Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape by Susan Brownmiller Page B
Authors: Susan Brownmiller
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protction lasted just so long; she was later raped by another soldier.
Hannelore von Cmuda, seventeen years old, was raped by a mob of drunken soldiers. When they were finished they fired three shots into her body; she survived.
Margarete Promeist, warden of an air-raid shelter, watched for two days and nights as "wave af ter wave of Russians came into my
68 I AGAINST OUR WILL
shelter plundering and raping. Women were killed if they refused. Some were shot and killed anyway. . . . I found the bodies of six or seven women, all lying in the position in which they were raped, their heads battered in." Frau Promeist herself was assaulted de spite her appeals that "I am much too old for you."
Mother Superior Cunegundes of Haus Dahlem, an orphanage and maternity hospital run by the Mission Sisters of the Sacred Heart, was shot at by a soldier when she tried to interfere with the rape of the mission's Ukrainian cook, Lena. The mission was over run with soldiers who entered the maternity wards and raped pregnant women and those who had given birth.
Some women of Berlin committed suicide, either in fear of rape or in shame af ter the act. Some avoided assault by making themselves appear diseased or as unattractive as possible with the aid of coal dust, iodine and bandages. Others found ingenious places to hide and remained in cellars and holes until the danger had passed. And some, Ryan wrote, "saved themselves from rape simply by fighting back so fiercely that the Soviet soldiers stopped trying and looked elsewhere." Jolenta Koch was one such fighter. Tricked into entering an empty house by a soldier who had a buddy waiting inside, Frau Koch "put up such resistance that both men were glad to see her go."
Dora Janssen avoided assault by claiming she had tuberculosis. Her servant, Inge, was less lucky and was injured so badly she could not walk. Frau Janssen ran into the street and told a man who looked like an officer what had happened. He responded, "The Germans were worse than this in Russia."
Klaus Kuster, a member of the Hitler Youth, saw three Rus sians grab a woman on the street and take her into a hallway. He followed. One soldier trained his pistol on Klaus. The second held the screaming woman while the third raped her. Klaus watched the Russian who had done the raping emerge from the doorway. Tears were streaming down the soldier's face as he wailed, "Ya bolshoi svinya" - "I am a big pig."
In 1951 a committee of anti-Communist German scholars directed by Dr. Theodor Schieder of the University of Cologne set about to document the flight and expulsion of German nationals from Eastern and Central Europe in. the wake of the Red Army victories of 1944-1945. Volume I of the compendium they pro duced concerned itself with the fate of German refugees east of the
'.
f
i' . .
[
1:
WAR I &}
Oder-Neisse Line, in what is now Poland. In the abridged selection of personal testimonies available in English there are close to thirty separate depositions from women regarding mass rape by Russian and Polish soldiers. The testaments have a certain sameness about them, a sameness not of fabrication but of the universality of a woman's experience in war.
E.L. was trapped in Posen ( now Poznan ) when the Russians entered the city. She attested:
When we were lying in bed at night we kept hearing steps coming up the stairs; these were always Russians, who were sent by the Poles into the dwellings of the Germans. They beat on the door with their rifle-butts until it was opened. Without any consideration for my mother and aunt, who had to get out of bed, we were raped· by the Russians, who always held a machine pistol in one hand. They Jay in bed with their dirty boots on, until the next lot came. As there was no light, everything was done by pocket torches and we did not even know what the beasts looked like. During the· day we had to work hard, and at night the Russians lef t us no peace. . . . One could hardly any longer ca1l it
Hannelore von Cmuda, seventeen years old, was raped by a mob of drunken soldiers. When they were finished they fired three shots into her body; she survived.
Margarete Promeist, warden of an air-raid shelter, watched for two days and nights as "wave af ter wave of Russians came into my
68 I AGAINST OUR WILL
shelter plundering and raping. Women were killed if they refused. Some were shot and killed anyway. . . . I found the bodies of six or seven women, all lying in the position in which they were raped, their heads battered in." Frau Promeist herself was assaulted de spite her appeals that "I am much too old for you."
Mother Superior Cunegundes of Haus Dahlem, an orphanage and maternity hospital run by the Mission Sisters of the Sacred Heart, was shot at by a soldier when she tried to interfere with the rape of the mission's Ukrainian cook, Lena. The mission was over run with soldiers who entered the maternity wards and raped pregnant women and those who had given birth.
Some women of Berlin committed suicide, either in fear of rape or in shame af ter the act. Some avoided assault by making themselves appear diseased or as unattractive as possible with the aid of coal dust, iodine and bandages. Others found ingenious places to hide and remained in cellars and holes until the danger had passed. And some, Ryan wrote, "saved themselves from rape simply by fighting back so fiercely that the Soviet soldiers stopped trying and looked elsewhere." Jolenta Koch was one such fighter. Tricked into entering an empty house by a soldier who had a buddy waiting inside, Frau Koch "put up such resistance that both men were glad to see her go."
Dora Janssen avoided assault by claiming she had tuberculosis. Her servant, Inge, was less lucky and was injured so badly she could not walk. Frau Janssen ran into the street and told a man who looked like an officer what had happened. He responded, "The Germans were worse than this in Russia."
Klaus Kuster, a member of the Hitler Youth, saw three Rus sians grab a woman on the street and take her into a hallway. He followed. One soldier trained his pistol on Klaus. The second held the screaming woman while the third raped her. Klaus watched the Russian who had done the raping emerge from the doorway. Tears were streaming down the soldier's face as he wailed, "Ya bolshoi svinya" - "I am a big pig."
In 1951 a committee of anti-Communist German scholars directed by Dr. Theodor Schieder of the University of Cologne set about to document the flight and expulsion of German nationals from Eastern and Central Europe in. the wake of the Red Army victories of 1944-1945. Volume I of the compendium they pro duced concerned itself with the fate of German refugees east of the
'.
f
i' . .
[
1:
WAR I &}
Oder-Neisse Line, in what is now Poland. In the abridged selection of personal testimonies available in English there are close to thirty separate depositions from women regarding mass rape by Russian and Polish soldiers. The testaments have a certain sameness about them, a sameness not of fabrication but of the universality of a woman's experience in war.
E.L. was trapped in Posen ( now Poznan ) when the Russians entered the city. She attested:
When we were lying in bed at night we kept hearing steps coming up the stairs; these were always Russians, who were sent by the Poles into the dwellings of the Germans. They beat on the door with their rifle-butts until it was opened. Without any consideration for my mother and aunt, who had to get out of bed, we were raped· by the Russians, who always held a machine pistol in one hand. They Jay in bed with their dirty boots on, until the next lot came. As there was no light, everything was done by pocket torches and we did not even know what the beasts looked like. During the· day we had to work hard, and at night the Russians lef t us no peace. . . . One could hardly any longer ca1l it
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