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It rained for three days straight. The sanatoriums were filling up with wounded, brought from Malgobek and Sagopchi, where our renewed offensive on Groznyi was being run into the ground by the fierce resistance. Korsema
But the news from the front wasn’t good. In Stalingrad, despite the military bulletins that daily a
That same morning, Leutnant Reuter, an adjunct of Gilsa’s, came to my office: “We have a strange case that you should see. An old man, who presented himself here on his own. He’s talking about strange things and he says he’s Jewish. The Oberst suggested you interrogate him.”—“If he’s a Jew, he should be sent to the Kommando.”—“Maybe. But don’t you want to see him? I can assure you he’s surprising.” An orderly led the man in. He was a tall old man with a long white beard, still visibly vigorous; he wore a black cherkesska, a Caucasian peasant’s soft leather ankle boots tucked into rubber galoshes, and a handsome embroidered skullcap, purple, blue, and gold. I motioned to him to take a seat and, a little a