Those are exceedingly good 'fakes'BARBAROSSANOVA
Episode 5, 0430, 25 November 1942, west of Moscow, near Rzhev
The crump of a German shell landing nearby sent cascades of dirt and dust raining down from the ceiling of our dugout. Everyone was coughing and choking as yet another layer of filth was added to their already disheveled appearance. Sitting out a bombardment that begins to come too closer for comfort is nerve wracking. While most attempt to take it stoically, trying not to show their fear, I could hear a comrade sobbing nearby ... and someone near the entrance was being held down forcibly after attempting to rush outside. She was screaming hysterically, kicking and clawing as they tried to remove her to the rear of the dugout.
Then the drunk lying next to me inadvertently jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow. I winced, sat up, and punched him hard in the back of the head with my fist. He cursed and edged a bit further away from me. Satisfied, I laid back down and turned over. They hadn't come to form us up for the dawn assault yet, so I knew I hadn't been asleep long, but there was little point now in trying to do so ... so rather than thinking anymore about the shelling or of the coming ordeal out in the open, I let my mind wander back again to the day of my trial.
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Vassily and I were breathless and a little red-faced as the ZIS pulled up to the kerb outside the palatial front of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union. I was still in a state of disbelief over what had just happened on the back seat of the ZIS. He looked at me, flashed me a sloppy grin, reached over and hastily buttoned the open front of my shift, then took a moment to straighten his tie.
A uniformed NKVD man was there to open the door. Vassily leaned out, reached back to grab me by the elbow and pulled me along behind him. The NKVD man stepped back and snapped Vassily a sharp salute. which he acknowledged with no more than a cursory nod. A small crowd was waiting outside the building, some with cameras at the ready.
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As we headed for the entrance, I felt him tug twice at the back of my shift which must have been still bunched up behind my back.
So many eyes followed us as we crossed the gleaming marble foyer floor to the tall double doors leading to the tribunal hall. The hard soles of Vassily's shoes clicked on the hard surface. On reaching the doors, we paused while he removed my handcuffs. Then, as though on cue, the doors swung open and we entered. The room was large and ostentatiously decorated, probably once a palace ballroom.
The room was packed. The accused principals were present ... including Yagoda, the defenestrated Chief of The NKVD ... all forced to watch as the parade of lesser prisoners was led before the bench. Party officials, uniformed guards, and a crowd of onlookers filled every available space. The press was there as well ... this was a show trial, after all. As Vassily and I came forward, a flurry of camera flashes nearly blinded me.
"Is that Yagoda? The one over there with the bald head staring at me so intently" I whispered to Vassily.
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"Shhhhhhh ... you agreed to keep quiet!" he cautioned.
When we reached the center of the room, Vassily squeezed my hand and turned me over to a uniformed official who guided me to the place where the defendants were made to stand during the trial, facing the Tribunal seated behind a long-cloth covered table. The scene was framed with classical marble columns and over-sized crystal chandeliers.
A gavel was rapped on a table to silence the room. The buzz of conversation ebbed to a few random murmurs. I rubbed my wrists nervously and, sensing that all eyes in the hall were directed at me, I looked down reflexively to make sure my shift was properly buttoned.
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Reassured, I stood as straight and dignified as I could as the chief prosecutor, Andrey Vyshinsky, leaned forward, fixed me with a penetrating stare, and asked me to state my name. I did. Then he announced his intention to read the charges against me.
"The American-born criminal, Barbara Moore, stands before this Court accused of serious crimes against the State, including conspiracy, dereliction of duty and high treason. The prosecution hereby attests that she did criminally conspire with Director Yagoda to sell State secrets to the German Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, whom she contacted in Berlin in August 1936 after Director Yagoda arranged to send her there on a purported mission to assassinate the German Minister ... a mission she failed to complete ... engaging instead in a disgraceful tryst with the Nazi pig in the private quarters he maintained in a notorious Berlin nightclub known as the Apollo. She was apprehended by the Gestapo with which she willingly collaborated, and then attempted to flee to the West in the company of a German rogue, known as Klaus Erbe, whom intelligence tells us is a traitor to the Communist ideal and is suspected of working for the Americans!"
He paused for breath ... and tossing all of Vassily's warnings to remain silent aside, I seized the moment and blurted out, "No! No! None of that is true! I never met Yagoda! I don't know any State secrets! There was no tryst with Goebbels! In fact, I nearly succeeded in assassinating the vile little man! And what happened in his private quarters was rape! I should be commended here today for my heroism and sacrifice in the service of the State ... not condemned!"
"No tryst, you say?" Then how do you explain these?" said Vyshinsky, sporting a triumphantly knowing smile as he spread a series of photographs out on the table before the Tribunal, and then almost as an afterthought handed a set to me.
I looked through them hastily, eyes widening in disbelief. I glanced up at Vassily, who was shaking his head as imperceptibly as possible while still signaling me to shut up. The first photos were of me! ... lying naked in bed with Goebbels! ... in his private Apollo Club room! And he had me on my back and was performing cunnilingus on me!
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There were others of me with Goebbels ... one taken at the Apollo Club the night I met him ...
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an absurdly faked one of me standing nude alongside him at an outdoor rally ...
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and even one of me dressed up for his amusement in a Nazi uniform!
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In addition, there were several more pornographic photos, all of me sinfully cavorting with other women and men, marked in pen along the margins as having been taken in Yagoda's dacha outside Moscow.
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"Why, these have been faked," I sputtered. "Look at them ... a cheap amateur job!"
The hall broke into an uproar, everyone talking at once.
"Silence!" roared the head of the Tribunal banging his gavel furiously.
I started to open my mouth in protest. I felt I had more to say. I wanted to know who might have known ... that night at the Apollo Club in Berlin ... that I was even in Goebbel's private room ... but before I could get a word out, a bailiff enforced the Tribunal judge's order by smacking me sharply across the face with his open hand. Reeling from the blow, I pressed my hand to my mouth and tasted blood.
Standing, the head of the Tribunal addressed the silenced hall. "Enough. We have both heard and seen enough! Not only has this prisoner, Barbara Moore, been shown to have been guilty of conspiracy and high treason, she has been shown to have undertaken, while on duty, a deplorably immoral liaison with a high ranking foreign official that besmirches the honor of the State, but she has also on her own reckless initiative concocted a murder plot that could have irrevocably jeopardized our already tenuous diplomatic relationship with Germany. The case against Barbara Moore is hereby closed. The Tribunal rules that she is guilty as charged, and sentences her to be executed on the morrow by firing squad. Take her away!"
I wanted to protest, but was silenced by the threat of another slap across my face. Swiftly, my wrists were forced against my back, and cuffed again. Two uniformed NKVD men took their place on either side of me, wheeled me about and led me away. A lane opened ... as if by magic ... for me to pass through the crowd and out the double doors, which swung wide as we approached them.
Vassily fell in behind. We retraced our steps back across the polished foyer floor, and out to the street, where a large crowd awaited ... shouting jeers and raising fists at me as soon as I appeared. The press crowded around as we descended the steps to the ZIS ... still waiting at the kerb ... snapping photos from every conceivable angle.
Sitting on the running board of the ZIS were three NKVD men, ogling one of the revealing photos from my trial. Apparently those pictures were being freely distributed! I realized there would be no end to my humiliation!
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As we approached the three men rose and moved off, leering at me as they left. The door of the ZIS was opened by the same uniformed NKVD man who had met us on arrival. I slid in and Vassily followed. The door was slammed shut.
"Back to the Lubyanka," Vassily instructed the driver, then sank back into the seat and lapsed into stony silence as the car pulled away.
Bob could have won the propaganda war for us!
