# History Magazine • October/November 2011

CONFLICT

I BELONG TO THE post-SecondWorld War fatherless generation. Iremember many roll calls in myGerman primary school class-room: “Father’s Occupation?”“Killed”… “Missing inaction”…”Disabled”…”Gone”.

The city of Stalingrad wasdestroyed during World War IIand rebuilt as Volgograd in thegray cement-block style of theStalinist era. On a high hill justoutside the city a statue of MotherRussia, a massive woman withoutstretched arms, one hand men-acingly wielding a sword, towersover town and country beyond. Aswe mounted the steep steps, mar-tial music boomed out over loud-speakers from behind massiverock and concrete battle scenes, ashaunting as Wagnerian Valkyries.Halfway through the climb, nextto one of the numerous fountains,stands another female figurecarved in stone, cradling awounded soldier in her arms. Bothstatues are firmly grounded inMother Earth but while the firstsignals might and fight, this onesuggests comfort and sympathy,all important parts of the leg-endary Russian soul. Throughoutour journey we were confrontedwith both sides of her character.

Many of our preconceivednotions were confirmed duringour stay in Russia and Ukraine. Orwas it that, as spoiled westerners,we were most aware of the contra-dictions? While Moscow brimswith high-priced stores, elegance,and entrepreneurship, the coun-tryside shows signs of the oldregime: sullen attitudes, resent-ment of foreigners, corruption andthe black market which deals ineverything from human flesh todrugs, displayed in broad day-light. Even good hotels are shabbybeneath touched-up surfaces. Deli-cious meals are served in a widechoice of restaurants, but there isno water pressure in the showerand the toilet handle comes off in

your hand. In the first-class traincompartment from Kharkov toKiev, which boasted (nonexistent)air-conditioning, businessmenstripped to their underwear andthen stood alongside us at theopen windows in the corridor,only to reemerge from their com-partments at their stop in jacketsand ties, briefcases and new Black-berry phones in hand. The youngwere open, helpful, and eager totry their English. But they also

seemed skilled in black marketdealing. Although we were not ona cultural tour, we did visit thelovingly restored churches andmonasteries which survivedStalin’s purges. But the purpose ofour trip was a pilgrimage.

A long time ago, I promisedmy beloved maternal grand-mother that I would find the bur-ial grounds of Uncle Heio andUncle Hubertus, her sons and mymother’s brothers, Germans whowere killed in 1943 on the Russianfront. Both were 23 years oldwhen they died, having been born

only 10 months apart. Between 1992 and 1999 the

“Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge,”a German organization founded tomaintain cemeteries of fallen sol-diers in foreign countries, built amemorial at Rossoschka for thevictims of the Battle of Stalingrad.A nine-foot high wall 30 yards indiameter and bearing the names ofidentified soldiers, encircles theresting place of the estimated 1.5million Germans and Russians lost

in the winter of 1942-43. The offi-cial Russian cemetery lies acrossthe road but as we were told,“bones from both sides mingle atRossoschka.” A mass grave, equal-izer of age, rank and nationalities.For the countless unidentified sol-diers, massive granite blocks withnames and dates in black letteringstand all around the circle in anadjacent open field.

We had travelled from Texasto Moscow, now making our wayto Volgograd with high expecta-tions, armed with maps, lettersand old pictures. But when we

Stalingrad, a Lifetime LaterA visit to the site of the siege of Stalingrad reawakens distressing memories and leads Ute

Carson to an unexpected experience of mutual understanding

Soviet soldier waving the Red Banner over the central plaza of Stalingrad in1943.

asked at our hotel, and thenmade the rounds of severalothers, no one could tell usanything about the location ofthis cemetery. We had no luckwith taxi drivers and peopleon the street either. Even withthe larger-than-life monumentlooming over the city, thereality of World War IIseemed to have been forgot-ten.

Sitting in an outdoor cafeand watching fashionableyoung couples amble by, wefelt in pursuit of a lost cause.Before giving up, we stoppedone evening at The Intourist,a leftover from the Soviet era,the one hotel in town ourguidebooks advised us toavoid. But there we metVasily, fluent in German andEnglish, who was well-acquainted with the site wesought. In the past, he hadtaken German veterans andtheir families to these burialgrounds. “Nobody has beenhere in a long time,” he said.“Those who knew have diedand the young ones don’tremember.” We hired him on thespot. We had found the needle inthe haystack.

The next morning, Vasily wasas punctual as the church chimeson the plaza. He brought with hima vast knowledge of the history ofStalingrad and its environs and adriver in a late-model Toyota.

What’s in a name? I traced thelettering H E I O with my indexfinger along a deep dark grooveon the hot stone. My uncle hadbeen listed as missing and there-fore his name was not on the wallbut on one of the large squareblocks in the meadow. I had tostand on my tiptoes to reach thetop. I don’t know whether it wasthe burning June sun or my imagi-nation heating up but suddenlyover this large field of the dead,images from old stories and fadedphotographs of Heio’s life swirledthrough my mind. They blew inwith the hot breeze along with thesoft kites of gray-haired dande-lions.

Heio was the youngest ofthree, my grandmother’s “Sun-

shine.” He, along with my motherGerda-Maria and his brother,Hubertus, grew up in carefreeabandonment on the estate of hisancestors, Silesian landed aristo-crats. He was popular in school,not so much for his grades as forhis winning personality, his lead-ership potential, and his greatsympathy for the underprivileged.He was also known for his senseof humor. He disliked marching towar songs, so as the leader of asmall company en route to theRussian front he taught his men towhistle or sing love songs instead.

When Hitler began shuttingdown “Jewish schools,” Heio wasattending a private one in Berlin.The headmaster decided to relo-cate to Switzerland and askedHeio to accompany him there tohelp establish his new academy.Among the many friends Heiomade there was Louis Guigo, sonof one of the owners of the Nestlecompany, and his sister Cecile,Heio’s first love. The Guigos tookHeio in as one of their own. Inthat atmosphere of camaraderie

and future promise Heioheard that Hubertus had beencalled up in the war draft.Hubertus had no love of war.He was a quiet and reservedman, my mother’s favorite. Aschildren, they had playedhouse together and tried theirhands at cooking. Hubertushad begun his study of ancientlanguages like my father, andhad a serious girlfriend.Despite urgings from hisadopted family in Switzerlandand my grandmother’s ferventpleas, Heio returned to Ger-many. “I can’t let Hubertus goalone,” he said. He was sooncalled up and sent to the Russ-ian front.Hitler was under the illusionthat General Paulus’ SixthArmy could prevail over theRussian Army. The Germantroops had entered the city ofStalingrad without much resis-tance. They had no knowledgeof the Soviet commander Mar-shall Zhukov’s tactical bril-liance and determination todefeat the Germans. Heio’sreserve battalion set up camp

about an hour outside the cityduring the late summer of 1942,encountering a hot, dry season onthe steppe. By the time the Russ-ian winter arrived with sub-zerotemperatures, the German troopswere surrounded by Russian tankdivisions and were desperate.They lacked warm clothing, foodwas running out, and their supplylines were cut.

When Heio was killed in Janu-ary 1943 his personal belongingsdisappeared with him. WhenHubertus died the following May,near Kiev, my grandmotherreceived his iron cross, several ofher last letters to him and a photoof his girlfriend in a small silverframe, all neatly tucked into acheckered handkerchief tiedtogether at the corners.

At the sound of Vasily’s voiceI emerged from my ruminations.“Every man is first a baby, sucklesat his mother’s breast and thengrows up with dreams, only toencounter the horrors of war. Itdoes not make sense,” he said.“Thinking about all the killings

History Magazine • October/November 2011 #

Memorial at Rossosschka for the fallen at theBattle of Stalingrad.

makes me ill,” I replied. Vasily had a plan. “Do you

have more time?” he asked andwhen we nodded, he told the dri-ver to speed off again. Vasily hadseen our letters and knew that oneof the final battles over Stalingradhad taken place near the village ofBaburkin. Burned to the ground inthe fighting, the village had neverbeen rebuilt. Decades later, itsruins lay overtaken by nature. Mygrandmother had received Heio’slast note from Baburkin, datedNew Year’s Eve 1942, “Nobodywill come out of this hellholealive,” he had written. “Only thememory of my idyllic childhoodkeeps me sane.” Few did survive,and General Paulus surrenderedsoon thereafter in early February1943.

We rumbled over rutted,washed-out roads, through dryravines, along waist-high mead-ows. The driver got nervous andstarted to argue with Vasily. Untilrecently Russians were forbiddento travel beyond their towns ofresidence without a permit. Wetoo had to share our passports tocheck in at hotels and carry identi-fication in case we were stoppedby the police. Vasily urged us on.Finally, we halted next to a vastfield of tall grasses running up toa deep gorge. The driver parkedand we started to walk. Vasilypointed straight ahead, “This deepriverbed was once the demarca-tion line. The Germans were here,the Russians on the other side.During the night of the final battlelayers of solid ice covered every-thing.”

When we had taken only afew steps we were startled bywhat lay before us. Nothing hadprepared us for what we saw.Rusted chunks of artillery, smallpiles of shovels that were used fordigging foxholes, remnants ofhobnail boots — distinctive Ger-man issue. And then a sea ofbones. It was surreal. I stumbledover a thigh bone. Long. It musthave belonged to a very tall man.There were pieces of skulls, fin-gers, feet, all weathered but notgone. Over a lifetime the sandshad swept through the loominggrass, covering and uncovering

the remains as once the snow hadcarpeted the footprints left by ter-ror. I swayed with the thick grassblades and an echo from the pastresounded through the still air.The wind seemed to blow in fromthe four directions and the drybones began to jostle and rattle asin Ezekiel’s prophecy. And beforemy inner eye the bones grew lay-ers of sinews, and flesh connectedto bones and skin covered themuscles, and an army of men rose

around me with shrill moans andloud howls like the lone wolveswho once patrolled the tundra onbitter cold nights. I began toshiver, though it was unseason-ably warm. And then I heardHeio’s voice.

I am snuggly dug into my fox-hole but can no longer feel my feet. Iwrapped my boots in burlap beforeleaving the tent. My fingers arepressed around the gun barrel. Theytoo are numb. I wonder if I can even

# History Magazine • October/November 2011

CONFLICT

Above: Snow covers the killing field at Barburkin near Stalingrad.Below: Skulls and bones strewn over the field near Barburkin..

pull the trigger. Gerda-Maria sentknitted woolen mittens. She musthave patterned them after her ownhands because they barely stretch overmine! I like them though. They aresky blue, not the usual mouse graycolor. It’s snowing softly. The flakesseem to multiply as I stare into thepowdery veil. I feel like I’m in atrance. The night stretches on and Iwhistle to Helmut who is in the holenearest to mine. No answer. He mustnot fall asleep. How can I keep himawake? I whistle again and then swal-low several times. My mouth is drybut I can still almost taste of the snowsoup we had on New Year’s Eve,which was seasoned with the last ofour horseflesh. The snowflakes looklike froth on the broth.

There! The first sunrays. Theyglide over the glaring surface andlight up the nebulous haze. I have nophysical sensations in my legs orarms. Am I frozen? It’s quiet at Hel-mut’s hideout and I can only just seehis helmet sticking up. No movement.Without the cover of darkness I amnot allowed to whistle. My eyelashesare stuck together. I can hardly makeout the shapes creeping toward us.Huge turtles with feelers. Suddenly Ihear crunching. These things are dri-ving over our foxholes! I want toscream at them. Russian tanks? Whyam I suddenly afraid? There must bea way to escape this moving menace.Why do I feel like laughing? This ishilarious! Opapa is having one of hisfamous dinner parties and Hubertusand I have been busy wrapping all thetoilet seats in the castle in garlands ofivy. We worked hard all afternoon andnow are hiding in a hallway closetwatching the first guests enter andthen quickly leave the bathrooms.Here comes Opapa to check thingsout. Now he is storming in our direc-tion. He catches us by the shirttails.He has never spanked us before, butwe can’t stop laughing. Hubertus andI are still smirking as we hold ourpainful behinds. I drop my weaponand raise my arms to greet the glori-ous morning.

“God must have left justbefore the massacre of Stalingrad,”Vasily brings me back to the pre-sent. “Yes,” I concur, “he seems tomake a habit of that.” Icy rivuletsof sweat streamed from my hair-line down the front of my chest in

the midday heat.When Hubertus heard about

Heio’s death he was incredulous.“Not Heio,” he wrote from theUkraine, “not him.” The brothershad met by chance only a fewmonths before at a briefing in Kievafter having been without mailcontact for weeks. Heio couldalways be recognized by a distinc-tive white lock at the neckline ofhis otherwise dark brown hair.Hubertus had instantly spottedhim sitting in the front row of thebriefing room. “Stay strong,brother,” Heio had encouraged.

“We HAVE to survive!”

Swallows fluttered like cupidsover the quivering warm Maylandscape. The earth was melodi-ous with birdsong and blanketedwildflowers. Bluebells swayeddolefully in the morning breezewhen Hubertus emerged from histent, stretched toward the risingsun, and was instantly felled by asniper. A friend sent his belong-ings to my grandmother. Hubertuswas buried in a small cemetery inRomny and his remains latermoved to memorial burial

History Magazine • October/November 2011 #

Above: 2010, looking at human remains from 1943.Below: Hobnail boots-distinctive German issue.

grounds outside of Kharkov. It was not difficult to locate

the German soldiers’ cemetery asit was a specially designated sec-tion of Kharkov City Cemetery.Stanislaus, the hotel concierge,and his driver friend were eager toearn some extra money. Like allcabbies we encountered on ourjourney, this one drove with thespeed of an unimpeded whirl-wind. Oncoming traffic was anopportunity for a game of chicken.I closed my eyes every time weswerved from lane to lane. Acci-dents were common and fender-benders a frequent occurrence.Safely arrived at the cemetery, thetwo men stood next to the taxi,smoking. But when we set off insearch of the monument whereHubertus was immortalized, theyambled along.

Maybe tracing a dead man’sname calls forth magic forces. Asbefore, the spirits started to encir-cle me like a dense fog. Hubertusstood tall and lanky, his bemusedsmile wrinkling his nose just as Iknew him from pictures. Was Ihallucinating again? He seemedpleased that we had found him.But his voice sounded sad:

If only Heio had lived! He wasthe hopeful one. He gave me suchcourage when we last met. I amdespondent. Even the thought of myloved ones at home, my dear mother,Gerda-Maria, and Elsa can’t pull meout of this slump. They have theirhardships with wartime rations andworries about us and all the personallosses they have had to bear, but theycannot imagine the conditions outhere. Their letters are full of love andconcern but they read as if we are liv-ing in different worlds. And indeedwe are! When Karl was evacuatedafter his legs were blown off, my tearswere a mixture of relief and sorrow.Would I want to survive as a cripple?So many of our comrades havealready died and we take more casual-ties daily. I dreamed about one ofHeio’s childhood pranks the othernight. He always had something uphis sleeve. Aunt Emma often visitedat teatime. We noticed that she carriedan umbrella into the drawing roominto which she secretly deposited thecookies that were not to her taste. Oneday when her coach arrived to pick

her up, and she had finished coveringour faces with sloppy kisses which wecould barely wait to wipe off, Heioannounced at the door “it’s raining.”Not hesitating to notice that the skywas blue as blue can be, Aunt Emmaopened her umbrella and was show-ered with cookies! Heio laughed andlaughed. I also found it funny butstood by rather awkwardly. I am notHeio, could never be Heio. But I couldlive if he had lived.

When I blinked, our driverwas wiping his eyes. “He wasyounger than I am,” he said qui-etly. “Yes,” I replied and only thendid I notice that he had been read-ing the words of Albert Schweitzeretched into the memorial stone:“Soldiers’ graves are the bestadvocates for peace.”

We had brought plenty of filmwith us. But that day we had leftour spare batteries behind. Whenour camera stopped working,Stanislaus spontaneously began totake photographs with his phone.Back at the hotel I asked if hecould send prints of the pictures.An hour later he was at our doorwith a disk of the photos. Heaccepted our thanks but courte-ously declined our offer of pay-ment. A shared emotionalexperience had transformed anevent from a lifetime ago into amoving personal encounter

between representatives of formerenemy countries.

On our flight back to theStates I resolved to tell this storyof understanding across cultureswhich is also the story of mybeloved uncles who died morethan a half century ago, nearlyhalf a century younger than I amtoday. The stories of the deadmust be told lest they vanish likeshooting stars.

# History Magazine • October/November 2011

Ute Carson’s stories andessays have appeared in theUS and abroad. Her novel ColtTailing (2004) was a finalistfor the Peter Taylor Award forthe Novel. In Transit, her sec-ond novel, was published in2008 and a poetry collection,Just a Few Feathers, in 2011.Visit her website at www.utecarson.com.

HM

CONFLICT

Rusted piles of foxhole shovels and weapons used during the Battle of Stalingrad..