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Wladimir Gelfand (‹See Tfd›Russian: Владимир Натанович Гельфанд), was born in March 1, 1923, in the village of Novoarkhangelsk, Kirovohradskyi Raion (district) and died in November 25 1983, in the city of Dnipropetrovsk / Ukraine. Took part in the World War II.
From the may of 1942 until the november of 1946 he served as a soldier in the Red Army. He was a member of the CPSU from the year 1943. In 1952 he graduated from the Gorky University in Molotov (now Perm). From 1952 until 1983 he worked as teacher of history at the PTU (approx.: technical education).
He is known as the author of the journals in the years 1941-1946 which were published in Germany and Sweden. The book with the journal-notices of the officer in the Red Army Wladimir Gelfand: German Diary 1945-1946 (Deutschland-Tagebuch 1945-1946) - Notations of a Soldier in the Red Army has become the first one which is published in Germany in german language.
The Second World War rapidly changes Wladimir Gelfand‘s course of life. After serving at the front, Gelfand, a young Ukrainian Jew, witnesses destruction and death, experiences comradeship and treachery and discovers foreign places in occupied Germany. In his diaries form the years 1945 to 1946 Gelfand writes of his relentless grapple with the hated military. He describes the fights, the politics and the everyday-life of occupation. He goes to the tailor, buys at the black market, visits pubs, learns how to take photographs and makes his own peculiar experiences with women. He is a sensitive observer and accomplice in one and he does not attempt to conceal his acts of revenge and looting. Gelfand‘s diaries are a unique chronicle of the early Soviet occupation of Germany.
As the publisher informs a printed version in russian language does not exist (Stand: August 2007).
Book
"... Among the many eye-witness accounts of the end of World War 2 in Germany to emerge in the anniversary year of 2005 was the diary of a young Red Army lieutenant who participated in the capture of Berlin and remained in that city until September 1946. Wladimir Gelfand’s Deutschland-Tagebuch was the subject of widespread media interest with commentators generally agreed that his account forces a review of existing German narratives of the fall of Berlin and the perceived relationship of the Soviet occupiers to the German population at this time."
Anne Boden (Trinity College Dublin), Bradford Conference on Contemporary German Literature, 2006
References
2002 — Publishing bbb battert-Verlag Baden-Baden, Germany, Tagebuch 1941—1946 (ISBN 3-87989-360-8)
2005 — Publishing Aufbau-Verlag Berlin, Germany, Deutschland Tagebuch 1945—1946 (ISBN 3-351-02596-3)
2006 — Publishing Ersatz Stokholm, Sweden, Tysk dagbok 1945—46 (ISBN 91-88858-21-9)
External links
