360 GOLGOTA
Zweiundzwanzig, Horingstrasse.
It's not been burned, just looted, rifled.
A moaning by the walls, half-muffled,
The mother's wounded, still alive.
The little daughter's on the mattress
Dead. How many have been on it?
A platoon, a company perhaps?
A girl's been turned into a woman,
A woman into a corpse.
It's all come down to simple phrases:
Do not forget. Do not forgive.
Blood for blood. A tooth for a tooth.
The mother begs, 'Tote mich, Soldat'...
Once there lived in days now past
A Comrade, a Parteigenosse,
Not the first and not the last
To lie prostrate, each in turn,
In that log-road beneath the wheels,
The wheels of Comintern.
Russia advances, a great power,
Hail to the advance's thunder.
Some schnapps would do me good, I feel,
But what would cheer me even more -
Is to go looking for some plunder....
Allenstein has just been taken.
An hour ago, a sudden strike
Of tanks and cavalry overwhelmed it...
Now the night flares. Burning sugar.
It flames with violet-coloured fire
Over the earth. It seems to simmer,
A trembling blaze, a lilac shimmer...
Knocks. Rings. A tumult. Then we hear
A moment later, the cry of a girl,
Somewhere from behind a wall,
'I'm not a German. I'm not a German.
No. I'm - Polish. I'm a Pole.'
Grabbing what comes handy, those
Like-minded lads get in and start -
And oh, what heart
Could well oppose?...^46Two weeks later, the Soviet Army reached the Baltic shore near Elbing (Elblag).
At which point, having questioned the geniality of Joseph Stalin in one of his
private letters, Solzhe-nitsyn was arrested and sentenced to ten years' penal
servitude; and his vision of the Soviet liberation came to a sudden halt.
The Soviet advance was accompanied by the widespread flight of German
civilians. Certain settlements were cleared by the Wehrmacbt for military pur-