The German Army had collapsed and was in retreat toward Berlin, its spine broken by four Russian winters and the horde of Marshal Zhukov's Soviet divisions. The mood in Moscow was of impending victory and relief, for the invaders had been pushed back to the Oder River and the end was only a matter of time.
In the basement of the Council of Ministers Building in the Kremlin, a peasant woman who looked much older than her twenty-seven years was trying to restore some order to the paperwork files of the Public Works Ministry. In October 1941, when the German panzer units had been a mere hundred kilometers from Red Square, the files and records of the Soviet government had been hastily extracted from the Kremlin, loaded onto trucks, and moved to storage facilities east of the Urals. But now that the war was coming to an end, the boxed-up files had slowly made their return journey to Moscow, where they were being sorted and returned to their proper place. Even in war, the Soviet bureaucracy survived.
The peasant woman, Viktoria, and her friend Ludmilla worked methodically under a single naked light bulb, in temperatures cold enough to make their breath visible. But they did not complain. For every lump of coal they saved could be used to heat and light an armaments factory. Armaments that could be used to kill Germans.
The door opened and their supervisor entered — a woman, for most Russian men were at the front.
"Viktoria — I must see you," said the supervisor nervously.
Viktoria looked up, then put aside her work and followed the supervisor up to a better-heated ground-floor office. Inside the door stood a strapping NKVD guard with a KalasHnikov rifle. "You are to go with this man," said the supervisor uneasily.
Viktoria nodded and was led outside to a spectacular sight. It was an automobile. And what an automobile! Viktoria had never seen anything like it. So shiny. So clean. So large. Somewhat in shock, she was placed in the backseat of the Packard limousine with the guard and driven the short distance to the building at 2 Dzerzhinsky Square.
Upon arrival she was ushered upstairs into a spacious office which featured a large desk and couch. Viktoria noticed that the temperature in the room was comfortably warm, and the walls were covered with a quiltlike padding, which she thought odd. Little did she know that the padding was soundproofing material, designed to contain the screams of innocent girls who were sexually violated in this room.
Behind the desk sat a hulking figure wearing a thin necktie, a vest, and pince-nez glasses. He was smoking a pipe and had a glass of mineral water sitting beside a closed file. He leveled his eyes on the woman and drummed his fingers on the file for some seconds before ordering, "Viktoria Petrovna Kaminskaya, step forward."
The peasant woman obeyed and approached the desk.
The komisar inspected her up and down. She was rail thin, with scraggly brown hair that was tied back with a babushka scarf. Her dress was little more than a rag, but her brown eyes were intriguing. A sign of intelligence, perhaps?
"You know who I am?" he asked.
Viktoria nodded. "You are the komisar. I have seen your picture."
Lavrenti Beria took a drink of his mineral water. "You are correct, Comrade Kaminskaya… quite correct." He took another sip and opened the file in front of him. "Where were you born, Comrade Kaminskaya?" he asked in a formal voice.
"Gantsevichi," she replied stoically.
"In Byelorussia," stated the komisar.
"In Byelorussia," she affirmed.
"And when were you born?"
"October 28, 1917."
Another sip. "A child of our glorious revolution," he said in a voice tinged with drama, then returned his gaze to the file. "Your parents were White Russian sympathizers who declared their allegiance to the Czar. Regrettably, they were executed on…"He checked the particulars. "On April 22, 1918, for their misplaced loyalties. Yet you, their daughter, joined the
Party on June 19, 1943. Tell me, Viktoria Kaminskaya, why did you join the Party of our glorious revolution?"
The peasant woman shrugged and said, "The Germans," as if that curt reply explained it all. And for a White Russian like Viktoria, it did. Byelorussia — White Russia — felt the full brunt of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa as German panzers stormed across the Soviet border in June 1941. By the time the Great Patriotic War had ended, one fourth of the White Russian population had died.
"Yes… the Germans," repeated the komisar softly as he turned a page of the file. "Your uncle Oleg, who raised you? What was his fate at the hands of the invaders?"
"Dead," said Viktoria.
"And your aunt Ekaterina?"
"Dead."
"And your cousin Pyotr?"
"Dead."
Another sip. "And you survived." It was a statement, not a question.
Viktoria nodded.
"How did you survive, Viktoria Kaminskaya?"
The komisar had not invited her to sit, so she remained standing in front of the desk and recited her story. "The Germans came," she recalled with a glassy look in her eyes. "My village, Gantsevichi, was near the Polish border. They came very fast. My family was trapped before we could move east. Still, we tried to escape. We were caught by a German patrol. My aunt, uncle, and cousii) were shot. I was to be next, but the Germans raped me first," she continued clinically. "Seven of them. While they raped me a partisan group found us and killed the Germans. The partisan leader was our village komisar— a brave man. They took me. We moved east by night and slept by day. Finally we slipped through the lines and reached Moscow before the Germans."
The komisar regarded her thoughtfully, then refocused his eyes on the file for some seconds. "Your story is incomplete, Comrade Kaminskaya," he said finally. "You failed to mention that there were originally thirteen partisans in your band, but only three of your number completed the journey to Moscow. You neglected to mention that you killed eight Germans yourself — with a knife. You failed to mention that you reached Moscow near starvation, yet shortly thereafter worked on the construction of the city's defenses. You failed to mention that you were awarded the Order of Lenin. You failed to mention" — his voice rose—"that you are a heroine. I know this, Comrade Kaminskaya. I know everything about you. The report by the village komisar who survived the journey with you was quite complete. Your Party file is quite complete. The state security file on you is quite complete. There is nothing that I, the komisar, do not know about Viktoria Petrovna Kaminskaya."
Beria slapped the file shut and rose to gaze out the window— a calculated move to intensify the artificial drama of the moment. "You joined the Party, Comrade, because the Party saved you, sheltered you, fed you, decorated you, and found you work. That is why you joined the Party. Am I correct?"
Viktoria sensed it would not be wise to disagree with this man, even though he'd touched on her true feelings. "Yes, komisar. You are correct."
Beria lowered his voice. "And there is nothing you would not do for the Party. Is that correct?"
"Correct," she said reflexively.
"The komisar turned and leaned over the desk. ' 'That is what I expected to hear, Comrade. Sit down."
Viktoria did as she was told, and Beria continued. "The Generalissimo has given me a mission. A vital mission that will require the dedication and sacrifice of comrades with unquestioned loyalty. Comrades like yourself."
"The Generalissimo," whispered Viktoria reverently. Beria might as well have said the mission had been handed down directly from God. Upon arrival in Moscow, Viktoria had been weak, sick, and half starved. Yet she immediately joined a horde of weary Muscovites in digging a tank trap that encircled the city — a colossal trench designed to stop Guderian's panzers at the city's gates. One day her work party had looked up, and there he was. The Generalissimo himself. He raised a clenched fist, then disappeared into his car as quickly as he'd come. The inspiration was overwhelming. Viktoria's work party, one of thousands digging the huge excavation, grabbed their picks and shovels and attacked the trench like a pack of wolves.