.
Romania, children in unpaved street: photo by Horst Grund, 1941 (Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive)
They were poor Jewish girls who had fled into the fields and the woods to escape the hands of the Germans. The grain fields and the woods of Bessarabia, between Baltsiu and Soroca, were full of Jewish girls hiding in fear of the Germans, in fear of the hands of the Germans.
They were not afraid of their faces, their terrible raucous voices, their blue eyes, their broad and hairy feet, but they were afraid of their hands. They were not afraid of their fair hair or their tommy guns, but they were afraid of their hands. When a column of German soldiers appeared at the end of the road, the Jewish girls hiding in the wheat and among the trunks of the acacias and birches shook with fear; if one of them began crying and screaming, her companions jammed their hands over her mouth, or filled her mouth with straw; but the girl would struggle and howl -- she was afraid of the German hands; she already felt those hard German hands under her dress. She already felt those fingers penetrating her secret flesh. They lived for days hidden in the fields amid the wheat, stretched out between the furrows among the tall golden ears in a warm forest of golden trees; they moved very slowly, lest the golden ears should sway. Whenever the Germans saw the ears swaying in the windless air, they called "Achtung! Partisans!" and fired volleys with their tommy guns into the forest of golden wheat.
They were Jewish girls, about eighteen to twenty years old; they were the youngest and best looking. The others, the ugly and crippled girls of Bessarabian ghettos, remained shut up in their houses, and peered from behind the curtains to watch the Germans go by and shook with fear. Maybe it was not only fear, maybe it was something else that made these unfortunate women tremble: the hunch-backed, the lame, the halt, the scurvy-scarred, the pockmarked or those with their hair devoured by eczema. They shook with fear as they lifted the curtains to watch the German soldiers go by, and they drew back frightened by the casual glance, the involuntary gesture or the voice of some soldier; but they laughed, red in the face and sweating, within those darkened rooms, and they ran limping and bumping against each other to the window of the next room to watch the German soldiers rounding the bend in the road.
The girls hidden in the fields and in the woods grew pale when they heard the rumble of motors, the clatter of horses, the creaking of wheels on the roads leading to Baltsiu in Bessarabia, to Soroca on the Dniester, and to the Ukraine. They lived like wild beasts, feeding on what little they could beg from the peasants, a few slices of mamaliga bread, some scraps of salted brenza. There were days when at sunset the German soldiers went out to hunt for the Jewish girls in the wheat. They spread out like fingers of a huge hand, raking the wheatfields, and they hailed one another, "Kurt! Fritz! Karl!" They had youthful slightly hoarse voices. They looked like sportsmen beating a moor to raise the partridges, quails and pheasants.
They were not afraid of their faces, their terrible raucous voices, their blue eyes, their broad and hairy feet, but they were afraid of their hands. They were not afraid of their fair hair or their tommy guns, but they were afraid of their hands. When a column of German soldiers appeared at the end of the road, the Jewish girls hiding in the wheat and among the trunks of the acacias and birches shook with fear; if one of them began crying and screaming, her companions jammed their hands over her mouth, or filled her mouth with straw; but the girl would struggle and howl -- she was afraid of the German hands; she already felt those hard German hands under her dress. She already felt those fingers penetrating her secret flesh. They lived for days hidden in the fields amid the wheat, stretched out between the furrows among the tall golden ears in a warm forest of golden trees; they moved very slowly, lest the golden ears should sway. Whenever the Germans saw the ears swaying in the windless air, they called "Achtung! Partisans!" and fired volleys with their tommy guns into the forest of golden wheat.
They were Jewish girls, about eighteen to twenty years old; they were the youngest and best looking. The others, the ugly and crippled girls of Bessarabian ghettos, remained shut up in their houses, and peered from behind the curtains to watch the Germans go by and shook with fear. Maybe it was not only fear, maybe it was something else that made these unfortunate women tremble: the hunch-backed, the lame, the halt, the scurvy-scarred, the pockmarked or those with their hair devoured by eczema. They shook with fear as they lifted the curtains to watch the German soldiers go by, and they drew back frightened by the casual glance, the involuntary gesture or the voice of some soldier; but they laughed, red in the face and sweating, within those darkened rooms, and they ran limping and bumping against each other to the window of the next room to watch the German soldiers rounding the bend in the road.
The girls hidden in the fields and in the woods grew pale when they heard the rumble of motors, the clatter of horses, the creaking of wheels on the roads leading to Baltsiu in Bessarabia, to Soroca on the Dniester, and to the Ukraine. They lived like wild beasts, feeding on what little they could beg from the peasants, a few slices of mamaliga bread, some scraps of salted brenza. There were days when at sunset the German soldiers went out to hunt for the Jewish girls in the wheat. They spread out like fingers of a huge hand, raking the wheatfields, and they hailed one another, "Kurt! Fritz! Karl!" They had youthful slightly hoarse voices. They looked like sportsmen beating a moor to raise the partridges, quails and pheasants.
Romania, shepherdess: photo by Horst Grund, 1941 (Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive)
Romania, political director of the NSDAP buying bouquets from two flower girls: photo by Horst Grund, 1941 (Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive)
Romania, members of Marine propaganda unit with Ford Eifel, pausing by fields of grain on the road to Constanza: photographer unknown, 1941 (Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive)
Curzio Malaparte: Kaputt (excerpt), 1944 (translated from the Italian by Cesare Foligno)
