The time had come for the SS to perfect its skills. It wasn’t easy. Things worth doing never are. A Panzer Division had showed up for a rest and re-fit – pretty much right in the middle of where the SS was to conduct its mass executions. So a huge live variety extravaganza was turned on for the men at night, plus showings throughout the day of the latest release movie. Beautiful Ukrainian girls kept the boys company. Better still, a lot of the girls were blondes. How perfect was that. All of this was staged in a nearby town – out of gunshot, I mean earshot – of where the SS had to do their work. And why is it that when you are committing an atrocity, someone always seems to survive to dob you in.

Tag words: SS; Soviet Union; Nazis; Joseph Stalin; classicide; the Great Terror; gulags; Standartenführer Paul Blöbel; 11th Panzer Division; Berdichev; Romanovka; Naum Epfield; Riding for Germany; Baron von Langen; 1928 Amsterdam Olympics; Aktion; untermenschen; Reichskommissariat “Ukraina”; Vladimir Liashchevich; Kiev Opera; Vasily Grossman; Yekaterina Savelievna; Semyon Osipovich; Olga Mikhailovna;

;