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The Germans used motorcycles extensively in Belarus.
The Perfect Partisan
NATURALLY, I AM THE PERFECT PARTISAN for the job. I speak German very well, I’m tall, fair-haired and blue-eyed—Hitler’s perfect Aryan!
Not being the perfect person for the job if dead or wounded, I have been quarantined away from battle in recent weeks, during which they’ve “requisitioned” an almost perfect German officer’s uniform. Only lacking in complete perfection by a fair-sized bullet hole and a neat little patch of blood where someone’s chest used to be. One of the older women fixes that little problem so well with a needle and thread you’d be hard pressed to spot the defect with a microscope.
I’m not sure if they measured Fritz before they shot him, but the uniform fits me very well, although the officer’s cap is a couple of sizes too large, remedied with a bit of wool stuffing under the lining.
A motorcycle arrives on the instalment plan, one piece at a time. Wrecked vehicles of every kind litter the roadsides, so gradually, a steering wheel here, a tire there, a few sparkplugs; my comrades acquire sufficient operational parts to cobble together a motorcycle with a sidecar that runs amazingly well. Rather reluctantly, it seems to me, they remove the sidecar so that I can take a few practice runs along forest trails and into vacant clearings until, as you would say in the West, I get the hang of it.
As I tell you all of this, you may think I am being rather flippant, but to tell you the truth, I was very frightened. Scared out of my wits! My Waffen SS officer’s uniform includes a loaded Luger pistol that I try to convince myself is an appropriate substitute for a thorn of stone, but the thought of going back into the heart of the horror from which I have so recently escaped is terrifying.
Nightmares of buried children and mangled corpses fill my nights. I find that resorting to prayer again helps to calm me. God, I desperately want to believe, is still watching over me. What I seek most is courage.
Yelena
[At this point there is a series of clicking noises on the tape.]
AS YOU CAN IMAGINE I very often listen back to what I have dictated on these tapes and I’ve got to admit to being embarrassed at this last little bit about me being terrified of what lies ahead in Minsk. I’ll leave it up to you if you wish to include this admission in whatever account you are keeping of all this, but for the record I would like to say the following.
• • •
If I am frightened of what lies ahead for me in the Minsk hellhole in the late summer of 1943, can you imagine the terror that Yelena Mazanik* must be experiencing as she goes about her daily routine? Sharing a dwelling with the man she intends to kill, perhaps sharing his bed, as well.
*FACT: Yelena Mazanik’s memory is still revered throughout the former Soviet Union.
All I must do is masquerade as a German officer, bluff my way through checkpoints, deliver a bomb to Yelena, and then help her escape. Yelena, on the other hand, must risk meeting me during daylight, acquire the bomb from me, and somehow hide the deadly device from the guards who will search her as she re-enters Kube’s compound in the center of Minsk.
Once back on duty, whatever that may entail, she must show no unusual emotion, perhaps even while having sex with him, wait until Herr Kube retires for the night, fill the bottle with hot water, tighten the cap, place it under the Generalkommissar’s chilly feet without giving him even a hint of her real intent, then somehow flee the building. All in less than half an hour.
To even contemplate what she is about to do requires nerves of steel. Always knowing the horrible fate that will befall her if she fails. Death will be certain but slow and very painful. Female partisans often have a breast cut off before they are hanged.
The plan is that we ride to freedom together aboard my trusty motorcycle, even as the bomb is hopefully blowing Kube into tiny pieces. Looking back on it today, I suspect no one really believes we will make it out of the city alive.
But just think of it. Here is this young woman—she was only 22 at the time—with no training or experience in anything other than household duties, the daughter of a minor clerk, called upon to carry out one of the most dangerous assassinations of the entire war! Her only condition is that her 18-year-old sister Valentina be smuggled out of Minsk before any attempt is made on Kube’s life.
At Labonak’s insistence, I meet with Valentina shortly after she arrives in our camp. A truly beautiful girl; tall and slim, and proud, with long black hair tied back with a partisan’s bandana. Without saying a word, she takes my hands in hers and stares at me for a moment with the most startlingly beautiful brown eyes I have ever seen.
“My sister is ready to die for her people,” she says. “She expects to die, but please don’t let her die in vain. Help her destroy that monster.” Tears glistened in those incredible eyes. “He was laughing when they hanged our brother!”
Without thinking I throw my arms around her. “She won’t die. I won’t let her. I swear to Almighty God she will wipe that Satan from the face of this earth and she will live. I promise you!”
She hugs me tightly and kisses me lightly on the cheek. I am trembling.
Can Yelena do it? Could I do it? Could you? But the fact that she places herself at risk of a horrible death in hopes of one small victory in this terrible war, is as fine a testament you will ever see of the ability of ordinary people to perform extraordinary feats in desperate times.
Yelena Mazanik was by no means alone in her heroism.
Just the other day I was watching a television show entitled “The Colour of War”* that showed old-fashioned home movies taken in colour during the later stages of the war. Featured in one memorable scene was the triumphant march of the Red Army into a shattered Berlin. The number of women proudly and joyfully marching side by side as equals with the conquering men was truly astounding.
*FACT: At the time of publication, this film is available at www.thehistorychannel.co.uk.
It didn’t surprise me, however, because I could see with my own eyes the fearless and truly magnificent role played by millions of our women in defeating the Nazi scourge.
The torture reserved for female soldiers and partisans is especially horrific, and they all know it, but I doubt very much if the threat of it deters any more than a tiny handful of women from fighting with or even leading the men. There is no doubt, and the facts bear this out, that without the women fighting shoulder to shoulder with us we would never have thrown back the German advance on Moscow.
And our women don’t just fight for the Motherland as partisans or in the trenches; they drive and command tanks, and man the huge guns of the artillery. As snipers, they pick off thousands of the enemy and what few people know today is that we had many women flying combat missions both as fighter pilots and with bomber regiments.
One of our most famous female fighter pilots was Eugenia Ustimchouk who flew as a “wingman” with her husband, but the most famous of all were the group of women that comprised the 588 Night Bomber Regiment that incredibly flew a total of 24,000 sorties.* The Germans came to fear them so much they dubbed them “Nachthexen,” which translates to “Night Witches.”
*FACT:
