of July 1945, he arrived at the board of officers' reserve near the village of Rüders. He was outraged when personal contact with the Germans was banned in August, but he continued to travel to Berlin.

After Berzarin died in mid-June 1945 in Berlin in a transport accident, the 5th Army was withdrawn from Berlin, the unit was disbanded. Gelfand was worried about the place as a political officer and offered himself, after language courses, as a translator. The view of a career as a political officer seemed to him possible in August 1945 in the Far East, after the USSR declared war on Japan.

In October 1945, Gelfand unsuccessfully applied for a position in the unit southeast of Berlin, as a secretary in Kremmen, and in October 1945 he received a job at the Base of Materials and Equipment, with a salary of up to 750 rubles. It was an almost paid, on average, post in the occupation army. At the end of 1945 in the Ukrainian market, a kilogram of sugar cost 250 rubles, a kilogram of rye bread on average 24 rubles, and, with his mother's money transfers, he was a weak helper.

Gelfand's permanent place was a technical supply base - "Base of materials and equipment" at Kremmen, northwest of Berlin, which was assigned to the 21st Independent Trophy Brigade. He served there until his demobilization in September 1946.

The Base's transport department occupied initially three (at the beginning of 1946), then six officers and technical personnel from sergeants. Lieutenant Gelfand arranged for the delivery of goods and materials to the Soviet units and accompanied them, organized the transportation and dismantling of the restitution property. During his work he was constantly located between Nauen, Potsdam, Welten, Kremmen, Hennigsdorf, Schonewald, Fürstenberg and Berlin. He was briefly appointed at the beginning of 1946 for the Kremennsk sawmill as the head of production, where six soldiers and two teams of horses were subordinate to him. In addition to this, he had to take the guard at the base. In the spring of 1946 Gelfand was sent to Berlin for three months.

Home

In July 1946, he applied for leave. Together with his parents, he resorted to a trick: medical certificates about the poor health of the mother were provided, the plight of the situation was dramatized. Mother even wrote a letter to Stalin. But he was not given leave.

Vladimir Gelfand returned to Dnepropetrovsk to his mother. In September 1947 he began his studies at the State University of Dnepropetrovsk.

In 1949 he is married to a girl whom he knew from school time and during the war he was in correspondence with her. Berta Davidovna Koifman was the daughter of a teacher. Her parents lived in Molotov (today Perm). In April 1950, their son Alexander was born.

In 1952, Vladimir Gelfand completed his studies at Molotov University. He wrote thesis about Ilya Ehrenburg's novel "The Tempest" in 1947. In February 1951 Gelfand meets with Ilya Ehrenburg in Moscow.

Since August 1952 Vladimir has been working as a teacher of history, Russian language and literature at the Zheleznodorozhnikov technical school No. 2 in Molotov. Soon, marriage to Bertha gets into a crisis. In 1954 Vladimir left his wife and son and returned to Dnepropetrovsk. He went to work as a teacher at the city Technical College.

In 1957 he met Bella Efimovna Shulman, a graduate of the Institute of Pedagogical Education of Makhachkala. They get married a year later. Vladimir is divorcing his first wife.

2 sons come from a marriage with Bella: in 1959 - Gennady, in 1963 - Vitaly. Parents worked hard, however, did not get a teaching position in a 10-grade school. Bella attributes this today to latent, partly even overt anti-Semitism. “As long as I am here as the school district council,” said one, “no Jew will get a job. high school". Thus Bella with her finished higher education worked in kindergarten, and Vladimir remained all his life a teacher of social science, history and political economy in vocational schools, first at 12, since 1977 at 21 schools in the city of Dnepropetrovsk.

Gelfand remained an active member of the party and also assumed functions in the school's party group. Tough discussions took place there from time to time. Anti-Semitic insults in the teaching staff and even from colleagues were not uncommon.

Gelfand wrote continuously. Gelfand offered the local press not only reports about school days and work results, but also memories of his time at the front. The late seventies were his most productive. The collection of newspaper publications covers 7 articles from 1968, 20 from 1976, 30 from 1978. They appeared in Ukrainian and Russian in local party and Komsomol newspapers, as well as in newspapers for construction workers.

Living conditions remained dire until an inheritance from abroad brought financial stability for the first time. In the late sixties, Bella petitioned to obtain a rented apartment for the family of a war veteran and teacher. After more than 10 years, 4 Gelfands moved out of their 10 m² of living space.

With Gelfand's health, things were not going for the better. Father died in 1974, mother died in 1982. Vladimir Gelfand survived it only for a year.

Gelfand's literary interest was characterized by the literary magnitudes of the Soviet Union in the thirties. He loved even from school days Demyan Bedny, Yanka Kupala, Joseph Utkin, Alexei Tolstoy and Veresaev. He appreciated Maxim Gorky, Nikolai Tikhonov and Vsevolod Vishnevsky. During the war, he read in the newspapers of the front a lot of Ilya Ehrenburg, on occasion he took for himself - according to his diary - the novels of Lyon Feuchtwanger and Mark Twain. During his studies, he was interested in Vera Inber, a long-revered Leningrad poetess.

“I experienced much more in the war than they did,” he wrote in 1947 after reading Inber's diary entry for the blockade. "I should have been able to write at least for this reason is much more exciting than they ...". From his own experience, he wanted to record against the illumination of the "harsh core" in the Russian soldier's soul, just as he studied Mikhail Sholokhov.

In the seventies Gelfand partially published fragments of his military memoirs, but Gelfand could not avoid self-censorship. Thus, he did not quote the poems that he left in 1945 at the Reichstag and in 1946 at the Victory Column (entry from 24 August and 18 October 1945, letters from 6 August 1945), never again in the original. "Victory in Berlin" in the newspaper "Soviet Builder" of April 25, 1975, a verse allegedly left in Berlin, instead of the original lines "I look and spit at Germany - I spit at Berlin, defeated!" Were replaced with a harmless one: "Look, here I am I am the winner of Germany - in Berlin I won! "

Media

Publications

- publishing house bbb battert Baden-Baden, Germany, Tagebuch 1941-1946 (ISBN 3-87989-360-8)
- publishing house Aufbau Berlin, Germany, (ISBN 3-351-02596-3)
- publishing house Ersatz Stockholm, Sweden , Tysk dagbok 1945-46 (ISBN 91-88858-21-9)
- publishing house Aufbau-Taschenbuch-Verlag Berlin, Germany, Deutschland Tagebuch 1945-1946 (ISBN 3-7466-8155-3)
- publishing house Ersatz -E-Book Stockholm, Sweden, Tysk dagbok 1945-46 (ISBN 9789186437831)

Links

Vladimir Gelfand
Military Literature [ miLitera]
RTR Culture "Wide format with Irina Lesova", "Russian-German soldier's phrasebook"
Das Erste, Kulturreport, "Amazing memories of a Soviet lieutenant about occupied Germany" ()
Publisher "Aufbau Verlag" ()
Publisher "Ersatz" ()

Per Landin, Sweden, News of the Day (Dagens Nyheter) ()
Stefan Lindgren, Sweden, Flamman ()
Dr. Elke Scherstjanoi, Institute modern history Munich-Berlin (Institut für Zeitgeschichte) ()
Anne Boden, Bradford Conference on Contemporary German Literature (Trinity College Dublin) ()
Università Ca "Foscari Venezia Stupri sovietici in Germania (1944-45). Schede bibliografiche. ()
Arguments and Facts "Europe"
Gregor thum Traumland Osten. Deutsche Bilder vom östlichen Europa im 20. Jahrhundert... Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht ISBN 3-525-36295-1 2006, Germany, Göttingen
Paul Steege Black Market, Cold War: Everyday Life in Berlin, 1946-1949... Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521864961 2007, USA, New York, ISBN 978-0521745178 2008
Roland Thimme Rote Fahnen über Potsdam 1933 - 1989: Lebenswege und Tagebücher... Hentrich & Hentrich ISBN 978-3938485408 2007, Germany, Berlin
Sven Reichardt, Malte Zierenberg Damals nach dem Krieg: Eine Geschichte Deutschlands - 1945 bis 1949... Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt ISBN 978-3421043429 2008, Germany, Munich; Goldmann Verlag ISBN 978-3442155743 2009, Germany, Munich
Lothar Gall, Barbara Blessing Historische zeitschrift... Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag ISBN 978-3486644609 2008, Germany, Munich

Diaries 1941-1946

*** Unrecognized words are marked this way.

Hoaxer: diaries sequentially - a Red Army soldier, then a junior lieutenant, a platoon commander of a rifle company, then a platoon commander of a mortar company, a lieutenant and, finally, assistant chief of the transport department - Vladimir Gelfand, who was in the army from 19 to 22 years old. The evidence of the liberation of Poland is very interesting. Gelfand served in occupied Germany for over a year, actively contacting the local population. Gelfand was far from inclined to embellish the surrounding reality; rather, on the contrary, he was skeptical about life, with gloomy pessimism, therefore, what he described is very different from the picture we are used to from memories and diaries. I publish only diaries, you can find additional materials at zhurnal.lib.ru/g/gelxfand_w_w.

*** but back to Beba. I liked it at the very end of the school year, in grade 5. How it happened - I don't remember at all. I only know that before that there was not even a hint of any feelings for her and, moreover, I do not even remember anything about her, and in general, until the moment of my infatuation with her, she never once appeared on the horizon of my heart's reach.

04/27/1941 Sunday.

Not today. Finally today! So about Sunday? Well, listen, my diary, take it into yourself, my only friend is a friend of my soul.

Looking through the latest issue of "Dneprovskaya Pravda", I found a long-awaited, and, I think, belated message about Sunday.

Met her at the entrance, going down the stairs. It was already twelve twenty in the afternoon and I was in a hurry. Lena wanted to invite one girl, an 8th grade student, with her. I didn't mind.

When I saw this girl, I remembered that I had met her more than once in the lecture hall - at lectures on literature. Her name was also Lena.

He spoke a lot, beautifully, with every phrase of his obsessively emphasizing his popularity in Moscow:

And then he pushed away from Lebedev-Kumach moved on to pre-revolutionary songwriters: Sumarokov, Merzlyakov and many others. Utkin also provided excerpts from their songs.

The popularity of L.-Kumach, he explained by the same people's love for the song:

Lebedev-Kumach - songwriter. This is its strength and distinctive feature. His merits were appreciated by our government, which considers the tastes of the people singing from edge to edge the songs of Lebedev-Kumach. However, the poetry of Lebedev-Kumach is weak. I have repeatedly spoken about this to my friends-poets, Yaseev and others. And once, when Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach sent me a collection of his poems for editing, I wrote to him directly in a letter that the poems were worthless and that he should not publish them. (But he did not obey Utkin himself (!) And nevertheless released a collection of his poems. After that, both poets do not speak).

Vladimir Gelfand was born on March 1, 1923 in the village of Novoarkhangelsk, Kirovograd region. In 1933, his family moved to Dnepropetrovsk. When Vladimir was in school, his parents separated. Nevertheless, this did not affect his son's studies: he not only received good grades, but also actively participated in the social life of the school. After the 8th grade, Vladimir entered the Dnepropetrovsk industrial workers' faculty, having managed to study there three courses before the war.

Germany's attack on Soviet Union interrupted his education. On May 6, 1942, Vladimir became a soldier of the Red Army. He was trained at an artillery school and received the rank of sergeant.

Gelfand got to the front in the days of heavy defeats of the Red Army in the summer of 1942 and a panic retreat after the "Kharkov catastrophe". He took part in the Battle of Stalingrad, liberated Ukraine and Poland, and ended the war in Germany.

Private mortarman, then the commander of a mortar platoon, Vladimir Gelfand tried to write every day, under any conditions, even in a trench under fire. Moreover, he not only made diary entries, but also wrote letters to relatives, school friends, answered letters for his comrades, many of whom could not write.

Gelfand's diary is truly unique, unusually frank. The author writes what he sees. He writes down everything. For example, how he is humiliated in the army, how he feels when he goes on the attack. Despite a number of problems with his colleagues, Gelfand was absolutely devoid of the fear of death. It is surprising. He was confident that he would be all right.

Vladimir Gelfand, 1945. (pinterest.com)

Vladimir Gelfand was a real Soviet man, ideologically convinced. He joined the party at the front. Vladimir dreamed of becoming a political worker, all the time he was eager to become commissars, political officers, he wanted to reeducate people, explain to them how to behave. Moreover, he fought all the time with all sorts of outrages, wrote reports, which, of course, did not add any popularity to him.

As for Stalin, Gelfand simply idolized him. An entry from the diary, made in 1946, when the “father of peoples” was making a report on the eve of the elections of candidates for deputies to the Supreme Soviet: “And everyone rewards him with such warm applause and love that it just becomes touching from the outside. Yes, he deserved it, my Stalin, immortal and simple, humble and great, my leader, my teacher, my glory, genius, my great sun. "

When Gelfand finds himself in the most (if not counting 1941) difficult time, when after the "Kharkov catastrophe" flight and desertion flourish with might and main, he writes (entry dated July 20, 1942): “Loners, small groups and large units. They all look exhausted and haggard. Many changed into civilian clothes, most dropped their weapons, some commanders tore off their insignia. What a disgrace! What an unexpected and sad inconsistency with newspaper data. Woe to me, a soldier, commander, Komsomol member, patriot of my country. My heart squeezes with shame and powerlessness in this shameful flight. Every day I never cease to be convinced that we are strong, that we will win invariably, but, with chagrin, I have to admit to myself that we are disorganized, we do not have the proper discipline, and this makes the war drag on, therefore we suffer failures.

The high command fled in cars, betrayed the Red Army masses, despite the remoteness of the front from here. It got to the point that German planes allow themselves to fly above the ground, above us, like at home, not allowing us to freely raise our heads along the entire route of retreat.

All crossings and bridges have been destroyed, property and livestock, broken and mutilated, lie on the road. Looting flourishes, cowardice reigns. The military oath and orders of Stalin are violated at every step. "

Why is it written like that? Because Gelfand is a Soviet patriot. He just can't stand it.

Description Stalingrad battle - one of the most interesting parts of the diary of Vladimir Gelfand. The author provides information from the scene. This is not a memoir written after the war, it is a living history. Such details simply cannot be found in official reports or reports.

Entry dated April 1, 1943, Zelenograd: “The inhabitants are all workers of state farms. In their stories you will no longer hear "Russians" in relation to soviet troops, as everywhere I heard from the inhabitants of all previous cities and villages, from Kotelnikovo to Mosque, and "ours", "the Germans." These expressions do not show a sharp separation of themselves, also Russians, from their people, society, army. "

Vladimir Gelfand. (pinterest.com)

Curiously, in Germany, Vladimir Gelfand's diary for 1945-1946 was published much earlier than in Russia. It was a real sensation. I must say that our hero, among other things, had quite a few novels with German women. Among his papers were letters, photographs. One of the girls even painted a portrait of him. In Germany Gelfand bought a camera and started taking photographs. There are about five hundred photographs in his archive. And this is another unique side of his diary.

Vladimir Natanovich, although he was not a great writer, nevertheless wrote continuously. And so, in the summer of 1945, reaching the Reichstag, he wrote the following lines:

On the balcony of a Berlin building
I stand with my fellow fighters
And I look and I spit on Germany
I spit on vanquished fascism.

Sources

War diary of Lieutenant Vladimir Gelfand: The Price of Victory, "Echo of Moscow"