Auschwitz and the Russian Front

July 17, 1947, Lubyanka Prison, Moscow, Soviet Union. A battered prisoner, dragged by two Russian Secret police guards, is tossed into a cell. When he stands up, he sees another inmate already occupies the space. Sitting in the corner of the dark, cold, very smelly enclosure is a tall, filthy man who looks half-dead, and yet he speaks. "My name is Raoul Wallenberg. I am Swedish. Do you speak English?""Yes, my name is Maxim; I am Russian, a high school physics and English teacher. I should not be here; there has been a big mistake....... Why are you here?""I saved Jews in Budapest. Thousands of Jews. When the Red Army was approaching Budapest, I did not leave. I thought the Russians were our friends since they were fighting against Nazi Germany." Raoul says shaking his head."There are many bad leaders under our great communist leader Stalin! I was yelling 'Long Live Comrade Stalin', yet the Russian Secret police pulled me out of my apartment, in the middle of the night, frightening my wife, two children and me terribly.""A Soviet general, Malinovksy, invited me for a meeting. I went with great hopes. I thought it was a strategic discussion about saving more Jews. Instead, I was arrested and transported to Moscow." Raoul is disillusioned."Malinovksy is Ukrainian. Ukrainians hate Russians, you can't trust them.... I am a proud member of the Soviet Communist Party! I showed them my party book. The Soviet Secret police did not care. Do you see that I have no nails left on my fingers?" Maxim holds up his bloody hands. "I was interrogated. I was tortured. They wanted to know which teacher, in the high school, is an enemy of the state. How can you tell if someone is enemy of the state? Half of the teachers are spies for the state.""That is humorous. Half of the teachers are spying on the other half. This is not how Marx imagined communism!.... I was interrogated many times during the past two years without torture. I told them everything about my activities to save the Jews from extermination in death camps. I never told them that the Americans sent me to Hungary to save Jews. That was probably a mistake. I think they knew it. They took me out of Budapest, so there would be no eye-witness who works for America.""When they pulled off the fingernail from my left thumb, I was in excruciating pain. I yelled, 'Stop. I will tell you who the enemy of the state is. It is the biology teacher, Tatiana'." Maxim started to cry. "I betrayed my lover. If she is alive, she is probably in Siberia now, trying to survive in freezing temperatures with little food. Maybe she is lucky, and is teaching biology in a mining town.""Why did my cabbage soup taste strange today?" asks Raoul."The likelihood is high, they cooked stray dog meat with it. My soup was the usual cabbage soup. You are a high-class foreign prisoner, who may be rewarded with dog meat in the cabbage soup. We Russian prisoners are not worthy even of stray dog meat.""I miss meatballs with lingonberry preserves, mashed potatoes and apple walnut salad.....""I miss pork chops with potato pancakes, cherry ravioli and cucumber salad!" Maxim says. "I miss music by Stravinsky! Not even a radio in this lousy jail!""In Hungary, I had vörösáfonya palachinta (lingonberry crepes) a few times, it was quite a treat.... I wondered if Lavrentiy Beria had me poisoned," Raoul says. "I don't know why Sweden and America don't do anything on my behalf, for my release. Stalin was an ally of America and England......... Ah, better not to think about it...... How did you fall in love with Tatiana?""Love can happen..... Even to a happily married man, with young men fighting far away for the motherland.... The gorgeous Tatiana must have had a special effect on me. A year after she started to teach at our high school, I felt a very special attraction toward her, in my heart, she was irresistible.""I understand that," Raoul says. "I was attracted to a beautiful Hungarian woman,