The Characters of "Cold War": Jasha
Strong, resilient women and the scars of war are two important themes in the "Bridge to Tomorrow" Series. Jasha embodies them both.
Ethnically Polish but born in White Russia, she has been a victim of both Stalin and Hitler's racial wars. By early 1948 she is stranded in Berlin, a former slave labourer, now a displaced person, working as a cook for the occupation forces.
Jasha's husband and her teenage son were both murdered by Stalin in the purges of the late 1930s, but her flight to relatives in Poland proves an error when Hitler invades. She "volunteers" for work in the Reich and has the good fortune to land on a large estate owned and managed by a humane nobleman, Graf Walmsdorf. By late 1944, however, the Red Army is approaching and Jasha chooses to flee with the Walmsdorfs rather than submit to Stalin's terror again. Strafed by Soviet fighters during the journey, only Jasha, the coachman Horst, and Graf Walmsdorf's daughter Charlotte survive to reach Berlin. She is there when the Soviets surround and take the city by storm in May 1945 and like hundreds of thousands of other women is brutally gang raped by Russian troops after they seize the city. Yet life goes on....
An excerpt of Cold War featuring Jasha:
Charlotte had spread out three dresses and twoboxes with shoes. “Look!” Charlotte exclaimed. “I thought of you when I sawthis!” She held up a pretty, navy-blue dress with a white collar and cuffs. “I’msure it would fit!” Charlotte insisted.
“It’s beautiful,” Jasha whispered, reachingout to touch the material and confirm that it was silk. “But where would I everwear it?”
“To mass,” Charlotte answered, “or to dinnerwith Lt. Col. Russel.”
Jasha looked over sharply. Was she thattransparent?
Charlotte met her eyes with a smile. “He’svery attentive. Don’t you like him?”
“I like him very much,” Jasha admitted, hereyes caressing the dress.
Charlotte caught her hand and clutched it. Surprisedby the intensity of the touch, Jasha turned to look at the younger woman andwas horrified to see Charlotte’s face dissolving into tears. “Jasha!” shegasped out.
“What is it?” Jasha asked back, confused bythe change in her mood.
Charlotte pulled Jasha into her arms and clungto her as she stammered, “Jasha, I feel so terrible. I never thanked you — notonce. I never even asked about how — what — I was so wrapped up in myself. Iwas so selfish.” She was sobbing miserably.
Jasha felt tears in her own eyes, and she clungto Charlotte. All the barriers she had built against the memories collapsed asif the last three years had never been. It felt as if the rapes had happenedyesterday. The women cried in each other’s arms, comforting one another as theyhad not been able to do at the time.
Slowly, the initial storm of emotion ebbed. Jashafound herself stroking Charlotte’s back and whispering, “It’s all right,Charlotte. I never blamed you. You were — so broken, so shattered and confusedby it all. You were a virgin and a lady, after all. You were less prepared thanI was.”
“How can anyone be prepared…” Charlottestammered out, pressing her hands to her face to wipe away some of the tears.
Jasha found a handkerchief in her skirt pocketand handed it to Charlotte. “I have seen many terrible things: a famine thatdrove men to cannibalism, the Great Terror that made us fear every neighbour,every knock on the door and mistrust even our closest friends, the Germaninvasion, and finally the end of the war. But the worst — My son was only seventeen when they accusedhim of being a Polish spy. He had never been to Poland in his life. He was utterlyloyal to the Soviet Union. Yet they shot him in the back of the head and dumpedhim in an unmarked grave. After a mother has survived that, a rape is not soterrible.”
“You never told us!” Charlotte reproached her,horrified.
Jasha shrugged and wiped her own tears away.“I don’t like to remember.”
Charlotte sank down beside the pile of clothes,“Do you think — do you think….”
“What?” Jasha settled on the other side of dresses.
“Will you ever want — ever be able to — Imean, with a man you love — could you? Couldyou love again?”
Jasha turned to look at the pretty navy bluesilk dress spread over the heap of things. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I wishI could be married to a good man who cares for me, who is protective andrespectful and looks after me. I wish we could have a farm — or at least agarden — together. I’d like to grow things with him and have chickens andducks, maybe even a cow. I’d like to cook things so good that he eats too muchand gets a pot belly. I’d like to grow old and fat together. I’d like to havegrandchildren come to visit and laugh and play in my house. But I don’t knowabout the bedroom part….”
“I’m so afraid of that — and yet afraid, too,that — I might — I don’t know!” she ended with an inarticulate shake of herhead.
“But you like Mr David, I think?” Jasha askedcautiously.
“He’s absolutely wonderful! I never thought Iwould ever feel so much for another man as I’d felt for my fiancée Fritz. But it’sbeen so long since Fritz disappeared, and David is so gentle with me and sokind. He has made me feel like a lady again — like I am someone worth loving.”
“Of course, you are worth loving!” Jasha admonished.“And Mr David is a good man, I think.”
“Yes, but that’s exactly what makes me ashamedto deceive him. Shouldn’t I warn him that I’m not — not — what I appear?”
“But you are who you appear to be, Charlotte.”
“No, Jasha!” Charlotte shook her headviolently and the tears were flooding down her face again. “I’m not a lady anylonger! I’m not even a maid. I’m nothing but a piece of trash, kickedabout, used by six men one after another and then pissed upon—”
Jasha sprang up and pulled Charlotte back intoher arms. “Hush! Stop! What they did to you, to us, doesn’t change who weare.”
Charlotte sobbed into Jasha’s bosom. “Yes, it does!I can’t ever be who I was before.”
Jasha knew that was true, so she did not denyit. She just held Charlotte in her arms until she had calmed herself again. Thenshe said softly, “No, we’ll never be the same again, but we must try to lovewho we are.”
Jasha does not feature as a major character until "Cold War."
Berlin is under siege. More than twomillion civilians must be supplied by air -- or surrender to Stalin's oppression.
USAF Captain J.B. Baronowsky and RAF FlightLieutenant Kit Moran once risked their lives to drop high explosives on Berlin.They are about to deliver milk, flour and children’s shoes instead. Meanwhile,two women pilots are flying an air ambulance that carries malnourished andabandoned children to freedom in the West. Until General Winter deploys on theside of Russia. Buy now!
Based on historical events, award-winning and best-selling novelistHelena P. Schrader delivers an insightful, exciting and moving tale about howformer enemies became friends in the face of Russian aggression — and how closethe Berlin Airlift came to failing.
Winning a war with milk, coal and candy!
