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The performance of the troops of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazi Germany during the Second World War is one of the most glorious moments of this nation.
However, 70 years later, a review of these last days of the war reveals a dark corner of this story. mass rape of German women by Soviet soldiers
Second hand testimonies, it is a warning Some readers may find disturbing.
outside Berlin Treptow Park, there is a statue of about 12 meters high, with the figure of a Soviet soldier with a sword in his hand and a German girl in the other, stepping on a broken swastika
In pictures:. The celebration of Victory Day
Thus symbolize the place where 5,000 deaths 80,000 Red Army soldiers died in Berlin between April 16 and May 2, 1945.
The proportion colossal monument reflects the magnitude of the sacrifice. Inevitably registration has observed the statue that reads what the Soviet people saved European civilization from fascism.
However, for many, this memorial is called Tomb of the Unknown rapist.
There are records many cases of violations committed by the troops of the Red Army in Berlin, even though it was not discussed in the years following the end of the war, especially taboo Russia today.
Russian media often refer to as mass rape of western myths, although many found data were extracted from the diary of a young Soviet soldier.
Vladimir Gelfand was a young Jewish lieutenant, the central region of Ukraine, who wrote with brutal opening all the details of the atrocities of war since 1941. Although the army was forbidden to wear every day, given a security risk.
The manuscript was widely published and paint the chaos of life in his battalion, characterized by poor food rations, lice, antisemitism and theft (who flew to peer Boots) .
In February 1945, Gelfand was parked near the dam of the river Oder, where the army was preparing for the final blow on Berlin. Which tells how his comrades surrounded and annihilated battalions of German women fighters.
“German cats we caught saying they were avenging their dead husbands,” wrote Lieutenant. “We must destroy them without mercy. Our soldiers suggest stab his genitals, but only run it. “
One of the most revealing passages, he wrote on April 25, when they had come to Berlin. Gelfand realized he was lying on a bicycle on the river Spree, when he ran into a German group that carried suitcases and packages.
With a poor German asked where they were going and why they had left their homes.
“With horror on their faces, they told me that they had spent the first night of our arrival of the Red Army to the city,” he writes.
“I nailed’m here, “said one of the girls and lifted her skirt.” All night. They were old and others had pimples. Changes mounted. No less than 20 men, “before bursting into tears.
Lieutenant that girl suddenly vomited and he said,” You can sleep with me what you want with me, but only you. “
By that time the violations and abuses committed by German soldiers in the Soviet Union have been widely known for. the last four years, which Gelfand had learned first hand while opening stage to Germany.
Germans
Gelfand son, Vitaly, his father saw the Nazi troops destroyed whole villages, even killing small children. He also saw evidence of massive violations.
The German army was supposedly a well-organized composed of Aryans force they could not have sex with what they considered sub-human.
However, according to the historian of the School of Advanced Studies in Economics in Moscow, Oleg Budnitsky, this ban has been openly ignored.
Indeed, the Nazi leaders were so concerned about cases of venereal diseases that have established a chain of military brothels in the occupied territories.
It is difficult to see how they were treated in Russia by German soldiers, since most do not survive German occupation but the Russian Museum in Berlin, headed by Jorg Morre, shows a photograph the corpse of a woman lying on the floor in Crimea taken by a German soldier.
“It looks as if it had been killed at or after being raped. Her skirt is raised and his hands on his face,” said Morre.
When the Red Army began its march toward Germany, call the Soviet press as “the lair of the beast”, published posters encouraging soldiers to show their anger: “Soldier: Now you are on German soil. It is time to take revenge. “
Historian Antony Beevor that while conducting research to develop the book “The Fall” in 2002, sexual violence of documents found in the archives of the Russian Federation. They had been gathered by the secret police and sent to his boss, Beria, at the end of 1944.
“They were presented to Stalin. There are reports of mass rapes committed in East Prussia, and how German preferred to kill their daughters and themselves to avoid that fate, “said Beevor.
Another source of information is the girlfriend of a German soldier newspaper which reads that women adapted to the severe circumstances for survival.
from April 20, 1945, ten days before Hitler committed suicide, the anonymous author describes the scenes of its neighbors during bombing Berlin.
She noted that people ran away who was in your building and mentions a “young gray pants and sunglasses, which proved a little closer to being a woman.”
also describes three elderly sisters who stayed embraced all the time and they used to joke: “. Better a Russky (Russian) above which a Yank (Yankee) in the head “In other words, it was preferable to spray rape by American bombing.
When the Soviets arrived, the women asked the columnist to use his knowledge of Russian to talk to the officer in charge, so she left the shelter and spoke to him, but he just shrugged. “He spent what was occur anyway, “he wrote then.
The soldiers took the neighbors have been locked away for brutally raped and nearly strangled. When the neighbors came, they found their stockings fall shoes. In his hand, he was always one of the straps of her bra
She started screaming. “Pigs, let me raped twice in a row and left me lying there like garbage!” Bed everyday.
Then he realized that to remain immune to the massive violations had to find a “wolf” to protect it. He started a less violent and more transactional relationship with Leningrad official.
“Not at all, I can say that rape me. What am I doing to snuff, sugar, butter, candles and canned meat? To some extent, I am safe. In addition, less he wants from me, the more I like as a person, “he wrote.
The newspaper was published in 1959 under the title “A Woman in Berlin” but generated strong protests from the public on the reasons the book damaged the reputation of German women.
The 70th anniversary of the end of the war brought new investigations and allegations of sexual abuse by US soldiers Allies, British, French and Soviet who began to emerge.
However, the liberating feeling for women materialized in 2008 with the premiere of Anonymous, an adaptation of the book “A Woman in Berlin”, causing a cathartic effect for many victims who had been silent until then .
There is Bullert Ingeborg, now 90 years old. The woman said that when the Soviets came to his district of Berlin, were tanks in the street. As we all took shelter in the basement of his building.
One of the nights of bombing, left the shelter and went to find his apartment a piece of rope to hang a lamp. Suddenly struck by two Soviet soldiers who subjected him by arms.
“I raped her. I thought they would kill me,” he recalls. Ingeborg never told his bitter experience, it seemed very difficult to tell someone. “My mother liked to boast that her daughter had not exchanged” he said.
only between June 1945-1946, there were 995 abortions in requests one of Berlin. The files were written by hand with the children to write reports denouncing abuses in the house of life in front of their parents.
But probably never a final assessment is known. Sources of information remain classified military courts.
Russian Congress passed a law that anyone who denigrates the actions of Russia during the Second World War will face fines and up to five years in prison.
Vitaly Gelfand, Vladimir memoirist son does not deny that many Soviet soldiers showed courage and sacrifice during the war, but that is not the whole story.
“If people do not want the truth, did it wrong. The world understands it, includes Russia and the people who make these laws to defame the past also understand. We can not go forward until you look back, “said Vitaly.
