“You did.” She didn’t feel like bestowing another smile upon him, but after he stepped out could not help but see her beaming face in the reflection of the glass covering Hitler’s portrait. The wild animal runs to the hunter, a saying came to her mind. Nathan’s image—but no doubt it was not his real name—appeared in her mental eye. He wanted information about the collaborationists and here she was in their lair with all the records to be continuously supplied right into her hands. Not SS, SD, Gestapo, or Polizeiamt, but as a beginning not bad. She smiled for the third time this day.
Elated to start her work, she quickly wound the paper and a carbon into the brand-new Adler Favorite 2, cranked it into the proper position, and began typing.
How many of the young and not so young men expressed their enthusiasm to collaborate? Why? Who were they? The answer came from Klimko’s ledger. Mostly locals, claiming the Soviet power deprived them of their scrap of land and what little livestock they had and forced them to work in a Kolkhoz. They proclaimed their hate of Stalin and all Soviets and pledged allegiance to the Third Reich and Hitler. All applications were worded identically.
Ulya typed for the Germans and memorized for herself their names, their traitorous stories.
As it was getting close to six o’clock, she drew out the last page from the typewriter and put it into a separate file. Not a bad catch for the first day. She ran her eyes through the rows of names and addresses once again and, after gathering the ledger and the folders, made her way down the corridor to Klimko.
Home, in the night, she compiled the lists. She put her first report in the hiding place under the fence and a duplicate into a spent artillery shell which she hid in the smaller dugout. Only then did she fall asleep with a light heart.
30
Natasha
August-September 1941
Public transportation did not function any longer. To be at her workplace by eight in the morning, Natasha left her house at seven. Back in July, the labor exchange office assigned her to a railroad repair shop. Working for the Reich was the only legal chance to get bread, the meager 300 grams a day. With the ration card of her aunt, they could survive. With one additional meal her aunt got in the German hospital, they, not big eaters, managed rather well.
Every day at work, she could not help but notice the Germans kept reorganizing the local life to the satisfaction of many. Every week, she saw new personal property businesses open. The churches, most of them expropriated by the Bolsheviks soon after the Revolution and used during the Soviet time as warehouses or museums, started public services, bringing the locals with the German military personnel together. The black market thrived. To supplement their meager meals, now and then, Natasha set off for Smolensky market to buy an egg or two or a half-liter of milk and, not the least, to catch up with the local gossip.
The Germans frequented the market too. They fancied the knitted wool scarves. Scrunching them in their hands and smacking their lips, they mumbled, “Good, good. For my wife.” Their interest in the handmade carved little wooden figurines proved enormous. “For my child,” they cooed, adding their names, all those Wolfchen, Annchen, Gerdies.
The market’s bulletin board was plastered with announcements:
War of Russian people against Bolshevism is sacred. Struggle of the Russian and Byelorussian folks against Germany is senseless. Wehrmacht frees Russian people and does not infringe on their well-earned rights for the prosperous life and liberty.
Daily, all males ages fifteen to fifty-five must come to the commandantur at 13:00 to be sent to work. Those who refuse to work will be declared an enemy of the German Reich and will be executed.
Those who do not obey an order will be arrested on the spot and dealt with severely.
Strikes or any other attempts at resistance will be tried by court martial.
Natasha still remembered her shock from the view of the first gallows constructed on Liberty Square opposite the church. Rumors were flying that a girl had placed a bomb at the threshold of her house and the explosion killed a German soldier. But before it, they hanged Jewish people on trees. Her aunt told her she had seen it with her own eyes.
Before long, gallows became a part of the city’s scenery. The bodies of young and old men and women with cardboard signs hanging from their necks, reading, We are partisans who shot at German troops, attracted Germans like a performance. “Take a picture of me with this partisan,” they urged each other, pronouncing the word partisan with satisfied bravado. The locals looked away and shook their heads in despair. Natasha, mentally shuddered.
Today, from afar, a small group of her co-workers at the entrance to her shop diverted Natasha’s attention from the gallows, on which hung a lonely figure of a young woman most likely not
