2020-02-15 09:01:35.165538 by Неизвестный автор

Author:Неизвестный автор [the berlin diaries 1940 1945]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

C.C.’s house is surrounded by estates that have been rented by foreign diplomats who have been bombed out of their homes in town. We live in the attic, as most of the house is occupied by Spaniards and Rumanians.

Sundayy so April I had a long talk with two Russian maids whom С. C. Pfuel employs. One of them, aged twenty-four, has lost her husband and her only child in a raid; she is quite alone in the world: a friendly nice girl who is delighted to speak Russian, she has a very realistic attitude towards her plight and sees the future very dispassionately. The other girl is only eighteen. Dressed in black, with a white apron, she curtseys whenever she is spoken to, is very pretty and could be a little French soubrette out of a play. She is fresh from Kiev and we talk a mixture of Russian-Polish-Ukrainian but understand each other very well. The servants in Jahnsfelde are a motley group: these Russian girls, a German cook and nurse, many Spaniards for the diplomats and a French butler, who rules the roost and is addressed by the others as Moussiou.

After lunch we listened to the official communique: yesterday’s air-raid was described as a Terrorangriff[terror raid]. I fear that the parents will again be very worried, as I cannot telephone and reassure them. Later Tony Saurma drove us over to Buchow for tea with the Horstmanns. The Spanish Ambassador, Vidal, and Federico Dies were there. The latter told me the sad details of Maria Pilar and Ignacio Oyarzabal’s death. He was sent to identify the bodies. They had won their couchettes from another Spanish couple in a card game; the losers survived. The only consolation is that they died instantly. Vidal asked many questions about Krummhubel, as all the foreign missions will be evacuated there eventually. I wonder whether they will ever make it. Lally Horstmann said that Elisabeth Chavchavadze now heads an Allied ambulance unit in Morocco. We had all been such close friends before the war ...

In the evening at Jahnsfelde we sat around the fire discussing Rasputin.

Mondayt i May Am back in Berlin. The weather continues bad. It is rumoured that the R.A.F. dropped a wreath over Heinrich Wittgenstein’s grave; it makes all this killing even more futile.

After work I sat for a long time at Maria Gersdorff’s with Gottfried Cramm, with whom I am getting to be good friends. Reserved at first, he now begins to impress me as exceptionally warm-hearted. He showed me a red leather frame with three photos of the same girl. I recognised Barbara Hutton. ’

In the evening Mozart’s Entfuhrungaus dem Serail with Percy Frey. Then a late snack at the Adlon. Percy is a cosy person; he is detached and yet he understands some things a demi-mot> in which he is more like an Anglo-Saxon than a Swiss. He escorted me home on foot through the Tiergarten and was staggered by the ruins around our house. We had to climb over hillocks of rubble and he was quite fascinated.

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