For Gudrun, a free spirit, it had been torture. “I am not one of those women whose menfolk keep them covered all day,” she had shouted at her father, desperately trying to ignore the contradiction of her support for minority rights and practices such as the Burka and worse. “I am a grown woman and safe on the streets!”
Her father had given her the worst look she had ever faced. “Yes, you’re a grown woman in body, if not in mind,” he had snapped. “If you go out there, you may be raped and murdered and you are not going out there! Until you leave the house permanently, young lady, you are under my authority. Understand?”
Gudrun had subsided, muttering, as the noise of the advancing Russian Army had started to echo out over the city. Her father had gone out into the streets and brought back what he could in the way of food, quelling Gudrun’s objections to some of the meat — she was a devoted vegetarian — with a sharp remark about beggars not being choosers. The Krumnow had never been poor; their area of town had been remarkably unscathed by the fighting. Gudrun believed that it would never touch her… and the decision of the Mayor to surrender the city had seemed to confirm her belief. The Russians had behaved themselves and accepted the surrender; they couldn’t do anything to the citizens, could they?
Her father had been less convinced. His family remembered the advance of the Russians during the Great Evil War, the war where Germany had set out to exterminate the Jews and other ethnic groups, the same Jews who had crushed Palestine and sent thousands of refugees to Europe. The Russians had looted and raped their way across East Germany; he had had relatives, old now, who had been forced to endure Russian attention. To Gudrun, it was a different world; such things just didn’t happen in her world.
For the first week, events had been surprisingly peaceful; she had watched from behind her curtains as the Russians marched into the city, pale-faced soldiers who seemed tired, but happy. Rumour had it that the policemen had been rounded up, along with the soldiers, and sent out to the detention camps, but nobody knew anything for certain. They were more concerned with stability and survival; the Russians promised stability, although it was very much the velvet glove masking the steel fist. They had insisted that everyone remain constantly tuned in to the emergency frequency and used it to issue orders; their first order had been a curfew on all Germans between sunset and sunrise. Other orders had followed; Gudrun had watched as young Arabic men were forced to work clearing rubble from the streets, before being escorted out of the city to the laminations of their women. Her heart almost burst.
In the second week, the Russians had caught up with her father; a Russian officer and seven armed soldiers appeared, bearing ration packs in one hand and weapons in the other. The offer had been simple; her father was a civil engineer who had worked for the city’s infrastructure, and he was being offered the chance to take up his post again, at Russian wages. The Russian had been brutally clear; they would be rationing food, and her father had the choice between working for them, or not receiving any rations. Only the elderly or the very young would get rations, the Russians said, without working for them; in time, everyone would work or starve.
Gudrun had protested; surely everyone had a right to eat! The Russian soldiers hadn’t understood her nearly-hysterical German, the Russian commander had rolled his eyes and made a comment to the Russian soldiers, who had laughed. Her father had interrupted, his face very pale, and sent her out of the room; Russian laughter had followed her all the way to her bedroom. That night, her father had admitted to them that he had seen no choice, but to accept the Russian offer; it was that, or the family would starve. Gudrun had said nothing.
The day afterwards, she met up with a few of her friends, male and female alike, including her current boyfriend. The Russians had closed the schools and universities for the duration of hostilities, and they had banned large gatherings, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once. The students compared notes, feeling strangely excited as they shared their stories; there couldn’t be more than a thousand Russian soldiers assigned to the garrison, and most of the soldiers were clearly overworked. Some of the male students complained about how the Russians had taken over the brothels, but their female comrades had little sympathy; at least the Russians would be able to pay the whores for their services. European banks were still closed and European money was worthless.
The students compared notes and plans; many of them had graduated with honours in courses on people power and civil disobedience. They knew the theory and even some of the practice; they had studied, not without a little delight, the experience of the British, the French and even the Russians when it came to facing People Power. The Russians, in 1991, had crumbled before the people of Eastern Europe; many of the students knew people who had been alive during the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism in Germany. Without really noticing, they had gone from a group of young students to the beginnings of a resistance moment, devoted to peaceful protest. The handful of students who warned that the Russians would be unlikely to fold were laughed at; everyone knew that they were the ones who had volunteered to do their community service in the army. Gudrun had been smart; she had done hers in a university, soaking up the knowledge and learning.
Three days later, the final straw came.
“Citizens of Hanover, this is an important announcement,” the radio said. The Russians had told everyone that there would be an important announcement enough to make sure that everyone was listening at 9pm, the time that they had set aside for such messages from their occupation authorities. “Please listen carefully and comply with the instructions in this message.
“In order that the inhabitants of Hanover be integrated properly into the new economic system, it is vitally important that all citizens be registered with the provisional government of the city, in order that formerly employed citizens can be aided to return to work, and unemployed citizens will be found work, payable in good Russian currency. Please report to the nearest government centre within a week, bringing with you your passports, European driving licences, employment details and other forms of identification. If you have a Prisoner’s Card, or an Ethnic Entitlements Card, bring those along with you as well. An ID card will be produced for you at the government centre, which must be carried at all times and produced upon demand; failure to either register or produce an ID card after the week will result in arrest and detention. This message will be repeated every hour on the hour.”
Gudrun had hated the thought, every time successive European governments had brought it up; ID cards! The French and Spanish had had them and pressure from Progressive factions had forced them to abandon them; Italy’s milder version had also been washed away under a tidal wave of public mistrust of the government. Sure, there were cards for prisoners, or Ethnic Entitlement Cards for those who had suffered because of their ethnicity, but they were all wrong; she hated the thought of being nothing more than a number on a card. She knew that others would be feeling the same way…