Nazi Expulsion

      In the dead of winter, January of 1945, Mina Von Wagner’s childhood ended.  Tuberculosis finally took her mother late in the prior year.  Ukrainian winters could be brutal.  At a tender sixteen, many girls her age would have become closer with their fathers, but Mina’s father was not the type of man to whom a child could confide.  He was never abusive to mother or child, nor was he ever guilty of excessive warmth.  Perhaps her mother, in life, had known something of her husband’s work for the government, but such things were not brought up in their home.

         Dr. Klaus Von Wagner was not a medical doctor.  He was a scientist, and a devoted member of the Nazi Party.  He conducted government-funded research of some variety, though, of what sort Mina had no inkling, and she would not find out what he had done for quite some time. 

         The Ludowe Wojsko Polskie or The People’s Army of Poland marched through Berdychiv, Ukraine that cold mid January night.  The group, made up of mostly Polish soldiers, but commanded by Soviet Officers, was to forcibly expelling civilian Party members in the wake of the defeat of Nazi forces.



    “Mina, dress for travel.”  Dr. Von Wagner appeared in the doorway of her bedroom.  “We must leave immediately.  Bring no more than you can carry, we will send for the remainder of our things”.  Her father handed her a bundle of photographs and letters bound together with a red ribbon.  “These were your mother’s, I want you to keep them safe.”

    Mina at once obeyed her father, closing her schoolbook she arose from the small desk in her bedroom, and took the bundle from his shaking hand.  She heard gunshots, and shouting across town as the soldiers advanced through the streets.  “Father, are we in danger?  ” Mina had never before seen such panic.  Her father’s eyes answered the question.  She turned to fetch her heavy woolen cloak from the coat rack by the front door, tucking the bundle into her smock.

      Just as Mina retrieved her cloak from the rack, the soldiers beset her front door.  While they pounded, she heard a voice outside shout “This is the home of Doctor Von Wagner.  Kill the butcher!” 

    Taken aback with the horror of hearing such a statement, Mina turned away from the door and bolted up the stairs.  She passed her father at the top, as he was coming out of his own bedroom. 

The front door burst into splinters.  Mina crouched for cover behind the balusters on the second floor handrail.  Two soldiers charged into the house, immediately leveling their machineguns at her father.  He managed a shot before they cut him down, though it did not find its target, but instead pierced the wall to the right of the intruders.

    Her father murdered before her eyes, Mina could not scream, she instead crouched, frozen in horror.  One of the soldiers overturned the sofa, and began breaking other furniture to pile atop it.  His companion quickly scanned the house for other occupants or anything of obvious value. 

    Mina crouched atop the stairs, partially obscured by the railing.  She watched and waited until the searching soldier turned and made his way into the kitchen, with his companion busily stacking the furniture of her home into a huge bonfire, now was her chance to escape. 

    Mina considered her options.  There were no exits on the upper floor of the house, so she turned her attention toward the windows.  Outside her father’s bedroom window, in the front of the house, stood a row of thick hedges.  Perhaps those would cushion a drop from the second story.  Mina then remembered the rope swing.  It was a simple board with two lengths of rope suspending it from the branch of a huge oak tree.  That oak tree resided directly outside her bedroom window.

    She laid flat on the hardwood floor of the upstairs hallway.  Pulling with her arms, she slid silently on her belly toward her bedchamber.  As she slid along the hallway floor, another soldier dressed in the dark uniform of the Soviet Army entered the house to assist his comrades.  The searching man re-entered the living room, arms laden with silver from the kitchen.  He sent the new arrival upstairs to fetch a pillowcase, obviously more interested in stealing than more murder.  The fire builder, overturned the great bookcase on top of his furniture pile, then, seemingly satisfied with his handiwork, he removed a small tin of lighter fluid from his jacket pocket.

    Mina began closing the door as quietly as possible to avoid attracting attention, but as the Russian reached the landing midway up the stairs, and turned to continue upward, his eyes met her own.  She slammed the door, and engaged the privacy lock.  He shouted an alarm in Russian.  She thought quickly, and snatched up the chair from her small bedroom desk, wedging it beneath the doorknob of her bedroom door.

    She could hear her pursuer running up the remainder of the stairs, to her surprise, he did not fire his machinegun.  Nearly paralyzed with fear Mina willed herself to the window.  She pulled up on the window sash to no avail.  Unyielding, it was frozen solid within the frame. 

    “Come out young lady.  I mean no harm to you.”  Mina could hear the snickering sarcasm in his voice as clearing as the crash of broken glass when she flung her reading lamp through it.

    The bitter cold and snow stung her face, forcing her to squint as she peered out into the night.  She could smell the thick smoke from the flames devouring a handful of neighboring houses.  In the flickering firelight Mina could only just make out the ropes of the swing, the nearest of which hung nearly seven feet from her broken window.

    Upon hearing the glass breaking, the soldier outside her door began heaving his shoulder into it, trying to force his way through, but the small chair bracing the door held fast.  Mina heard him slam into the door a second time, and then a third.  On the third attempt to batter the door down, her little chair began to crack.

Her time was up.  Mina crouched in the open widow, both feet planted on the sill.  She took a deep breath and lunged for the closest rope of the swing.  As she flew through the air, time stood still.  She felt as if her heart were going to burst in her chest.  Over the racing pulse pounding her ears, she heard a loud crash behind her, and knew instantly that her bedroom door had finally given way.  Mina sailed through the wintry night like a circus acrobat, silently praying that she would not miss, and, by the grace of God, both hands found the icy rope.  Frozen stiff, and slick with ice, her grip slid four or five feet down the rope before failing her.  Unable to cling to the rope, she managed to slow her momentum, but not enough to arrest her fall.

    The sixteen-year-old plummeted twelve feet to the snow covered dirt below.  She landed hard on her left side, the impact forcing all wind from her lungs.  As she tried to rise, the soldier at the window above fired his machinegun into the snow beside her, pinning Mina where she lay.  His companions burst from the back door of the house.  When they reached her, the larger of the two, the silver looter, drove the butt-stock of his rifle into her forehead.  A brilliant flash a white light filled her vision, and then with a second blow, darkness replaced the light.

    When Mina Von Wagner awoke, her captors had bound her hands behind her back.  They had gagged her mouth with a strip torn from the hem of her own dress.  She awoke beside the woodshed, her murderous pursuers had been joined by others, all gathered in a circle around her.  Over their shoulders she could see the home in which she had lost both parents had become a blazing inferno. 

The lustful jeers on the soldiers’ faces told her exactly what they had in mind.  Unable to free her hands, Mina called out for help, but her cries went unheard, stifled by the gag in her mouth.  She rolled to her side, trying to gain her feet.  They reward her for her efforts by kicking her ribs repeatedly.  The monster who had chased her to her bedroom forced her to her back while two of his companions held her down.  He positioned himself between her legs.

    For the rest of her life, no matter how long it turned out to be, she was sure that she would never manage to forget the monsters face, his crooked, tobacco stained teeth, that awful scowl, and the wild demented look in his eye, like some deranged jack-o-lantern.

With two soldiers holding her down by shoulders, and by head, Jack-o-lantern released her legs to unbuckle his belt.  Seizing the brief opportunity Mina acted.  Pulling her knees into her belly, she drove both feet upward, into his chin with all of her might.  The brute reeled backward, his jaw split with an audible crack, and anger flooded him, not replacing his lust, but somehow fueling it.  He sprung back atop her, pummeling her savagely, relentlessly with both fists.  Onlookers offered no help.  They viciously cheered the monster on. 

      Badly beaten, recently orphaned, alone, and defenseless, with no hope of escape, Mina finally succumbed to the hopelessness of her situation.  The fear was gone, no more grief, no more anger, only the emptiness of melancholy, as cold and emotionless as winter itself.  This was the end of her young life.  She had accepted that.

    A voice from beyond the crowd called out in Russian.  “You there, men, what are you doing?”  The voice sounded young, like it belonged to someone not much older than herself.

First Lieutenant Vladimir Karimov was, in fact, an officer in the Red Army, recently assigned to command a platoon of Armia Polska, in one of Soviet General Konstantin Rokossovsky’s companies.

    He had heard of many atrocities committed by other Soviet soldiers during the Nazi expulsion.  In a way, he could hardly blame the men for seeking retribution against the Nazis, but he drew the line at the murder of civilians.  Before him now, were several of his men about to rape a young girl, if, that is, they had not already.

“Stand down!” he ordered.  The man leading the mob, if memory served, Sergeant Petrovich, openly ignored him.  The lieutenant drew his sidearm.  “That is an order Sergeant!  STAND DOWN NOW!”  He shouted.

      Mina stared blankly into Jack-o-lantern’s face.  Unable to move or resist, it was as if she were watching from outside her body, no longer in control.  She heard the young lieutenant order her assailant to stop, but she refused to acknowledge even a spark of hope.  Nothing could save her.  She could not escape.  The monster on top of her ripped her dress, exposing her breasts, another shout from elsewhere, he pulled up the bottom of her dress.  Thunder cracked, and the face she would never forget burst right before her eyes.

    Covered in blood, half-naked, and in shock, Mina was not able to roll Jack-o-lantern’s body off hers.  Her senses were numb.  She could see the young man running to her side.  She could hear him growling orders at the men surrounding her.  She watched them scatter, clearly afraid of the young man who did not appear to be a day over twenty.  She could not seem to make out what was said, nor could she speak.  She wanted to cry, but the tears would not come.  She wanted to thank her savior, but could force no words from her mouth.

Lieutenant Karimov rolled the corpse off the girl, fearful that she may be dead.

    Though her eyes were open, she made no move to cover her exposed chest.  She appeared to be catatonic.  It was not until he covered her with his own coat that the girl began to sob.