Translated material
In bed with the enemy
Vladimir Abarinov: We continue the conversation about the test, which many Soviet women and girls who found themselves in the occupied territories had to endure. We are talking about their sexual exploitation, most often for an insignificant fee or without it at all. We have already said that the occupation authorities legalized and took under strict control of prostitution, both individual and in brothels. Here is an excerpt from a note directed by the state security authorities to the Pskov Regional Party shortly after the liberation of Pskov.
“In Pskov, on Mountain and on Children's Streets, large brothels were created, or“ brothel-homes ”, as the Germans themselves called them. These houses often took girls of even minor age. Some of the girls went to these houses because of material unsecure, and part in order to earn extra“ rags ”and live in an idle and depraved life. The Germans were in great demand among the Germans, and there were days when these houses were lined up, despite the weekly medical examination of all women of these houses, nevertheless, infection with sexually transmitted diseases was mutual, and most women from these houses returned with sexually transmitted diseases.
Since there were not enough public houses for the Germans in Pskov, they created the so-called institute of sanitary-prescription women or, simply speaking, revived free prostitutes who traded their body on the streets of the city. Periodically, they also had to appear on a physical examination, about which they received the appropriate marks in the special tickets that were received in their hands. The occupation of prostitution without special tickets by the Germans was legally prohibited, but in fact it flourished, because the Germans contributed to this with their unbridledness in debauchery.
Lists of sanitary-businessaries are installed, there are photographs of the Bordelian House employees. "
Vladimir Abarinov: For many women, work in the brothel was a way of survival. However, some cohabited with German officers on the instructions of partisans or intelligence. Boris Nikolaevich, tell us about such cases.
Boris Kovalev: You know, it was. Moreover, this never was hidden in the Soviet Union. The only thing that has never focused on this. For example, in the very famous memoirs of the Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Ivanovich Sergunin, the commissar of the 5th partisan brigade, his memoirs "took the oath of partisans" withstood three publications in the Soviet Union. He directly writes that a significant part of our agents were girls and young women. He indicates the number of these agents of the 5th partisan brigade-he uses the word "hundreds". At the same time, the following comment is given in his book: how hard it was for these girls to portray love for the Germans, travel with them, kiss with them. It is probably clear not only to kiss, however, Sergunin does not write about this in the book. Listen to insults from relatives, relatives, their friends. As Sergunin writes: "To cry at nights in the pillow, but to endure, clenching his teeth, since this was the task of the partisans."
Vladimir Abarinov: The story of one such partisan described in her book “Now I can tell the truth” the writer Zoya Voskresenskaya, she is also Colonel of the KGB Zoya Rybkin. The woman in question, she met in 1954 in Vorkuta.
"The ladies' atelier acted at the 2nd mine, Vorkutin’s women were sheathed in it. The atelier was an expelled prisoner, convicted for twenty-five years," for cooperation with the Nazi occupiers. "Olya called her that she did what she received the highest term," Oh, citizen boss. I will tell you, but I won’t have it to me. Believe. " -" And yet ... "
And she told me her story. Olya from Orel. I was a Komsomol. When the war began, I asked for the front. The Germans approached the city. In the military registration and enlistment office, the young man invited her to stay in Orel and, since she to some extent speaks the German language, try to earn the trust of the Nazis, find out their plans, mood, loss, in general, become a scout. Twice a month, she had to appear in a conditional place and put her report in the cache and take out the next task from there (from the hollow).
Olya gave her consent, sent her mother to evacuation, told her that she was delayed here in Komsomol affairs and then would come. After the occupation of the city, Olya quickly and easily entered the officer environment, spent the evenings in restaurants, pretending that in German she knows only a few words. As they agreed, she went to the cache on certain and control days and ... found her reports there and no tasks.
She was desperate. I tried to escape from the city, to avoid the dirty hands of the invaders. But she did not succeed.
The eagle was in the hands of the Nazis for more than twenty months, and all this time Olya did not lose hope that she would be found. After the liberation of the eagle from the invaders to the Soviet command, reports fell on the treacherous behavior of this "girl Olga", who danced with the SS in restaurants, drank with them
Wine and vodka, traveled in their cars. She was arrested and as a war criminal appeared before the military tribunal. "
Vladimir Abarinov: With the assistance of Zoe Rybkina, Olga nevertheless achieved rehabilitation.
In 1942, in occupied Europe, including the occupied Soviet territories, 569 brothels operated, in which 3,4140 women worked. This is incomplete data: new brothels opened as the front line moves to the east, women changed in them, this data did not take into account the brothels for the SS troops, the Ostarbeters and the brothels in concentration camps - both for the administration and the guards, and for the prisoners as a measure of promotion. In fact, a system of sexual slavery was created in the occupied territories. Boris Nikolaevich, why did this topic not sounded in the Nuremberg process, why did these crimes not be charged with anyone?
Boris Kovalev: Maybe I can assume, due to excessive scrupulousness, there may be to some extent the hypocrisy of that time-once. Still, this problem concerned millions of ordinary people, millions of women. Secondly, it seems to me that here in relation to the Soviet Union we could talk about material compensation. The Soviet Union is characterized by the receipt of material compensation by the state, that is, it is not received by a particular citizen, but the state receives this compensation. And probably, it would be strange to demand compensation for sexual violence precisely in favor of the state, and not in favor of specific people. Nevertheless, you need to understand that for our women, and who lived with the Germans for a piece of bread, and those who were to rape, talk about it, remembering this extremely difficult and extremely humiliating.
Vladimir Abarinov: This topic for many years was not at all hushed up by Soviet propaganda, but it was talked about it, for obvious reasons, casually. How would you assess the attitude to these women after the war, a public assessment of their behavior? It seems to me that they were treated more with sympathy than with condemnation, although the nicknames of the “German shepherd” and “fascist litter” were also.
Boris Kovalev: To begin with, women, if it was only about cohabitation with the Germans without any evidence of their cooperation in a different form, was not brought to criminal liability. I want to remind the plot from the famous film "Chairman". Remember, there, the main character says the wife of his brother, who prevents him from building a collective farm. When he asks her: why do you live with this bastard? She answers him that she will take one of the children from the German, and her husband forgave her, her husband still lives with her. And since he committed such a noble act, now he is a needle, and she is a thread, where he is, there and me. The attitude, of course, was different. You need to understand that in the Russian village everyone knew everything about everyone. Once they could condemn, they could laugh at someone. To someone for many years, the nickname "Nemchonok", "Spaniard" or "Finn" stuck, and someone understood the tragedy of their countrywomen, who found themselves in the terrible situation of the war period. Although it is perfectly clear that when millions of people died when millions of people did not return from the front or plunged disabled, the question is, “where are the children?”, “Why don't you have a father?”, It is clear that such a question did not arise in the 40s and early 50s. Millions and millions of our children grew without fathers.